Archive | Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image

https://montrealgazette.com/

Equalization and pipelines should be projects that unite Canadians across the country.

Last week, the already rocky relationship between Alberta and Quebec got a little bit rockier. Premier François Legault haughtily announced that he would not support any revival of the Energy East pipeline, which if completed would transport landlocked Albertan oil across Quebec to be refined and exported from New Brunswick. Legault dismissed the idea that Quebecers should be expected to support the West’s “dirty energy.”

Days later, the federal government announced next year’s equalization numbers. As has become predictable, Quebec will receive by far the largest share of the pot, while Alberta and the other oil-producing provinces will receive nothing.

Alberta is even more enraged than usual over the apparent inequity of the equalization formula. That Albertans’ federal tax dollars are landing disproportionately in Quebec while their oil-based economy is in shambles and the provincial budget is in deficit is too much to bear. Continue Reading →

https://nationalpost.com/

As Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid noted, talk of Alberta separatism is
out in the open again, after a lull of 40 years. Trudeau appears to have
provoked an almost identical response in the West as the rage that greeted
his father’s National Energy Program in the 1980s.

Former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall says he is involved because he is as incensed as many other westerners about the impact of federal legislation on the energy and agricultural sectors

Brad Wall claims he is “done with politics.” “I’m interested in politics but I’m just not going to run for anything,” the former Saskatchewan premier said, as he focuses on his new job as special adviser for law firm Oslers in Calgary. But there is a Hotel California effect to the political game — you can check out but you never really leave.

Hence Wall’s involvement with something called the “Buffalo Project,” a nascent initiative that includes what one source called “serious financial backers,” aimed at offering an unapologetic voice for Western Canadian interests.

The name itself is provocative. Buffalo was the name of the prairie “super-province” combining modern-day Alberta and Saskatchewan that Frederick Haultain, the first premier of the Northwest Territories, hoped to create in 1905. The Liberal prime minister at the time, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, decided against creating what would have been a large, conservative Western counterweight to central Canada, and instead designated them two separate provinces. Continue Reading →

https://calgaryherald.com/

After lying dormant for nearly 40 years, talk of Alberta separatism is again boiling to the surface. On Tuesday, Premier Rachel Notley said she’s well aware of the increasing chatter about giving up on Canada.

And she dealt with the question exactly as the first PC premier, Peter Lougheed, did back in the 1980s. “I say to all those folks that we’re right there with them,” Notley said. “We, too, are very, very frustrated.

“But even as we’re angry, we roll up our sleeves and get to work finding the solutions. That’s the Alberta ethos I want to make sure we’re all focused on.” It’s the only sensible strategy for a premier — don’t demean separatist feeling, but don’t endorse it either. Meanwhile, dig in and fight for provincial interests. Continue Reading →

https://business.financialpost.com/

Whatever negatives Alberta would face are easily swamped by the positives that would come with separation

Last week, I was in England to attend an Oxford conference on the noble but almost hopeless notion of international tax co-ordination. Far more exciting was discussing with colleagues and following the media coverage about the U.K. Conservatives’ confidence vote testing the leadership of Prime Minister Theresa May over Brexit.

May managed to hang on but, at best, her agreement with the EU for an orderly Brexit is on life support. Of 317 Tory MPs, 117 backbenchers voted to oust May. They were especially dissatisfied with the “Irish backstop.” That proposal, which May negotiated with the EU, would require all of the United Kingdom to remain bound to the EU customs union for years after March 29th’s Brexit deadline.

That would last until the U.K. and EU can agree on a plan to avoid installing a hard customs border between the independent Republic of Ireland, which is staying in the EU, and Northern Ireland which, as part of Britain, is Brexiting. Hard borders have a bad history in that part of the world. Continue Reading →

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Preston Manning is the founder of the Manning Centre, and the former leader of the Reform Party of Canada.

Here are some truths that urgently require a co-ordinated response from governments, companies and Canadians whose jobs, incomes and living standards are jeopardized by ignoring them:

First, that the natural-resource sectors (agriculture, energy, mining, forestry and fisheries) are foundational to the Canadian economy, directly and indirectly accounting for over 20 per cent of our gross national product, with the energy sector being the biggest contributor.

Secondly, Canada is losing millions of dollars a day in revenues, plus thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment, because opposition to the building of pipelines to seaboard and world markets forces Canada to sell oil and natural gas to the U.S. market at discounted prices. Continue Reading →

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

If one didn’t know better, you’d swear Whistler was trolling the good people of Alberta by demanding the oil and gas industry there ship them money to pay for the impacts of climate change.

As publicity stunts go, it certainly received the attention it was designed to create. As word spread that the municipality had sent a letter to Calgary-based Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. requesting that it pay its “fair share” of the town’s costs associated with fighting the impacts of climate change, you could almost see the steam rising from the other side of the Rockies. Albertans were not amused.

We wouldn’t give the ploy much attention normally, considering the sheer ridiculousness and hypocrisy that surrounds it. Whistler survives on tourism. And those tourists use oil-related products not only to get to the resort community, but to enjoy themselves while there. Also, it’s not like one energy company in Calgary is responsible for all that ails the planet. Continue Reading →

https://calgaryherald.com/

The federal Equalization program has always been a misnomer in Canada. To be accurate, it should be called the Some Are More Equal than Others (SAMEO) program, at least for Quebec and the Maritimes.

That truth was bolstered Monday when it was revealed that the province of Quebec — which ran a $3 billion budget surplus last fiscal year — will be getting an extra $1.4 billion from the federal government next year for a total of $13.1 billion!

Meanwhile, Alberta, which has the highest unemployment rate in the country and is running an $8-billion deficit, just keeps getting kicked when it’s down. And those kicks hurt even more since they are consistently delivered right after Alberta picked up the others’ tabs for champagne and filet mignon, while it sipped on a Diet Coke and nibbled on the free bread. Continue Reading →

https://business.financialpost.com/

Holding all the power now, Albertans would get richer while the balance of the country would get poorer

Canadians don’t value our fossil fuel economy, which explains why so many are OK to trash pipelines and see Alberta tank. Only 19 per cent think it more important to pursue oil and gas development than to go green and regulate oil, according to EKOS polling.

That 19 per cent figure shrinks to eight per cent for Canadians who consider themselves Liberals, six per cent for NDPers and two per cent for those who vote Green, meaning that politicians of most stripes have no interest in alienating their supporters to help Alberta’s energy economy recover.

Those figures also explain why Alberta’s sense of alienation is on the rise. According to Ipsos, fully 62 per cent believe Alberta “does not get its fair share from Confederation” (up from 45 per cent two decades ago), 46 per cent feel more attached to their province than to their country (up from 39 per cent) and 34 per cent “feel less committed to Canada than I did a few years ago” (up from 22 per cent). Just 18 per cent of Albertans believe “the views of western Canadians are adequately represented in Ottawa.” Continue Reading →