The Martlet

It’s not every day a superstar U.S. President makes a whirlwind stop in Ottawa and talks about the environment.

President Barack Obama reinstated the tradition of making Canada the first foreign destination of an incoming president, stopping in Ottawa for a few hours on Feb. 19 with his phalanx of security detail in tow.

Notably, the meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper featured conversation on energy and the environment in addition to tanking economies, unrestricted trade and border security.

Climate change and struggling efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions set the backdrop for an uneasy talk about the profile of Albertan tar sands oil. Environmental groups have raised the issue, decrying how “dirty” the oil is in ads taken out in U.S. newspapers.

Obama, with his campaign commitments to put the U.S. on the path to sustainable energy and scale back reliance on foreign oil, has expressed his concerns about the large carbon footprint of Alberta’s tar sands crude.

According to UVic political science professor Dennis Pilon, if Obama starts to move on the climate change issue by scaling back U.S. consumption of Albertan oil, things will become difficult for Harper and the Conservatives.

“Obama messes things up a bit for them,” Pilon said. “Conservatives want to hug the environment like anyone else, but not if it costs any money — not if it interferes with business.”

Pilon points out that if Harper wants a cooperative relationship with a popular leader like Obama, he’ll have to go through motions on climate change issues more often if he doesn’t actually take steps to address the problem.

However, Obama made no demands on Harper’s position on climate change, instead pledging to open up a “clean energy dialogue” and work with Canada on carbon capture and technology that would store emissions underground.

“Obama’s not naive,” said Pilon. “He knows that the oil sands in Alberta represent not just a significant part of the Canadian economy, but a significant part of the conservative coalition in this country.”

Pilon suggested that both leaders have complex political interests and coalitions to manage. Obama knows that Harper doesn’t have a lot of room to manoeuvre on promoting Alberta’s tar sands oil to America unless he were to turn his back on his Albertan base of support.

But Obama’s main reason for coming to Canada was to establish a good working relationship with a prime minister he’ll have to work with, said Pilon. He said it’s also worth recognizing that Obama has his own complex coalition to manage.

“The America that wants clean energy is also the America that wants cheap energy,” said Pilon.

Pilon predicts that as Canadians feel U.S. pressure to act on the environment, they may bounce the Conservatives from power, seeing as the conservative coalition of oil industry supporters and business leaders are struggling in an economy that’s not assured of a speedy recovery.

For the time being, Harper must balance the competing priorities of assuring a market for tar sands oil with the challenge of designing and implementing policies to promote “green” energy.

Pilon said that in his own way, Obama was talking past Harper to Canadians who want to see stronger action on the environment.

“Harper just had to not fall on his face,” Pilon said.