Viva 'Progressive' Canada!

"The federal government must recognize the exclusive role provinces and territories have over the management of our non-renewable natural resource development or risk creating a Constitutional crisis."
"[Bill C-48 in particular] will have detrimental effects on national unity."
"Bill C-69, as originally drafted, would make it virtually impossible to develop critical infrastructure, depriving Canada of much-needed investment."
"Our [provincial] governments are deeply concerned with the federal government’s disregard, so far, of the concerns raised by our provinces related to these bills. As it stands, the federal government appears indifferent to the economic hardships faced by provinces."
"Immediate action to refine or eliminate these bills is needed to avoid further alienating provinces and their citizens and focus on uniting the country in support of Canada’s economic prosperity."

"Our five provinces and territory stand united and strongly urge the government to accept Bill C-69 as amended by the Senate, in order to minimize the damage to the Canadian economy."
"We would encourage the government of Canada and all members of the House of Commons to accept the full slate of amendments to the bill."

Premiers Doug Ford (Ontario), Blaine Higgs (New Brunswick), Brian Pallister (Manitoba), Scott Moe (Saskatchewan), Jason Kenney (Alberta), Robert McLeod (Northwest Territories)

"I think it's absolutely irresponsible for conservative premiers to be threatening our national unity if they don't get their way." 
"The fundamental job of any Canadian prime minister is to hold this country together."
"Anyone who wants to be prime minister, like Andrew Scheer [leader of the Conservative official opposition], needs to condemn those attacks on national unity."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has no one to blame but himself for the current strains on national unity."
"He has claimed the fundamental responsibility of any Prime Minister is to bring the country together yet his actions point to the contrary."
"He’s pushing legislation widely criticized by most provinces, industry groups, prospective investors in Canada and Indigenous leaders as clear violation of provincial jurisdiction and a profound threat to [the] future of natural resource development, economic growth and prosperity in our country."
"His government’s legislative actions have caused more division in Canada than we have seen for years, and today’s comments only further inflame those tensions."
Jason Kenny, Premier, Alberta 

The Hibernia platform in Newfoundland's offshore is one of the province's offshore facilities. (HMDC)

Well, actually, it's not just Conservative premiers -- who represent over fifty percent of all Canadians -- and whose provinces' natural resources have buoyed the Canadian economy since Confederation that have run afoul of the federal Liberal government's action plan on the environment clashing head on with resource development, since signatories to a previous letter sent to Trudeau were former Liberal premier Rachel Notley, and leader of the Alberta Liberals, David Khan. Furthermore, an Angus Reid poll found 50 percent of Albertans are so enraged over the federal government's stance on resource development in the oilfields they would support secession.

In Saskatchewan, over half the population would consider secession, according to an Environics poll, reflecting the evisceration of both provinces' plans for petroleum resource development that have gone awry as international investment has dried up in response to the federal government's slow and steady withdrawal from support of the oil industry, not to mention its deep-sixing of critical oil pipelines to deepwater ports for export abroad, preferentially leaving Canada's huge oil deposits untouched, a gift to strident environmentalists who prefer it that way.

A sign is located near a Trident Exploration natural gas well near the community of Didsbury, Alta. Trident blamed low commodity prices and a lack of export pipeline capacity, among other reasons, for shutting down this week. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

The wealth generated to date by the oil and gas industries in Canadian provinces, including Newfoundland and Labrador, and particularly Alberta for many decades in tax transfers to the federal government paid the lion's share of 'equalization payments' to Canada's so-called 'have-not' provinces to ensure that all provinces in Canada would be able to offer equal services to all Canadians no matter where they live. With the Liberal government's steady encroachment on the Alberta government's responsibility for its natural resources, and its continual imposition of new environmental bills effectively halting extraction and pipeline activities, employment has plummeted and revenues along with it.

Lacking efficient export capabilities leaving Alberta to the use of trains to transport fuel to market rather than pipeline transfer, has made the province vulnerable to accepting pricing well below market value, a huge loss both for the province and for federal coffers for a government which has been profligate in other measures of spending for social welfare programs. Much like Quebec which has ever since equalization payments have been handed out, receiving the largest percentage of transfer payments to any province, enabling it to provide social programs far in excess of its own prosperity level.

Little wonder the petroleum product provinces are up in arms over the injustices they are now undergoing at the hands of the federal government. Justin Trudeau's agenda has been underhandedly undertaken, and it has impoverished the provinces that have been the engines of economic growth for the nation. He has alienated western populations by ignoring the needs of their provincial governments and putting huge numbers of people employed in the petroleum industry out of work. He is single-handedly managing to reverse the prosperity that Canada's potential promises.

And he has the unmitigated gall to charge those provinces' leaders with harming Canada's interests, with injuring national unity. We have this Liberal government to thank for social-improvement projects so dear to 'progressives' where euthanasia is now legal in Canada, as is the gateway drug to harder drug consumption at a time when the country is reeling under the ubiquity of overdose deaths, and where divisions have taken place in society over the narcissistic 'feminist' imperatives of Justin Trudeau.

A government which hands out millions in tax dollars to Islamist jihadis, and grants citizenship to convicted terrorists, while refusing summer employment funding to any organizations failing to unreservedly support abortion with no restrictions, and penalizing those in academia who refuse to use gender-neutral language in reference to LGBTQ2 demands. More, much more, all of it headache-inducing and heart-breaking for a unified Canada.

Russian Political Interference in American Elections....?

"We're going into our fourth week of digital door knocking and text banking and it has been incredible. We can talk to a lot of voters in very little time and we've identified thousands of supporters that we will be getting out to the polls."
"We're holding texting parties every week in the lead up to the election, where we text thousands of voters across the province to make sure they don't vote for Kenney's UCP [United Conservative Party]."
Duncan Kinney, executive director, Progress Alberta

"The campaign is about trying to persuade business to stop establishing offices in the province [of Alberta]."
"From the very beginning, the campaign strategy was to land-lock the tar sands so their crude could not reach the international market where it could fetch a high price per barrel."
"In 2008, two major U.S. foundations asked CorpEthics to reruit the groups, develop the strategy, crate a coordinated campaign, and act as a re-granting agency for the North American Tar Sands Campaign."
Michael Marx, director, Tar Sands Campaign

"[SAFE -- Securing America's Future Energy was funded] to help business leaders become compelling voices for government action to reduce U.S. oil dependence and vulnerability of U.S. businesses to high and volatile oil prices."
William Hewlett, Hewlett-Packard co-founder, Hewlett Foundation

"The Society [Living Oceans] worked with non-profit lawyers at Ecojustice to intervene in the regulatory review of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker project."
"[Living Oceans] instructed its lawyers to bring judicial review proceedings against both the recommendation report of the National Energy Board and the ultimate decision of the Federal Cabinet to approve the project."
Living Oceans report to the IRS for taxation purposes

Miles of unused pipe, prepared for the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, sit rusting in North Dakota.    Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Where to start? Some familiar names, perhaps: Northern Gateway, Energy East, Keystone XL, Trans Mountain, Line 3 -- targets all, by environmental groups to ensure that Alberta doesn't get the pipelines it needs to stop the forced sales of its petroleum products solely to the American market at a steep discount that sees Alberta forfeiting billions in lost royalties and revenue, reflecting a lack of infrastructure to ship large volumes of oil to overseas markets where Alberta can anticipate a fairer price return.

The hugely successful Tar Sands Campaign has manipulated events through its constant appeals to environmental risks associated with the extraction of crude oil from Alberta to refineries on the U.S. West Coast and abroad, through its relentless and hugely successful branding of Alberta oil as 'dirty' and polluting to the environment at a time of global warming and climate change, despite that what full extraction and production would produce in its carbon emissions are relatively minuscule in comparison to American pollution levels.

Yet the U.S. monopolizes Alberta oil production at a virtual giveaway price, holding it hostage to its own energy security, aided and abetted by U.S. environmental groups, leaving Alberta with pipeline gridlock, overseen by a federal government complacent with the status quo, itself beholden for votes from the environmental contingent. Two groups, Leadnow and Progress Alberta, are partially funded according to U.S. tax returns, by the Tar Sands Campaign.

A Rockefeller-funded American organization called the Online Progressive Engagement Network  out of which comes the Strategic Incubation program, created Leadnow. The United Conservative Party, led by Jason Kenney who hopes to unseat the New Democratic Party in Alberta in tomorrow's provincial election has been facing a strategic campaign funded by Rockefeller-supported groups, to keep the UCP from power, replacing NDP premier Rachel Notley. The UCP has committed itself to overturning the U.S. monopoly on Alberta's overseas oil exports.

A protest in Washington against Canada’s oilsands. Bloomberg

The Rockefeller Foundation funds the New Venture Fund based in Washington which has in turn funded roughly ten Canadian environmental groups involved in the Tar Sands Campaign, groups that include the Pembina Institute, Sierra Club BC and Living Oceans Society. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Hewlett Foundation have integral links to quite a number of groups they fund whose sole purpose is to ensure that the Alberta petrochemical industry remains in lock-down. A situation that has led directly to the loss of at least 130,000 jobs in the province.

It seems beyond peculiar that while the Democrats in the United States accuse the Republicans of collusion with Russia in allowing it to use social media sites and false news to interfere in the outcome of the 2015 presidential election, American charitable foundations are busy influencing the price of oil in the United States through placing Canadian oil on the sidelines of the global oil market; in one fell swoop leaving Canada with little option but to market its oil at bargain prices to the U.S. and hampering Alberta's efforts to get its fossil fuels to tidewater to markets overseas.

Canada has more than enough problems between the provinces, with the federal government effectively and ruinously pitting the East against the West by favouring the eastern half of the country over the western half, with provinces themselves rivalling one another. Where British Columbia wants Alberta oil and gas but refuses to allow it to build a pipeline on B.C. soil. Where Eastern Canada gets its oil from Saudi Arabia rather than from Western Canada, and Quebec refuses its soil to be sullied by a pipeline, but grasps equalization payments as a 'have-not' province from Alberta's coffers.

AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

A Country Divided

"I want to do all we can do to protect this headquarters and protect the thousands of good, well-paying jobs we have at SNC-Lavalin."
"We know that SNC-Lavalin, that they didn’t follow legal rules — in Libya especially — and they have to pay for that, especially the people that were involved. SNC-Lavalin, I met the president, they are ready to put on the table very large amounts of penalty [financial fines]."
"Right now there is no controlling shareholder, so there’s a real risk that this company could be bought by somebody, for example from the U.K. For me, it would be bad news for Quebec."
"Can you [Prime Minister Trudeau] settle as soon as possible in order that we keep those jobs? We need those jobs."

"When I discussed that with Justin Trudeau, I’m not asking him not to punish SNC-Lavalin, I’m just trying to say, can you settle as soon as possible, in order that we keep the jobs. We need those jobs."

Quebec Premier François Legault on the SNC-Lavalin criminal case controversy

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Quebec Premier François Legault before departing for Yerevan, Armenia, at the Ottawa International Airport on Oct. 9, 2018. iPolitics/Matthew Usherwood

"There is no social acceptability for oil in Quebec. We have hydro electricity surpluses. So I'll try to sell them."

"There is no social acceptance for a pipeline that would pass through Quebec territory."

"I am not embarrassed to refuse dirty energy [from Alberta oilsands extraction] while we are offering clean energy [James Bay electricity] at a competitive price."

Quebec Premier Francois Legault

The “United We Roll” convoy of semi-trucks travels the highway near Red Deer, Alta., Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019, on its way to Ottawa. Jeff McIntosh/THE CANADIAN PRESS

"The main message we are taking to Ottawa with this convoy is that our oil-and-gas sector is in trouble."
"We need a prime minister to be a champion for the industry that has done so much to fuel this country’s prosperity."
"We need to get our pipelines in the ground and soon. We need to abolish Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 and we need the carbon tax abolished."

Glen Carritt, convoy manager

"The carbon tax is killing us, our small town of Bonnyville is curling up and dying."

We've been told to hang on from our government, from five years ago, many, many people that we know and love up there, that we considered newfound oilfield family have moved, they've gone home, bankrupt."

"They're not only bankrupt financially, they're bankrupt emotionally."

Roberta Graham, Alberta protester, United We Roll group

The “United We Roll” convoy of semi-trucks prepares to leave Red Deer, Alta., Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019, on its way to Ottawa to draw attention to a lack of support for the energy sector and lack of pipelines. Jeff McIntosh/THE CANADIAN PRESS

The six-day trip by road in large transport and semi-trailers has set out to mount their protest; a message from Alberta and Saskatchewan to Ottawa, that the Canadian Western provinces whose economy has buoyed Canada's economy and hugely, disproportionately supported Canada's equalization payments to the 'have-not' provinces like Quebec, are losing vital infrastructure, investment, employment and hope and will no longer stand for being shunted aside.

The trip from Red Deer to Regina, on to Kenora, Ontario, to Sault Ste. Marie, then Arnprior and finally Parliament Hill to be reached on the 19th is on its sway. The protest is not only about the shut-down of Canadian oil transport by pipeline then tanker, but includes complaints respecting 'open borders' and illegal migrants, and Saudi oil imports and the failure of the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau to build the Trans Mountain pipeline. 

In putting roadblocks in the way of pipelines to transfer oil to deepwater ports like British Columbia which ships out more dirty-burning, environmentally disabling coal than any other place in North America [yet adamantly refuses to allow an oil pipeline to go through the province from Alberta], Canada's oil industry is faltering, and income from discounted oil sales because of delivery failures has caused an economic crisis that is unsustainable. Pressure is on Ottawa to regard the fortunes of the Western provinces as fondly as the Liberals do Quebec/

The Liberal voting base is basically Quebec. There is a paltry three seats for the Liberals in Alberta, one in Saskatchewan and seven in Manitoba, a whisper of a presence in the Prairies. But the United We Roll convoy is determined to deliver their message to Ottawa in as forceful a way as possible: the future of the oil and gas industry is vital to the well-being of the country and the current stalemate that has crippled the industry has victimized too many Western Canadians with uncertainty about the future through mass unemployment. 

Glen Carritt, organizer of United We Roll convoy spoke of more trucks joining his convoy as it crossed Manitoba and entered Ontario. A convoy from Newfoundland estimated at 50-strong would also join up once in Ontario, making up for those lost to the convoy when it completed its first day rolling across the country because not everyone was able to take the requisite time it would take to drive across the country, after completing the first leg of the journey. Of the original number that set out 70 remained steadfast in the convoy. 

Along the route the convoy drivers came across supporters holding signs of encouragement and Canadian flags as they drove past. Those unable to join the convoy supported it financially through donations made with a GoFundMe campaign which gathered in $80,000 on the first day of the convoy's trip. "I can't make my own trip down to Ottawa myself, so I figured that the fuel I would burn I may as well hand it off to somebody else. It's just a little part that I figured I could do and try to help out I guess", explained Kelly Keil in his black Dodge pickup, handing out gallon containers of diesel fuel. 

While temperatures fell below -20C, even in the middle of nowhere supporters waited, waved, took photographs and cheered the convoy on. The carbon tax is a particular irritant to rural Canadians lacking an option to take public transit or those who depend on heavy machinery for work. The cancellation of the Energy East pipeline and the Northern Gateway, then the halt of the Trans Mountain expansion by a Federal Court of Appeal ruling has disheartened all too many.

Leader of the Parliamentary official opposition, Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer is scheduled to join Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe in Moosomin, near the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border for an associated rally. Polling in January from the Angus Reid Institute found almost two-thirds of Canadians view the lack of pipeline capacity in Canada as representative of a crisis. Quebec, with no agreeing majority saw 40 percent in agreement.

The Quebec Premier wails about the possibility of the corrupt activities of SNC-Lavalin earning it a guilty verdict in its criminal trial, resulting in a ten-year loss of government contracts, ending up with bankruptcy and thousands of jobs being lost for Quebecers. This is the same provincial leader who scorned the need for an energy east pipeline contaminating Quebec soil, a province that yearly takes in millions of tax dollars extracted from Alberta in equalization payments, yet has no concern that Alberta is suffering a loss of revenues and jobs.

More than 150 vehicles of various sizes took off from Red Deer Thursday morning en route to Ottawa. Robin Grant/Red Deer Express

A Federation of Like-Minded Provinces

"He clearly doesn't understand what is happening in the energy sector in Alberta at this point in time."
"We have been innovators in removing carbon from the barrel -- we are going to continue to be innovators -- So I don't think the premier of Quebec understands at this point that Alberta's energy sector is leading in terms of the enhancements of the carbon molecule."
"We need to start operating as one country, as opposed to many provinces who are looking out for their own individual interests."
"Equalization does not work for Alberta."
Joe Ceci, Alberta finance minister

"[There's no] social acceptability [for a pipeline that would carry] dirty energy [through the province of Quebec."
Quebec Premier Francois Legault

"[Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's tanker ban on coastal British Columbia strips Indigenous people of economic self-determination]. Is this what reconciliation is supposed to represent in Canada?"
"All we're trying to do is take advantage of the resources available to us."
"They're [Indigenous protesters backed by activist organizations] just puppets and props for American environmental groups."
"We can produce oil in the oilpatch with a smaller carbon footprint than almost any producer on the planet."
"[Federal C-48 bill is a matter of] enormous concern [for the 200 First Nations communities the coalition represents]."
Calvin Helin, CEO, Eagle Spirit Energy Holding, Lax Kw'alaams Band member

Oil production keeps rising in Alberta, driven largely by oilsands development. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

Alberta has failed for years to have necessary pipelines to carry away increasing oilsands production, a matter of intense frustration since it means an enormous loss of revenues. Because of the province's inability to efficiently dispatch its petroleum products for sale abroad, its oil barrels sell for vastly discounted prices that lead to multiple millions of dollars lost daily. Eagle Spirit Energy Holdings, representing a consortium of First Nations bands has plans to build a $18-billion pipeline to carry oil from Northern Alberta to Prince Rupert, B.C.

The absurdity of eastern Canada using oil imported from Saudi Arabia, rather than having Alberta oil shipped from western Canada to the east, is unspeakably inefficient, much less nonsensical. Buying oil from a questionable moral choice rather than using Canada's own natural resources is beyond unreasonable. The National Chiefs Coalition is prepared, they claim, to file a complaint in "coming days" under the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples against the federal government for placing obstacles in the way of their shipping Alberta oil to tidewater.

Prime Minister Trudeau has pledged to see Canada's dependence on oil vastly diminished. He introduced a ban on tanker traffic in 2015 simultaneously with axing the Northern Gateway pipeline while approving the Trans Mountain pipeline, but has done just about everything in his power since then, including new intrusive legislation to frustrate pipeline investors, to the point where the owners of Trans Mountain simply gave up after years of negotiations, investment and work. The public fallout from that spurred the federal government to 'buy' the pipeline project for Canada.

It's impossible to guess when that pipeline will be up and running, since the federal government, with full intention, has thrown roadblocks in the way of it coming on stream anytime soon. Court action has ordered the federal government back to the planning stages, to more fully 'consult' with all First Nations bands whose geography would be impacted, and to institute regulations fully commensurate with protecting Canada's waterways and oceans from the potential of oil spills.

Since cuts were announced, Western Canadian Select crude has surged to almost US$41 a barrel, about US$11 less than the West Texas Intermediate futures price. The price difference between WCS and WTI was as wide as US$50 a barrel in October     Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press files

TransCanada Corporation had proposed a $15.7-billion pipeline, Energy East, to carry western crude through Quebec to New Brunswick to be shipped overseas, but ended up abandoning the project citing market changes, red tape, and objections from Quebec. New Brunswick is disappointed, and so is Ontario, where Saudi oil and gas is burned, not Alberta's. Alberta has been left to struggle with economic consequences of an oil-price glut collapsing prices, putting up with a deep discount on western Canadian crude resulting from transportation constraints which has led the province to cut production.

Alberta, despite its economic downturn in the constant loss of oil revenue, is considered a "have" province under the federal equalization program designed to help poorer {have-not" designated provincial governments to provide public services comparable to all other provinces. Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador are all now exempted from equalization payments, while the remaining provinces (and territories) qualify for economic relief.

Alberta is in a deficit position, Quebec can celebrate balancing their books with a surplus, but it will receive two-thirds of the total equalization kitty, at $13.1 billion. Quebec's refusal to allow a pipeline to ship Alberta crude to markets abroad results in Alberta realizing a steep loss of revenue, but it is largely from Alberta that the equalization kitty remains robust, and Quebec gets fully funded through the equalization program, a gross, immoral anomaly.

Western Canadian oil industry is losing at least $100M every day, according to analyst   CBC

Discounted Canadian Crude -- Boosting China's Welfare

"The policy of boosting infrastructure investment has been bullish for bitumen."
"The supply of the Merey grade has been disrupted since May, pushing refiners to look elsewhere. As late-September and October is traditionally the peak season for construction projects in China, demand will be further supported."
Li Haining, analyist, industry consultant SC199, Shandong province, China

"On the demand side, there are expectations for bitumen growth in China due to a boost in infrastructure spending."
"With traditional heavy oil shipments shrinking globally, trade flows are being reshaped and alternative heavy oil supplies from countries such as Canada are becoming sought after."
Sophie Shi, analyst, industry consultant IHS Markit, Beijing, China

"The gap between Canadian and U.S. oil is nudging US$50 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate is in the neighbourhood of US$72. The discount is so juicy that China has started switching away from Venezuela toward Bargain-basement Canada."
"That tells you something -- even claptrap, broken-down, corruption-riddled Venezuela can't undersell Canada's sadsack inability to peddle its oil."
Kelly McParland, National Post

"...Large emitters such as China, the United States, the European Union, India, Russia and Japan [collectively accounting for approximately 2/3s of total global emissions] matter the most."
"...The United Nations has sounded the alarm, releasing a report in early October suggesting a carbon tax of up to US$5,500 per ton [$7,183Cdn] may be necessary to limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees."
"The UN report suggests that a global emissions reduction of 45 percent by 2030 is needed, amounting to approximately 24 billion tons. Canada's share would represent around 200 million tons -- or just 0.8 percent of world emissions."
"This is the argument Canadian carbon taxers are making; that securing 0.8 percent of global reductions is worth punishing millions of Canadians and destroying Canada's economic competitiveness. They are asking Canadians to make massive, tangible sacrifices in their everyday lives...meaningless in the highly probable event that most other countries don't also follow."
Aaron Wudrick, federal director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Bloomberg via Getty Images

Steam rises from the Syncrude Canada Ltd. upgrader plant in the Athabasca oilsands near Fort McMurray, Alta., Mon. Sept. 10, 2018. Canadian oil is selling at the largest discount to global oil prices ever.

There it is, the politics in this country leaning every-which-way to broadcast we're so open for business that we labour to extract heavy oil at great cost and effort and it can be had for wholesale prices which may or may not cover the cost of extraction. Alberta's oilsands extraction attracted huge interest from giant international oil developers but this government gets stomach pains imagining the potential of fouling the atmosphere, the ground, the oceans in achieving pipeline construction, so looks the other way when industry makes do instead with tanker trains moving it overland to port.

The U.S. administration of Barak Obama, Justin Trudeau's inspiration in environmental protection, nixed the Keystone XL line, even while the U.S. was polluting the environment extracting and burning immense volumes of dirty coal because energy is energy and the U.S. needs and uses plenty of it. Somehow, fracking is A-OK despite that it may cause surface quakes and no one knows exactly the long term effect of forcing chemicals and water below bedrock for extraction that may affect deep-seated aquifers.

British Columbia is on its environmental high horse, rejecting Alberta oil pipelines but enthusing that a $40-billion liquefied natural gas plant is slated for Kitimat which had refused to allow the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline to pollute the town with its presence. The B.C. government moans that a pipeline through B.C. is environmentally offensive, that it won't stand for the potential of leaks yet it's fine with hosting the largest coal export terminal in North America.

Heavy haulers are seen at the Suncor Energy Inc. Fort Hills mine in this aerial photograph taken above the Athabasca oil sands near Fort McMurray, Alberta.   Ben Nelms/Bloomberg

Oil shipped by rail has gone from 30,000 barrels a day to 200,000 barrels daily from 2012 onward to the present. The chances of spills in rail transport are so much greater and present far more serious consequences than spills from pipelines, but never fear, an environment virtuous commitment by the Trudeau government to imposing a carbon tax will serve to stifle fears of ignoring the threat of climate change, even if the U.S. is responsible for 15 percent of global emissions and China with its 25 percent emissions globally, fail to hold up their substantial end of the international strategy.

And don't forget how important it is to Justin Trudeau to see Canada in the news, particularly highlighting his progressive policies. He likes being admired and having Canada considered a well-run and prosperous, fully-employed nation, generous to its struggling peer-nations, steadily growing the national deficit in the process, but not yet prepared to commit definitively to steaming ahead in supporting multiple pipelines to tidewater to enable Alberta oil to ship at full price, prepared to forfeit the crown of most-disinterested-in-filthy-profit purveyors of energy.

Meanwhile, Canada's cut-rate crude is making China happy, and whether that will help lead to a seat on the UN Security Council is yet to be seen in the future. China's spending on infrastructure in the last half of 2018 is accelerating five times the first half of the year with expectations that bitumen demand will only increase and refiners producing residue from cheap Canadian oil may consequently look forward to heftier profit margins. China profits from Canada's sacrifice, losing billions in the transaction of discounted Canadian crude.

China has alternative producers like Brazil since heavy crude is high in demand among the independent refiners in China, known as teapots. Facing competition from mega refineries these China teapots, small independents, process heavy crude as residential fuel oil. The demand for bitumen and cheaper Canadian oil aids them in capitalizing on demand. So there we are, Canada doing good things for the Chinese oil processing industry, allowing them to approach better profit margins.

Not only a source of fuel, however, Alberta crude is as well as 60 percent cheaper than West Texas Intermediate, but is also rich in bitumen, the black residue used in the building of roads, runways and roofs. As Venezuela's Merey oil varieties shrinks, Canada's crude looks ever more appealing to China's refiners, responding to their nation's building boom. Who needs free trade with China when Canada can give oil virtually free to that huge Asian nation?

Getting Alberta Oil to Market

"Today I'm announcing that, with the TransMountain halted and the work on it halted, until the federal government gets its act together, Alberta is pulling out of the federal climate plan."
"And let's be clear, without Alberta, that plan isn't worth the paper it's written on."
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley

"This is a project that's in Canada's national interest, a project that means thousands of good, well-paying jobs for the middle class."
"This one will be a strong, commercial project once we de-risk it. That's what we're attempting to do, so we can be in the market in the long term."
"The court has asked us to respond promptly and in a meaningful way to today's decision and has given us some good directions in next steps."
"While we want to make sure the project proceeds, we also want to make sure it moves ahead in the right way."
Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau

"There is that overall sense that when central Canadian issues -- steel or autos or dairy -- are in play, they're a priority, and when western issues are in play they're either not taken seriously or they are of such a secondary nature that they're not thought through carefully enough and they are essentially botched."
"We're getting to the stage where TransMountain is just botched. Elements of western alienation, for lack of a better term, run deep and also just below the surface in Alberta political culture. There's room for a provincial premier to champion the west, his province's interests, but the west more generally."
"We're at about the middle of the third iteration of this cycle [of past energy feuds with the rest of the country]."
Faron Ellis, political scientist, Lethbridge College, Alberta

Steel pipe to be used in Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain expansion project sits on rail cars at a stockpile site in Kamloops, B.C. On Thursday, the Federal Court of Appeal quashed Ottawa's approvals to twin the existing 1,150 kilometre-long Trans Mountain pipeline . (Dennis Owen/Reuters)

If any province has issue and legitimate ones with the rest of confederation it is surely Alberta. The long-established federal-mandated transfer payments to lesser economically hale provinces are mostly fueled by Alberta taxes, and the recipient provinces of this largess just happen to be the biggest critics of Alberta oil production. Quebec gets its electrical energy from its giant James Bay project, and sniffs disparagingly at oil production, campaigning vigorously against oil pipelines while grasping at Alberta's generosity.

British Columbia's digging in of heels, refusing to allow pipelines to cross its territory claiming environmental issues, is hypocritically taking advantage of Alberta oil to service its provincial energy needs while denying Alberta the kind of access that would ensure the province finally receives full payment for its oil products, not the discounts currently disabling its economic future. The federal government's stringently restrictive policies have so hamstrung investment by large energy conglomerates that they've given up struggling to build facilities that are meant to enable Alberta oil to be shipped abroad.

Yet when Kinder Morgan called it quits from sheer exasperation that all the patience mustered and the investments and the consultations, regulations simply kept increasing, leading the Trudeau government to the desperate measure of using taxpayers' funding to buy it all, lock stock and barrel. Shareholders approved the sale by a 99 .9 percent vote at the very time when the Federal Court of Appeal slammed the government for not adequately consulting First Nations. Work was proceeding on the pipeline and suddenly work is halted; thousands out of work, money thrown to the winds.

The National Energy Board's  report seen to be 'flawed', not considering tanker traffic, an issue outside their jurisdiction. That increased tanker traffic seen to be a threat to ocean wildlife. The increased rail traffic carrying oil across land also carries a greater risk of accidents and spillage, apart from the fact that the railroads are called upon to carry another natural resource -- Canadian wheat -- to outbound shipment abroad; oil interfering with the similarly critical issue of transporting grains, another trade imperative.
The steep discount Alberta oil sells for is a result of Canada not being able to ship Alberta oil economically and expeditiously if no pipeline is built to transfer it to tidewater. Oil by rail has accelerated to the point where Canadian trains have delivered twice as much oil to U.S. refineries int he period January to June of 2018 as was shipped for the entire of 2012. According to the National Energy Board "major crude oil export pipelines have been operating at, or near, capacity", and at discount.

"We can ship our energy products safely or we can ship them by rail, driving up emissions and costs", wrote Alberta Premier Rachel Notley  in an op-ed in the Vancouver Sun, in May, an explanation that did nothing to change public or government opinion in British Columbia. According to a 2017 report by the Manhattan Institute, to move a like amount of petroleum, trains cause close to four times greater numbers of accidents as do pipelines. Add to that the fact that when rails are stuffed with oil, a severe backlog of Canadian grain rail shipments result.