Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has been Prime Minister for nearly 72 hours and for a large number of people, Canada is well into the 'Everything is Awesome' phase of his tenure.

But for some, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's honeymoon is already over. It ended around noon when he released a statement on Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, describing his administration as "disappointed." To them it is a glaring "told-you-so" moment — one that exposes Trudeau once and for all as a corporate, right-of-centre wolf in progressive’s clothing. 

But what if it's not that moment? 

If anything, Canadians have seen that Trudeau is a savvy politician. During these early days in office he’s got a lot of politicking to do — and not just with Canadians worried about the climate.

In the same statement that Trudeau expressed his disappointment, he also pivoted to focusing on clean energy jobs.

“The Government of Canada will work hand-in-hand with provinces, territories and like-minded countries to combat climate change, adapt to its impacts and create the clean jobs of tomorrow,” the statement read.

So before anyone gets themselves in a tizzy, let's take a look at Trudeau's position on pipelines more generally and explore the nuance of today's important announcement.

Trudeau’s Keystone XL Support

In October 2013 the Liberal party backed the Keystone XL pipeline and won confidence from oil industry supporters when Trudeau told the Calgary Petroleum Club, “Let me be clear: I support Keystone XL.”

But Trudeau also added, “Perhaps the greatest indictment of the [Conservative] government is this: it has had the better part of a decade to remove the barriers preventing the U.S. from approving this project.”

“The [Conservative government] poked and prodded, annoyed and irritated the Obama administration at every turn. Largely, I suspect, because they don’t know how to work with people who don’t share their ideology."

This dovetails with what Foreign Minister Stephane Dion indicated yesterday: Canada wants to take on a more refined diplomatic approach to relations with the U.S.

“We don’t want it to be an irritant…we understand the Americans have to look at this very closely,” Dion said.

Both Dion and Trudeau indicated that although they support the Keystone XL, they respect the decision-making authority of the Obama administration — something the Harper government continuously strained diplomatic relations by failing to do. During his years of lobbying for the pipeline, Harper forcefully said he wouldn’t “take no for an answer” and called its approval a “no brainer.”

Trudeau responded to Obama’s decision to reject the pipeline Friday by saying, “We are disappointed by the decision but respect the right of the United States to make the decision. …The Canada-U.S. relationship is much bigger than any one project and I look forward to a fresh start with President Obama to strengthen our remarkable ties in a spirit of friendship and co-operation."

Trudeau’s Energy Diplomacy

The Prime Minister is playing a politically smart game, according to Kai Nagata, Director of Energy and Democracy at the Dogwood Initiative, by remaining consistent in their position on Keystone while acknowledging Canada’s relationship with the U.S. transcends this one issue.

"The undiplomatic conduct of the previous government gave Obama a lot of political cover to reject this project," Nagata said.

He added that in the years since Trudeau publicly backed the Keystone industry has been forced into retreat by plummeting oil prices.

"The Liberals committed their support to Keystone XL when oil prices were over a hundred dollars a barrel,” he said. “The world has changed a lot since then."

During the federal election the Conservatives lost 18 seats in British Columbia, Nagata said, in large part because of energy issues linked to the contentious Northern Gateway and TransMountain pipelines.

British Columbians are awaiting Trudeau’s final word on the deflated Northern Gateway pipeline, a project that, like Keystone, has been symbolic in the grassroots fight to prevent growing fossil fuel infrastructure.

Trudeau has also promised to revamp the National Energy Board’s pipeline review process to ensure environmental assessments take upstream and climate impacts into consideration — something the Harper government refused to do.

On the campaign trail, Trudeau told Nagata an overhaul of the review process would apply retroactively to the TransMountain pipeline expansion which is currently under review.

Nagata said a new political field has opened up for leaders like Trudeau and Obama when it comes to fossil fuel infrastructure.

“I think that the drop in oil prices helped create the political conditions for a domino effect around these pipelines because the market case for them isn’t there right now.”

Trudeau's Promise of Stronger Industry Regulations and Pipeline Reviews

Along with pledging a tanker ban on British Columbia's north coast and opposing the Northern Gateway Pipeline, the new Prime Minister has also refused to back the Energy East pipeline, and promised a more robust pipeline review process.

Trudeau said environmental assessments under the Harper government were "politically torqued" and required an overhaul.

Thursday Liberal party House Leader Dominic LeBlanc said the government recognizes Energy East could have economic benefits, but indicated a stronger review process will be critical to the pipeline’s success.

"I also recognize in the same breath that in order to get such a complicated project approved, there have to be robust and stringent and independent environmental reviews," LeBlanc said.

"And there has to be a much more concerted effort on the part of the government of Canada — and to be honest the company and the provincial governments, I think have recognized this — but the federal government was pretty absent, in terms of working with communities and First Nations and trying to build understanding, information and support around a process of review that is credible and independent."

If all of this comes to pass, then Northern Gateway is consigned to the dustbin of history and both the Kinder Morgan TransMountain expansion and TransCanada's Energy East pipeline will start their reviews again under new tougher regulations. Environmentalists, however, are sensibly skeptical— especially about the Liberals apparent dissonance between acting on climate while growing the fossil fuel sector.

“Obama has sent a clear message that you can’t be a climate leader and build pipelines, a message that Prime Minister Trudeau cannot ignore,” Caitlyn Vernon, campaigns director for Sierra Club BC, said.

Karen Mahon, executive director of ForestEthics Advocacy, echoed the sentiment.

“This rejection sets an important precedent in the run up to the Paris climate talks that we hope Prime Minister Trudeau will take to heart — we cannot protect the climate and approve more pipelines and expand the tar sands. Approving pipelines while claiming climate leadership is clear contradiction,” Mahon said.

"To Change Everything, We Need Everyone"

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is less than a week into the most important job of his life. Like President Obama, he came into it on the heels of an extremely unpopular predecessor. He promised hope, change and a different way of governing. He has an extremely ambitious agenda which will require reaching out to industry, business, other politicians and environmentalists and getting them to work together to be successful. And he needs to do it all in with the legacy of his father's 'National Energy Plan' looming over his head for a still-angry subset of western Canadians. 

Trudeau’s response today may signal a conciliatory posture towards the pipeline industry and a sign that campaign promises are little more than hot air. Or it can also be seen as a first measured response to the complex political challenge ahead of him.

For the moment, the majority of Canadians seem content to believe the latter. 

Image: Flickr

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On Thursday toxic oil was washing up on the shores of Kitsilano Beach and English Bay in Vancouver as cleanup crews tried to contain a sizeable bunker fuel spill surrounding a bulk carrier.

Specific details about how the spill occurred are murky so far. According to MarineTraffic, a website that monitors seagoing shipping, a Panamax bulk carrier named the Marathassa arrived in the Port of Metro Vancouver on April 6th after a 2.5 week journey from South Korea. Sometime after 5 p.m. Wednesday, a sheen of oil was observed by boaters around the ship and spill cleanup was initiated. 

The federal government notified the city of Vancouver of the spill at 6 a.m. Thursday, more than 12 hours after the spill was initially reported.

*Update, 1:30pm April 10: Fuel from the spill is now reported to have reached beaches in West Vancouver and Vancouverites have expressed concern not enough is being done to prevent the spread of oil along shorelines or to clean up popular city beaches. Premier Christy Clark responded to the incident Friday, saying "Two years ago I said we weren't ready. They've proven that in the last couple days and we saw that with the Simushir as well. Somebody needs to do a better job of protecting our coast."

CKNW's Shane Woodford reported that a special pollution response boat formerly stationed at the now shuttered Kitsilano Coast Guard base is sitting empty with no crew at Sea Island base in Richmond. Former Kits base commander Fred Moxey told Woodford that if Kits Base was still active today crews would have been on scene at the spill in six minutes with the equipment to deal with the situation.

Since the spill was discovered, cleanup teams have deployed more than 2,600 metres of oil-containing boom, and as of 9 a.m. West Coast Marine Response Corporation had recovered close to one tonne of oil. It is unclear how much oil was spilled or how much fuel the Marathassa had in its tanks.

According to Miriam Van Roosmalen, regional director of Coast Guard programs for the western region and part of the spill’s incident command group, the Canadian Coast Guard is the lead federal body responding to the spill.

Van Roosmalen said monitoring of the spill is ongoing but did confirm aerial photographs of English Bay show the size of the spill is larger than previously reported.

ICYMI: @Chad_Dey's aerial pics of #VanFuelSpill at #EnglishBay from the News1130 Air Patrol. Substance is toxic. pic.twitter.com/ZOEHnBWVsS

— News1130 (@News1130radio) April 9, 2015

She added the incident will remain what she called a “mystery spill” until the source of the fuel is confirmed. The suspected ship’s owner is co-operating with the ongoing investigation, Van Roosmalen said.

Currently Port Metro Vancouver, Transport Canada, Environment Canada, B.C Ministry of Environment, City of Vancouver and the West Coast Marine Response Corporation are the key players responding to the incident.

According to Penny Ballem, city manager for Vancouver, it took more than 12 hours for the federal government to notify city officials of the spill.

City probing delayed response to #EnglishBay #VanFuelSpill http://t.co/pMyiFYWwmE And @pmharper wants more tankers! pic.twitter.com/bxPnqBfNFZ

— AFreeMansLife (@AFreeMansLife) April 9, 2015

Bunker Fuel Has Similarities to Oilsands Bitumen

According to a tweet from the Vancouver Fire Department, the spill is confirmed as bunker fuel — a type of heavy oil used as fuel by large ships.

Bunker fuel shares similar qualities to diluted bitumen (the oil product that would be transported inside the proposed TransMountain pipeline expansion and that was spilled during pipeline ruptures in Mayflower, Arkansas, and Kalamazoo, Michigan) in that it is thick, heavy oil that is particularly difficult to clean up from water.

Bunker fuel is lighter than bitumen, however, and doesn't contain diluents, which are used to thin bitumen to increase its flow. When spilled in marine environments, the lighter components of diluted bitumen evaporate, leaving the heavier, tar-like remainder to mix with sediment and sink, as occurred in the Kalamazoo River.*

According to a material safety data sheet, bunker fuel is a viscous liquid that is considered toxic and both an acute and chronic health hazard.

Bunker fuel is produced by heating conventional petroleum through a process called fractional distillation whereby extreme heat is used to break up oil into different components like naphtha, gasoline and diesel.

The product left over at the end of this process is bunker fuel. Only large ships with the space to heat their fuel before combusting it use this type of fuel.

Like bitumen, bunker fuel is extremely toxic and extremely dense. Its high viscosity allows it to coat surfaces (shorelines, fish, seabirds) quickly, and it is not easily removed.

The Office of Response and Restoration at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says this about bunker fuel spills:

“[It] is a persistent oil; only 5-10 per cent is expected to evaporate within the first hours of a spill. Consequently, the oil can be carried hundreds of miles in the form of scattered tarballs by winds and currents. The tarballs will vary in diameter from several yards to a few inches and may be very difficult to detect visually or with remote sensing techniques.”

According to a 2013 report commissioned by the province of B.C., approximate 42 million cubic metres of bunker fuel, also known as persistent oil, is transported in B.C. waters each year.

Vancouver ports are the busiest marine ports in Canada.

Will Chemical Dispersants be Used in Cleanup?

According to Karen Wristen of Living Oceans Society, there are unclear rules determining the use of chemical dispersants for oil spill cleanup in Canada.

“The situation is in flux but as it stands right now Environment Canada has to approve on a case by case basis the use of dispersants,” she said, adding "there is no agreed framework for making that decision.”

“They’re looking at the ‘net environmental benefit’ for using dispersants,” she said. “How they determine that is a deep, dark secret.”

Wristen said dispersants have previously been used to clean oil spilled on rocks and boulders at Vancouver’s Westshore terminal. But she added she doesn’t think dispersants would be useful for a spill like the one currently ongoing in English Bay.

“Dispersants are largely not effective against heavier oil. They are much better with conventional oil that can break up into smaller droplets.”

“In cold water, heavy oil becomes extremely viscous and forms clumps and tar balls. Those are extraordinarily resistant to chemical dispersion,” Wristen said. “They’re better being cleaned up with a shovel.”

“World Class” Spill Prevention and Response Standards in Question

DeSmog Canada requested comment from Transport Canada, the Canadian Coast Guard and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but none of these agencies were able to provide specific information on the rules and regulations concerning fuel spills from vessels of this kind.

In early 2013 Vancouverites expressed outrage at the Harper government’s decision to close the Kitsilano Coast Guard station.

Remember when voting in fed elxn BC #cpc MP's killed off coast guard station in vancouver #cdnpoli #VanFuelSpill pic.twitter.com/vO3GFdJHiQ

— Pete Quily (@pqpolitics) April 9, 2015

Wristen said the spill calls into question the federal government’s claim it has world-class spill prevention and response standards in place.

“Why is this happening on Kits beach if we’re so able to prevent spills and clean things up?” she said.

“It certainly is a wake up call for the federal government claiming we have world class standards.”

* Some changes were made after publication to clarify the differences and similarities between bunker fuel and bitumen.

Image Credit: Jonathan Ickikawa via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

On Friday the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), the Alberta government's industry regulator, released a report stating that tar sands companies have failed to comply with pre-existing agreements to limit the amount of water used in tar sands extraction and processing as well as the amount of polluted water that ends up in the region's growing toxic tailings ponds.

The release of the report coincides with massive floods near Fort McMurray, wreaking havoc on the city's infrastructure. Since Friday the region has seen between 80 and 180mm of precipitation. Major highways have been closed, roads have been partially washed out, buildings flooded and homes evacuated. The city of Fort McMurray officially declared a state of emergency today, while unseasonably high temperatures prompt snow melt and rain is forecast to continue throughout the week.

The immediate question is apparent: what threat does the flooding pose to the massive tailings ponds lining the Athabasca River and the millions of litres of toxic contaminants they contain?

According to recent industry figures, tailings ponds, which hold the billions of litres of contaminated waste water used in bitumen extraction and processing, cover 176 square kilometres of the tar sands region. 

Numerous tar sands projects line the Athabasca River and tailings ponds – represented here as "pit lakes" – border the river's banks. (This project map is from the Cumulative Environment Management Association's "End Pit Lakes Guidance Document," a report that outlines an industry plan to convert the waste ponds into a recreational 'lake district.')

This morning Alberta Emergency Alert released a flood warning that announced areas adjacent to the Hangingstone River, a tributary of the Clearwater River which feeds directly into the Athabasca River, were flooded and experiencing bank erosion. The flooding has been gradually moving north toward the highly populated areas of Fort McMurray and in the direction of major tar sands developments.

The water's migration north and throughout the floodplains nearing the Athabasca River have some worried the waters may breach the various processing plants, upgrading facilities and tailings ponds throughout the region.

Jesse Cardinal from the Keepers of the Athabasca said today, "We are definitely concerned about the flooding…"

"[These] are the highest ever recorded amounts [for water levels] and Fort McMurray is on a boil water advisory…What are the downstream effects?"

A recent study released by Environment Canada states that pollution from the tar sands has affected the water in areas as far away as 100 km from Fort McMurray. Tar sands related toxins, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), are known to be fatal to young fish during the developmental stage.

In February, internal government documents released through Access to Information legislation confirmed tailings ponds were leaking into local groundwater. Further concerns about contamination are growing with the rising river levels.

This morning Suncor Energy, a major tar sands company, announced via facebook that a road near its MacKay River in situ project had suffered damage from the heavy rains, saying employees were being advised to ration water until transport plans could be addressed. Another of Suncor's facilities, pictured below, lies on the banks of the Athabasca River, with tailings ponds and other water-holding facilities separated from the rising river by narrow berms.

Photo by Chris Evans at The Pembina Institute. 

Photo by David Dodge at The Pembina Institute.

"Not all of them would be defined as tailings ponds," said Suncor spokeswoman Kelli Stevens over the phone, "it would depend what sorts of water is in them." She could not comment on what specifically the ponds next to the Athabasca River contain.

"We're not at all new to operating in the area. We know spring runoff makes water levels rise. We are at the site constantly and monitoring for anything that isn't part of normal operations and that would obviously include anything that had to do with water from the site touching the river. That's something we would try to stay away from at all costs." 

The Athabasca River is currently on a high-stream flow advisory. 

The Deputy Fire Chief for the Wood Buffalo region said the Hangingstone River is higher than it has been in over a century.

"As part of our operations, we are required to keep all ponds below certain levels to ensure our ponds remain contained in these kinds of situations. We have been following that regulation, and are constantly monitoring the situation, but do not have reason for concern at this time," Suncor spokeswoman Stevens later wrote to DeSmog Canada.

The rising flood waters may pose an unprecedented threat to the region's growing tailings ponds, a number of which are located directly along the banks of the Athabasca River.

A Google Earth image, pictured right, shows the Athabasca River winding through the tar sands region and past the Suncor refining plant. The image shows the proximity of numerous tailings ponds to the river's edge.

The Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD) flood mapping tool shows the floodways surrounding Fort McMurray.

Already low-lying areas surrounding the river are suffering significant flooding.

Image from: pic.twitter.com/Jv01jj7X2W

Video from teambatesy via youtube.

Weather reports for Fort McMurray forecast rain for several more days.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.