Canada without the West

[Zeitgeist]

3 hours ago, cannuck said:

Ontario does that because it is the seat of the Federal government and the home of the ultra-left wing media.   They have learned that they can pay for their virtue signalling by taxing the crap out of the productive economies of the West.

That doesn't explain why Alberta receives transfer payments when oil prices crash.  Also, welfare recipients?  Subsidized stuff?  Drifters?  Have you visited BC?  I've never seen so many wayward men in one place in my life.  More money leaves Ontario than returns in the form of services than for any other province.  I already posted the data months ago.

Edited February 10, 2020 by Zeitgeist

[Argus]

2 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

That doesn't explain why Alberta receives transfer payments when oil prices crash.  Also, welfare recipients?  Subsidized stuff?  Drifters?  Have you visited BC?  I've never seen so many wayward men in one place in my life.  More money leaves Ontario than returns in the form of services than for any other province.  I already posted the data months ago.

That's because it has such a high population. But as a percentage, Alberta pays more. BC gets all the drifters and bums in part because it's the only place in the country you can usually sleep outside in the winter and not die. You can also blame the incompetent progressive idiots in the Vancouver municipal government, of course.

Edited February 10, 2020 by Argus

[jacee]

On 2/9/2020 at 11:21 PM, eyeball said:

Hey! What makes you think we want him?

Ya, sorry about that. Lol 

But I doubt I could throw him over the Rockies. 

On 2/9/2020 at 11:21 PM, eyeball said:

If there's anything more alienating for a western Canadian it's the spectacle of Ottawa plowing Alberta's oil thru us. A national energy program of a different sort.

We have faith that BC won't let that happen. : )

Edited February 11, 2020 by jacee

[jacee]

12 hours ago, Argus said:

Who would pay your welfare cheques then?

Whose?

What? 

Edited February 11, 2020 by jacee

[PIK]

21 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

American tankers go up and down that coastline to/from Alaska anyways.

Ya the tanker ban only affects canadian tankers.

[WestCanMan]

What people fail to understand about bad, bad oil is that exports are more important than GDP. 

GDP is basically a useless stat that includes the work of nail technicians, baristas, plastic surgeons, etc which don't bring any foreign money back into the country. That's just money recycling around there that doesn't help us get other countries to give us TVs, cars, computers, cel phones and everything else that we buy, including oil from Saudi Arabia. 

Without the trillion dollars per decade that we export in oil (and that's at 50% of what it's worth now) we wouldn't be able to bring shiny new toys into the country. Our trade deficits would be astronomical.

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, WestCanMan said:

What people fail to understand about bad, bad oil is that exports are more important than GDP.

What people fail to understand is that our planet's ecosystems are fundamentally more important than our economy. Ecosystems can function just fine without our economy but you can't have it the other way around at least not for very long.

[Shady]

2 minutes ago, eyeball said:

What people fail to understand is that our planet's ecosystems are fundamentally more important than our economy. Ecosystems can function just fine without our economy but you can't have it the other way around at least not for very long.

Our ecosystems in Canada are doing great.

[eyeball]

1 minute ago, Shady said:

Our ecosystems in Canada are doing great.

Not all of them as measured by their dwindling economic productivity. Take commercial fishing for example.  Overfishing is certainly a factor but changes in climate and ocean acidification (from CO2) are as well. Especially at the base of the food change where acidification is impacting plankton and the larval stages of economically important species. Not just here but around the planet.

 

[WestCanMan]

38 minutes ago, eyeball said:

What people fail to understand is that our planet's ecosystems are fundamentally more important than our economy. Ecosystems can function just fine without our economy but you can't have it the other way around at least not for very long.

Yeah 'cause Dems/CNN have been on a roll lately, so when they scream that global warming is real, and they're armed with the unanimous support of 7,220,816,932,547 anonymous scientists, I believe them. The most important thing that we can do is import our oil from Saudi Arabia and let returning islamic state terrorists walk free. 

Thank god for Trudeau.

[Zeitgeist]

4 hours ago, eyeball said:

Not all of them as measured by their dwindling economic productivity. Take commercial fishing for example.  Overfishing is certainly a factor but changes in climate and ocean acidification (from CO2) are as well. Especially at the base of the food change where acidification is impacting plankton and the larval stages of economically important species. Not just here but around the planet.

 

Well you're right.  At some point people have to decide whether the benefits of certain resource development/industrial practices are worth the cost in their own backyard.  Teck Frontier is massive both in its scale of oil production and environmental devastation.  Alberta is a big province, but it's already had its share of natural disasters, such as massive flooding in Calgary and forest fires in Fort McMurray.  Pipelines are cleaner than shipping by train or truck, but I do wonder about the environmental costs of some of the oil sands projects, and I'm not even thinking primarily of greenhouse gas emissions.  Trudeau is in a no-win situation with Tech Frontier.  He probably has to approve it for the sake of preventing western alienation (well, one part of the west, Alberta), but he will be painted as all talk no action on climate change policy, not that that's anything new.  Greta Thunberg has already turned the radical greens against Canada's feds.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Zeitgeist

[eyeball]

18 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

Yeah 'cause Dems/CNN have been on a roll lately,

No, because you can only draw down your natural capital for so long.

What is it that conservatives don't get about conserving anyway?  It's like conservatives have attached a greater importance to driving the planet off a cliff for the sheer pleasure of pissing off progressives.

[eyeball]

30 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

He probably has to approve it for the sake of preventing western alienation (well, one part of the west, Alberta),

These are just more eastern bastards from where I'm sitting on the coast.

Quote

but he will be painted as all talk no action on climate change policy, not that that's anything new.

That's right, we've seen this play book before.  We saw Liberals and Conservatives alike throw thousands of people and business' out of BC's fisheries and out of that destruction emerged a billionaire with the biggest share of individual quota on the planet.

Trudeau ultimately want's this pipeline and for the same reasons Kenny does.

Quote

Greta Thunberg has already turned the radical greens against Canada's feds.

I wish these would focus more on the dangers of allowing just about the filthiest fossil fuel on the planet being sold to help fuel the growth of the most dangerous dictatorship on the planet.  I honestly think this is a more immediate threat than climate change.

Edited February 11, 2020 by eyeball

[Army Guy]

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

What people fail to understand is that our planet's ecosystems are fundamentally more important than our economy. Ecosystems can function just fine without our economy but you can't have it the other way around at least not for very long.

What a load of horse shit, what you fail to understand is with out an economy, what are you going to eat, drink, we have already seen how a failed economy effects lives  in the 30 "s you should goggle the shit out of that, before you preach turn off the taps...… you need to replace fossil fuels as a energy source , before turning the taps off, until then Canadians are not ready to survive without electricity, period...

[eyeball]

40 minutes ago, Army Guy said:

What a load of horse shit

You honestly believe you can draw down a bank without end and not go bankrupt? Seriously?

Quote

, what you fail to understand is with out an economy, what are you going to eat, drink, we have already seen how a failed economy effects lives  in the 30 "s you should goggle the shit out of that, before you preach turn off the taps...… you need to replace fossil fuels as a energy source , before turning the taps off, until then Canadians are not ready to survive without electricity, period...

I get this but just not on a scale that seems to stem from a belief that we have a bunch of planets for the easy taking on hand.  I didn't say turn off the taps but I did say I stop using them to fuel the growth of the biggest most dangerous dictatorship on the planet. I would have thought someone who whines a lot about the pain of having to go off and fight a war would understand why....but you're someone who thinks you can empty out the bank without fail so maybe its just you.

Edited February 11, 2020 by eyeball

[cannuck]

What the anti-pipeline and anti petro fruticakes do not seem to understand is that while it would be nice NOT to use petroleum hydrocarbons, until someone figures out how to ACTUALLY be able to live without them, they will continue to be produced, shipped and used.   Since we are sitting on one of (actually THE) largest deposits, to get from where we are to where we need to be, our main source of revenue is some of those very finite resources that EVERYONE is using...because THAT is what the infrastructure in place is designed and in place to use.  When you stop some oil going down a pipeline, it just gets stuffed into a train.  BUT: when you do that to Alberta, you cut the revenue we get to FIX these problems pretty much in half.   On top of that, over here in SK, we are suffering the second dillbit derailment and massive spill and fire in a month.   What do we need to do to get the left coast loonies collective head out of their ass?   Arrange a Lac Megantique in one of their drug parlours?

[Zeitgeist]

1 hour ago, cannuck said:

What the anti-pipeline and anti petro fruticakes do not seem to understand is that while it would be nice NOT to use petroleum hydrocarbons, until someone figures out how to ACTUALLY be able to live without them, they will continue to be produced, shipped and used.   Since we are sitting on one of (actually THE) largest deposits, to get from where we are to where we need to be, our main source of revenue is some of those very finite resources that EVERYONE is using...because THAT is what the infrastructure in place is designed and in place to use.  When you stop some oil going down a pipeline, it just gets stuffed into a train.  BUT: when you do that to Alberta, you cut the revenue we get to FIX these problems pretty much in half.   On top of that, over here in SK, we are suffering the second dillbit derailment and massive spill and fire in a month.   What do we need to do to get the left coast loonies collective head out of their ass?   Arrange a Lac Megantique in one of their drug parlours?

It’s true that pipelines are much safer and better for the environment than trucks and trains.  Many of the unemployed radical PETA treehuggers in their oil-based breathable jackets don’t know this or want to know this.  

Having said that, for the oil sands to make economic sense, both the oil prices and the environmental cleanup costs need to be factored in.  There will probably be another oil price spike when the US fracked oil supply thins out.  Also, most importantly, EV and battery technology may literally bring the oil economy to a grinding halt or at least a permanent decline soon.  Tesla is working on 1000 kilometre batteries for trucks.  Then it’s all about electric energy, which can be produced quite environmentally in countries with big water supplies, uranium, and other low or no emission energy sources.

 

Edited February 11, 2020 by Zeitgeist

[cannuck]

2 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

Having said that, for the oil sands to make economic sense, both the oil prices and the environmental cleanup costs need to be factored in.  There will probably be another oil price spike when the US fracked oil supply thins out.  Also, most importantly, EV and battery technology may literally bring the oil economy to a grinding halt or at least a permanent decline soon.  Tesla is working on 1000 kilometre batteries for trucks.  Then it’s all about electric energy, which can be produced quite environmentally in countries with big water supplies, uranium, and other low or no emission energy sources.

 

 

Edited February 12, 2020 by cannuck

[cannuck]

3 minutes ago, cannuck said:

We are in the electric AND petroleum business, and I can tell you that there is simply not enough infrastructure to electrify transportation on any large scale.  Further, the space needed, and environmental damage done to try to use solar or wind on the required scale is NOT reasonable or sustainable.   What we desperately need is some really good, new nuclear technology to actually be able to do electric transportation on a large scale.  Nobody on this website is going to live long enough to see the end of the oil economy.

 

[Zeitgeist]

We've got a real mess on our hands with all these protesters hanging around on railroad tracks and making absurd attempts to shut down business in the country.  How anyone but the radical fringe could think this will garner public support is beyond comprehension.

[eyeball]

40 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

We've got a real mess on our hands with all these protesters hanging around on railroad tracks and making absurd attempts to shut down business in the country.  How anyone but the radical fringe could think this will garner public support is beyond comprehension.

It's definitely a bit of a cock up.  I saw a protest banner that said No Consent No Pipelines.

So if they do get consent pipelines are okay?  I think protest organizers are putting too much emphasis on the indigenous sovereignty issue and losing sight of the bigger issue of action on climate change - which includes turning our back on mega-projects intended to expand the development of fossil fuel infrastructure and a reliance on a fossil fuel economy.

Especially when it's all intended to sell fossil fuels to a expansionist dictatorship with a demonstrably rapacious attitude towards the environment.

Edited February 12, 2020 by eyeball

[Zeitgeist]

I'm more on the page of developing the oil sands before the resource development luddites shut it all down.  They've won too big of an audience from the Liberals.  Enough of the Indigenous sovereignty pitch too.  Remaining treaty disputes will be settled through the courts, if there's enough clarity to do so.  The existence of the country of Canada is a fait accompi.  Thank God.  This romanticized nonsense about life being more peaceful and harmonious before the arrival of the Europeans, which happened slowly for the first two centuries, is rubbish.  Housing, health, and nutrition were precarious back then.  Mistakes were made and people were mistreated, some much worst than others, but war was a way of life pretty much the world over.  That was then and we're doing our best.  Address injustices for the people around today as we see them.  Life is better now by many orders of magnitude than it was four centuries ago, period.  We're not going back.  Use the proceeds from resource development, manufacturing, and all business to plan and build the society we want, complete communities with efficient transport, greener energy, short commutes, better land use, and a more local food supply. 

Once the railways and electric vehicle factories are up and running, oil demand will naturally decline.  Lack of supply may force the issue, which is fine.  Adding to the cost of living and killing jobs by shutting down pipelines and resource development, including in the oil sands, is not the answer.  It hurts the economy and creates disunity.  Let the radicals rant until they're sick of it, carted off by police, or their money runs out and they need to work.  Climate change policy must align with other economic goals to really work.

Edited February 12, 2020 by Zeitgeist

[eyeball]

4 hours ago, eyeball said:

I think protest organizers are putting too much emphasis on the indigenous sovereignty issue and losing sight of the bigger issue of action on climate change - which includes turning our back on mega-projects intended to expand the development of fossil fuel infrastructure and a reliance on a fossil fuel economy.

That said, I can't think of anything that will slow down pipeline and other fossil fuel mega-project development faster than inciting a struggle between indigenous sovereignists and the elected band councils and chiefs that were imposed on indigenous peoples thru colonialsim.  Other movements and revolutions have coalesced around or followed indigenous aspirations and movements in the New World before.   It's definitely a new chapter opening on this and I'm changing my mind on environmental organizers tactic of connecting the larger environmental issues at play with indigenous peoples stake in their autonomy and legal right to govern themselves according to their traditions instead of ours.

Quote

Many of the themes in the foregoing essays come together in the final essay by Sinclair Thomson. His contribution confronts the silences inherent in our notion of the Age of Revolution most directly. Thomson, a historian of the extraordinary events that should be labelled the Andean Revolution of the early 1780s, asks why it has been generally ignored in the Atlantic historiography of the Age of Revolution. Drawing on Trouillot’s notion of silencing and Sibylle Fischer’s idea of “disavowal,” Thomson traces the neglect back to contemporary Spanish responses to the Revolution. While knowledge of the events in the Andes circulated widely throughout the Atlantic World in the early 1780s, desperate Spanish attempts to prevent circulation of the news of the insurrection limited its reach. Yet more importantly, the Spanish were quick to revise reports of the conflict as merely an ugly and brutal expression of racial violence – a race war. In doing so, the Spanish disavowed the radical principle at the heart of the Andean Revolution – indigenous political sovereignty.23

Rethinking the Age of Revolution

Indigenous political sovereignty is an internationally recognized right that we recognize as well and pretending the decisions of a colonially imposed government are more legitimate or take precedence over traditional 1st nations government to get a pipeline thru is a serious miscalculation on Ottawa's part.   

 

This is a way forward that could actually force us to develop sources of energy that are smaller and far more localized and of course green. This would probably be a lot more efficient and less expensive than trying to get big costly litigious, contentious not to mention Confederation shaking mega-developments off the ground.  Who knows where greater localization might lead? 

Oh well, by the time we get this figured out some sharp Norwegian will have come up with a solution.  If we'd hired them to run our oil sector 50 years ago we wouldn't be having this discussion and we'd all be farting in silk.

Edited February 12, 2020 by eyeball

[August1991]

On 2/9/2020 at 11:01 AM, Argus said:

Without Quebec we'd be a lot richer, a lot more united. Without the tribal vote of Quebecers, who despise the rest of Canada and refuse to vote for anyone but a Quebecer unless none is available we'd have far better leadership too. I'd way rather keep the West and throw Quebec out on its ass. What has Quebec contributed to confederation in the last fifty years but endless whining and sniveling and complaints and demands for ever more subsidies for its inefficient economy? What use is Quebec to Canada?

Richer?

In a 1900 world. We now live in a 2000 world.

Without Alberta, Saskatchewan and northern BC, Ontario/Quebec could have a diverse society that creates wealth.

[cannuck]

4 hours ago, eyeball said:

That said, I can't think of anything that will slow down pipeline and other fossil fuel mega-project development faster than inciting a struggle between indigenous sovereignists and the elected band councils and chiefs that were imposed on indigenous peoples thru colonialsim.  Other movements and revolutions have coalesced around or followed indigenous aspirations and movements in the New World before.   It's definitely a new chapter opening on this and I'm changing my mind on environmental organizers tactic of connecting the larger environmental issues at play with indigenous peoples stake in their autonomy and legal right to govern themselves according to their traditions instead of ours.Indigenous political sovereignty is an internationally recognized right that we recognize as well and pretending the decisions of a colonially imposed government are more legitimate or take precedence over traditional 1st nations government to get a pipeline thru is a serious miscalculation on Ottawa's part. 

You definitely have the real issue identified.

The concept of 200 sovereign indigenous nations contained within one nation is simply not viable they way we are doing it.   As with the federal/provincial/municipal layers of government, Indian bands need to be seen as exactly what they are: a level of MUNICIPAL government, that must follow the laws of the province and country in which they are contained.   Sadly, one of the first pre-requisites to working for government in a senior capacity is to first undergo a successful pre-frontal lobotomy.   Seems about the same for politicians.   In combination, this lot is far too short on even a functioning level of intellectual capacity to deal with this issue (or pretty much any other, it seems).