overthere

I wonder if Dr Suzuki takes comfort in his dotage, knwoing that no matter what he says or does there is a solid conga line of apologists that will act Do you feel it is unreasonable, in this age of Internet, to expect that one of our most prominent environmental crusaders could have used some ultramodern device to communicate his message? It was a radio interview, one of many such. Perhaps he could have tried something really cutting edge, like the telephone instead of visiting every CBC studio in Canada? Which he also did, as he complained about exhausting all this vital work was for him. Of course, what could be more important for him than getting out the Gospel on saving our planet than flying (first or business class, always). After all, what is more important to climate change than promoting the second Volume of your autobiography?

Not a realtor, but I sure as s*** know some stuff about real estate. I see you've been reading the baloney in the media. Calgary has been hit harder than Edmonton so far, another example of regionality of markets. Their prices have been quite a bit higher in Calgary(about $530k) than Edmnonton (about $430k) for a long time. Prices have dropped about 3% overall from a year ago. \The statement you cannot sell a house is rubbish. It is harder indeed to sell homes in high price ranges, but average homes do sell. Very expensive homes are harder to sell, but they always are harder. And my premise that you cannot apply the 'vastly overpriced, overheated' meme to Alberta cities, houses are nowhere near as expensive as they are in Toronto or Montreal. And disposable income is higher in AB than either of those places.

After all, in 60+ years of tanker traffic from the 60+ years that this pipeline has been running there have been hundreds thousands many a lot of countless who can keep track a multitude zero tanker spills. Shipping oil by tanker is a brand new idea so Kinder Morgan is going to have to figure this out, how to get oil from A to B safely. The Americans have done a bit of it, with around 22 Billion gallons of oil transiting nearby Puget Sound per year. Maybe they would have some ideas.

There, fixed it for you.

Congrats to Dave for getting the PhD and the job as professor. After that: tenure and sleepytime while paid and privileged. His career as a 'personality' dominated his life long before he 'retired'. I think Anthony Bourdain may be the only guy with a better job than a tenured professor. Aren't we all supposed to contribute Waldo? Don';t we all have a personal stake, except Dr Suzuki? I know it wounds you to hear your icons criticized for what they actually do in their lives, as opposed to telling me what to do with mine, but please try to get that quivering lower lip under control.

So the applications by several pipeline companies to build major pipelines at their cost, for the benefit of our economy, right now, is 'whining'? You are one of several here with an extremely bizarre world view. God help us.

Clueless. There haven't been any refineries built anywhere in Canada for a quarter century except... we will get to that. Refineries are almost always built locally (globally) to service local needs, while crude is shipped by pipeline and tanker. AB has three operating refineries now, and five upgraders. And hey guess what? A big refinery/upgrader is being built right now outside Edmonton in Sturgeon County. It will turn bitumen into diesel and should be running in about a year. It will produce diesel mostly which is in short supply. A major partner is the AB govt, which will use bitumen supplied toi them as 'payment-in-kind' , instead of royalites, as feedstock. Why doesn't BC 'build a refinery'? You can use the 800K bbl per day coming on the new KM, think of all those stable, well paid jobs.

The disapproval has nothing to do with standards. Surely you are not that simple?

No. your beloved communism has failed because it ignores the reality of humanity, which is that we are not created equal. We are pack/tribal animals, and your system simply fails to acknowledge that fact. You are a big proponent of eating the rich/ elevating the poor, which of course means we'd all be in the middle in every regard. .Nice theory, nobody has ever made it work on any large scale in the history of our species.. Best of luck with it.

Find another example. Real estate prices in Canada are very regional. The costs are extremely high in Vancouver or Toronto, as compared to income. Yet in cities like Calgary and Edmonton housing is much more affordable- not just in actual dollars but in % of gross income. It is a reason people have flocked there in hordes. Not only can they get a job, they can and do afford to buy a house that is not a crushing debt.

I though this was the only all weather east-west road in Canada at this point, which makes it vulnerable . This happened on the Alaska Highway many years ago. They put an ice bridge in on the river while the main bridge was repaired.

I'd take anybody decent if they cannot sign him. Because any decent player can be turned into another decent player.

And when the price does come back, will Canada be in a position to deliver oil to offshore customers? The answer is a resounding 'no'. The people who pay for the pipelines to be built are ready and willing to spend their money right now, and we are still doing...... nothing. Well actually we are telling investors in our base industries to go f*** themselves. They'll get the message soon enough that this country is not open for business.

We can take solace that the repeated sharp kicks in the collective groin are delivered with a lady sized Birkenstock sandal . Small mercies and all that.

I heard him on local radio a few years ago, being interviewed about his latest book. He was on one of those national book tours that authors do to sell their stuff. It consists of flying non stop for a month or more in hydrocarbon spewing aircraft and riding around cities in particulate belching automobiles. The live radio show (CBC of course) had a phone in segment, which of course was carefully screened so that only the most gushing admirers of Dr Suzuki could toss a softball question at him between intervals of licking his intimate bits . My question was predictable,and equally predictably did not get on air, I could not get past the screener.. It was " do you feel even the slightest bit of hypocrisy about the destructive nature of your personal actions that you personally chose to sell your books". Oh, and the irony was the subject of the book. It was not a book about the environment or those who choose to damage it(like the author) or a call to arms for activists. The book he was promoting was the second volume of his own autobiography.

Note that the hefty carbon tax was never stated in the AB NDP platform, or campaign, or throne speech.

I don't understand what you mean. EE has said he won't negotiate after training camp starts. That means he is intending to go to free agency, and the Jays have a few weeks to sign him .. His trade value declines sharply from then, as teams know the Jays have no choices since he won't be signing anywhere. But his value as a player does not decline, just the return the Jays can expect. So they have to sign him now, or trade him now. Or they get nothing for him other than his play this season. I don't think there are many successful teams that get there by not getting value for assets, and EE has developed into a valuable asset in the last 4 years of his career. Top level DHs can and do earn $15M per year on multi year contracts, and EE is at the top of his game right now. Which of course he and Shapiro both know...... EE will be looking for $15M per year on four years, and likely with team options after that. Similar to Ortiz in Boston. I'd be delighted if the Jays sign him, I just don't think they can or will afford both him and Bautista.

I think Notley comprehends the value of resource extraction to Canada, not just Alberta. She appears to understand that a very crucial step is to build infrastructure now to take advantage of markets when the petro cycle turns upward, which it inevitably will in time. Note that the infrastructure required- tidewater pipelines-is built with private money, not govt money. And it supports an industry that- like it or not- is a crucial part of our national economy. Her strategy has been to try to improve the AB position/optics with green initiatives like carbon taxes(90%+ of the worlds oil has no carbon tax), increased royalties, shutting down coal fired hydro in AB etc. By doing this, she wants to gain some social license. The result so far, in the last couple months? Two premiers, BC and MN, have recently said they oppose/don't support tidewater pipelines. ON and QC are opposed to Energy East. Our leader Mr Trudeau has no comment on a budget line item his Finance Minister must be losing sleep over. It's on the 'revenue' side of the ledger, an area we can all see is territory that Trudeau is not familiar with at all. I think what Leary and others take issue with regarding Notley is her refusal to address the expense side of the AB budget. She claims to be following the old track of spending on infrastructure in hard times and laughably mimics Trudeau in speaking of 'social infrastructure", borrowing money now for a theoretical return in the future. But of course she is actually borrowing money for day to day government operations, as well as for capital investment. In hard times, the usual course of responsible govt would be to try to cut expenses for operations, and AB has the highest per capita cost of operations in the country. But no, she has not looked at that at all, because to do so would raise the ire of public service/private sector unions. The unions are not only her strident supporters, many of her MLAs and political staff come straight from them. So, like Christie, the most important element of decision making is not doing the right thing, it is doing what it will take for re election. Some things never change.

The original pipeline, and the big expansion done about 15 years ago, have the same record of tanker spills: zero. Or put another way: none at all. But we're wasting pixels here. What BC wants from Alberta is money, and AB does not have any. The environment is secondary at best, if the hypocrites in BC has any care for Mommy Earth they would not be exporting billions of dollars in filthy coal every year. Oh , and isn't there an election next year? There is absolutely nothing that Kinder Morgan or any corporation could say or do that would get approval. Well, if they could promise to deliver votes they could get approval. So, KM is dead, Gateway is dead,and Energy East is nearly done like dinner too with Sellinger, Wynne and Couilliard against, and Trudeau silent while he watches the polls instead of watching the trade balance sheet. Mass insanity.

What a load of baloney. It is clear that there is absolutely nothing that any company could say or do that would satisfy the Suzukis here or in BC. At least have the honesty to acknowledge that. Despite 60 years......

If you were one of the very few people to have suffered through his last movie-The Gunman- you'd know why. Either that, or we should all go into hiding before he releases his next sanctimonious vanity project.

Yes, it would be the near complete waste of a valuable resource. That is always an indictment: to mismanage a resource that your own team has had the patience to develop into a very good player with plenty of value. 32 is certainly not old for a DH. And EE has shown he can produce, and has had solid, consistent productive stats for the last four years. He is no Estrada or Colabello or Travis or Osuna or Stroman or......, who look good but have little history I don't assume anything, I just don't see either his name on a contract now , or an imminent trade for him. The deadline is not October 2016, it is a few weeks away. It would be crazy to get nothing for him in these circumstances,or not to sign him. You cannot let him walk for nothing at all.

Well, that is their story anyway. I cannot imagine that any company could provide enough information to satisfy anybody in BC. And I disagree, Kinder Morgan has spent a boatload of money already on this expansion. They doubled capacity 15 years ago on this same route, and had to jump through many hoops particularly in Jasper National Park. KM is in the business of moving oil, and there is even now no lack at all of customers to supply product. That leaves Canada with no options at all to the West Coast, nothing new to the Gulf, and Energy East floundering with the opposition of Wynne and Coulliard. I think Canada may be the only developed country in the world incapable of looking after themselves, with politicians and an alarming chunk of the populace unable to comprehend what butters their own bread. I expect Trudeau to do SFA, His grasp of the value of petro export to our national economy is close to nil. Or more accurately, his understanding of the economy.

I'm not sure how it helps the Jays to lose him to free agency for nothing.

And now KInder Morgan looks to be dead too, or at least delayed for a very long time: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/british-columbia-to-oppose-kinder-morgans-pipeline-expansion-report/article28106524/ This will be an interesting test for Trudeau, what with cascading bad economic news, and here we have a rare corporation willing to invest in very urgently needed infrastructure. For those unfamiliar with Kinder Morgan, this is a proposal to expand an existing pipeline from Alberta to Vancouver, on a route that has been in continuous use for 60+ years.