I was fine with the review, even though the film was panned by an insider as being quite inaccurate [0], but this got to me:
> Of course, Research in Motion imploded spectacularly… Blackberry went from controlling over 50% to now controlling 0% of the cellphone market, Alberta’s oil industry has been destroyed by a decade-plus of willful misgovernance, and Canada’s long national suicide continues even as it’s doctors encourage it’s citizens to opt for physician-assisted suicide rather than burden the system with their depression, homelessness, or wounds sustained in their country’s wars…
Really? That much self-hate? Then stop voting in governments full of shallow, vapid people based on how they look, or how much money they give away. People deserve the governments they elect.
Alberta's oil industry hasn't been "destroyed" -- it just has a product nobody needs.
When your chief export market for your product (the US) is also now the world's top oil exporter, sitting on its own reserves of oil, and the oil you're exporting requires heavy processing and is of generally lower quality... You're gonna have a bad time. New pipelines won't save you.
So then their party-of-choice wasted a decade fighting to build infrastructure to export to China... who also doesn't need our product.
It's froth-at-the-mouth rabid partisan bullshit, and Canadians need to learn to see through this crap. (Narrator: "they, didn't though")
Alberta's government was captured long ago by oil industry shills who are increasingly angry at their own failures and looking for someone to blame and balkanizing the country in the process, and the National Post plays along, every year becoming more and more shrill.
Oil prices dropped from around 2015-2020, but they are back up again. The question has always been "affordable at what price?" The US needs more oil than it pumps. For many industries, exporting good oil and using cheaper oil is a boon.
There really have been economic pressures, but government interference via legislation or executive orders killing the Keystone pipeline also play a massive role in the ongoing issues.
Keystone was always going to be controversial because, as I pointed out, the Americans are their own oil producer. Their need/desire to import from here is inevitably going to be subject to lobbying/partisan/sectoral pressures. Blaming Trudeau for Keystone's failure is dubious.
As for government interference, could as much say things in the other direction: the Alberta government and the federal Harper government, aggressively subsidized -- both economically through direct subsidizes or preferential tax treatment, and ideologically through aggressive campaigns the development of the oil sands and oil and gas exploration and exploitation in the province generally.
It has never been free from "interference"; pre-Trudeau or present.
But the country as a whole, and the world's climate, does not owe Alberta the progress of this sector. Alberta needed to diversify yesterday. Instead it's doubled down, and now it's blaming everyone else in the nastiest way; down to banning the development of renewables and actually deliberately kneecapping diversification along with an aggressive propaganda campaign of lies. It's almost comical, but actually it's f'ing enraging.
Line 9 runs right behind my house, like 1 or 2km away. It carries Alberta oil to Ontario and Quebec, where 90% of oil/gas consumption is domestic and the remainder imported from the US. A fact not apparently recognized in Alberta, where bullshit propaganda about "Saudi oil tankers in the Gulf of St Lawrence" runs rampant.
Grew up there, family still there, held thoughts for years of going back. After this last provincial election and what's falling out of it? Never. Folks like Smith are like the Slobodan Milosevics of Canada; vicious ideological shit disturbers balkanizing and building a personal empire out of lies and division, and the end result of it -- as should have been clear from what happened last winter in Ottawa and Couts, etc. -- is going to to get really really ugly.
I disagree with this screed. Are you okay with the PM being called names? Milosevic indeed. Are you an adult? Show some respect for your elected officials. After all your neighbours voted for them. Are your neighbours dictators and fascists?
It's down to numbers. It costs about $40 to produce a barrel of oil in the sands. When the price is above that mark, it's profitable to produce and sell. When it's lower, it's not. That's the supply side.
On the demand side, oil is sold on the global market, US is a large customer but certainly not the only one. There is always a market for oil. The key is transportation. Alberta is a landlocked province, it needs a transportation infrastructure to get the product to market. Canada has the third largest reserves of oil on the planet, and the world uses oil for far more than gasoline engines. To leave it in the ground when there's so much demand is folly. It should be harnessed for the betterment of the country.
Why can't we be like Norway and use the profits from oil to make our energy infrastructure greener? Why does it have to be a zero-sum game?
Circling back on this: "Why can't we be like Norway and use the profits from oil to make our energy infrastructure greener? Why does it have to be a zero-sum game?"
Why indeed? You might recall there was a federal government that attempted to engineer this kind of scenario, 40ish years ago, in the form of the National Energy Program. I grew up hearing all about the horrible NEP and the horrible things it tried to do to Alberta... We're still living with the fall-out from that, and in large part .. a lot of the western hate for Trudeau Jr. is deflected flack from Trudeau Sr's attempt to enact what you just asked for.
At least Lougheed made an attempt at something like what Norway has in the form of the Alberta Heritage Fund. But it didn't go far enough and has been chipped away at by his successors.
Oh, and one more point since I can't edit this... isn't this basically what a carbon tax is anyways?
I'm sure if Alberta had proposed that to the feds -- that instead of collecting carbon tax revenue that it take money from oil revenues and invest it in a green energy fund -- the feds would have been fine with that. They were fine with the Ontario/Quebec/California cap'n'trade system before Ford killed it.
But you know that Alberta would never accept or suggest such a thing.
Don't much care what people call the PM, I didn't vote for him either. Can't say I like the tone that whole thing has taken, but it's people like Smith who crossed the Rubicon to bring us there many moons ago.
In the end: We need to be done with hydrocarbons, like yesterday. And the people who've staked their political livelihood to it realize this, and they're distorting the entire political culture out of desperation to hold onto what they have.
> In the end: We need to be done with hydrocarbons, like yesterday. And the people who've staked their political livelihood to it realize this, and they're distorting the entire political culture out of desperation to hold onto what they have.
We can set the vitriol aside and discuss this point, as this is where we disagree. Our way of life is almost entirely dependent on hydrocarbons. Forget gasoline cars and diesel trucks, we can't even build roads or medical devices without them. Just take a look at a saline IV. We have no substitute for the flexibility and durability of plastic. Pick any item in your house, it's everywhere. Same with lubricants, they are in everything. Electric motors require brushes and lubricants too. Switching wholesale will cause will be very costly, and without acceptable substitutes, cause a huge reduction in the quality of life. It's essentially economic and lifestyle suicide. And for what? Canada contributes ~2 percent of global emissions. Reducing that to zero still won't make a dent in global emissions. China and India just need to build a few more coal plants to make up the difference. Meanwhile we will have destroyed our way of life irrevocably.
It's far more pragmatic to have a slow, phased rollout of eco-friendly technologies. Alternatives have to be built and tested to show that their total ecological footprint is lower. In many cases, the alternatives don't even exist yet. They need to be designed first. Look at paper straws, turns out they're impossible to make without plastic, and the plastic used is completely under-studied. It leaches into the drink and is more likely than not toxic. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, feel-good thinking is not a substitute for science.
Climate change is a global problem. Whether we like it or not, our part to play in it is quite small. We should do what's best for the country and its people.
Here we're going to have to strongly disagree, for sure.
Absolutely Alberta and others will continue to supply the world with hydrocarbons for generations to come. But that is not the same argument as demanding that the entire nation chip in to ensure that the sector be aggressively expanded.
Saying the world needs plastics and lubricants is hardly an argument for expanding -- significantly -- production. This is an argument I hear often from folks in Alberta like it's some sort of "oooh gotcha" moment, but it's frankly insulting. Yes, we all know how stuff is made. They're not telling us anything we don't know. They're not smarter about fossil fuels because of their proximity to it. Just insanely and heavily biased.
What Suncor and others and the Alberta taxpayer and energy sector wants is not a trickle of oil used for those purposes -- it's what any corporation wants: year over year growth, large profits for stock holders, revenues for governments, and jobs -- lots of jobs -- for Albertans.
Unfortunately that growth is not compatible with the ecological scenario of the planet. And the rest of the country is under no obligation to shift policy and economic planning for it.
And this 2% number is an absolute distortion of the facts and simply a product of cherry picking how things are measured. North Americans impact on the climate isn't just from their direction product & emissions, but also from the imports they bring in from abroad. Emissions from Chinese factories producing products for western consumers is not "China's fault" that somehow absolves us such that we can aggressively turn around and increase emissions.
What we're seeing demonstrated here is just classic deflection of responsibility. The bias within the western energy sector will always be to find "facts" to back up a world in which they can continue to grow and, in fact, destroy the climate. Intelligent people should be able to see past this.
In the end, Alberta provides oil and gas for domestic consumption, and that's not a bad role. Contrary to what Kenney was saying when he was premier, the large majority of domestic consumption does in fact come from Canadian (primarily Albertan) production, and has since the mid-2010s when the direction on Line 9 was reversed. Only the Atlantic provinces are substantially importers.
Alberta must diversify. Amazingly it actually was, at the level of renewable energy production, and ... you can see what a threat that was to established energy sector interests, because one of the first things Smith did was to put an end to that.
Finally, there seems to be a misperception in Alberta that the energy sector and Alberta are somehow underwriting the whole Canadian economy such that Ontario and Quebec "owe" it something. This is a falsehood. As a % of GDP, even for exports, oil & gas is still behind manufacturing, despite the multi decade decline in that sector. Share prices on the TSX are one thing, dollars and cents in paycheques and gov't coffers on the whole are driven by manufacturing, real estate, agriculture, etc., too.
Check out Canada's rating from 2017. It's 1.66%. The source: A 2022 report commissioned by the EU. Must be a terrible blow to your "absolute distortion of facts." Are you going to try a No True Scotsman fallacy?
Got any data from credible sources to support any of your assertions? Or is it all just dogma? Is it even possible to have a rational discussion on this topic which so much zealotry? Where's the science?
> Alberta must diversify. Amazingly it actually was, at the level of renewable energy production, and ... you can see what a threat that was to established energy sector interests, because one of the first things Smith did was to put an end to that.
If it ended, it was unprofitable, a failed business model. It didn't make money. It's that simple. Businesses chase profit. Oil is pursued because it is profitable. What you are saying is that Alberta should pursue less profitable directions to benefit the world. Why should it do that?
I'm not even going to touch NEP or equalization given how messy it has become over decades of political interference. It's not possible to have such a discussion in the forums.
> Unfortunately that growth is not compatible with the ecological scenario of the planet. And the rest of the country is under no obligation to shift policy and economic planning for it.
You don't know the first part of that. No one does. And the second part, it's more about bringing policy and economic planning to the status quo, rather than destroying the economy of the country which the current climate-driven agenda is achieving. When Alberta sells more oil, our country's tax base benefits as well.
> Absolutely Alberta and others will continue to supply the world with hydrocarbons for generations to come. But that is not the same argument as demanding that the entire nation chip in to ensure that the sector be aggressively expanded.
Forget aggressively expand, it's currently being strangled. If Alberta was a coastal province, this would be a moot point. Right now, the rest of the country is holding Alberta hostage. I can see it and I'm not even Albertan.
No point in arguing with you, you're a True Believer, and I'll let you drive around with whatever "F*ck Trudeau" stickers you want to put on your car, but I have to interject on this one point, as this is just pure lies: If it ended, it was unprofitable, a failed business model. It didn't make money. It's that simple"
In the real world, the Alberta gov't literally just banned renewal energy projects because they were too* successful.
Funnily enough, that book is on my nightstand at this point. Thank you for putting words in my mouth, I'm not the one insulting politicians here. I'm neither a rabid conservative nor a woke progressive. I'm a moderate, a centrist. I represent the silent majority that's looking for a balanced perspective and finds itself increasingly frustrated with the extremism on both sides of the spectrum. As far as I and others like me are concerned, the progressives and the reformers can cast off somewhere and fight each other to the death. Leave the country to those who know how to run it.
You're not wrong about deserving the government we elect, but the options on the short list aren't exactly inspiring.
I blame party politics. We could get great people elected locally if they didn't have to move in lockstep to one of three to five simplistic marketing brands.
Btw, the quote isn't from the NP review, it's from the blog post.
And as sibling says, while NP has a clear slant, it's hardly Fox News level.
In any case, the quoted section blends right in with rest of the blog. And really the whole post blends in with the rest of blog, especially the choice to end with the post talking about the fundamental role of faith (and belief) in success.
I wouldn't say polarized, but there is certainly a sliding scale. And the National Post is as right wing as it gets in Canada. Certainly some of their opinion pieces can get pretty extreme - see example above.
> Of course, Research in Motion imploded spectacularly… Blackberry went from controlling over 50% to now controlling 0% of the cellphone market, Alberta’s oil industry has been destroyed by a decade-plus of willful misgovernance, and Canada’s long national suicide continues even as it’s doctors encourage it’s citizens to opt for physician-assisted suicide rather than burden the system with their depression, homelessness, or wounds sustained in their country’s wars…
Really? That much self-hate? Then stop voting in governments full of shallow, vapid people based on how they look, or how much money they give away. People deserve the governments they elect.
[0] https://nationalpost.com/opinion/dennis-kavelman-i-was-a-lon...