Archive | Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image

https://business.financialpost.com/

Opinion: Hundreds of billions in future investments and revenues are at risk of being switched off with the stroke of a pen if C-48 is passed as written

Parliament’s Upper House is considering the Trudeau government’s controversial tanker ban legislation that is meant to prevent large oil carriers from ever visiting any British Columbia port north of Vancouver Island.

A group of senators is touring the west to understand the issue firsthand. The Senate has been described as the chamber of “sober second thought.” It’s needed now more than ever.

It’s a good thing the parliamentarians decided to hit the road because the impact of the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act (Bill C-48) will be felt across the country. Continue Reading →

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

In the end, a battered economy trumped everything. Jason Kenney and his United Conservative Party won a historic Alberta election Tuesday, overcoming concerns about his own moral and ethical imperatives and a string of controversies generated by UCP candidates linked to racist and homophobic commentary.

While the public storms these incidents caused undoubtedly cost Mr. Kenney support, it was not enough to jeopardize the lead his party had established over the NDP.

Now hold on to your hats. The province, and the country, will not have seen an Alberta premier this ready to rock conventions, to disrupt the status quo, since Ralph Klein. Continue Reading →

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Alberta returned to its conservative roots, electing United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney premier after he vowed to fight harder for the province’s beleaguered energy industry. Kenney defeated center-left incumbent Rachel Notley, 55, whose New Democratic Party snapped four decades of conservative rule in 2015.

Kenney’s election may herald big changes for Alberta’s energy industry, which produces more oil than most OPEC members and has the world’s third-largest petroleum resources.

He’s vowed to get stalled pipelines built, scrap the province’s carbon tax, and create a “war room” to hit back at anti-oil-sands campaigners. He also pledged to cut corporate taxes and balance the province’s books in his first term. Continue Reading →

https://business.financialpost.com/

Western alienation is a real issue in Alberta’s election tomorrow and could determine the future of our energy industry

For a guy who says one of his fondest memories as a Canadian was watching the Quebec separatist movement fail at the ballot box in 1995, Brett Wilson sure talks a lot about his own province seceding.

The entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist has been bringing up the idea of the western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan dropping out of the country with increasing frequency. He sees separation as a potential remedy for moves by the federal government and other provinces — carbon taxes, the cancellation of a pipeline to the Pacific, the obstruction of a pipeline to the Atlantic — that he says amount to “economic civil war.”

“I remember celebrating when the Bloc Quebecois failed because I love my Canada,” he said in an interview, referring to the federal party that advocated Quebec’s secession. “That’s why I describe myself as a frustrated nationalist, not in any way a separatist.” Continue Reading →

https://business.financialpost.com/

Rockefeller-supported groups are helping defeat the UCP, the only party in the Alberta election committed to breaking the U.S. monopoly on Alberta’s overseas oil exports

Alberta is in the final days before an election and the backbone industry of its economy is practically broken because all pipeline projects out of the province have been stalled or ended. This didn’t happen for no reason. This was planned and is precisely what a Rockefeller Brothers Fund campaign was funded to bring about.

The Tar Sands Campaign has been running for more than a decade with financial help from the US$870-million Rockefeller family philanthropic foundation. The goal of the campaign, as CBC reported in January, is to sabotage all pipeline projects that would export crude oil from Western Canada to lucrative overseas markets.

Northern Gateway, Energy East, Keystone XL, Trans Mountain and Line 3 have all been targeted. Most of the talk about this campaign has focused on how this activism chokes the oil industry, but tax documents indicate it also takes aim at natural gas. Continue Reading →

https://business.financialpost.com/

Canada can survive Donald Trump, and Alberta can escape its resource curse

A shoeshine in Calgary cost $10 when Tom O’Gorman, a portfolio manager at Franklin Templeton Investments, arrived from Wall Street in 2010; New York prices!

Not anymore. You can get your Oxfords polished and buffed for a mere $5, a deflationary spiral triggered by the similarly large collapse in the price of oil since the autumn of 2014.

Calgary’s office towers are either 30, 40, or 50 per cent empty, depending on who you talk to. The exact vacancy rate — 25 per cent downtown in the fourth quarter, according to Avison Young Real Estate Alberta Inc. — doesn’t really matter. Continue Reading →

https://business.financialpost.com/

“You may have noted that Albertans are not fans of Ottawa these days, which is the G-rated way to put it,” Rachel Notley told a Senate committee

CALGARY – New laws that would impede Alberta’s oil and gas from getting to export markets represent “a stampede of stupid,” Rachel Notley said Tuesday.

Notley, the NDP leader currently running for re-election to the Alberta premier’s office, testified before a Senate committee hearing Tuesday on Bill C-48, a federal bill that would place a moratorium on oil tankers moving crude off the northern part of British Columbia’s coastline.

“At the end of the day, this has a gargantuan impact on Alberta,” Notley said during her presentation, which blasted both the content and the spirit of the bill. Continue Reading →

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Like an unhappy spouse in a marriage, Alberta is doing a lot of soul-searching these days about its relationship with the rest of Canada. And increasingly, it’s a case of show me the money.

United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney, who polls suggest is favoured to become Alberta’s next premier, insists he wants a “new deal, a fair deal for Alberta in Canada.”

Mr. Kenney’s demands include overhauling the country’s system of equalization payments, taking a larger bite of federal taxes collected in the province and cutting Albertans’ Canada Pension Plan contributions. Continue Reading →

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Dave McKay is president and CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada.

History has placed Canada at a crossroads. No other country of 37 million people has access to more natural resources – and the brainpower to convert those resources into sustainable growth for a stronger society.

And yet, Canada is at risk of taking the wrong turn at the crossroads because some believe there are only two paths: one for economic growth, and the other for environment. We’re seeing this dilemma play out in Canada’s energy transition as we struggle to reconcile competing ideas.

We aspire to help the world meet its energy needs and move to ever-cleaner fuel sources. We aim to reduce our carbon footprint. We want Indigenous reconciliation and long-term partnership. And we hope to maintain the standard of living we have come to enjoy. Continue Reading →

https://business.financialpost.com/

CALGARY — Jason Kenney, running to be Alberta’s next premier, is lunching on a salad at the Blackfoot Diner, a popular truck stop eatery just outside Calgary’s downtown, but offering red-meat economic policy proposals to his base in historically conservative Alberta.

While the province’s demographics and leanings are changing, and some of his United Conservative Party’s social policy proposals have met with staunch opposition and protests, his core economic promises of reducing corporate taxes, eliminating carbon taxes, and reducing regulatory timelines to encourage new investment are finding some currency as the economy sputters.

He is no ideologue, he says, highlighting that he agrees with his rivals in the NDP on “the strategic importance” of petrochemical diversification and he doesn’t want to “upset the apple cart” of gas-to-plastics projects in the province. Continue Reading →

https://nationalpost.com/

It’s remarkable how quickly Trudeau has eroded decades of effort to reassure Westerners about their place in Confederation

Despite the pressures of a struggling economy and the best efforts of numerous rivals to get under her skin, Rachel Notley has always managed to maintain the air of a fairly civil disposition as premier of Alberta.

It was noteworthy, then, when she let loose Friday on Senators in Ottawa, who had decided to skip Alberta while holding hearings on an oil tanker bill that will have profound implications for the province.

“I gotta tell you, this is kind of an unprecedented stampede of stupid,” Notley said. “I’m stunned. Albertans deserve better from Canada.” Continue Reading →