'That pipeline is going to get built:' PM dismisses B.C.'s Trans Mountain move
boereport.com/2018/02/01/that-pipeline-is-goi...
boereport.comPosted Feb 1, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC
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boereport.comI'm hoping the reason why Trudeau has been quiet on the matter is that it is simply a non issue and they'll push it through asap.
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They will. They don’t want Jason Kenny to be Premier.
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Barring a pretty big screwup, Kenny will be Premier pipeline or no.
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True, but the Wildrose UCP is pretty good at shooting themselves in the foot. There are at least two elections where it looks like the Wildrose might win and form government, and they managed to have "bozo eruptions" both times. The other thing that might screw them over is if Mandel wins Alberta Party leadership and splits the right-wing vote. It might not lead to another NDP government, but it could lead to an Alberta Party minority.
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The other thing that might screw them over is if Mandel wins Alberta Party leadership and splits the right-wing vote.
This is highly unlikely. AP has a very small base, and those who lean right won't be eager to repeat the 2015 debacle.
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Probably but they'll still try to stop that. Funny thing is with Kenny as premier the support for these pipelines probably vanishes since the Liberals certainly won't be eager to do him any favours.
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Never underestimate the distaste urban Albertans have for social conservatism. It's the reason Redford was re-elected in 2012 and why voters went to the NDP over the Wildrose in 2015. If the economy keeps up, there may very well be a chance that Notley takes Calgary and Edmonton.
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Does anyone care about stopping global warming anymore? What about keeping oil reserves in the ground? What about the money not spent on green technology? Let's face it and cut our losses. We can never be competitive globally in oil production, out costs are always going to be higher. It's a bad investment for Canada, and it always has been.
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The next 10 years of oil production is pretty much set in stone. The vast majority of it is so long term that it's happeneing regardless.
Having more pipelines just allows them to get a better price for the oil. Selling Alberta's oil for 20% more is infinitely easier and better for everyone involved than trying to increase production to offset the loses.
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I don't understand how oil production is set in stone. Do you have a source? Do you mean Canadian or worldwide? Alberta's short sightedness and undeserved optimism with regards to oil prices has happened before. Why does the rest of Canada need to support this unstable commodity at the cost of climate change credibility and inevitable spills?
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Alberta. Oil sands are very intensive projects. No one gets involved in them unless they have a clear 20-30 year production schedule. Projects that were financed pre 2014 crash are not even producing oil yet. The projects that are already planned result in an increase of production of about 30% by 2030.
Most of these projects have gigantic upfront costs. I'm talking 10 billion dollars plus. So there is almost no scenario where the big projects ever get closed down regardless of the market or political environment. They are here to stay and that oil is coming out of the ground regardless. As a result the oil sands production forecast is quite predictable even in the long term and even if future investment plummets, what's already done is going to increase production.
The problem is that right now we don't have enough pipelines to get it out of Alberta. So we are forced to sell it at a discount so that American refineries will take it all. Or we ship it by train which is very expensive.
So a pipeline will not decrease or increase production by any significant amount in the short term. It's simply a means to efficiently move it to Asia as a new market so that we do not receive such a harsh discount selling it to the US only.
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Sure. I think you are correct about the short-term planned production and probably know more than I. However you don't think a new pipeline that increases the value of the resource will encourage even more projects long-term? That doesn't make sense to me. A pipeline represents a commitment to increasing the intensity of the oil sands. I can't see it any other way. It's not the rest of Canada's problem that the investments in the oil sands were made before a pipeline was built. I'm not super anti-pipeline I just don't buy the argument that a pipeline is not going to increase future production and maintain an economically, politically, and environmentally risky dependence on a dying commodity. The Alberta carbon tax is the only comforting thing here to me and eases my anti-pipeline tendencies.
I'm saying this all of course without considering the potential for catastrophe off the BC coast. BC is doing a fine job decimating its ecosystems without the potential contribution of a lethal blow from Alberta.
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The next 10 years of oil production is pretty much set in stone.
let's say Trudeau has a change of heart and decides that Canada will never extract one more drop of oil, starting today. How is oil production "set in stone" then?
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He could also declare martial law and rule indefinitely but I'm comfortable saying the next election is set in stone to be a maximum of five years
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ah right, so to be clear: you are saying that our oil production is set in stone because our leaders do not wish to do anything about it?
This seems like a strange point to me, because that is exactly the thing that environmentalists are complaining about, but you are using it as a rebuttal to an environmentalist point?
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Management of ressources is a provincial responsibility so I'm not sure how you think he would do that.
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That's never stopped the feds before. Healthcare is also provincial, yet universal healthcare is federally mandated.
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That's never stopped the feds before. Healthcare is also provincial, yet universal healthcare is federally mandated.
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Such comments play right into the hands of protectionist US interests that have no desire to see Canada diversify its oil markets. There is a level of thinking in some US circles that sees Canadian oil as really "theirs", and therefore forever destined to remain landlocked and lockstepped with US refineries.
I for one resent US interests and US foundations funneling money to Canadian protest groups. I for one resent this interference in Canadian domestic affairs.
Don't be a stooge for US lobby groups.
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And Kinder Morgan is... not... an American company?
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And your comment is an attempt to capitalize on anti-American sentiment without even addressing the ecological argument for ramping down fossil fuel production.
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That won't happen overnight, and in the meantime, we still need sources of energy and Alberta still needs an economy. It's easy to say "rip the bandaid off" when you're not the one that was facing 10% unemployment.
Likewise, energy isn't the only product of oil. We have a lot of products that rely on oil for production.
All blocking pipelines will do is keep the cost of our oil higher than it needs to be, and make it more dangerous to transport. Pipelines are far from perfect, but they are probably the safest method of transport we have.
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Blocking oil pipelines won't solve climate change. Transitioning China and India from coal to low carbon energy sources will.
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We need to do it too though. It's much more difficult to tell another country to do something, than it is for us to do it. China more recently has been investing in clean energy as well.
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And it makes our own transitions to a cleaner economy much more untenable if pipelines inherently make our own oil more valuable. We're effectively entrenching our economic dependence on oil.
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And Canada continues to export megatons of coal to them, never mind the anti-oil “leave it in the ground” “no pipelines” sentiments and political posturing.
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It's only a bad investment because US companies are driving down Canadian resource prices.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wti-wcs-gmp-dwarkin-rseg-oil-1.4491527
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Or you properly account for the dollar-costs of global warming. This added cost is also all too frequently ignored, and oil companies have a vested interest in making sure it's not counted. Every year, every country has to spend more of it's money than the year before repairing the costs of forest fires, floods, replacing depleted aquifers, and extreme weather events. The costs will keep rising as long as the temperature does.
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It's almost as if you need money to create green infistructure and oil and gas provides money.
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Fighting fire with gasoline.
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Works well if its well planned and controlled.
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That's always been the rhetoric, when in practice we haven't seen investment in green infrastructure to match investment in fossil fuel extraction or any reasonable attempt to harness those profits for green projects. That line is a fucking grift by those who stand to profit from fossil fuel extraction
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I do. We can't build new fossil fuel infrastructure. We need to leave it in the ground and the longer we take, the less chance we have of surviving climate change. Don't get distracted by pipelines versus rail, or any of the other talk. I don't care who gets what price for our oil. The economy is simply a choice--we need to choose to build green infrastructure and we need to get started right now. Not only do we need to stop new pipelines, we need to shut the valves on existing ones.
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Are you saying we should just stop oil production, world wide, right now? Do you really feel we should just stop making plastics etc, stop shipping stuff overseas, and stop flying planes? No more computers? I'm always puzzled by this. Instead of some debate about doing it safely or something, some people always feel the answer to anything oil based is no. Can't we care about climate change AND not return to 1700s level of technology? This all or nothing is silly and unrealistic.
"We can never be competitive globally in oil production, out costs are always going to be higher. It's a bad investment for Canada, and it always has been."
The jobs in Alberta during the boom refute your "always has been" pretty dramatically.
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For more information: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/01/31/news/big-five-albertas-oilpatch-suspected-sitting-2-trillion-liability
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I see a lot of should and ifs.
Serious question tho what's the plan? So today we announce all oil and gas in Canada will stop, what's next in your plan? Instead of saying "just stop!" what is the plan to replace plastic, computers, cars, boats, air planes? Not in 10 years, I mean right now since that is what this thread is asking for. What is the first step to be done tomorrow?
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Those jobs were subsidized both directly and because those companies were not paying the true cost of resource extraction (the emissions are an externality).
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Not sure how anything you said makes us uncompetitive. Do you feel that no other country does subsidies for business? Do you not consider other countries who have more lax safety laws not a form of subsidies indirectly? Fact is not only did the rich make money off of oil, but so did the peons working in camps. Now, is that still true? I don't know, but to the person I was talking to who implied the oil business has never been helpful to Canada, that is simply not true. Look at Alberta in the early 2000s. Jobs were created. Province did well. Without that oil money it likely would not have done as well, just look at Saskatchewan during that same time period.
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- You underestimate the extent to which tar sands development has been subsidized by government in the 80s and 90s. The sector would be much smaller now if it weren't for that intervention.
The reality is this is a mess of our own making. Our own poor choices. We ought to accept those consequences with dignity. We should have started this process in the 70s and 80s when the scientific evidence became clear and irrefutable. But instead we let the oil industry do what the tabbacco industry did and let them undermine all the science, and us PR to encourage inaction. Now here we are. 40 years wasted.
The science is clear, you cannot dig up the remaining carbon sinks and stop global warming. You think the costs of stopping further fossil fuels exploration is high? Go look at the costs of climate change.
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That isn't the plan, it never has been the plan. This is a fantasy that some environmentalists have invented for themselves.
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As the Fed ignores Thompson River steelhead extinction. Why would they give a shit about any other extremely sensitive ecosystems? The sooner things go extinct the easier it is to push through any project. With record declines in returning Salmon and Steelhead to BC tributaries things are looking pretty great for pipeline companies. Another 15 years and we'll be 100% hatchery fish which means they will not have to worry about things like "permission to build pipelines next to rivers".
Yep.
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Another 15 years and we'll be 100% hatchery fish which means they will not have to worry about things like "permission to build pipelines next to rivers".
Precisely. The glorious PM Trudeau is just showing he cares more about the will of multinational corporations than the will of the people.
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BC doesn't want the pipeline. They take all the risk and see very little of the reward. Well tooooo bad for them.
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Exactly, it isn't Alberta's land and marine wild life reserves that are in trouble once this pipeline breaks.
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He better stick to his guns on this. Losing some Liberal seats in BC is less important than the longer-term future of Canada.
The same goes for NAFTA: it would be unfortunate if we blow the deal by being stubborn on supply management or some of the other petty bull-shit they've got on the table.
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It'll be interesting to hear how he frames his message when he's speaking in Vancouver.
Easy to say the right thing when you're in Edmonton.
Given his history to not mince words, I fully expect him to re-iterate this position. He may be more than willing to sacrifice some seats in BC for fear of losing ground to the Tories on this issue.
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He might get eastern BC, but Alberta is never, ever, going to vote for a Trudeau (Outside of maybe two or three seats in Edmonton). I really don't understand his political calculus here, actually.
His strategy is to do what is right for the country, not win political points.
Why is the pipeline dumb as hell?
the potential cost to BC is astronomical compared to the potential benefits. One spill at the cost can utterly destroy multiple BC industries. And pipelines spill... frequently
They want the output to go into Burrard inlet, just outside Capitol hill (IIRC). There is a lot of fishing industries that operate in the Burrard Inlet, a very large chunk of our fishing industries in fact. There is also a lot of tourism that runs there, as well as our main import export (Vancouver docks), all of that would be impacted, or worse, shut down if an oil spill occurred in the area as it would flood the inlet.
And we already know that the oil companies have said that they will pay for the fix of the pipes, but will not pay for most of the cleanup
All this so we can create an extra 50 jobs... 50. Whole. Jobs.
So what are our governments doing to ensure that if a spill of a modern super tanker hits our coast lines (that's 575,000 barrels, not the Valdez's 260,000 barrels)...?
1 Whole billion dollars of resources to cover something that in Vancouver, in this day, would cost, estimated, well over $20 billion... All so we can get 50 jobs, and Alberta can get more money before oil is worthless.
The oil pipeline is our government gambling our future away to fix the present.
He's a neoliberal and his provincial party in BC took a beating last election, so I imagine he wont mince words.
The BC Liberals are associated to the federal Liberals in name only, so "his provincial party" isn't accurate at all. http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bc-election-2017-bc-liberals-different-federal-liberals
He has a much bigger overlap with the BC Liberals given that the BC Liberals are a coalition of federal Liberal and Conservative voters.
Despite the name the overlap exists more on the conservative end however and my personal experience is that Trudeau supporters rarely if ever support the BCLiberals. As the article I posted points out:
I can tell you don't live in BC.
What do you mean? They went from a multi-year majority into a scraped minority, pushing long-standing Clark to resign. Most of Vancouver core voted NDP, the Libs rode on interior votes. If that's not a beating given the BC's Liberals' history I don't know what is.
Are you talking about the provincial election where the Liberals won more seats and received more votes than any other party?
Is that the beating you're talking about?
The one where a multi-year majority turned into a 2-seat minority, forcing Clark to finally resign. The one where most of Vancouver voted NDP. Yeah that beating.