Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image – Page 20

Kenney says Alberta will not cede ‘an inch’ of jurisdiction to Ottawa on climate change – by Gary Mason (Globe and Mail – February 26, 2020)

February 26, 2020

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Jason Kenney says Alberta will not cede “an inch” of jurisdiction to the federal government in the fight against climate change, setting the stage for a pitched battle that could have generational consequences for the country.

It’s a clash that could claim the country’s climate strategy, creating uncharted challenges for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he struggles to balance the fight against global warming with the pocket-book realities of a resource-based economy.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, the Alberta Premier said an offer to regulate a cap on heavy emitters in the province is still on the table despite it being tied to federal approval of the Frontier oil sands project, which was shelved by Teck Resources this week. However, Mr. Kenney is linking any new cap-regulation deal to a long list of demands.

Teck Frontier cancellation entirely Justin Trudeau’s fault – by Lorne Gunter (National Post – February 25, 2020)

February 25, 2020

https://nationalpost.com/

Make no mistake, the end of Teck Resources’ Frontier oilsands mine is Justin Trudeau’s fault — plainly, clearly, unequivocally. The project’s cancellation also means the radical fringe is in charge of Canada, not the government, the courts or the police.

Teck’s decision, announced Sunday, will also have far-reaching effects on the entire Canadian economy, not just the energy sector. There is no doubt this is Justin Trudeau’s fault.

Oh sure, the Liberals will try to spin this as an economic decision by the company. The feds will insist the price of oil is too low to make such a huge investment viable.

‘Nail in the coffin’: Era of big oil sands mines may be over (Bloomberg/Mining Weekly – Februay 25, 2020)

February 25, 2020

http://www.miningweekly.com/

Canada’s oil sands industry may have already built its last big mine. The cancellation of Teck Resources’ Frontier project in northern Alberta — which envisaged producing more crude than OPEC member Gabon — epitomises the struggles of an industry that has already seen most foreign investors flee.

It’s not clear that any other proposed mine would be able to clear the hurdles that felled Frontier in the years to come, possibly spelling the end of an era of megaprojects that transformed North America’s energy landscape by turning Canada into the top foreign crude supplier to the US.

“This may be the nail in the coffin,” said Laura Lau, who helps manage C$2-billion in assets at Brompton Corp. in Toronto. “I would expect some smaller projects would have a better chance going through.”

Are foreign interests fomenting Indigenous dissent about Canada’s resource development? – by Diane Francis (Financial Post – February 25, 2020)

February 25, 2020

https://business.financialpost.com/

Climate change radicalism aimed at shutting down Canada’s resource base is behind the current blockade crisis, says Indigenous leader

Climate change radicalism aimed at shutting down Canada’s resource base is behind the current blockade crisis and is destroying efforts to improve the lives of most Aboriginal people, according to Ellis Ross, a prominent Indigenous leader and a Liberal MLA in British Columbia, in a powerful online interview with Resource Works News.

He is a former chief councillor for the Haisla Nation and has been at the forefront of issues concerning resource development and Aboriginal rights in his province.

“There is a well co-ordinated, well-funded machine shutting down Canada,” he said. “The agenda is basically anti-fossil fuel, but also forestry and mining. This machine has set back Aboriginal reconciliation by 20 years.”

Canada’s future is going down the drain amid destructive federal-provincial feud – by John Ivison (National Post – February 24, 2020)

February 24, 2020

https://nationalpost.com/

“Provincial and federal governments have their differences but if
their focus remains on one another, there will soon be no oilpatch
to phase out – and no money to pay for poverty-reduction. Much more
of this and Venezuela is going to look like an attractive investment alternative.”

As Canada goes down the drain, its political leaders are arguing about the size of the plug-hole.

The Alberta Court of Appeal decision, which rules that the federal carbon tax is unconstitutional and erodes provincial jurisdiction, is merely the latest blow to Canada’s brand as a safe and reliable investment haven.

Why would any sentient investor put money into energy projects in a country where environmental policy is so erratic? Justin Trudeau’s political opponents were quick to exploit the decision by Teck Resources to shelve the giant Frontier oil sands project.

Police move in on Tyendinaga Mohawk rail protesters after deadline to clear site passes (Canadian Press/National Post – February 24, 2020)

February 24, 2020

https://nationalpost.com/

By 8:30 a.m. EST Monday, reports indicated that police had begun to make moves to clear the site

TYENDINAGA MOHAWK TERRITORY, Ont. — Ontario Provincial Police have moved to clear a rail blockade on Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. Police and CN Rail had given protesters until midnight Sunday to clear the blockade or face an investigation and possible criminal charges.

The deadline came and went, and the blockade near Belleville, Ont., that has crippled both freight and passenger rail traffic in most of eastern Canada for nearly three weeks remained in place Monday morning. However, by 8:30 a.m. EST Monday, reports indicated that police had begun to make moves to clear the site.

CP24 reports that a “large column” of OPP police vehicles approached the protesters. CTV reports that “several dozen” officers began arresting people and wrestling others to the ground.

Teck Resources pulling application for Frontier oil sands mine – by Robert Fife and Marieke Walsh (Globe and Mail – February 24, 2020)

February 24, 2020

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Teck Resources Ltd. is pulling its application for the massive Frontier oil sands mine in Alberta, citing the need for Canada to finalize its climate-change policies and determine how resource development fits within them.

After years of companies shelving investment in the oil and gas sector, high hopes were pinned on the massive heavy-oil mine for its potential direct economic impact as well as the broader signal it would send to the market.

But the mine also landed at the centre of a heated debate both in Canada and internationally about the balance this country is striking between resource development and addressing climate change.

‘That’s not the way of our ancestors’: Wet’suwet’en matriarch speaks out about pipeline conflict – by Nancy MacDonald (Globe and Mail – February 21, 2020)

February 21, 2020

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A Wet’suwet’en hereditary subchief who helped translate a seminal Supreme Court decision that laid the foundation for greater control for Indigenous communities over their land says she opposes the blockades that have been roiling the country.

Rita George also said Thursday that she and other matriarchs have been feeling sick about the conflict and how it has split their community. She said the opposing hereditary chiefs and some of the people around them – including outside activists who have embedded themselves in the protest camp – have disrespected ancient feast-house traditions of how to treat one another.

Ms. George said it caused her great pain to have to exercise her leadership by speaking out against some of her own and particularly those outsiders who have turned her northern British Columbia community into a battleground over issues of climate change policy, resource extraction and reconciliation.

The biggest barrier to resolving this conflict — a handful of hereditary chiefs – by John Ivison (National Post – February 21, 2020)

February 21, 2020

https://nationalpost.com/

If the chiefs are motivated more by environmental activism than Indigenous justice, there is likely to be little room for compromise

It’s been a good week for the Conservatives in terms of generating funds and support – possibly their best since Jody Wilson-Raybould appeared before the justice committee a year ago at the height of the SNC-Lavalin affair.

Andrew Scheer was criticized in some quarters when he called for the government to direct the RCMP to clear away the rail blockades. That is playing with weeping gelignite – we are still in the realm of a political protest but it could flare into armed conflict if handled badly.

Yet Scheer and his parliamentary colleagues have been more in tune with the public mood than a government that has resembled the wallflower at the prom, paralyzed while waiting for a call to dance from Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs that is never likely to come.

We have become our own worst enemy. – by Chris Sankey (Northern Sentinel – January 24, 2020)

February 20, 2020

https://www.northernsentinel.com/

A column by Chris Sankey, former elected councillor for the community of Lax Kw Alaams.

As a former First Nation elected councillor for the community of Lax Kw Alaams, I don’t know what to make of how irrational protests have become over the last few years around the development of BC’s resources. I am beginning to think it doesn’t matter what type of project is proposed or approved.

People will protest anything, and I worry that they are making these decisions based on what they see and read on social media alone, instead of taking the time to become informed and educate themselves on the issues around development and who and why people are protesting.

The personal attacks and misinformation on social media toward those who are pro-development is horrific, outright degrading and defamatory in nature. We have become our own worst enemy.

Meet Canada’s new racists: our self-mortifying ‘progressive’ urbanites – by Jonathan Kay (National Post – February 20, 2020)

February 20, 2020

https://nationalpost.com/

Witness the white people demanding we strip away democratic Indigenous autonomy and deny First Nations the benefits of resource development

Next year will mark a quarter century since the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) released its final report, a five-year undertaking that laid out a proposed architecture for a new relationship between the Canadian government and its Indigenous peoples.

As Canada remains convulsed by a full-blown economic and transportation crisis that has utterly paralyzed our governments, it’s useful to look back at that landmark document to see how we failed.

The blueprint contained in the RCAP report was, in some ways, fundamentally unrealistic. (One key recommendation, for instance, was that Canada’s 600-plus Indigenous communities would voluntarily consolidate into 60 to 80 regional agglomerations that would share wealth and power among themselves.)

OPINION: Where are the solidarity protests for the First Nations that support Coastal GasLink? – by Robyn Urback (Globe and Mail – February 14, 2020)

February 19, 2020

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

There have been no major demonstrations this week in solidarity with the First Nations people along the Coastal GasLink route who are waiting for change to come to their communities.

There have been no blockades disrupting VIA Rail trains; nothing in midtown Toronto; no one outside the B.C. Legislature; no disruptions on the Reconciliation Bridge in Calgary; no stopping of traffic in downtown Ottawa; and no protests along busy Vancouver intersections.

The demonstrations you’re thinking of were in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, who oppose the $6-billion, 670-kilometre pipeline across northern B.C. It’s their slogans that have been broadly adopted, their opinions that are being mirrored in protest and their case that has been taken up so fervently by supporters all across Canada.

Enough is enough. Clear the blockades, restore the rule of law – by Derek H. Burney (National Post – February 18, 2020)

February 18, 2020

https://nationalpost.com/

Dialogue is no prescription for those who refuse to listen because they believe themselves to be custodians of the only truth

It is times like this when Lucien Bouchard’s claim that “Canada is not a real country” has an eerie ring of truth. Protesters of many stripes have the upper hand in pockets of the country. The rule of law has been parked in the cupboard.

Rail lines are blockaded and services suspended. A provincial legislature was shuttered. The country’s economy is crippled. The national interest has no defender. The preferred solution is not a return to order and apprehension of the offenders.

Rather it is “dialogue” — as remote and amorphous a prescription as the lowest form of sophistry; one that often can be a euphemism for vacillation and the evasion of responsibility.

The millennial eco-activists stopping trains are the new colonialists – by John Ivison (National Post – February 18, 2020)

February 18, 2020

https://nationalpost.com/

While so-called ‘settlers’ protest the pipeline, Indigenous leaders want the project that will bring economic prosperity

The uber-woke protesters who blockaded a CN rail line last weekend would be horrified at being accused of cultural colonialism. But they are as guilty of telling Indigenous Canadians how to live their lives as any Father of Confederation.

The reason 50 of them snuck into the MacMillan Yard north of Toronto and set up camp was to protest the “oppression” of the Wet’suwet’en 4,000 kilometres away in British Columbia — an Indigenous nation whose traditional land they say was “invaded” by the RCMP in an act of colonialist aggression.

Natali Montilla, 27, explained the thinking that shutdown CN’s west-bound line for seven hours on Saturday. She referred to herself as a settler on Canadian land, but one with Indigenous roots in Venezuela.

Railroading of elected bands betrays progressive hypocrisy – by Jonathan Kay (National Post – February 15, 2020)

February 18, 2020

https://nationalpost.com/

The social-justice extremism that has been largely confined to campus life and obscure pubs has metastasized to the world of normal human beings

In late 2019, Ontario’s public broadcaster, TVO, produced a widely circulated video segment in which Indigenous public figures delivered short monologues responding to the controversial claim that Canada was perpetuating an ongoing “genocide” against Indigenous women.

The TVO commentators flatly told viewers that this ongoing genocide is a “fact,” and that any argument to the contrary amounts to “denial.” Moreover, we were told that anyone engaging in such denial is effectively abetting a crime against humanity, because “denial is a tool of genocide.”

If you find yourself astounded by the current situation in Canada, whereby protesters have been allowed to shut down a rail network that remains a backbone of passenger travel and industrial transport (and whose coast-to-coast completion in 1885 became a symbol of national unity), it’s useful to revisit the accumulation of symbolic gestures that have steadily destroyed the moral authority of our governments to push back at any assertion of Indigenous rights and grievances.