I'm Glad This Week is About Over

This has been an unusually stressful week on the climate/environment front. Don't worry, it'll be back at full bore on Monday morning but at least there's the weekend (I hope) to chill out.

The week began with anxious wondering if Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party would table a motion for a declaration that the UK is in a climate change national emergency and how Parliament would respond.

On Monday came news of a poll of 100,000 Europeans that found climate change as their first priority, outdistancing the economy, migration, and everything else.

That same day, news of a report from the US EPA advising communities how best to cope with worsening destruction from climate change - everything from "debris streams" from ruined buildings, to how to recycle building materials and how to dispose of hazmat stuff such as asbestos.

On Tuesday there was encouraging news that two-thirds of Britons realized they were already in a climate emergency and three-quarters said they would vote for whatever party was best positioned to "protect the planet."

Canadian Press quoted the prime minister, responding to the flooding in Ottawa and Quebec, by saying "we will have to have significant reflections and conversations on how we move forward," a perfect WTF?? moment.

In Britain again, a Labour MP asked the thorny question "Why are taxpayers subsidising the oil and gas companies that are jeopardizing our future?" Too bad that question is taboo in our House of Commons.

The Weather Network released the second of its three part series, "2X Faster: Canada's Weather Future in a Changing Climate." It even features a bleating commentary from our EnviroMin, Dame Cathy McKenna.

On Wednesday, a NASA-Columbia University study discovered, through examining tree rings, that global warming has been ushering in an era of sustained drought since the turn of the 20th century.  This was disrupted from 1950 to 1975 thanks to a beneficial side effect of ozone-layer destroying aerosols but now it's back at full bore. The petro-provinces - tomorrow's barren wastelands.

The biggest news on Wednesday came from the House of Commons in Westminster where MPs overwhelmingly endorsed Labour's motion for a declaration that the UK was in a national climate emergency. Meanwhile, in Canada, Morneau was crowing about fracked gas and how the latest LNG venture shows that, when it comes to climate destroying carbon fuels, Canada can and will deliver.  Trudeau, meanwhile, begged Jason Kenney, offering to look the other way on certain Tar Sands emissions if Kenney would pretend to uphold Notley's deal on a carbon cap. 

And then the hammer dropped today with a sneak preview at a report to be released on Monday warning that a million species, our own very much included, are at risk of imminent extinction due to our carbon crisis and rapacious over-consumption of natural resources. What distinguishes this report from so many others is its scope. This isn't something that future generations will have to endure. It's your generation too. You. This is mass extinction and it's not decades off. It could be just a matter of years, possibly one decade. 

Finally I closed the week out with an op-ed written by David Suzuki a few days back warning that, when your life is at stake, don't count on your federal government to protect you.  If there's going to be any heavy lifting required, we'll have to see to it ourselves. 

I don't remember a week as simultaneously tumultuous, inspiring, dispiriting and terrifying as this one. We've had highs and we've had terrible lows. What will next week bring?

What Yesterday Meant to Me

Since that first time I heard Greta Thunberg, I sensed that something wonderful might be about to happen.

Eventually she inspired a resistance. The school children's revolt and then Extinction Rebellion - children and adults saying there no longer could be, nor would be, tolerance of the status quo.

As altruistic Britons were refusing to move, they were arrested, charged and taken into custody - for what is genuinely trying, in a most modest way, to save humanity by changing minds.

And it worked.

With more than two-thirds of the population now realizing that the UK was in a climate change emergency, Jeremy Corbyn took that as his cue to table a motion calling on Parliament to declare a state of national climate emergency that easily passed in the House of Commons bolstering similar declarations from Wales and
Scotland.

As Westminster was declaring a national emergency, across the Atlantic, Canada's finance minister, Morneau, was beating his chest over fracked gas, LNG, as proof of Canada's ability to deliver on big carbon-energy projects. The prime minister, meanwhile, was begging Alberta premier, Jason Kenney, to save emissions caps by promising to just look the other way on bitumen extraction.

Brits take pride in their "stiff upper lip" image, the "Stay Calm and Carry On" national mantra. The people of the UK aren't afraid to look over their shoulder and spot what's coming and, when they did, they demanded action.  Canadians, apparently, aren't made of such stuff. All we have to hear are empty threats such as "this will hurt the economy" and we're in full rout. It seems we don't care if this cherished economy or that small fraction represented by fossil fuels has led us to a cliff edge. We're not stopping.

We don't care. Not enough of us anyway. Sure, we're worried about climate change but not enough to insist that real measures be taken to at least give us a chance at a soft crash landing. Ah, the kids'll figure out something. They'll have to with the future we're bequeathing to them.

Maybe we can still change but the clock is quickly running out and our governments aren't courageous enough to declare climate change a national emergency even though Canada is vulnerable. We have the longest coastline of any nation, from sea to sea to sea. Our vast forests are being ravaged by heat waves, unreliable snowcap and summer precipitation, mass infestation by pine beetles and other pests that are now moving steadily out of the West toward the Atlantic. The Arctic ice and snow that once kept our tundra and permafrost stable is disappearing, giving rise to the release of potentially massive quantities of methane and CO2. To the south, "once a century" floods are now becoming once every few years, our "new normal." Science now shows that the prairie petro-provinces are looking at a future as parched wasteland. Mega drought imperils our domestic food security. Our essential infrastructure is in decay and in no shape to withstand the severe climate that is even now setting in. Even our fisheries are being changed as native species migrate in search of colder waters. Wildfire smoke now perfumes the skies of the West, forcing ordinary Canadians to shelter indoors at what used to be the very best time to be outdoors.

But no, we don't have a climate change national emergency and, if we do, we're too cowardly to deal with it.  We won't change, not in time. When we go to the polls this October look for 70 per cent, perhaps more, of the vote to go for the very worst petro-state parties, the Liberals or the Conservatives.

Yesterday was a bittersweet moment, one eagerly awaited. I'm proud of the British people for forcing their politicians' hands. I wish we were made of that same stuff.

BRITAIN WINS! Parliament Declares Climate National Emergency

From CNN:

Lawmakers in the UK Parliament have declared "an environment and climate emergency," making it the first country in the world to do so, according to the opposition Labour Party. 

The motion was called by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. 

WE DID IT! Thanks to pressure from the Labour Party, the UK just became the first country to declare an environment and #climateemergency. Now it's time for real action to tackle climate change. Share this. pic.twitter.com/hOheWxQQHf—  

The Labour Party (@UKLabour) May 1, 2019

I realize I've flogged this story pretty relentlessly lately but I only did that because it's so important for life on Earth, all life on Earth.

What we need to do now, here in Canada, is turn on the petro-pimps, the fossil fuelers and their political handmaidens and tell them they have no place in Canada's future. They won't switch their allegiance back to the people of Canada and our future until they fear us again. As Jeremy Corbyn put it this morning, "we have no time to waste."

And what did we accomplish on the climate emergency front today? Why, it was Bill Morneau boasting about how our fracked gas/LNG venture shows that Canada can still deliver on big, carbon-energy projects. And then Justin went groveling to Jason Kenney.

Ottawa is vowing to exempt certain non-mining projects that use steam to extract crude from deep under the earth — known as in-situ projects — as long as Alberta Premier Jason Kenney maintains a hard cap on emissions from his province's oil sector.

Is that a prime minister you can respect?

May Day. M'aidez. Mayday.

p.s. yes, I know, Scotland and Wales previously declared a climate change state of emergency.

$4.5 Billion? Try $20 Billion.

What a fitting legacy for a double dealing prime minister, a pipeline fiasco. He may not like it but Justin Trudeau's name will forever be tied to a bitumen tube.

Dick Hatfield had his Bricklin. Brian Peckford had his cucumber farm. Justin Trudeau blows them both out of the water with his Trans Mountain pipeline. Long after no one can remember what a Bricklin was, the memory of Trudeau and his pipeline will survive. Stains that big are hard to erase or forget.

Pierre Trudeau will forever be remembered for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Justin, well, he'll have to settle for a climate-wrecking pipeline.

Yesterday, Bill "Job Churn" Morneau, announced the feds had decided to shell out $4.5 billion to take the son of Enron, Texas-based Kinder Morgan, off the hook for the Trans Mountain pipeline. Yet this is a government that is not disposed to truth-telling. Remember when Junior called those Saudi death wagons mere "jeeps"? Better yet, do you remember Slick's election promises? Oh, weren't we royally suckered?

Now The Tyee's Tar Sands scribe, Andrew Nikiforuk, writes that the $4.5 billion price tag Morneau announced yesterday is just more Liberal bullshit. Try something closer to $20 billion. That's the cost according to economist Robyn Allan.

The $4.5-billion purchase price only buys a leaking 65-year-old pipeline, an aging tanker farm not built to withstand earthquakes, and a port facility as well as engineering plans and permits for the twinning of a high-risk expansion project.

In 2007, Kinder Morgan reported to the National Energy Board that it valued the Trans Mountain pipeline system at $550 million.

Let’s repeat that fact: the federal government will pay $4.5 billion for an old and compromised tanker and pipeline system that the company valued at $550 million in 2007.

“The federal government have overpaid for an aging asset that has huge integrity problems. Every year they have to spend more on maintenance to keep it running,” added Allan. 

Next, taxpayers are on the hook for the cost of twinning the project — an estimated $7.4 billion and climbing. 

Given the iron law of megaprojects (overbudget and over schedule over and over again), Allan expects the final construction bill to be more than $9 billion.] 

Then you have $2.1 billion in financial assurance that the government will have to put up for land-based spills. 

According to the Pipeline Safety Act, $1 billion in financial assurances for the existing pipeline was in place based on a $500-million parental guarantee from Kinder Morgan. 

As a condition of the pipeline expansion the federal government has required another $1.1 billion. 

Taxpayers will also be responsible for $1.5 billion for the so-called ocean protection plan — every five years.

“In the end the federal government is looking at a $15- to $20-billion bill for taxpayers,” concluded Allan.

...Kinder Morgan, which could no longer afford the $7.4-billion project, took advantage of a bitumen republic that foolishly proclaimed an unneeded pipeline a matter of “national interest” without so much as a risk analysis or simple cost benefit report. 

The only studies that say the Trans Mountain pipeline will make money for the Canadian economy are reports paid for by Kinder Morgan. Critics including Allan have described these biased reports as fraudulent.  

When Canadian taxpayers appreciate the scale of the federal abuse of trust here as well as the government’s blatant corporate welfare for a Texas pipeline company, there will be hell to pay from coast to coast.

Enron's Patsy. How Kinder Morgan Played Trudeau and Canada for Suckers.

Steve Kean knows how to play hardball from his days as senior vice president of government affairs with the long defunct Enron corporation. Now, on behalf of the son of Enron, Kinder Morgan, Kean is using those skills to roll Justin Trudeau, Bill Morneau and the people of Canada. The Tyee's Andrew Nikiforuk casts the bones and reads the entrails. It's not a pretty sight.

The Trudeau federal government has made itself a pathetic hostage to a Texas-based pipeline company known for its cheapness and debt. 

The economic sleaziness of the drama, which should upset most Canadians, has been largely ignored by the financial mainstream press. 

But here’s the rub: Kinder Morgan doesn’t have the money it needs to twin a high-risk $7.4 billion pipeline, and has been looking for a way out for some time. 

Meanwhile, it has blamed entirely predictable and expected project delays on the B.C. government as well as First Nations and municipal resistance to the pipeline.

But then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a smiling hostage, walked into the room and declared the construction of the megaproject a matter of “national interest” — without so much as an independent cost-benefit analysis.

On April 8, Kinder Morgan grabbed Trudeau by his bituminous lapels and delivered a Texas-sized ransom note: bail us out or we’ll walk away from your stinking national interest on May 31.

...money and not political uncertainty — a reliable companion of the project from the first day of public hearings — is the central issue here.
Faced with the iron law of megaprojects (“over schedule and over budget and over and over again”), Kinder Morgan simply wants to walk away from an unviable project whose costs have ballooned from $5.4 billion to more than $7.4 billion. 

The con game has been unfolding for several years now. 

In 2011 Kinder Morgan, whose early business mantra was “Cheap, Cheap, Cheap,” finagled with the National Energy Board to get a special fee — paid by oil producers no less — to help cover the costs for regulatory filings on a carbon risky pipeline expansion. 

With other people’s money — about $286 million according to economist Robyn Allan — it then proposed to twin an existing 65-year-old pipeline across the Rocky Mountains to move 500,000 barrels of heavy oil to the coast. 

In 2013 the U.S. company promised the National Energy Board that it would happily finance the project with 100 per cent of its own money.

Kaching, kaching, kaching

At the time the company estimated that the project would cost a modest $5.4 billion. 

Today that figure has now ballooned to $7.4 billion, and economists such as Robyn Allan predict the project can’t be completed for less than $9 billion.

Ottawa's Gross Ineptitude

If the federal government really wanted to act in the national interest it could insist that companies upgrade bitumen into a higher value petroleum product that doesn’t require imported diluent (costly natural gas liquids) to transport it through a pipeline. 

Such a move would create high-paying refining jobs and free up pipeline capacity monopolized by the transport of 600,000 barrels of diluent now needed to move 1.6 million barrels of raw bitumen a day.
But the National Energy Board, a captured regulator, never looked at these alternatives and never questioned Kinder Morgan’s ability to finance the project, even though a sharp Wall Street analyst aptly described the firm in 2013 as “a house of cards.” 

Nor did Canada’s pathetic energy regulator challenge bogus claims made by Kinder Morgan that heavy oil would fetch higher prices in Asian markets — a complete falsehood. 

The federal government, however, did appoint a Kinder Morgan consultant to the NEB board during the scandal-plagued regulatory hearings to highlight their bias.

Dupes and Saps, Making Suckers of Us All

After failing to raise money in U.S. markets — a clear signal that North American investors didn’t regard the project as a smart idea — the Houston firm used its Canadian subsidiary to raise a skimpy $1.7 billion in 2017. 

But those monies didn’t go to the pipeline expansion project. Instead Kinder Morgan used it to pay off more U.S. debt. 

Although Kinder Morgan Canada arranged $5.5 billion in construction facility loans from Canadian banks, that still left the subsidiary with a $2 billion equity hole to fill. 

Rather than admit that it can’t raise the money and face a financial drubbing, Kinder Morgan shrewdly blamed long-standing and predictable public opposition from First Nations, the City of Burnaby and the government of British Columbia as a project stopper. 

But it cleverly waited for the Canadian government, a modern shill for oil lobbyists, to first promise a $1.5 billion ocean spill response subsidy and then declare the project a matter of “national interest.” 

The Trudeau government, which promised the Chinese Communists an energy pipeline to the coast as part of any free trade deal, has now signalled to investors that if the marketplace won’t fund a foolhardy project then Canadian taxpayers will be sacrificed instead.

...Whenever you scratch a megaproject, says the Oxford business professor Bent Flyvbjerg, you’ll likely find a toxic brew of underestimated costs, inflated revenues, discounted environmental impacts and overvalued benefits.  

That description fits Kinder Morgan’s pipeline proposal better than a speedy downhill weld. 

And now a brain-dead federal government with unhealthy commitments to China wants to rescue a truly bad megaproject championed by the bastard child of Enron and a bunch of climate-denying Texans. 

The result will be an unprecedented disaster for Canadian taxpayers.

No Takers for Pipeline? What's the Surprise in That?

To hear Bill Morneau tell it, potential buyers would be falling all over each other to take over Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline.  Apparently not. There is no queue. Nothing on the horizon.

There are many reasons for investor indifference. Kinder Morgan says it has orders for two-thirds of the Trans Mountain capacity. Really, from whom?
Asia? Three year contracts? Endless renegotiation and uncertainty? The prospect of bitumen becoming a "stranded asset"? The announcement by OPEC that it may open the taps again to drive current high oil prices back down? I don't know, what's not to like?

Then there's that business about never leaving money on the table. For this pipeline, it's a buyer's market. Trudeau and Morneau have revealed that Ottawa is willing to offer financial incentives to see this pipeline through to "tidewater." Any potential buyer for this has to be wondering how hard they can grind the Trudeau government and they are definitely going to squeeze Ottawa for everything they can get. They're not going to settle for the wallet. They want the diamond ring and the Rolex too.

A Venture Capitalist on Why Kinder Morgan's Pipeline and the Tar Sands Make No Sense.

The CEO of Chrysalix Venture Capital says "let's get honest about the outlook for the Alberta oil sands and Trans Mountain." In Wal van Lierop's opinion, neither makes any financial sense any longer. In other words, Trudeau and Morneau appear to be leading Canada into a huge economic blunder.

If we were to think of the energy transition as a baseball game, we could see the stages of its progression over the past decade. In the first inning, coal lost to gas in the competition for power generation in North America and Europe; solar and wind lit up the scoreboard with incredible cost reductions in the second inning; but in the third, shale oil and gas rallied, creating an energy boom in U.S. gas and making that country the international swing player -- supplanting OPEC in that position.

Now we are entering the fourth inning, with a playing field of abundant cheap energy and midway through the ball game it looks like the players highest on the cost curve will be the ones striking out. Those players will likely include both new projects in Arctic oil and the oil sands, as their business case makes them weak in a game where cost is key.

Not all oils are equal: 

When oil prices rise above $50, shale producers can make a profit. Theoretically, oil-sand producers can compete at that price level but the upfront capital intensity and long scale-up times put oil-sand producers in a very disadvantaged position for any new projects. 

The costs of converting oil-sands oil to gasoline or jet fuel means there will always be about a $10 or more discount; so that discount has nothing to do with pipelines: oil-sands expansions should actually be competitive at $40 for new capital investments to make sense.

Trudeau's wobbly Trans Mountain gamble:

This leads to considering the business case for the Kinder Morgan pipeline: 

Terminal and shipping infrastructure adds another negative of $2-$3 on this line because receivers on the demand side have in the past years created new facilities to quickly load and unload massive ships of a size that cannot sail below the Vancouver bridges. As a result, Alberta needs to be able to compete below $37, while in new projects, it most likely needs north of $50 to be in the money. 

To make things worse, not just the cost of supply has changed in the past four years; there are also significant changes on the demand side with the targeted refineries on the east coast of China recently benefiting from the improved economic relationship with Russia, while on the other hand environmental regulations have tightened. Both give Alberta oil a further disadvantage. 

Historically, a pipeline builder would like to see off-take agreements for more than 50 per cent of the capacity for at least 15 years, preferably 20, before giving the go-ahead. The Chinese don’t do this type of off-take contracts. At maximum you’ll get an agreement for a few years, which is then followed by another round of tough negotiations. Energy is a commodity business where cost is king. 

On this basis, we would have to presume that the Alberta and federal governments hadn’t seen the Kinder Morgan order book before they announced an intention to financially support the company’s pipeline, because that may show a rapidly deteriorating business case. Of course, some will argue that my numbers are incorrect, and there could be a margin of error. My point is that all stakeholders need clarity on this matter. They need a better understanding on how strong the business case for Kinder Morgan is, or if this investment could turn into a “soon to be stranded“ asset. The departure of all oil majors and many large financial institutions from the province of Alberta is also a sign that should be taken into account.

There is some group Trudeau is trying to help, perhaps salvage. Could it be Canada's banks or institutional investors? He's doubling down on a bad bet so it's plain he's not looking out for the interests of the Canadian public.

It's becoming increasingly apparent that the people of BC are getting sold out by our prime minister and it sure as hell isn't so he'll have a "compromise" that secures token carbon taxes either. The incoming premier of Alberta is going to tell him where to shove his carbon taxes. The premier of Saskatchewan will sing the same refrain. Depending on the Ontario election coin toss, Trudeau may face the leaders of provinces equaling half the country against him and, let's face it, we know how quickly he folds when the political winds are not at his back.

Isn't it time Justin came clean with us?

At Last, An Ally. Merci, Quebec.

Let's hit bully boy Justin where it hurts, in his home province of Quebec, where the government has come out swinging in support of British Columbia. The first and, to date, only province that has rallied to our side.

Quebec politicians are speaking out against Ottawa's intention to override British Columbia in its opposition to the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline extension, and are calling for more collaboration with provincial governments when it comes to environmental legislation.

In an open letter published today in La Presse, Jean-Marc Fournier, the Quebec minister responsible for Canadian relations, called on the federal government to acknowledge and work with provincial legislation with regards to projects that touch both provincial and federal jurisdiction. 

"The recent assertions of federal representatives regarding the Trans Mountain pipeline, which refer to an exclusive application of federal rules, are detrimental to a proper resolution of this issue and raise concerns for the future," he wrote.

"Not a Good Sign for Federalism"

...Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard said Thursday that the federal government's plans to go ahead with the pipeline are "not a good sign for federalism."

"At the end of the day it's about people, citizens living on the land," Couillard said. "Why don't we work together and exercise our full jurisdiction?"

Trudeau's Hollow Constitutional Claims or Blowing Smoke Up Canadians' Backsides.

One federal official, Finance Minister Bill Morneau, said Friday that Ottawa is "resolved to move forward on the project." 

"We have the federal tools to do that. We will be, of course, discussing how to do that with the project proponent," Morneau said. 

Fournier said these types of claims encourage those running these projects to ignore provincial environmental rules enacted on behalf of citizens interested or affected by projects that could have environmental consequences.

DeSmogBlog's Emma Gilchrist did an insightful interview with veteran Ottawa constitutional lawyer, Jack Woodward, who, back in 1981, put pen to paper and drafted the constitutional provision enshrining aboriginal rights.

In the ensuing 37 years, Woodward has come to know a thing or two about Canada’s constitution. For one, he fought the Tsilhqot’in Nation’s title case for a quarter century, resulting in the landmark Supreme Court ruling that the nation holds title to about 1,900 square kilometres of its traditional territory in B.C. 

So when Woodward hears pundits and politicians bandying around the phrase “unconstitutional,” his ears perk up. 

“The government of Alberta will not — we cannot — let this unconstitutional attack on jobs and working people stand,” Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said after the B.C. government announced its intention to limit the transport of diluted bitumen through the province in January. 

“She’s completely wrong about that,” Woodward told DeSmog Canada. “And if she was right, she could go to court. But she knows she’s not right, so that’s why she’s using that word as if it is a political tool rather than a legal tool … That’s a superficial and incorrect view of how the Canadian constitution works.” 

...Beyond Indigenous rights, landmark rulings such as the Tsilhqot’in decision have emphasized something called “co-operative federalism.” 

“The modern trend of federalism is that nobody has the upper hand — and everyone has to work it out,” Woodward said. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statements on the Trans Mountain pipeline also seem ignorant of that reality. 

“Look, we're in a federation,” Trudeau has said. “We're going to get that pipeline built.” 

But Canada’s constitution governs by the principle that you err on the side of allowing two different laws to exist if at all possible, Woodward says. 

“So it’s true that Canada could authorize a pipeline, but it’s also true that B.C. could probably govern safety aspects of that pipeline within B.C. including regulation of hazardous products, such as diluted bitumen,” Woodward said.

Woodward's insights make Justin Trudeau's arrogance and bullying almost painfully transparent.

It may be 2,400 miles as the crow flies between Victoria and Quebec City but it's never felt closer.

Neil Macdonald on Trudeau's Betrayal of the Canadian People

Political cowardice is something we're getting used to from our federal Liberal government.  Justin Trudeau may have a lovely smile but very, very weak knees. When it comes to taking bold steps demanded of true vision, he's usually a no-show. Can you say "electoral reform"? I know Justin cannot.

Then there's the problem of Canada's decaying, sometimes derelict infrastructure. That's everything from the electrical grid to sewer and water lines, roads and highways, air and sea ports, railway lines. Those are essential services. Without them our society would probably collapse within a week after the grocery store shelves fell empty.

We're now at that point where successive governments, federal and provincial, have kicked the problem down the road so long and so far that we've run out of road.  Governments have to dig deep to come up with the money to fix what can no longer be ignored but this is the age of "Everyday Low Taxes." Absent real leadership, tax increases can destroy political futures.

I recall Richard Nixon telling David Frost that the true test of political leadership was the ability of a leader to persuade the public to support a measure that was either painful or unpleasant. If you can't get them to swallow the bitter medicine, you're shite as a leader.  Which brings us back to Trudeau, the Liberal government and our major infrastructure problem. That problem, in four words, is "somebody has to pay."

The Trudeau government, in an act that marries cowardice with betrayal, has decided to let the public sector take over the government's own responsibilities. They call it PPP or Public-Private Participation. The private contractor builds, and essentially owns, the highway recovering its costs and a hefty profit directly from the public.

One of the grand lies that's endlessly told by the politicians perpetrating this cowardly dodge is that the private sector carries all the risk. That's why they get to lard their pockets with that extra profit. It's a nice story but history, especially recent history, reminds us that it's bullshit.

By recent history I mean last month's failure of British construction giant, Carillion. The Tories had done all sorts of PPP deals with Carillion - roads, hospitals, schools, prisons, you name it. It was all great until it wasn't. When Carillion went down, all that risk bounced straight back into the laps of the public - and the public purse. After all, someone has to pick up where the outsourcing contractor left off.

But Carillion, huge as it was, still was just a fluke, right? These things happen. They sure do, a lot. Since Carillion went down two more outsourcing contractors, Interserve and Capita,  hit the skids.



The recent collapse of Carillion, which had contracts with the government to provide services such as NHS cleaning, school dinners and prison maintenance, has intensified the spotlight on the sector.

Days after Carillion plunged into liquidation, the government was forced to deny that rival outsourcer Interserve was on the same path to oblivion, after it had been reported that it was on a watchlist of troubled companies.

Serco, one of the largest outsourcing players, has been struggling to regain its financial stability since a 2013 scandal when it overcharged the Home Office for electronic tagging of criminals.

Now Capita has become the latest in the sector to suffer a major setback as its new chief executive, Jon Lewis, “kitchen-sinked” an array of bad news by releasing it all at the same time. Shares in the firm tumbled 47.5% to a 15-year low after Lewis slashed profit forecasts, announced plans to tap the market for £700m of investment and suspended a dividend that was worth more than £200m to shareholders last year.

Some industry observers saw the writing on the wall for the outsourcing sector long ago. Tim Wainwright, an expert on outsourcing at global accountancy firm EY, said outsourcers have been squeezed by the need to provide services ever more cheaply, even as their costs have risen.

So now prime minister What, Me Worry? and his finance minister Bill Churn Baby, Churn Morneau want to drag Canada - and the Canadian public - down the same road traveled by Carillion, Interserve, Serco and Capita. There you go, problem solved.

The CBC's Neil Macdonald has apparently had enough of this PPP bullshit.

Bill Morneau, our federal finance minister, tells us the government's dodgy-sounding scheme to let private investors build and manage public infrastructure is a "win-win-win," as though such a thing exists.
...

Anyway, he must feel a bit of a fool. He's from Bay Street, and must know that in business, somebody usually gets the better end of a deal, and generally, the great white sharks of the business world — the huge institutional investors he's hoping will relieve the government of a traditional responsibility — eat very well indeed.

Trudeau is even promising the private sector zero or little risk.

According to information in documents obtained by the Canadian Press, the government is promising a healthy, guaranteed "revenue stream" for years. The exact return is not specified, but such investors tend to demand between 10 and 20 per cent – "equity-like return and bond-like risk," as the Wall Street aphorism so neatly puts it.

Best of all for the investors, according to the documents, the government is suggesting it might even chip in some extra cash to pad investors' returns. It's a path to heaven with no alternate route to hell.

And guess who will pay for all this? The cheery fog exhaled by Morneau and his fellow cabinet ministers isn't very specific about that, but there is ultimately only one bill-payer, and we all know who he, or she, is.

Shooting blindfolded. Not a real confidence builder.

Government documents suggest that the goal is to raise about $240 billion from investors over the next 12 years, for a total of $300 billion in spending.

But how the government arrived at that figure is a mystery. There has been no methodical assessment of what we need. Other countries have done that sort of homework. We haven't.

The government's own Economic Advisory Council complained about this lack of data, and finally just resorted to citing estimates between $150 billion and $1 trillion. That's quite a margin. Another authoritative study, the McKinsey Report, has said there's no need at all for additional infrastructure spending in Canada.

"Meaning we don't have a clue," says an assessment by Azfar Ali Khan and Randall Bartlett, economists at the University of Ottawa's Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy. "We don't even know what and where the investment needs are."

In any case, there are precisely no projects under way. At least none that we know of. So far, apparently, it's been a confidential, informal courtship of big-money investors — a dance with tightfisted, powerful people, all looking for the sweetest deal possible.

So, kids, prepare yourselves and your own kids and their kids for a potential multi-generational ass raping. Sort of like British Columbia's Fast Cat ferry fiasco only times a gazillion. 

Money + Politics = Support for Democracy

At least that's what finance minister, Bill Morneau, says whether he believes it or not.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau is continuing to defend his fundraising activities, arguing that people who attend political fundraisers are supporting the democratic process and keeping good people in politics.

"What's happening at those fundraisers is, people are saying we support the democratic process. [They're saying] we think it's important that we have good people that go into public life and if we don't support them, we don't get good people in public life," Morneau said.

"It doesn't in any way suggest that the people that are going to a fundraiser have any different sort of access."

So, do your patriotic duty. Support democracy. Be sure to buy a ticket to Bill's next fundraiser. Hell, buy an entire table. You'll be glad you did and so will Canada's democracy. Besides it'll take your mind off the "job churn" that Bill sees in store for the grandkids.

Trade, Trade, Trade

I recall an interview with prime minister Trudeau at the 6-month mark of his ascent to power. He told the interviewer that his overarching responsibility was to be an agent of trade. Trade to grow the economy. Trade to generate prosperity.

Trudeau's Harperesque pursuit of CETA and TPP demonstrates that he means business. This goes straight back to those mandate letters he issued to his freshly minted cabinet ministers as they were sworn in. Even Catherine McKenna's marching orders stipulate that her priorities are to be the economy and the environment. There's no doubt that she meant it when she said she was "as much an economic minister as an environmental minister."

Trade it is then. But, if you're going to make trade your priority, your dominant responsibility, then surely you have to accept full responsibility for the fallout from that pursuit. That's on you, Slick.

One element of that fallout is the rise of Canada's homegrown "precariat." It's a term used to describe the future this free-trading government has bequeathed to our youth. In case you're wondering, that's a future fraught with insecurity and economic peril.

Earlier this week, Trudeau finance minister, Bill Morneau, delivered the bad news telling Canadians that they would just have to get used to "job churn" - a future of intermittent employment and a constant scramble for the next job, that essential paycheque to meet the rent and heat the apartment.

Morneau defined his government's focus will be to train and retrain and retrain regularly laid off Canadians as they're tossed "from job to job to job."

What Morneau avoided was any mention of why he's consigned Canada's most vulnerable to a nomadic working life, always wondering when the current job will end and where they'll find the next temporary spot, how long it will take to find and how they'll avoid falling through the floorboards when that inevitable dislocation happens again and again and again.

Morneau won't mention how his own government and its predecessors laid the foundation for this upheaval and uncertainty through its obsessive pursuit of neoliberalism and global free trade, the constant downward spiral. He won't explain why, when even the World Bank and International Monetary Fund can no longer remain silent on the social and economic damage inflicted by globalism, his government remains a faithful adherent to this toxic ideology.

I'm sorry Morneau and you too, Trudeau, but, when you tell Canadians to forego their hopes and resign themselves to a future in the precariat, what you're really telling them is that you won't change course and liberal democracy be damned.

It wasn't always this way. Here are a few observations from two real American Idols - Lincoln and T. Roosevelt.

Let's begin with Abraham Lincoln who declared:

“I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.”

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

If it is, indeed, man's duty "to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind," how is he to do that when his government consigns him to the precariat and tells him to "get used to it"?

If Labour is "the superior of capital" how is it that your government chooses to stack the deck so that capital prevails at the direct cost and damage to labour and our society?

Now let's turn to Teddy Roosevelt who observed:

"In every wise struggle for human betterment one of the main objects, and often the only object, has been to achieve in large measure equality of opportunity. In the struggle for this great end, nations rise from barbarism to civilization, and through it people press forward from one stage of enlightenment to the next. One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows."

"At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth."

"Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled."

"There is a wide-spread belief among our people that, under the methods of making tariffs which have hitherto obtained, the special interests are too influential. Probably this is true of both the big special interests and the little special interests. These methods have put a premium on selfishness, and, naturally, the selfish big interests have gotten more than their smaller, though equally selfish, brothers. The duty of Congress is to provide a method by which the interest of the whole people shall be all that receives consideration."

"Of conservation I shall speak more at length elsewhere. Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us. I ask nothing of the nation except that it so behave as each farmer here behaves with reference to his own children. That farmer is a poor creature who skins the land and leaves it worthless to his children. The farmer is a good farmer who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for the education of his children, leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself. I believe the same thing of a nation."

"Now, with the water power, with the forests, with the mines, we are brought face to face with the fact that there are many people who will go with us in conserving the resources only if they are to be allowed to exploit them for their benefit. That is one of the fundamental reasons why the special interests should be driven out of politics. Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us, and training them into a better race to inhabit the land and pass it on. Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the nation. Let me add that the health and vitality of our people are at least as well worth conserving as their forests, waters, lands, and minerals, and in this great work the national government must bear a most important part."

"The right to regulate the use of wealth in the public interest is universally admitted. Let us admit also the right to regulate the terms and conditions of labor, which is the chief element of wealth, directly in the interest of the common good. The fundamental thing to do for every man is to give him a chance to reach a place in which he will make the greatest possible contribution to the public welfare. Understand what I say there. Give him a chance, not push him up if he will not be pushed. Help any man who stumbles; if he lies down, it is a poor job to try to carry him; but if he is a worthy man, try your best to see that he gets a chance to show the worth that is in him. No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough so after his day’s work is done he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community, to help in carrying the general load. We keep countless men from being good citizens by the conditions of life by which we surround them."

"The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so long as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens. Just in proportion as the average man and woman are honest, capable of sound judgment and high ideals, active in public affairs, — but, first of all, sound in their home, and the father and mother of healthy children whom they bring up well, — just so far, and no farther, we may count our civilization a success."

Now, I know these passages carry a certain homespun-ness that can seem awkward but I dare you to tell me - whether you're a Conservative, New Democrat, Liberal or Green - would you really prefer a government that doesn't embrace every one of these principles? What would you give to have a government that did, a genuinely progressive party?

Climate change is, or should be, a non-partisan issue. It's the ultimate scientific question spanning the gamut of Earth sciences - geology, climatology, atmospherics and meteorology, hydrology and oceanography, physics, agronomy, epidemiology, on and on and on. Those disciplines are all separate voices. They have their own scientific focus, their own scientific history, and they each test the "hypothesis" against the best research, analysis and knowledge of their own discipline. Discipline, by discipline, by discipline - without exception - they have all tested the theory of climate change against their own strictures and found in that ever more corroboration.

Progressivism, like climate change, can and should be a non-partisan issue. You shouldn't have to be a Conservative or Liberal or, even, New Democrat to reach out and grab these precepts and notions. Even Edmund Burke wrote of matters progressive.

And so how do our Latter Day Liberals and Conservatives justify so abandoning the Canadian people and, especially, our younger generations? Who elected them to give the future the finger?

This, of course, brings us back to Morneau's finger to young and future Canadians to just "suck it up." If you were one of those kids, you might look at us and the governments we imposed on them as truly predatory acts.

I can only defend some of what we've done by claiming "we didn't know." We really didn't know the scope or the nature or the self-destructive qualities of neoliberalism. But we've had our eyes opened now,  at least other than those who chose to turn their heads, and we don't have any excuse to keep tolerating the Morneau's and the Trudeau's and Harper's of this world who see no obligation to ensure the Canada bequeathed to our young and future generations won't be a much degraded remnant of the country we have exploited for our ease and comfort.

It's not unfair to say that Morneau's dystopian vision is, in a word, revolting. That's "revolting" as in justifying resistance, civil disobedience, perhaps even upheaval. If this government isn't leaving our young people and generations to come the best possible future it can provide, if it isn't even attempting to fix this crisis of our own making, why should any young person accept it? Why should they find any legitimacy in such a government?

If I stumbled across an act of civil disobedience underway today, I would be very tempted just to look the other way. This form of governance is not legitimate to me either.