Canada Prosperity in Peril: Much Ado About Nothing the Today Problem of a Once Great Nation

By Walter Benstead

This book is a reflection of my forty years experience in resource development in Canada and overseas. The industry was once a driver of the Canadian economy. With the Climate Weapon and political bias it has been strangled. Billions in free enterprise investment has been squandered and unemployment has needlessly mushroomed. All for political whim.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781532097669

Walter Benstead

I have worked in the oil and gas industry as a Geologist since 1965. During that time my projects and employment have extended across the four Western Provinces, Ontario, the Northwest Territories, Libya and Australia. I have a BSc Hons in Geology from Western University. My first assignment involved doing surface geology in the Canadian Arctic Islands. There were no trees or significant vegetation coverage. It taught me more geology than any textbook or Professor. From doing surface geology I moved on to wellsite geology in Northern Alberta and Libya with a major oil Company. It is a background that every petroleum geologist should have. In Australia I worked for the Petroleum Branch of the Geological Survey of Queensland. Returning from Australia I worked for Canadian Superior Oil supervising projects in the Mackenzie Delta and Lake Erie. I spent most of my career years working as an independent. My emphasis was on regional mapping projects and prospect generation in Southwest Saskatchewan. My later experience was with small Canadian “start ups”. In retirement I have produced presentations on Melville Island Brachiopods and the Geology of the Panorama Ski Area.

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Copyright © 2020 Walter Benstead.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-9765-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-9766-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020910504

iUniverse rev. date:   06/05/2020

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1    Mackenzie Valley Pipeline and Northern Exploration

Chapter 2    Politics, Disaster and the National Energy Program

Chapter 3    Bilingualism

Chapter 4    Better Politics and Movement Forward

Chapter 5    Northern Gateway Pipeline

Chapter 6    Miscellaneous Issues and Events

Chapter 7    Climate Change

Chapter 8    Political Disaster Returns

Chapter 9    Indigenous Issues

Chapter 10    Trans Mountain Pipeline and Expansion Project

Afterword

Bibliography

PREFACE

The purpose of this book is to address mine and many Canadians’ concerns as to what is happening to our oil and gas industry and our Country. The industry was once the backbone of the Canadian economy but has become Justin Trudeau’s personal vendetta against western Canada and free enterprise.

I started working for a major oil company, monitoring wells in the north and in the desert. I put projects together for government, indigenous groups and numerous commercial entities. Contrary to Hollywood’s version, the product does not flow out of the ground and jump to the gas station pump. It is a process that requires hard work, expertise and significant capital input. In Canada, there are rigid environmental and regulatory controls not found elsewhere. Why are we importing oil from Saudi Arabia to the detriment of our socioeconomic well-being?

At university, I had an interest in and proficiency for science. I chose geology because the resource industry was going somewhere and doing something. Sadly, that has been thwarted. The resource industry has served Canada well. I ask you to join me in supporting it and our Country’s well being.

INTRODUCTION

The age of fossil fuels is not over. If you rigidly disagree with that statement, this book is not for you. Resource development has been a backbone of our domestic economy for the past hundred years. Our oil and gas industry has been a major part of that. Canadian expertise and ingenuity in resource development has also had a significant international component. Our current oil and gas industry has been strangled by misplaced bureaucracy, and its free enterprise spirit and prosperity is being squandered. Solar, wind and biofuel powers have failed to meet unrealistic expectations. Today’s standard of living is based on oil and gas consumption, as much as the popular media and government wish to deny it.

Canadians have a strong work ethic. They are among the most industrious people in the world. This may partly come from the background of those who built the great British Empire in North America and around the world. It comes from the coureur des bois (runners of the woods), who paddled from Montreal up the Great Lakes and rivers to tame the west. It comes from the Ukrainian settlers who escaped Russian oppression and valiantly struggled to eke a subsistence living out of a harsh prairie landscape. It comes from the Irish who escaped the potato famine, came to Canada and worked heart and soul to survive. It comes from Americans who came to tame a second frontier.

Mostly, I think, it comes from the land. Canada is a vast and cold country. There is a necessity to confront and conquer the elements. Motivation is established in the fight for survival and continues to drive us to achieve great things. The more we move from the land, the more we urbanize, this somewhat weakens the premise. The essence of the motivation and drive carries on.

The Canadian work ethic is and has been supported by a world-class educational system. Universities such as Dalhousie in Halifax, McGill in Montreal, Western in Toronto and Queens in Ontario are a prestigious base. They provided to Canada and the world scientists, engineers, medical doctors, authors and poets. The Ontario Agricultural College, now the University of Guelph, is an international pillar of agricultural and veterinary science. The western educational base grew from universities of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. There are now 10 times as many universities and colleges, all with significant standards. The basic literacy rate in Canada has been one of the highest in the world although today’s educational system seems to focus more on brainwashing rather than independent thinking.

Sitting beside the United States, we have had access to major capital and financial resources. Our five major banks, the Royal, CIBC, the Toronto-Dominion, Bank of Nova Scotia and the Bank of Montreal, were and are world-class institutions both domestically and abroad. During the Second World War, Canada was a major player. This smaller nation of 25 million had the fourth-largest military organization in the world. From Dieppe and Sicily to the D-Day landings at Normandy, Canada was one of the world’s great middle powers. This was the basis for a proud and prosperous Canada. Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier proclaimed the 20th century belonged to Canada.

The development of our vast natural resources has fuelled a government-funded national health-care system, affordable housing and a world-class educational system. The less fortunate are supported by the government.

Our free enterprise system has provided opportunity and prosperity, but now that prosperity is in peril. Development and opportunities are stalled.

In the ongoing chapters, I will discuss three major pipeline infrastructure projects that exemplify this Canadian tragedy: the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, Northern Gateway and the Trans Mountain Expansion. All three involved extensive background exploration and development efforts. Regrettably it was mostly spinning wheels and wasted effort. All three projects were stalled by endless delays, judicial blockages and bureaucratic bungling. I was involved in that background for all three. From surface geological mapping to prospect evaluation to drill site supervision I was part of the extensive input effort that went nowhere.

A major background problem in Canada today is the the noble idea. They are equalization, bilingualism, the National Energy Program, Indigenous Rights and Climate Change pre-occupation. These will be discussed throughout the book. All sounded good. Their ultimate result has been counterproductive bureaucracy and centralization of power.

Resource development in general has a three- to four-year lead time. The demand for and approval or disapproval of the needed product is much more immediate and fickle. There is an initial geological exploration phase—surface or and subsurface geology. I started my career doing surface geology in the high arctic. It was exhilarating and demanding. The observation and compilation of the earth’s structures and building blocks gives a detailed picture of the magnificence of God’s creation and our natural surroundings. The majesty of hundreds of millions of years of sedimentation, their layering, compression and subsequent twisting and folding is a real story more exciting than any adventure novel. There are 15,000 plus wells drilled in Western Canada and the Northwest Territories. Each has a story to tell. It is documented by drill cuttings and cores as the wells are drilling. At the end of drilling down hole electrical, sonic and porosity surveys referred to as logs are ran. All of this is on file at provincial government well monitoring facilities. Go take a look and see a piece of the earth 1000m below you. Subsurface geology puts together the puzzle from existing wellbores. Connecting individual wells outlines