Stephen Rees's blog

Simon & Schuster Canada

published September 19, 2017

I requested a review copy of this book ahead of publication from NetGalley.  That means I got a document – as opposed to an ebook – which was not in its final format, and is awkward to quote from. That also means some of the information and hard data was missing. And I did notice that several passages seem to be repeated: for instance, the anecdote about the Fort McMurray WalMart being too busy to stack the shelves – and too short of staff – that goods were simply left on pallets in the aisles. In fact a lot of the book is composed of stories and anecdotes, most of them engagingly told. I found it easy to get absorbed and stay engaged – so it would be a good choice if you have a long flight.

The publisher’s blurb is clear

“The Patch is the story of Fort McMurray and the oilsands in northern Alberta, the world’s second largest proven reserve of oil. But this is no conventional story about the oil business. Rather, it is a portrait of the lifecycle of the Patch, showing just how deeply it continues to impact the lives of everyone around the world.”

So it is not a polemic. Even though the author ran as a candidate for the Green Party, he does his best to remain even handed. Though my feeling was that perhaps he tries a bit harder to defend the “ordinary people” who work in the Patch, and clearly feels that they have not necessarily been treated well by the media or the opponents of fossil fuels. There is very little about the people who are actually responsible for the current direction of development. The Koch Brothers get a passing mention, as does Warren Buffet, but by and large the main characters are the people who deal with the actual work or are directly impacted by it. One of the leading characters is a bus driver, for instance. Another belongs to a local First Nation, who tries to combine working in the patch with a some maintenance of the traditional hunting for food.

Politicians do get get quite a bit of attention, as do some of the people who made the initial discoveries and technical advances. But financial and boardroom battles are generally treated lightly. This is not investigative journalism or muck raking, but it is frank about some of the rather cavalier attitudes towards issues like clean air, clean water and climate change. He is actually tougher on the environmentalists, who are given somewhat harsher coverage, I think. He is no fan of Bill McKibben, for example. He is quite clear that the Patch got chosen to be the poster child for climate change responsibility when in fact he feels we all share equally the responsibility for the daily choices that make the burning of fossil fuels inevitable.

It is also quite clear that Canadian politicians made the key decisions that created the present situation. The extraction of usable fuel from the tar sands was always a very dodgy proposition – technically and financially. It was never really an easy choice to make given that there were at most times other sources of usable petroleum easier and cheaper to extract and market: but mostly in other places. The oil industry – and the politicians – both wanted to be able to secure supplies closer to their markets, and under the control of governments that would be if not always friendly at least understanding and amenable. Dealing with regimes in places like the Middle East and West Africa is not an easy way to make a fortune.

On many occasions the companies engaged in developing the Athabasca tar sands had to review falling prices, rising costs and seemingly endless production problems. The book deals with these in a breezy, informative way without too much jargon or technical bafflegab. Many times it must have looked like it was a losing proposition that had already cost a fortune, looked unlikely to be profitable even in the long term and was not going to be simple to remedy. Huge sums have been invested, and still need to be spent, to make the process of extraction and processing possible if not exactly viable. What has always made the critical difference has been politicians willing to commit public funds where skeptical commercial decision makers saw huge risks and doubtful rewards. As we have seen in BC with LNG recently, this is not an unusual position for Canadian politicians to take. And it is not confined to energy either: there are always people only to ready to detect possible boondoggles where public funds are being used for major capital projects. Indeed, I think that kind of mindset may be one of the things behind the popularity of public/private partnerships. As we have seen only too clearly, too often the private sector has been the major beneficiary of unwillingness to go for the conventional public sector route.

The key decision in the book is the one made by Jean Chretien in the mid 1990s to provide tax breaks to rescue the industry, in particular the two major oil sands producers, Suncor and Syncrude Canada Ltd.  He also persuaded Ontario to join with Alberta and the federal government in making capital investments when one of the original investors dropped out. Indeed one of the recurring themes is how often the uncertainties of the extraction process and a drop in oil prices almost stopped development, but how local and national politicians remained committed to seeing the development of the industry – both for the jobs and the revenue streams it promised.

There is a widespread misconception that oil and gas dominates the Canadian economy. In fact it is (with mining) around 8% of GDP and less than 15% of exports. Neither figure appears anywhere in this book. Indeed, much of the time, the usual story of how dependent we are on fossil fuels – and especially oil – is emphasized. There is no mention of the possibility that this is in the process of changing – and changing rapidly – thanks to the improving technology and falling cost of renewables like solar and wind power. Nor the rapidly increasing sales of electric vehicles for both private and commercial uses, and the decline of car ownership and use in urban areas threatening the dominance of oil for transportation energy.

I was quite taken aback by the number of times some phrases and dates recurred in the text. “On any given day” and “2015” were frequently cited. That’s because most of the story is set in Fort McMurray – and everything changed there, very dramatically, with the fire in 2016. That, of course, gets its own chapter.

When I was reading the book the news was full of hurricanes – Irma was demolishing Barbuda and threatening havoc in Cuba and Florida. We were enjoying – at long last – a refreshing break from a summer of heat and smoke from wildfires. Climate change does get attention – but somehow more with the connotation that it is the obsession of a minority rather than the concern of everyone – which of course is quite understandable when written from a North American perspective and where the most recent official policy in Canada and Alberta is that the oil patch is considered an essential component of an orderly and economically viable transition to renewables, in due course, in the fullness of time, with due regard to the realities yadda, yadda.

Again there is no mention that the horizon for taking effective action to limit climate change to a point where human life is even possible is getting much closer – three years is the most recent estimate . This is not a matter where we can give both sides equivalence. Yes, there will still be motor vehicles and they will still need liquid fuels. The probability that we can change fast enough to avoid 2ºC of global warming – and all the tipping points that get triggered along the way – is by no means assured. And the consequences of failing to slow the current rapid increase of fossil fuel consumption are going to be dire.

It does not comfort me at all that the key decisions are going to be made by the current generation of politicians, and I do notice that Canada has not only fallen far behind the leaders in dealing with climate change but shows no sign at all of tackling the problem with the urgency it demands. So the conclusions of this book that we will have to put up with political necessity and unsatisfactory compromises is both true and truly depressing.

That doesn’t mean I don’t recommend this book as a worthwhile use of your time. But do not expect to get anything more from it than the idea that somehow we will muddle through. Frankly, I do not think that is Good Enough this time. I think we need a more trenchant critique of Trudeau and Notley – and a more hopeful look at some of the alternatives. And actually in areas like wind power Alberta is actually far ahead of BC. Not that that is saying much either.