40 thoughts on “Dear Enbridge. What part of ‘We don’t want your pipeline’ do you not understand? Best regards, Laila”
watching chris gailus interview janet holder of enbridge on global we where told they will not consider a no to the pipeline no matter how hard the opposition. claims they have learned from the kalamazoo disaster are not believable . i am as many are very concerned for our beautyful coastline. all in the name of greed money and power .
Canada is a resource driven economy. Most people do not realize it but they are working in the ‘service industry’. Whether you are a doctor, lawyer, teacher, cop, bus driver, truck driver, taxi driver, in insurance, sales, the financial sector, banking, the food industry, work as a mechanic, build houses, or an electrician, gov’t worker, etc, etc, you are in the service industry. The service industry does not generate anything for outside consumption. Industries like manufacturing, fishing, and farming where goods are sold to other countries bring outside money into the country. So also does logging and mining. Only mining, farming and logging are filling the bill. Manufacturing back east has taken a hit. What Canadians need to know is that in order to sustain our standard of living, we must sell our resources to other countries. From an economic point of view, we simply do not have a choice as to whether we should sell our oil or not.
If you haven’t noticed, there has been a continual tightening in the economy. Everything is costing more and more. We don’t just need better management of the existing dollars, we need more dollars coming in. For example, the teachers want more money in B.C. and they don’t really have an idea of where money comes from. So also does the medical system. Countries who have neglected exports are descending into poverty and chaos.
The question isn’t whether or not we should build pipeline and export the oil. The question is how can we do it in the safest most environmentally sound way. For everyones benefit, we need to go into over kill. Use better thicker pipe than we need. Have more monitoring stations. Use only the latest double hulled tankers with the best pilots and more tugs than we need. Do continual inspection. I could go on and on.
It is true that planes still crash, but my concern in terms of getting on a plane has never been the safety of the plane. It has always been the size and location of the seat or the price of the ticket.
There are probably over 5000 oil tankers sailing the world’s oceans today. As we know, problems have been minute and the few that we have seen could have been prevented. Today’s new tankers are much better, stronger, safer and more sophisticated that ones made even 20 years ago.
Unless we are all willing to stop driving cars or eating fresh vegetables or paying much more for everything, we need to sell our oil. If you think that the world can be fed, housed, transported, and heated without petro products, you are mistaken.
A local well respected liberal leaning (as opposed to small ‘c’ conservative) radio talk show host said, “we need to do it, but we just need to do it in the most envoronmentally safe way”.
That’s where I am at.
I don’t think anyone can argue that we are very much a resource driven economy.So much of what we use and rely on in our daily lives is petroleum based in some manner. Packaging,products,transportation etc. No argument there whether people realize it or not.
The issue is that Enbridge has such a tragic track record here in and in the US. Its isn’t the worse – that dubious distinction belongs to BP, but in my opinion, it hasn’t shown a commitment to safety and environmental stewardship.
I have no problem using the resource. What I have a problem with is allowing the oil and gas companies to reap the majority of the benefit, while cutting “harvest and marketing” costs to the bone so they can show bigger and bigger profits. Those resources belong to Alberta and to Canada, and to a lesser extent – if they want to come thru here – BC. Why are we not insisting it be harvested in a manner that maximizes benefit to us? The story about the Edmonton hospital this morning is a perfect example of the Alberta and Canadian government failing to get what we can out of the resource. Why are we making oil companies rich? Why aren’t we ensuring that it lasts as many generations as we can make it and why aren’t we doing every single thing we can to maximize Canadian employment and our economy BEFORE it leaves here? There’s no way in hell that a company like Enbridge, who has shown the world time and time again how irresponsible they are, is going to be allowed to run their pipeline full of bitumen thru our province and then ship that crap along our Coast. And the Harpercons best be careful. There’s an election coming next year and they can’t win without BC……
Hi Cheryl, you spoke of making the oil and gas companies rich. These are publicly traded companies owned by the shareholders. You yourself can invest by purchasing shares. If you have money in a Mutual fund, you probably already own a piece of the pie.
These ‘so called’ rich companies pay taxes. They also pay high wages to people who pay taxes. They pay royalties.They pay to restore the environment to its original condition when the are is mined out. They risk their capital.
In terms of cutting costs to the bone, I sure wish bloated governments could do the same. Make no mistake, selling our resources will make a significant improvement in the quality of life for all Canadians. As for Enbridge, our role is make them accountable in every area and to continue to monitor the situation. You may not realize it but we are fortunate that someone has stepped up to the plate with private funds. The ‘environmentalists’ have ran a non-stop smear campaign against Enbridge. The problem here is that the info that most peole have is garnered from a news blurb instead of looking at the facts.
Let’s face the “facts” Mack, most people live from paycheck to paycheck doesn’t have the capacity to invest in oil companies. Those that do are sheared like sheep. The only people that make money on the stock market are the insiders, as we all witnessed first hand before and after the 2008 financial meltdown. In mutual funds, the people who invest in these provide 100% of the funds and risk to receive only 20% if any of the proceeds, if they are lucky, due to excessive fees and incompetence.
These oil companies are rich because the pay little or no taxes and in most cases are SUBSIDIZED by the taxpayer for their exploration and start-up costs.
Why is it that oil companies in Norway, with a population of 5 million, are more than happy to pay decent royalties that has allowed them to save 1TRILLION dollars when Alberta, with a population of 4 million, is 2 billion dollars, that they admit to,?? In debt? ……if these oil companies are paying their fair share of taxes.
Why is the highway to the oil sands a two lane goat trail that is used way over its capacity and kills people on a monthly basis when, for one days production from these same oil sands, it could be four laned in its entirety.
Why have Chinese, Norwegian and other government owned companies invested in oil sands while our Federal and Provincial governments sat in the bleachers to cheer them on?
As for Enbridge, the “environmentalists “didn’t have to run a smear campaign, they did their own smearing with the Kalamazoo oil spill debacle, one of many they tried to gloss over as an unfortunate occurrences.
What have I got wrong here mack?
Oh, and tell us about the high paid unionized workers who were fired so they could be replaced with cheap foreign labour, not to mention the Chinese workers already there being treated like slaves and having their wages stolen???
CGHZD
More than 1000 “environmentalists” spoke to the NEB Joint Review Panel about the pipeline. Many of those environmentalists were scientists and engineers. Some of us were standing up for Burns Lake, Smithers, Terrace, and Kitimat, not to mention the traditional lands of the Haisla and the Yinka Dene who don’t want the risk of that line destroying the economic activity that already takes place in those towns and lands.
What is the potential gain for Enbridge? Money. Short term money. Except that the source of the pipeline is majority owned by China. The refinery is in China. We have a nice new temporary foreign workers act that will allow the constructor of the pipeline (who has not been named- could even be foreign) to bring in foreign workers. Enbridge also has not been able to say whose tankers will ship the dilbit. Could be Chinese. How much profit do you think is coming to Canada for any of this?
What is the potential gain for “environmentalists”? Only the continued safety of an ecosystem that is integral to every living thing connected to it. Only our lives. That is it.
Let’s be honest here, Chris.
The “so-called” rich companies don’t pay a dime in taxes. They are HEAVILY subsidized now through Federal and Provincial regimes, and the royalties which they pay for the ability to remove the resource from the ground is negligible at best. Take BC groundwater, for example. Or, take the now heavily indebted Alberta Heritage Fund which has been pillaged by successive governments because of the drying up of money reserves resultant of a lower and lower provincial royalty rate.
No Canadian in their right mind would deny that we are a resource driven economy. The difference is now that it no longer benefits the public, and only benefits those private shareholders who can afford to buy in to the scheme.
What are we to believe from you, Chris, when you make such patronizing statements as “you may not realize it but we are fortunate that someone has stepped up to the plate with private funds”? Then telling us that we are not fact-finders, but merely people who passively accept the written word of a news story?
I challenge you to show me the facts of any oil and gas company who actually pays for the infrastructure needed to open a site and get the resource extracted. I will bet you can find none.
Well, I guess there’s nothing left for me to say, eh Chris? Everyone appears to have said about everything there is to say……except, I call bullshit to your answer.
“They risk their capital.”
“Make no mistake, selling our resources will make a significant improvement in the quality of life for all Canadians.”
This is nonsense thinking….
Selling our raw resources is ridding ourselves of capital Chris. You have 1 million dollars. Do you invest this capital and live off the interest or do you spend the capital until it is exhausted.
If the second choice, what to do when there is no money left? So by extension what do Canadians do when all of the resources are depleted? What does Canada have to offer then?
This argument is as faulty now as it was two years ago. We do NOT have to send diluted bitumen across B.C. and over to Asian markets. We are selling our souls to the devil, and the devil’s name is Stephen Harper.
Absolutely we should mine our resources and use the income to the benefit of Alberta, BC and rest of Canada. If that means using them to the benefit of our manufacturing & transportation industries, instead of wasting them on fueling ships and digging trenches for the benefit our ‘providers’ then that is a sensible decision.
Sending them at vast expense and environmental risk to the rest of the world to send back to us is not!
Removing 5000 oil tankers from the worlds oceans would benefit us all. Except maybe Paul Martin.
I would argue that resource extraction in itself doesn’t create wealth and that merely selling those resources is not the most wealth creating thing we can do with them. We only really create wealth when we make something. If we have outsourced all our refining and manufacturing to another country we have missed the opportunity to create wealth.
Furthermore, our “bloated government” is giving billions of dollars in subsidies to corporations that are merely bleeding off our resources or creating advertisements to tell us what a great thing this is.
Dollars to donuts, Enbridge lobbyists are paid too much to know better. It comes down to $$…and I doubt they really care about us that say ‘no!’ The environment is just one obstacle to them…and I’m hoping the First Nations soon start pushing hard on the ‘Not a chance’ issue as well.
CGHZD,
If you are living pay check to pay check, you could make a much better income in northern Alberta or northern BC. There are presently a lot of good paying jobs up there with many more to come.
In terms of retirement, it would be a good idea for you to put some money in RRSP’s or a TFSA. With ‘active investing’ v/s ‘buy and hold’, you can sell if the market is dropping, go into cash, and buy in again when prices drop.
We are very fortunate to be Canadians. Huge land mass. Huge natural resources, Democratic. Well educated population, Capitalism with a social conscience. Mining expertise that is world renowned. We have it all. We just need to use it.
As for the First Nations, what they have before them is a wonderful opportunity for them to get trained for the skilled positions that are needed and the ones that will be needed so that they can start participating more fully in the economy. What these folks badly need is good skilled long term highly paid jobs, as do the rest of us.
chris mack
What color is the sky in your world. We have a Fascist government, which means we are being governed by a government that is run by corporations for the for the good of corporations. What part of the RRSP scam don’t you understand. This is not saving for the future its about being scammed by the banks and insurance companies. This is an excerpt from a Frontline documentary on mutual funds that make up most of the RRSP’S in Canada. The difference being we are charged more like 5% or more in Canada.
“It’s this simple: Fund fees can erode as much as half or more of your prospective gains.
For the sake of dramatizing the point, John Bogle, founder of Vanguard, the world’s largest mutual fund company and pioneer of low-cost index funds, gave me a startling example while we were filming. Assume you are invested in a mutual fund, he says, with a gross return of 7 percent, but that the mutual fund charges you an annual fee of 2 percent.
Over a 50-year investing lifetime, that little 2 percent fee will erode 63 percent of what you would have had. As Bogle puts it, “the tyranny of compounding costs” is overwhelming.”
Are these people wrong or am I dreaming?
The only pension plan you can really count on to be there when you need it is the Canada Pension plan and your HarperCon buddies are doing their best to screw it over. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement-gamble/
Your right, we have it all……..being stolen from under our noses.
CGHZD
W currently live in an age of Victorian Laissez-faire, where the worlds wealthy control about 99% of the wealth and the last 1% trickles down to the great unwashed. Neoclassical capitalism is the great religion of the corporate military empires that have formed a cabal to run the world.
Global corporations are landless countries that have, by stealth, fear, and duplicity have become more powerful that the actual countries that allow them to exist. Shipping bitumen by pipeline is only a means to a profitable end and if there is a major spill it doesn’t matter because you and I and the great unwashed will pay for it.
This is the new age of Fascism, brought to you by governments which two generations ago fought against Fascism and all the evil it entailed. It seems our politicians and corporate friends have learned well from past events.
Unless we have the moral fortitude to stand up to what is tantamount to an enemy, the pipe line will go through, bitumen will be spill form broken pipelines or grounded tankers; our politicians will run around crying shock and disbelief, and global corporations will make billions in profits, that our corrupted politicians have allowed them to.
As for today’s stock market, can you say “ponzi scheme”.
Would the tar sand be profitable if we made them pay for the water they now
get for free ? Or clean up the 60 km of tailings ponds that are only getting bigger. In the end Canadians will be left with hundreds of billions in clean up costs . And a ditch where alberta was.
You know ….. prosperity.
JasonS, What?
Are you unaware that all mining companies must set aside funds for reclamation of the mined area because they have to restore it to a natural state. Where do you people get this stuff?
I would like to see the amounts of funds that the multiple different companies have saved for “reclamation” . Does this money go to a third party so that we can actually get our hands on it , or will it go towards lawyers to contest the amount they have been charged.
Also that money for reclamation is to fill in the giant holes that can bee seen from space but does that include treating and cleaning up the 60+ kilometers of tailings ponds.
And you didn’t mention the free water they get to pollute. Could you troll back to your handlers and ask them what drivel you should respond with now please.
Whenever we need more money for services, we’re always a poor nation. Whenever we need more money for politician’s raises in pay, for security for G-20 spectacles, for fighter jets with no engines, etc, etc, we’re suddenly instantly wealthy.
Mr. Mack / Enbridge / PAB aka Government Communications and Public Engagement!!
Yup that’s why the Harper/Campbell/Clark BC Liberals now have BC $$$$$170 BILLION IN DEBT and the Harper Cons and most municipal governments (especially in Surrey, BC) have us MEGA BILLIONS OF DOLLARS MORE IN DEBT. FYI this massive debt can never be paid off and will continue for as long as these fascist governments rule Canada.
How did that happen?
Wow!!! Somebody like me is for free enterprize, capitalism, real jobs, skilled workers, utilizing our resources in the most responsible manner possible, sending out exports and bringing some real dollars into our economy, a social conscience and all of sudden I’m a facist! And all because I want to see some pipelines built, jobs for Canadians and our goods sent to market??!!
Do I doubt that gov’t is fraught with folly? Hardly. When you have a 4 year election cycle, the politicians are always looking ahead to the next election and getting re-elected. This leads to a systemic problem where long term planning is thrown out the window. To their credit, the B.C. Liberals have built some bridges and laid a lot of asphalt which is a good and necessary thing. The federal Conservatives are overseeing the running of one of the best economies in the world.
In the U.S., ‘entitlements’ have bankrupted the Americans and their debt is so huge that it is simply unpayable. That’s why interest rates are low, and the world is simultaneously experiencing deflation and inflation. The Stock market in the U.S. is being pumped with funny money. For some help understanding this, just read the articles on Sprott Asset Mgt.’s website. We Canadians are in a much much better place and have everything that it takes to succeed if only we can get out of our own way.
The third and second world economies want to come out of poverty and live like the rest of the world. They are determined to do it and they will succeed. They will do it with or without our oil and natural gas. They will just get it elsewhere and somebody else’s economy will enjoy the benefits.
Technology has made huge strides forward. Los Angeles is still car land but the smog has seriously abated from where it once was and they have more cars than ever. Cars are more fuel efficient than ever and will continue to improve. Many Chinese are living in smog but nuclear power and electric cars will clean up their air. They are building the latest generation reactors at a fast pace.
We are living in a global village and we need to get our products to market or we will lose our present standard of living. Jean spoke of massive debt. The only way we can ever pay off our debts and thrive is to utilize our massive resources. I am continually amazed at people who complain about not enough money for teachers, schools, health care etc on the one hand and continue to stand in the way of economic progress at the same time.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, most of us are in the service industry where dollars just circulate on a merry go round. We need real jobs that bring in real money from outside the country. Am I a facist because I would like to see more people have ‘real jobs’? Show me a family with good paying skilled long term jobs and you are showing me a happy family. It might behoove some of you folks to define and understand the meaning of the pejorative terms that you use as you are embarrassing yourselves and your point of view by using them.
One last thing. As I have been watching our athletes at Sochi, I have been feeling a lot of pride. Canadians are well liked all over the world and there is a reason for it. We are perceived as good and decent hard working fair minded people with a social conscience. And our winter Olympics only cost $7 billion compared to the new number of $70 billion (up from $50) that I am hearing that Russia spent for a lot of substandard structures. Yes, we can do it better in Canada.
Only $7 billion, you say. Where did you find that info? To my knowledge, Campbell never did divulge the true cost of the Vancouver Owelympics. Could that figure be just something you ‘heard’?
More drivel! When you mention‘entitlements’ (have bankrupted the Americans) your tipping off your membership as a troll in the Tea party, Reform Crap Con party of nutbars.
CHIZD,
47 million Americans, that’s 1 in 6 Americans are presently on food stamps. “Food Stamps” are an ‘entitlement’. This is simply not sustainable. I could also mention the unfunded liabilities that will make their future precarious.
A ‘troll’ for the Tea Party. Come on. Gimme a break. As a Canadian, I have nothing to do with the Tea Party. Now let’s be civil. I haven’t called you a dirty rotten stinking Commie just because you have a different view, have I?
Once again, we need to utilize our natural resources or we could go down into the same pit as the U.S. is now in. Their debt is simply unpayable. We need to be proactive and head off our potential problem at the pass.
Call me anything you want. You still haven’t told us why, in your learned opinion, Alberta is Billions in debt while a country like Norway has a trillion dollar trust fund from their resources. So that begs the other question, why should we put our environment in peril
with irreversible consequences for basically billions of debt. In other words mack, no matter how much you push the drivel about utilizing what you say are OUR resources, we, as Canadians, are getting chump change, debt and environmental ruin in return.
As far as your ‘entitlement’ bs, you strike me as one of those pathetic small minded Neo/Con Harper Bots that would be elbowing your way in to get your ‘entitlement’ Canadian medical if your health suddenly went south.
So, tell us, are you really plying your trade out of some Reform/Crap/HarperCon troll basement.
Enbridge pipeline debate and hearings may well come to be remembered as the biggest “Red Herring” story in history.
The real prize, and it has always been, is the future of offshore drilling. Industry and government both covet this end game and it will happen sooner, not later than most believe.
The oil and gas industry has taken a “layered” approach to development, particularly in North America where the government approval process is much more rigorous. They pick and choose their fights always having a back door plan in place.
Don’t be surprised if a tradeoff results with the pipeline proposal being suspended while an alternative proposal is sought.
This strategy, if you can call it that, is intended to keep the environmental lobby on its heals while depleting their resources and energy to fight. The endgame will bring government on side with their support and allow them to claim the moral high ground at the same time.
They believe they can be successful for one reason alone, you and I will not be around to fight them.
So what does the short term look like. Perhaps a much smaller pipe line that lessons the danger. Couple that with fewer larger tankers running on a seasonal movement schedule and stockpiling of product at designated locations.
The choice will inevitably come down to picking between “bad” and “awful” with “bad” winning out.
If the game plays out in this fashion, we all need to come to grips with what we will accept in the future because it is being written right now.
Enbridge is at best, a diversion keeping us focused away from the real prize.
I have posted this information in other places over the previous several weeks regarding the pipline matter;
The white elephant that no one seems to have a desire to address is the long standing Delgamuukw decision;
“The legal significance of those passages is that the Indian “Interest” within the meaning of section 109 of the Constitution Act, 1867, was not involved in the appeal. Section 109 is the section that says the Crown’s CONSTITUTIONAL “Interest” is subject to the Indian CONSTITUTIONAL “Interest” so long as the Indian “Interest” has not been sold to the Crown by a valid treaty.
It confirms that Indian sovereignty, i.e., exclusive jurisdiction and sole possession, is the supreme law of the land pending treaty and, correspondingly, establishes the utter irrelevance of Crown Parliamentary legislation and Crown court recent inventions based upon the “common law”.”
In BC much of the province is unceded territory. So in the absence of signed treaties, go back and read the last paragraph of what I posted from the Delgamuukw decision.
It states that where there is an absence of a signed treaty the Indian sovereignty is exclusive jurisdiction and sole possession, along with stating that any Crown decisions based upon common law are overridden by this.
So in other words Crown Parliamentary laws are superseded by Indian sovereignty and the Crown court “recent inventions” statement I take to be referring to exactly that; the notwithstanding clause as this is an invention of the Crown based upon common law.
There would be no eminent domain either. Game, set, and match goes to First Nations.
Oh yes and that is why so many people (ha ha people with huge corporate interest) go about the internet blogging racists things about FN people. I say thank gawd for FNs because if they hadn’t spoken out and protested a lot of BC would already be ruined by greedy a-holes.
Hi Abby,
I am starting to be of the opinion there is a reason behind the government selling the resources to another nation even when those resources are still in the ground.
Think about the trade agreement language and how one nation can sue another for damages.
By selling the resource this would excuse the Canadian feds and pit one nation, let’s say China, against First Nations.
The problem with this is I believe the feds are selling property that isn’t theirs to sell. Any resource in unceded territory does not belong to the feds.
I think the FN would have a case in the UN for economic and cultural genocide because that is what this amounts to exactly. A pipeline rupture or shipping accident will destroy an economy, a way of life, and a culture that depends upon the land and sea for food sustenance.
An off topic irony;
Recently I saw a news reel of some farm in Alberta, close to Calgary, can’t recall the name but it begins with a W….
Anyways there is a big push on to save this grassland farm to preserve the ranching way of life for Alberta ranchers…..
I immediately thought; here we have a group of Albertans who want to preserve their way of life but are perfectly willing to stand idly by and watch their neighbours here in British Columbia way of life destroyed, or possibly destroyed,by this dumbass idea of selling off Canada’s resources.
Westcoast Views with Laila Yuile 
watching chris gailus interview janet holder of enbridge on global we where told they will not consider a no to the pipeline no matter how hard the opposition. claims they have learned from the kalamazoo disaster are not believable . i am as many are very concerned for our beautyful coastline. all in the name of greed money and power .
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Canada is a resource driven economy. Most people do not realize it but they are working in the ‘service industry’. Whether you are a doctor, lawyer, teacher, cop, bus driver, truck driver, taxi driver, in insurance, sales, the financial sector, banking, the food industry, work as a mechanic, build houses, or an electrician, gov’t worker, etc, etc, you are in the service industry. The service industry does not generate anything for outside consumption. Industries like manufacturing, fishing, and farming where goods are sold to other countries bring outside money into the country. So also does logging and mining. Only mining, farming and logging are filling the bill. Manufacturing back east has taken a hit. What Canadians need to know is that in order to sustain our standard of living, we must sell our resources to other countries. From an economic point of view, we simply do not have a choice as to whether we should sell our oil or not.
If you haven’t noticed, there has been a continual tightening in the economy. Everything is costing more and more. We don’t just need better management of the existing dollars, we need more dollars coming in. For example, the teachers want more money in B.C. and they don’t really have an idea of where money comes from. So also does the medical system. Countries who have neglected exports are descending into poverty and chaos.
The question isn’t whether or not we should build pipeline and export the oil. The question is how can we do it in the safest most environmentally sound way. For everyones benefit, we need to go into over kill. Use better thicker pipe than we need. Have more monitoring stations. Use only the latest double hulled tankers with the best pilots and more tugs than we need. Do continual inspection. I could go on and on.
It is true that planes still crash, but my concern in terms of getting on a plane has never been the safety of the plane. It has always been the size and location of the seat or the price of the ticket.
There are probably over 5000 oil tankers sailing the world’s oceans today. As we know, problems have been minute and the few that we have seen could have been prevented. Today’s new tankers are much better, stronger, safer and more sophisticated that ones made even 20 years ago.
Unless we are all willing to stop driving cars or eating fresh vegetables or paying much more for everything, we need to sell our oil. If you think that the world can be fed, housed, transported, and heated without petro products, you are mistaken.
A local well respected liberal leaning (as opposed to small ‘c’ conservative) radio talk show host said, “we need to do it, but we just need to do it in the most envoronmentally safe way”.
That’s where I am at.
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I don’t think anyone can argue that we are very much a resource driven economy.So much of what we use and rely on in our daily lives is petroleum based in some manner. Packaging,products,transportation etc. No argument there whether people realize it or not.
The issue is that Enbridge has such a tragic track record here in and in the US. Its isn’t the worse – that dubious distinction belongs to BP, but in my opinion, it hasn’t shown a commitment to safety and environmental stewardship.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/07/31/EnbridgeDirtyDozen/
http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/2013/04/05/Enbridge-Pumping-Stations/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/enbridge-breaks-safety-rules-at-pipeline-pump-stations-across-canada-1.1316100
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I have no problem using the resource. What I have a problem with is allowing the oil and gas companies to reap the majority of the benefit, while cutting “harvest and marketing” costs to the bone so they can show bigger and bigger profits. Those resources belong to Alberta and to Canada, and to a lesser extent – if they want to come thru here – BC. Why are we not insisting it be harvested in a manner that maximizes benefit to us? The story about the Edmonton hospital this morning is a perfect example of the Alberta and Canadian government failing to get what we can out of the resource. Why are we making oil companies rich? Why aren’t we ensuring that it lasts as many generations as we can make it and why aren’t we doing every single thing we can to maximize Canadian employment and our economy BEFORE it leaves here? There’s no way in hell that a company like Enbridge, who has shown the world time and time again how irresponsible they are, is going to be allowed to run their pipeline full of bitumen thru our province and then ship that crap along our Coast. And the Harpercons best be careful. There’s an election coming next year and they can’t win without BC……
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Hi Cheryl, you spoke of making the oil and gas companies rich. These are publicly traded companies owned by the shareholders. You yourself can invest by purchasing shares. If you have money in a Mutual fund, you probably already own a piece of the pie.
These ‘so called’ rich companies pay taxes. They also pay high wages to people who pay taxes. They pay royalties.They pay to restore the environment to its original condition when the are is mined out. They risk their capital.
In terms of cutting costs to the bone, I sure wish bloated governments could do the same. Make no mistake, selling our resources will make a significant improvement in the quality of life for all Canadians. As for Enbridge, our role is make them accountable in every area and to continue to monitor the situation. You may not realize it but we are fortunate that someone has stepped up to the plate with private funds. The ‘environmentalists’ have ran a non-stop smear campaign against Enbridge. The problem here is that the info that most peole have is garnered from a news blurb instead of looking at the facts.
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Let’s face the “facts” Mack, most people live from paycheck to paycheck doesn’t have the capacity to invest in oil companies. Those that do are sheared like sheep. The only people that make money on the stock market are the insiders, as we all witnessed first hand before and after the 2008 financial meltdown. In mutual funds, the people who invest in these provide 100% of the funds and risk to receive only 20% if any of the proceeds, if they are lucky, due to excessive fees and incompetence.
These oil companies are rich because the pay little or no taxes and in most cases are SUBSIDIZED by the taxpayer for their exploration and start-up costs.
Why is it that oil companies in Norway, with a population of 5 million, are more than happy to pay decent royalties that has allowed them to save 1TRILLION dollars when Alberta, with a population of 4 million, is 2 billion dollars, that they admit to,?? In debt? ……if these oil companies are paying their fair share of taxes.
Why is the highway to the oil sands a two lane goat trail that is used way over its capacity and kills people on a monthly basis when, for one days production from these same oil sands, it could be four laned in its entirety.
Why have Chinese, Norwegian and other government owned companies invested in oil sands while our Federal and Provincial governments sat in the bleachers to cheer them on?
As for Enbridge, the “environmentalists “didn’t have to run a smear campaign, they did their own smearing with the Kalamazoo oil spill debacle, one of many they tried to gloss over as an unfortunate occurrences.
What have I got wrong here mack?
Oh, and tell us about the high paid unionized workers who were fired so they could be replaced with cheap foreign labour, not to mention the Chinese workers already there being treated like slaves and having their wages stolen???
CGHZD
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More than 1000 “environmentalists” spoke to the NEB Joint Review Panel about the pipeline. Many of those environmentalists were scientists and engineers. Some of us were standing up for Burns Lake, Smithers, Terrace, and Kitimat, not to mention the traditional lands of the Haisla and the Yinka Dene who don’t want the risk of that line destroying the economic activity that already takes place in those towns and lands.
What is the potential gain for Enbridge? Money. Short term money. Except that the source of the pipeline is majority owned by China. The refinery is in China. We have a nice new temporary foreign workers act that will allow the constructor of the pipeline (who has not been named- could even be foreign) to bring in foreign workers. Enbridge also has not been able to say whose tankers will ship the dilbit. Could be Chinese. How much profit do you think is coming to Canada for any of this?
What is the potential gain for “environmentalists”? Only the continued safety of an ecosystem that is integral to every living thing connected to it. Only our lives. That is it.
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Let’s be honest here, Chris.
The “so-called” rich companies don’t pay a dime in taxes. They are HEAVILY subsidized now through Federal and Provincial regimes, and the royalties which they pay for the ability to remove the resource from the ground is negligible at best. Take BC groundwater, for example. Or, take the now heavily indebted Alberta Heritage Fund which has been pillaged by successive governments because of the drying up of money reserves resultant of a lower and lower provincial royalty rate.
No Canadian in their right mind would deny that we are a resource driven economy. The difference is now that it no longer benefits the public, and only benefits those private shareholders who can afford to buy in to the scheme.
What are we to believe from you, Chris, when you make such patronizing statements as “you may not realize it but we are fortunate that someone has stepped up to the plate with private funds”? Then telling us that we are not fact-finders, but merely people who passively accept the written word of a news story?
I challenge you to show me the facts of any oil and gas company who actually pays for the infrastructure needed to open a site and get the resource extracted. I will bet you can find none.
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Well, I guess there’s nothing left for me to say, eh Chris? Everyone appears to have said about everything there is to say……except, I call bullshit to your answer.
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“They risk their capital.”
“Make no mistake, selling our resources will make a significant improvement in the quality of life for all Canadians.”
This is nonsense thinking….
Selling our raw resources is ridding ourselves of capital Chris. You have 1 million dollars. Do you invest this capital and live off the interest or do you spend the capital until it is exhausted.
If the second choice, what to do when there is no money left? So by extension what do Canadians do when all of the resources are depleted? What does Canada have to offer then?
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This argument is as faulty now as it was two years ago. We do NOT have to send diluted bitumen across B.C. and over to Asian markets. We are selling our souls to the devil, and the devil’s name is Stephen Harper.
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Absolutely we should mine our resources and use the income to the benefit of Alberta, BC and rest of Canada. If that means using them to the benefit of our manufacturing & transportation industries, instead of wasting them on fueling ships and digging trenches for the benefit our ‘providers’ then that is a sensible decision.
Sending them at vast expense and environmental risk to the rest of the world to send back to us is not!
Removing 5000 oil tankers from the worlds oceans would benefit us all. Except maybe Paul Martin.
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I would argue that resource extraction in itself doesn’t create wealth and that merely selling those resources is not the most wealth creating thing we can do with them. We only really create wealth when we make something. If we have outsourced all our refining and manufacturing to another country we have missed the opportunity to create wealth.
Furthermore, our “bloated government” is giving billions of dollars in subsidies to corporations that are merely bleeding off our resources or creating advertisements to tell us what a great thing this is.
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Dollars to donuts, Enbridge lobbyists are paid too much to know better. It comes down to $$…and I doubt they really care about us that say ‘no!’ The environment is just one obstacle to them…and I’m hoping the First Nations soon start pushing hard on the ‘Not a chance’ issue as well.
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CGHZD,
If you are living pay check to pay check, you could make a much better income in northern Alberta or northern BC. There are presently a lot of good paying jobs up there with many more to come.
In terms of retirement, it would be a good idea for you to put some money in RRSP’s or a TFSA. With ‘active investing’ v/s ‘buy and hold’, you can sell if the market is dropping, go into cash, and buy in again when prices drop.
We are very fortunate to be Canadians. Huge land mass. Huge natural resources, Democratic. Well educated population, Capitalism with a social conscience. Mining expertise that is world renowned. We have it all. We just need to use it.
As for the First Nations, what they have before them is a wonderful opportunity for them to get trained for the skilled positions that are needed and the ones that will be needed so that they can start participating more fully in the economy. What these folks badly need is good skilled long term highly paid jobs, as do the rest of us.
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chris mack
What color is the sky in your world. We have a Fascist government, which means we are being governed by a government that is run by corporations for the for the good of corporations. What part of the RRSP scam don’t you understand. This is not saving for the future its about being scammed by the banks and insurance companies. This is an excerpt from a Frontline documentary on mutual funds that make up most of the RRSP’S in Canada. The difference being we are charged more like 5% or more in Canada.
“It’s this simple: Fund fees can erode as much as half or more of your prospective gains.
For the sake of dramatizing the point, John Bogle, founder of Vanguard, the world’s largest mutual fund company and pioneer of low-cost index funds, gave me a startling example while we were filming. Assume you are invested in a mutual fund, he says, with a gross return of 7 percent, but that the mutual fund charges you an annual fee of 2 percent.
Over a 50-year investing lifetime, that little 2 percent fee will erode 63 percent of what you would have had. As Bogle puts it, “the tyranny of compounding costs” is overwhelming.”
Are these people wrong or am I dreaming?
The only pension plan you can really count on to be there when you need it is the Canada Pension plan and your HarperCon buddies are doing their best to screw it over.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement-gamble/
Your right, we have it all……..being stolen from under our noses.
CGHZD
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W currently live in an age of Victorian Laissez-faire, where the worlds wealthy control about 99% of the wealth and the last 1% trickles down to the great unwashed. Neoclassical capitalism is the great religion of the corporate military empires that have formed a cabal to run the world.
Global corporations are landless countries that have, by stealth, fear, and duplicity have become more powerful that the actual countries that allow them to exist. Shipping bitumen by pipeline is only a means to a profitable end and if there is a major spill it doesn’t matter because you and I and the great unwashed will pay for it.
This is the new age of Fascism, brought to you by governments which two generations ago fought against Fascism and all the evil it entailed. It seems our politicians and corporate friends have learned well from past events.
Unless we have the moral fortitude to stand up to what is tantamount to an enemy, the pipe line will go through, bitumen will be spill form broken pipelines or grounded tankers; our politicians will run around crying shock and disbelief, and global corporations will make billions in profits, that our corrupted politicians have allowed them to.
As for today’s stock market, can you say “ponzi scheme”.
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Would the tar sand be profitable if we made them pay for the water they now
get for free ? Or clean up the 60 km of tailings ponds that are only getting bigger. In the end Canadians will be left with hundreds of billions in clean up costs . And a ditch where alberta was.
You know ….. prosperity.
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JasonS, What?
Are you unaware that all mining companies must set aside funds for reclamation of the mined area because they have to restore it to a natural state. Where do you people get this stuff?
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I’d like to see some untouched photos of all these ‘reclaimed’ areas.
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I would like to see the amounts of funds that the multiple different companies have saved for “reclamation” . Does this money go to a third party so that we can actually get our hands on it , or will it go towards lawyers to contest the amount they have been charged.
Also that money for reclamation is to fill in the giant holes that can bee seen from space but does that include treating and cleaning up the 60+ kilometers of tailings ponds.
And you didn’t mention the free water they get to pollute. Could you troll back to your handlers and ask them what drivel you should respond with now please.
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Wow Chris Mack – I’m going to keep it short – disgusting.
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Whenever we need more money for services, we’re always a poor nation. Whenever we need more money for politician’s raises in pay, for security for G-20 spectacles, for fighter jets with no engines, etc, etc, we’re suddenly instantly wealthy.
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Mr. Mack / Enbridge / PAB aka Government Communications and Public Engagement!!
Yup that’s why the Harper/Campbell/Clark BC Liberals now have BC $$$$$170 BILLION IN DEBT and the Harper Cons and most municipal governments (especially in Surrey, BC) have us MEGA BILLIONS OF DOLLARS MORE IN DEBT. FYI this massive debt can never be paid off and will continue for as long as these fascist governments rule Canada.
How did that happen?
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An ignorant, apathetic electorate elected them, that’s how it happened. When will they ever learn?
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Wow!!! Somebody like me is for free enterprize, capitalism, real jobs, skilled workers, utilizing our resources in the most responsible manner possible, sending out exports and bringing some real dollars into our economy, a social conscience and all of sudden I’m a facist! And all because I want to see some pipelines built, jobs for Canadians and our goods sent to market??!!
Do I doubt that gov’t is fraught with folly? Hardly. When you have a 4 year election cycle, the politicians are always looking ahead to the next election and getting re-elected. This leads to a systemic problem where long term planning is thrown out the window. To their credit, the B.C. Liberals have built some bridges and laid a lot of asphalt which is a good and necessary thing. The federal Conservatives are overseeing the running of one of the best economies in the world.
In the U.S., ‘entitlements’ have bankrupted the Americans and their debt is so huge that it is simply unpayable. That’s why interest rates are low, and the world is simultaneously experiencing deflation and inflation. The Stock market in the U.S. is being pumped with funny money. For some help understanding this, just read the articles on Sprott Asset Mgt.’s website. We Canadians are in a much much better place and have everything that it takes to succeed if only we can get out of our own way.
The third and second world economies want to come out of poverty and live like the rest of the world. They are determined to do it and they will succeed. They will do it with or without our oil and natural gas. They will just get it elsewhere and somebody else’s economy will enjoy the benefits.
Technology has made huge strides forward. Los Angeles is still car land but the smog has seriously abated from where it once was and they have more cars than ever. Cars are more fuel efficient than ever and will continue to improve. Many Chinese are living in smog but nuclear power and electric cars will clean up their air. They are building the latest generation reactors at a fast pace.
We are living in a global village and we need to get our products to market or we will lose our present standard of living. Jean spoke of massive debt. The only way we can ever pay off our debts and thrive is to utilize our massive resources. I am continually amazed at people who complain about not enough money for teachers, schools, health care etc on the one hand and continue to stand in the way of economic progress at the same time.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, most of us are in the service industry where dollars just circulate on a merry go round. We need real jobs that bring in real money from outside the country. Am I a facist because I would like to see more people have ‘real jobs’? Show me a family with good paying skilled long term jobs and you are showing me a happy family. It might behoove some of you folks to define and understand the meaning of the pejorative terms that you use as you are embarrassing yourselves and your point of view by using them.
One last thing. As I have been watching our athletes at Sochi, I have been feeling a lot of pride. Canadians are well liked all over the world and there is a reason for it. We are perceived as good and decent hard working fair minded people with a social conscience. And our winter Olympics only cost $7 billion compared to the new number of $70 billion (up from $50) that I am hearing that Russia spent for a lot of substandard structures. Yes, we can do it better in Canada.
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Only $7 billion, you say. Where did you find that info? To my knowledge, Campbell never did divulge the true cost of the Vancouver Owelympics. Could that figure be just something you ‘heard’?
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More drivel! When you mention‘entitlements’ (have bankrupted the Americans) your tipping off your membership as a troll in the Tea party, Reform Crap Con party of nutbars.
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CHIZD,
47 million Americans, that’s 1 in 6 Americans are presently on food stamps. “Food Stamps” are an ‘entitlement’. This is simply not sustainable. I could also mention the unfunded liabilities that will make their future precarious.
A ‘troll’ for the Tea Party. Come on. Gimme a break. As a Canadian, I have nothing to do with the Tea Party. Now let’s be civil. I haven’t called you a dirty rotten stinking Commie just because you have a different view, have I?
Once again, we need to utilize our natural resources or we could go down into the same pit as the U.S. is now in. Their debt is simply unpayable. We need to be proactive and head off our potential problem at the pass.
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Call me anything you want. You still haven’t told us why, in your learned opinion, Alberta is Billions in debt while a country like Norway has a trillion dollar trust fund from their resources. So that begs the other question, why should we put our environment in peril
with irreversible consequences for basically billions of debt. In other words mack, no matter how much you push the drivel about utilizing what you say are OUR resources, we, as Canadians, are getting chump change, debt and environmental ruin in return.
As far as your ‘entitlement’ bs, you strike me as one of those pathetic small minded Neo/Con Harper Bots that would be elbowing your way in to get your ‘entitlement’ Canadian medical if your health suddenly went south.
So, tell us, are you really plying your trade out of some Reform/Crap/HarperCon troll basement.
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You talk a lot and yet are so misguided. Enough already!
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Enbridge pipeline debate and hearings may well come to be remembered as the biggest “Red Herring” story in history.
The real prize, and it has always been, is the future of offshore drilling. Industry and government both covet this end game and it will happen sooner, not later than most believe.
The oil and gas industry has taken a “layered” approach to development, particularly in North America where the government approval process is much more rigorous. They pick and choose their fights always having a back door plan in place.
Don’t be surprised if a tradeoff results with the pipeline proposal being suspended while an alternative proposal is sought.
This strategy, if you can call it that, is intended to keep the environmental lobby on its heals while depleting their resources and energy to fight. The endgame will bring government on side with their support and allow them to claim the moral high ground at the same time.
They believe they can be successful for one reason alone, you and I will not be around to fight them.
So what does the short term look like. Perhaps a much smaller pipe line that lessons the danger. Couple that with fewer larger tankers running on a seasonal movement schedule and stockpiling of product at designated locations.
The choice will inevitably come down to picking between “bad” and “awful” with “bad” winning out.
If the game plays out in this fashion, we all need to come to grips with what we will accept in the future because it is being written right now.
Enbridge is at best, a diversion keeping us focused away from the real prize.
I hope I’m dead wrong!
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http://rt.com/usa/mayflower-keystone-oil-pipeline-410/
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/02/10/Big-Oil-Democracy-Hijacked/
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I have posted this information in other places over the previous several weeks regarding the pipline matter;
The white elephant that no one seems to have a desire to address is the long standing Delgamuukw decision;
“The legal significance of those passages is that the Indian “Interest” within the meaning of section 109 of the Constitution Act, 1867, was not involved in the appeal. Section 109 is the section that says the Crown’s CONSTITUTIONAL “Interest” is subject to the Indian CONSTITUTIONAL “Interest” so long as the Indian “Interest” has not been sold to the Crown by a valid treaty.
It confirms that Indian sovereignty, i.e., exclusive jurisdiction and sole possession, is the supreme law of the land pending treaty and, correspondingly, establishes the utter irrelevance of Crown Parliamentary legislation and Crown court recent inventions based upon the “common law”.”
http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOP/ResearchPublications/bp459-e.htm
I believe this means no pipeline.
In BC much of the province is unceded territory. So in the absence of signed treaties, go back and read the last paragraph of what I posted from the Delgamuukw decision.
It states that where there is an absence of a signed treaty the Indian sovereignty is exclusive jurisdiction and sole possession, along with stating that any Crown decisions based upon common law are overridden by this.
So in other words Crown Parliamentary laws are superseded by Indian sovereignty and the Crown court “recent inventions” statement I take to be referring to exactly that; the notwithstanding clause as this is an invention of the Crown based upon common law.
There would be no eminent domain either. Game, set, and match goes to First Nations.
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I know and that is why Enbridge wants to ‘deal’ with each band individually. If I were part of a band I would call harassment.
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Oh yes and that is why so many people (ha ha people with huge corporate interest) go about the internet blogging racists things about FN people. I say thank gawd for FNs because if they hadn’t spoken out and protested a lot of BC would already be ruined by greedy a-holes.
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Hi Abby,
I am starting to be of the opinion there is a reason behind the government selling the resources to another nation even when those resources are still in the ground.
Think about the trade agreement language and how one nation can sue another for damages.
By selling the resource this would excuse the Canadian feds and pit one nation, let’s say China, against First Nations.
The problem with this is I believe the feds are selling property that isn’t theirs to sell. Any resource in unceded territory does not belong to the feds.
I think the FN would have a case in the UN for economic and cultural genocide because that is what this amounts to exactly. A pipeline rupture or shipping accident will destroy an economy, a way of life, and a culture that depends upon the land and sea for food sustenance.
An off topic irony;
Recently I saw a news reel of some farm in Alberta, close to Calgary, can’t recall the name but it begins with a W….
Anyways there is a big push on to save this grassland farm to preserve the ranching way of life for Alberta ranchers…..
I immediately thought; here we have a group of Albertans who want to preserve their way of life but are perfectly willing to stand idly by and watch their neighbours here in British Columbia way of life destroyed, or possibly destroyed,by this dumbass idea of selling off Canada’s resources.
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http://raesidecartoon.com/ed2.html
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Privatizing gains and socializing losses.?
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http://home.mytelus.com/p/news/source/news_cp/category/national/article/29510126
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