The word comes from none other than Bill "Job Churn" Morneau who traveled to (where else?) Calgary to proclaim the Justin Trudeau Memorial Pipeline is not up for discussion.
In a powerful brain fart Morneau proclaimed, "We purchased it for a reason." Good to know the Liberals have a reason before they shell out that many billions of dollars to facilitate what, with any luck, may soon become a 'stranded asset.'
"We now see how it can help us accelerate our clean energy transition by putting any revenues that we get from it into a transition to clean energy. We think that is the best way we can move forward in our current context."See? They "now see." I wonder when that happened? And they're pledging to put "any revenues" into a clean energy transition.
Okay, let's see. They paid $4.5 billion to a gaggle of Texans whose lineage traces straight back to EnRon but that's just for the land, the route. It'll take another six, some think closer to nine, billion to build the new and expanded TMX pipeline. Again, that's coming out of the public purse.
It's said that it takes decades, a bunch of them, to earn enough in user fees to cover the cost of building a pipeline. Now when Job Churn talks it pays to listen closely. Is he talking gross revenues or net revenues? There's a quote, wrongly attributed to Mark Twain, about how "figures never lie but liars figure." That's true enough, especially in 21st century Canadian politics. The point is, if Morneau is talking net revenues then the climate emergency may be at meltdown before there's a dime for clean energy transition. We've had four years to test the Liberals' credibility and, well, if that was your teenage son he would not be getting the keys to the family car on Saturday night.
But what about Jaggy? He's talked pretty tough about Trudeau's pipeline. Then again, experience teaches us that you'll never get a New Dem more committed to the environment than during the run-up to an election. They tend to get a little weak kneed afterwards. Besides Trudeau can toss a bauble or two his way, maybe pharmacare?
In fairness to Jagmeet there's really not a lot he can do. That pipeline is about the only area where Justin is on solid ground. Anyone think 'Summer Help' Andy won't back him?
Trudeau's already said that he's going it alone, following in the footsteps of Big Steve. He's not willing to make the slightest concessions on progressive policy needed to get a confidence and supply agreement with the NDP, like NDP and Greens have in BC.
ReplyDeleteThat means Trudeau intends to govern as a minority conservative government, with all the games of chicken that Harper engaged in. Don't believe me? He's announced that his first order of legislative business is a tax cut, which he's daring the Cons to oppose. https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/10/23/trudeau-commits-to-trans-mountain-pipeline-and-cutting-income-tax.html
If it acts like a Con and cuts taxes like a Con, then it is a Con.
Cap
Interesting post from Global.
ReplyDelete"Votes for the People’s Party of Canada may have cost the Conservatives up to six ridings in Monday’s federal election, an analysis of election results shows.
Polling before the election showed the Conservatives were the second choice of about half of PPC voters, according to polling done by Ipsos, implying about one PPC voters in two would have voted Conservative if the party hadn’t existed.
“The data suggests that the Conservative Party would likely get around half of the vote from the People’s Party, understanding that for many people the People’s Party was a none-of-the-above vote,” says Sean Simpson of Ipsos.
“The next most popular party among People’s Party voters was the Green Party,” he says. “You might say, ‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ but the Green Party is often used by people as a protest vote, a kind of none of the above or apathy party.”
In five ridings Liberals won Monday, the Conservative vote total plus half the PPC vote total is higher than the Liberal candidate’s."
https://globalnews.ca/news/6071771/ppc-conservative-spoiler-election/
I'm planning to quit smoking. Having a cigarette helps me think about how to do that.
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ReplyDeleteCap, you challenge my belief in a benevolent God.
Liberals are loathe to admit it but they've become Conservative-Lite going back at least as far as Ignatieff and his 'muscular foreign policy' days. Think of them as Cons with better hair.
There was much to read between the lines of Morneau's talk in Calgary. The town, the venue, the subject - speaks volumes.
I guess it depends on whether you believe Mark Carney, Nick Stern and the science community or you choose instead to believe Jason Kenney, Job Churn Morneau and Justin Trudeau but Canada either has a bountiful bitumen future or we're sitting atop a massive, soon-to-be stranded asset and economic upheaval.
The world is changing - fast and not for the better. The future for high-cost, low-value and high-carbon fossil fuels is not promising when we live in a world awash in cleaner, lighter, cheaper fossil energy.
This dream of vast wealth from China reminds me of a similar fantasy we bought on selling our coal. China stitched up what we thought was a great deal - for us. What we overlooked was that China was tying up the market on coal across Asia Pacific.
Everybody imagined they were the favoured supplier. Few paid much attention to the clause that allowed China to get that coal for a far lower price if market conditions changed. When the buyer has the supply locked up and achieves market dominance it can drop the market price.
We built Tumbler Ridge, imagining it was our Easy Street, but it didn't turn out quite as we had imagined. When it comes to bitumen we continually ignore these cautionary tales.
Back in the 50s, the energy giants served up a lesson when, as Canada expected a big development in the Athabasca tar pits, someone discovered an abundance of conventional oil in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. With that, the energy giants packed up almost overnight and headed to the North Pacific.
NPoV, casting bones and reading entrails is standard fare after an election like we just went through. Suddenly the horizon is full of "ifs."
ReplyDeleteYes, Hugh. There is a certain internal contradiction in Morneau's spiel. Meanwhile WK tells us "the West" wants out. They seem to forget that, to BC, they're east, not west.
ReplyDeleteTwo things this morning. Katie Simpson says the cons were out of step on women's rights, LGBT rights and assisted dying; no mention of Carbon Tax.
ReplyDeleteIn an interview about why they lost, an unnamed Con insider said they can't win being against women's rights , LGBT right and assisted dying when the 80% of the country wants them. Again no mention of climate policy.
Is there a way to see which ridings the "popular vote" came from?
ReplyDeleteThe inference is that across the country, a "majority" of voters voted "Conservative" - but is it not probable that far more Con voters were mobilized in specific ridings?
On election night, a BMW X3 rolled up to hand deliver a Con Branded reminder to vote CPC.
So much for a pollution plan
rumleyfips said...
ReplyDeleteAgain no mention of climate policy."
because the CPC is irrelevant outside of the petroleum first constituency.
Albertans are not stupid, but they have been suckered into the big business/investment world of the 1950's and refuse to move into the 21st century.
If any Cdn. Political Party had 1/10th of a brain shared among all it's supporters, they would be funnelling a few billion dollars into petro-reliant provinces to help them shift to more useful and profitable enterprises. If they insist on pursuing the concept of burning energy, they should seriously look into alcohol as fuel - every single building in Canada uses energy to heat during winter months - that energy could also distill fuel alcohol for places that can't generate liquid fuel. All the tonnes of plant fibre super-stores truck to land fill would be far better used in production of fuel alcohol.
This is something that Alberta and Saskatchewan could easily profit from. All those tanker-trains that now return loadless could return with tonnes of plant material ready for distillation - at prices way below what it costs to turn rocks into "oil" . . .
A at 6:54, there was an some one on the day after the election responding to the "western alienation" thing and did mention that about the same number of Albertans as NFLDers voted Liberal. Didn't catch the rest of the discussion.
ReplyDeleteTo figure out where the popular vote is from, I've been checking and not finding anything. They show a map which is coloured, but that is about it. You'd most likely have to go through each riding to see how many votes each party received in that riding. That is more work than I want to do. some fun
For simply votes across the nation:
Conservatives 6,155,662 34.4%
Liberals 5,915,950 33.1%
NDP 2,849,214 15.9%
B.Q. 1,376,135 7.7%
Greens 1,162,361 6.5%
PP 292,703 1.6%
Indep. 71,854 .04%
Christian Heritage 18,816 .1$
Now, all those BQ votes came out of Quebec, but with Alberta having some where around 4.371M people, it is doubtful that all those votes came out of Alberta and Sask. Others voted for the Conservatives, just as Liberals picked up votes in all provinces.
what is interesting is that the Greens and the Bloc have close %ers of the vote but in Quebec it translates to 32 seats and for the Greens 3.
What the list does reflect is if you add up the other votes they had over 10M and the Consrvatives 6M and change, so if Andrew Scheer thinks he received the most votes, he must be smoking B.C.'s finest.
There were also 2.35% fewer voters this time around.
In my opinion, the press likes to make headlines and such, so western alienation will work. As some have said, Alberta is stuck. It has not way around Canada and no sea ports unless you want to go through the U.S.A.
If WK stands for Warren Kinsella, he needs to find something else to do. His boat has sailed. Don't know of any one who really wants to leave Canada here in B.C. If they want to leave Canada, they can find an other country who might take them, but bitch as we all might, this country is a fabulous place to live.
I'm not holding my breath for the pipeline. Just the cost.......yikes. It would be easier to give all workers on the proposed project and others in the oil industry a cheque for the amount they might make in that time and call it done. Now that might stipulate the economy without fouling our water, land or air.
Much of the oil comes from fracking which uses a lot of water. We can live 3 days without water. You can live without oil for years and years. I'm for saving the water for drinking and whatever, not for fracking. LNG isn't that clean either. It burns clean but to produce it uses a lot of chemicals which are injected into the earth which doesn't help in the long run.
So Trudeau had Morneau go out and "deliver" the message, which will keep Jason quiet for all of 30 seconds, but lets re group in 5 years and see if that pipeline has been built. There is no need to ruin our environment so countries which don't much like us anyhow can get oil and gas.
ReplyDeleteAlberta is stuck. It has not way around Canada and no sea ports unless you want to go through the U.S.A.
Not so quick!
Alberta has always had it's head up it's arse..
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/apr/25/ottawa-northumberland-advert
Tell a big lie often enough and it becomes the truth.
Re,
We built Tumbler Ridge, imagining it was our Easy Street, but it didn't turn out quite as we had imagined. When it comes to bitumen we continually ignore these cautionary tales.
It was the Japanese that foiled Tumbler Ridge when they played BC against Australia ; who can say the same will not happen again with tar sands and fracked gas?
TB
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/06/21/opinion/serious-70-billion-climate-plan-youve-heard-nothing-about
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Rumley, I expect you're right. On so many issues they're at odds with the majority of Canadians.
ReplyDeleteAnon, several times the media claimed that the Tories won some sort of majority of the votes. In our multi-party reality a majority of votes will always translate into a powerful majority of seats. In other words the supposed majority is a myth. What the Tories did is apparently garner more votes than the Libs, a shade more. However it was a 34-33 thing. The remaining third went to the BQ, NDP and Greens that, if anyone was short-changed (and they were) and deserved more seats it the HoC, it was them. Never, in the past two decades have the Tories not been a party of grievance, even when they held power.
ReplyDeleteUU, "U're" becoming annoying. I know the article. I read it when it came out last June. It was ripped to shreds in the comments section and that crap has never been repeated. Maybe Sandy was hoping to run, I don't know.
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ReplyDeleteJason Kenney's best play now is to attack Ottawa, perhaps NfL and BC along the way. In many ways his hands are tied. I'm sure he grasps the precarious future for high-carbon, high-cost fossil fuels. He knows that alternative energy options are undermining fossil energy prices.
Kenney has no vision, perhaps because there's none to be had in a bitumen-based, boom and bust, economy. If that craters and the markets begin to go more heavily to lower-carbon, higher-value petroleum options, all that will be left is finger pointing.
Alberta can talk separation all it likes but leaving Canada is awfully hard, especially when you're landlocked. Getting out of Canada may be hard but for the energy giants, walking away from Athabasca will be far easier and, given the pending bill for site remediation including those tailing ponds, may be economically imperative. You know, get off the bar stool, pretend you're going to the washroom and then bolt out the back door.
Well, whatever you think. However, the pipeline will be built. Trudeau does not have much of a choice due to Harper’s Canada China FIPA.
ReplyDeleteOh, and just to make you happy, I’ll ignore your blog from now on. It hasn’t really contained much lately but anger. Cheers.
UU