Letter To Natural Resources Minister Carr

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) is responsible for advising Minister Carr on the need for crude oil transportation infrastructure. Mr. Carr advises his Cabinet colleagues.

On February 15, 2016, former NRCan Deputy Minister, Bob Hamilton, provided a briefing document to Minister Carr claiming that pipeline capacity was operating at its potential. Mr. Carr was told 1 million barrels a day of new pipeline capacity is needed by 2020. The briefing memo said the National Energy Board's Canada’s Energy Future 2016 Outlook was the source of the data relied upon to predict the extreme and urgent need. But NRCan staff used incorrect data from the NEB document.

Mr. Carr was seriously misinformed. No new pipeline capacity is needed until at least 2025.

In the brief, NRCan staff also provided information on the economic benefits from pipelines, but again relied on erroneous figures.

I wrote a letter to Minister Carr detailing the factual errors in his brief and alerted him to the document's false conclusions.