The myth and reality of offshore oil and gas development : a critical enquiry into the political economy of hydrocarbon resource development in the offshore regions of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia

Abstract

Petroleum is the most valuable commodity, let alone natural resource, which is traded in the world economy. From at least the early 1960s, it was determined that the quite extensive sedimentary basin off the East Coast of Canada contained accumulations of crude oil and natural gas. The two provinces adjacent to the continental shelf, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, have economies which can be described in the Canadian context as dependent and underdeveloped. They experience high levels of unemployment and, while taxation rates are among the heaviest in the country, provincial government revenues are comparatively small. Consequently, public services are below national standards. If any provinces needed a bonanza to rectify their long-standing economic difficulties, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, were prime candidates. The presence of hydrocarbons in the offshore sediments around these provinces and the economic potential inherent in their exploitation were highlighted by the escalation in crude oil prices in the early 1970s. By the end of the decade oil and gas were seen by political and business leaders in the region as the economic fuel to lift both provinces out of the financial mire. The argument advanced in this thesis, however, is that this is -- and always was -- unlikely to happen for a couple of reasons. Furthermore, integrated into much of the content of this thesis is the argument that ostensibly different provincial government agendas for offshore development, in as much as they essentially conform to the imperatives of a mixed capitalist economy, are inconsequential to the overall dynamic of resource exploitation and capital accumulation. Political will married either to principle or to opportunism at this level matters little. The relationship between the federal state and the corporate developers who have to be accomodated is paramount.