Well, I guess I get to eat some crow for breakfast this morning.
Just a few hours ago, around 2 a.m. Saskatchewan time, Donald Trump was declared winner of the United States presidential election. When people have asked me what I thought of the idea of Trump winning, I would respond that a guy named Adolf was also elected.
That has been my biggest concern – that his statements about Mexicans and Muslims echoed 1930s statements about Jews in Germany. Hopefully these concerns are unfounded.
However, when it comes to the Canadian oil patch, Trump’s the guy.
My mind keeps going back to that astonishing day in May, the day when he was confirmed as the Republican candidate for president. I got a chance to ask him a couple questions on the key foreign policy issue Canada had with the United States for several years. Would he approve the Keystone XL pipeline, and would he invite TransCanada to build it?
His response, in part, was, “I’m saying, yes, absolutely, we’ll approve it. But I want a piece of the profits, because we’re making it happen through eminent domain and other things. I want a piece of the profits for the United States. That’s how we’re going to make our country rich again, just one way out of thousands, but that’s how we’re going to make our country rich again and how we’re going to make America great again. You understand what I’m saying?”
At this point, I was looking at the future president of the United States, eyeball-to-eyeball, about 15 feet away. My heart was going a mile a minute.
I then followed up with a question about TransCanada’s proposed Upland Pipeline, part of the Energy East proposal, which would allow North Dakota oil to be exported into Canada, shipped eastward for either Canadian consumption or export via a port at Saint John, N.B.
A remarkable exchange followed. Not familiar with it, he asked me, as a reporter, if I liked the idea. I said I love the idea.
He said he wasn’t familiar with it, but his bias would be to approve it.
You can bet oil baron Harold Hamm, who was standing beside him and Trump had name dropped significantly just minutes earlier, explained to Trump while walking down the hallway to the auditorium how this new pipeline would make things better for North Dakota. I had pointed out to Trump that Hamm could export his oil on an Upland Pipeline. “What’s this other pipeline, Harold?” I imagine he asked.
Did this question, from a most insignificant Canadian journalist in a sea of election-coverage press, have a slight impact on American foreign policy? When TransCanada makes its formal pitch for the Upland Pipeline, will he remember this interchange in Bismarck?
A day ago, I thought that brief three minute window would have been lost to the winds of time. Today, it has a whole new meaning.
With the inauguration set for Jan. 20, it’s too late to start construction this winter season. But next summer, it’s a very real possibility that southwest Saskatchewan will buzz with Keystone XL construction. Upland is entirely dependent on TransCanada’s Energy East getting built. If Keystone goes ahead, that might no longer be necessary.
If he does half of what he said he would do, Trump is going to shake up the energy paradigm in North America to the extreme. If he hangs on for two terms, we could see North American energy independence.
For the energy industry, which I report on, and am a part of, Trump was the best thing that could happen. Hopefully, for Mexicans and Muslims, he’s not the worst thing.
— Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at HYPERLINK "mailto:brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net"brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net.
