How're We Doing! Canada?

"Annual mean precipitation has increased, on average, in Canada, with a large percent increase in northern Canada. For Canada as a whole, observational evidence of changes in extreme precipitation is lacking. However, in the future, extreme precipitation is projected to increase in a warmer climate."
"For Canada as a whole, observational evidence of changes in extreme precipitation is lacking."
Xuebin Zhang, senior research scientist, Environment Canada

"The elephant in the room, from a climate-change perspective, is ... too much water in the wrong places."
"Flooding is the number one [insurance] cost in Canada ... due to climate change. The magnitude of the storms is increasing."
"The frequency, duration, the intensity of storms is much greater today than it was in the past."
Blair Feltmate,  Head, Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, school of environment, enterprise and development, University of Waterloo

"The ombudsman [Guy Gendron, CBC/Radio Canada International ombudsman] has ruled in favour of the complainant [Robert Muir, Ontario municipal engineer, member of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers]."
"Certain statements relating to rainfall amounts and the so-called 100-year events deemed to be inaccurate or irrelevant to the story have been removed and/or replaced."
"Information from Environment Canada has been added to indicate their statistics show no increase in rainfall or extreme rain events beyond 'normal' variations... These changes to the original story have been made on January 29, 2019 to comply with the ombudsman's decision."
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation correction 

CBC’s ombudsman issued a report saying flood claims by Blair Feltmate led the news network to publish stories last fall that contained “inaccurate and irrelevant” information.   Laura Pedersen/National Post files

The Insurance Bureau of Canada has been pushing provincial governments in an alert responding to flood claims, to fund green infrastructure in planning to mitigate flood damage. The Bureau plumps for 'green infrastructure' such as "natural" flood-control schemes defined including "natural heritage features" such as "street trees, urban forests,natural channels, permeable surfaces and green roots", bypassing hard infrastructure like waterways, improved sewer diversion and better urban water0management facilities.

Their version of improved green infrastructure as being more cost-effective and natural is disputed by the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers. In support of the Insurance Bureau, the Canadian broadcaster  decided to broadcast statements by the Bureau's frequent climate-change witness with claims that climate change has been responsible for triggering a surge in flood events in recent years. That resulted in a complaint to the CBC Ombudsman by an Ontario municipal engineer, Robert Muir, with the result, a CBC correction.

The thing of it is, despite Environment Canada's statement by its senior research scientist refuting those claims, there are other supporters of the climate change theory of lifetime-changing weather events, namely the Liberal government of Canada. Justin Trudeau is on record as claiming that a long-range plan to wean Canadians off current energy sources will bring Canada in line with other advanced nations pledging to curtail greenhouse gas emissions with the eventual use of alternate, 'green' energy sources.

That commitment to reducing Canada's use of conventional energy sources hasn't played out too well of late. This government has tinkered with rules and regulations on energy extraction and fine points in environmental consultation to the point where no urgently required pipelines moving oil and gas across the country, much less to shipping points benefiting Canada's exportation of both has left the country reeling with once-wealthy Alberta, the source of much of Canada's energy resources along with Saskatchewan and Newfoundland, unable to exploit those resources.

The absurdity of Canada importing Saudi oil while leaving Canadian oil underground has us burning fuel extracted elsewhere, costing Canada dearly to import that oil and much more in its incapacity to move the oil that is being extracted at a fair market value price to its major importer, the United States. Jobs in the energy field have dried up, investors have moved elsewhere, revenue is down, unemployment rising along with western resentment toward central and eastern Canada.

"The next election is going to be a referendum on Justin Trudeau ... and whether or not people think he has performed", stated Darrell Bricker hard on the heels of the latest Ipsos Public Affairs poll, referencing the government's stark failure in the energy field, and its comatose attitude toward illegal migrants flooding into Canada, swamping Canadian Immigration's ability to scrutinize and process refugee claims, leaving a situation of years of backlog, impacting on the process for legitimate claimants.

Now the Parliamentary Budget Officer has released a valuation in detail of the Trans Mountain pipeline the Trudeau government bought from Kinder Morgan last year for $4.4-billion, vastly overpaying for a worn-out investment caught in the clutches of the government's own web of increasingly fraught conditions to proceed with building the pipeline and bringing it to operation. the PBO vetted construction costs and risks of delay in construction, leaving the impression that with delays and rising construction costs that pipeline just may not be built.

Pipes are seen at the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain facility in Edmonton on April 6, 2017. Jonathan Hayward / The Canadian Press

And given the constrictions imposed by this government on any kind of energy extraction and movement, investment from abroad by energy giants looking for new projects to fund, and observing the contretemps for the past few years of immovable projects designed to fail, are intent on maintaining a safe distance. All of which adds up to punishing costs to Canadian taxpayers on the hook for a pipeline which may never be completed, and the continued need to import oil in a country that has some of the largest reserves on the planet.

"If it was a car, we would say they paid sticker price, they didn't negotiate very much, they didn't get that many deals or manufacturers rebates — quite the opposite."
"It's a very risky project to have bought something that nobody else in the private sector wanted to acquire. There are lots of retirement or pension plans that like to buy infrastructure of that nature that generate streams of revenues."
Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux

Steel pipe to be used in the oil pipeline construction of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project sits on rail cars at a stockpile site in Kamloops, B.C. A PBO report released Thursday says Ottawa may have overpaid for the project by more than $1 billion, but its value for oil producers, and in turn government coffers, is considerable. (Dennis Owen/Reuters)