B.C. “attacks” Alberta. Really?

Posted on February 14, 2016 by susanonthesoapbox

Thirty-six little words. That’s all it took for the media to whip Albertans up into a “how dare you” frenzy.

It started with the BC government’s Throne Speech in which Premier Christy Clark took her new election slogan—Say YES—for a test drive.

>Premier Christy Clark has, so far, declined to clear up how a Province email sent to the minister of advanced education about for-profit schools run by Eminata — a Liberal Party supporter — ended up on the desk of the company's president. &#15

BC Premier Clark

Say YES she said to LNG, to mining, to the TPP and to Site C so that BC can become a “clean energy superpower.” (Why does everyone want to be a superpower? Can’t we just be a semi-superpower?) In order to reach that dream Ms Clark urged BC-ites to ignore “external pressures” and “internal critics” and just Say YES to economic development.

Mixed in with the 3434 words extolling the virtues of the Say YES campaign were 36 words suggesting that BC should not be like Alberta which had failed to diversify its economy or control government spending and imposed a carbon tax was not really revenue-neutral.

The leader of Alberta’s Official Opposition flew into a tizzy. Brian Jean said the onslaught was inconceivable; he’d never seen anything like it and we’d become a foot stool for other premiers. A foot stool?

In the days that followed the media continued to grind away at the gravity of the insult. They said:

  • It was a uniquely low point in Canadian interprovincial relations. Oh, I don’t know, Ralph Klein’s “Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark” was pretty pointed.
  • It failed to recognize that Alberta did expect the boom to end. Yes we did… sometime in the far away future, not last year.
  • Alberta is diversified because in 1985 energy formed 36% of the economy and in 2014 it dropped to 26%. Right, and energy at 26% of the economy creates 7.4% unemployment when the music stops so a little more diversification might be in order.

The media and the Opposition demanded Premier Notley do more to “stand up” for Alberta but were short on suggestions about what doing more looks like.

Standing Up

It seems everyone is standing up for something these days.

Premier Clark says she’s standing up for BC by imposing the Five Conditions on heavy oil pipelines.

What she’s not standing up for is the environment as she pursues her quest to be Canada’s next energy superpower.

Ms Clark has pinned her hopes on the Pacific NorthWest LNG Project. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency says the Project will likely cause significant adverse environmental effects on the harbour porpoise and as a result of greenhouse gas emissions.

The noise from dredging and pile driving during the three to five year construction period will result in behavior changes in humpback whales, killer whales and sea lions as well as harbour porpoises.

Furthermore the Project will add 350 LNG shipping vessels a year to the 500 tankers already in the area. (By 2015 the total number of tankers will be close to 2000 but CEAA couldn’t comment on the impact of vessel/marine mammal strikes because no current data was provided).

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Alberta Premier Notley

I suppose Premier Notley could stand up for Alberta by telling Premier Clark that Saying YES to the BC Project is hypocritical given its consequences on BC’s marine life.

But that’s a mug’s game. Ms Clark’s aspersions against Alberta are nothing more than political posturing.

Premier Clark is already in election mode. She’s concerned that the NDP together with the environmentalists will be a formidable problem, especially when the environmentalists realize that Flipper makes a better poster child, er pet, than Charlie the Tuna.

The real culprit

The real culprit isn’t Ms Clark it’s the media which no longer recognize the difference between news and hype.

The News Manual sets out four criteria to determine whether something is news: Is it new, unusual, significant/interesting, or about people?

Ms Soapbox would argue that the BC government’s Throne Speech is news in BC but fails to meet the criteria for news in Alberta and should not have displaced a more important story that appeared on the same day.

The Auditor General released a report that revealed the PC government doled out $1.4 billion a year to the oil patch in royalty breaks without assessing whether the royalty reduction actually increased the extraction of oil and natural gas as it was intended to do. The report also found the PC government pushed the flood disaster recovery program out of the hands of an admittedly incompetent contractor to Municipal Affairs even though it knew Municipal Affairs lacked the capacity to do the work.

The AG’s report tells Albertans something significant—namely that the administration of PC government programs is inadequate. It puts the NDP government on notice that it must correct these flaws.

Instead Postmedia chose to go with the hype and Albertans are talking about whether to cede from Confederation because no one appreciates us anymore.

What a waste of journalistic talent.

Posted in Disasters, Environment, Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , , , | 29 Comments

Trudeau On Pipelines: Maybe

Posted on February 7, 2016 by susanonthesoapbox

Last week Justin Trudeau walked into the lion’s den—a boardroom filled with the country’s top oilpatch executives—and got it half right.

Luckily he had the good sense to take Premier Notley with him.

Mr Trudeau, Ms Notley and Big Oil discussed low oil prices, the lack of pipelines to move product to tidewater and the impact all this has on employment and the economy for Alberta and Canada.

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The Prime Minister and the Premier smiling in the lion’s den

Big Oil said the meetings were very encouraging, which is curious given that Big Oil did not get the one thing it was looking for—assurance that Cabinet would approve the Energy East and Trans Mountain pipelines, both of which are before the National Energy Board (NEB) right now.

Mr Trudeau said he would not “politicize” the NEB process by prejudging or short cutting it.  He would allow the NEB to do its job without political interference.

With that he slid into the gray zone.

Politicization?

Mr Trudeau is right.  He cannot guarantee approval.  He’s also correct that signalling the “right answer” to the NEB would preempt its process;  however as a result of the changes put in place by ex-PM, Stephen Harper, the only way to further politicize the NEB would be to move it into the PMO’s office.

When John Diefenbaker created the NEB in 1959 he gave it authority over interprovincial pipelines. For 53 years the NEB required Cabinet approval to approve a pipeline but didn’t require Cabinet approval to reject one.

When Stephen Harper cottoned on to this glitch he amended the NEB Act. He made the NEB submit recommendations for refusal as well as approval to Cabinet and gave Cabinet the power to send the NEB’s recommendation back twice for reconsideration. The reconsideration order could require the NEB to take into account any factors specified by Cabinet.

In other words Harper gave Cabinet the power to second guess the NEB and force it to come up with the “right answer”.

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Natural Resources Minister Carr

Mr Trudeau inherited Mr Harper’s NEB. He and his Cabinet are free to decide whether a pipeline goes ahead or not for whatever reason they please. If that isn’t a politicized process I don’t know what is.

Perhaps the real reason Mr Trudeau doesn’t want to signal “yea” or “nay” for Energy East and Trans Mountain is that he doesn’t want to violate his commitment to a leadership style that respects the independence of his cabinet ministers.

A recent example of this non-Harper style is Mr Trudeau’s reluctance to wring Natural Resources minister, Jim Carr’s neck for saying “of course” pipeline approval is a political process when Mr Trudeau says it’s not.

A new GHG review process

Having declared his support for an unpoliticized NEB process and the independence of his cabinet ministers one has to wonder about the government’s decision to overlay the NEB process with a new process.

The process is based on five principles:

  1. No NEB project applications will be required to go back to square one
  2. Decisions will be based on science (isn’t this an NEB requirement?) and the traditional knowledge of indigenous people
  3. The views of the public will be sought (ditto?)
  4. There will be greater consultation with First Nations (existing law requires consultation)
  5. Direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions from a project will be considered (the NEB does not consider upstream and downstream GHG effects because a pipeline has no impact on them. Producers are governed by the environmental regulations of the province within which they operate. If Cabinet rejects a province’s environmental oversight of upstream or downstream emissions it risks violating the federal/provincial division of powers enshrined in the Constitution)

Principles 2, 3, and 4 are an attempt to strengthen existing NEB processes, principle 5 is overreaching and this is a concern.

Trudeau could learn from Notley

Mr Trudeau, like Ms Notley, believes that a healthy environment and a strong economy are two sides of the same coin.

However Mr Trudeau appears to place a heavier emphasis on addressing climate change than supporting the energy industry.  Ms Notley tries to balance the two while at the same time transitioning Canada to renewables.

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Premier Notley

Yes, we should cut Mr Trudeau some slack. It takes time to round up the premiers and hammer out a national energy policy and a national climate change policy, but in the interim Mr Trudeau should take a page from Ms Notley’s book (she supported Energy East and Trans Mountain; Deron Bilous, her minister of economic development wrote an op-ed lauding the benefits of “a thriving energy sector, managed in an environmentally responsible way”).

And yes, these are just words, but the next time Mr Trudeau is asked whether he’d support Energy East/Trans Mountain, would it kill him to say: IF the NEB recommends approval AND Cabinet is satisfied the requirements of the new GHG review process are met, then Cabinet MAY be favourably disposed towards them.”

Or are we in the twilight zone and is Orange the new Red and Red the new Green?

Posted in Economy, Energy & Natural Resources, Politics and Government | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments

Notley’s Royalty Review

Posted on February 1, 2016 by susanonthesoapbox

Rachel Notley is driving Brian Jean and Ric McIver crazy.

Every time they think they’ve backed her into a corner on the energy file she comes out with a creative and pragmatic solution which has the industry’s backing.

What’s the opposition supposed to do?

The conservatives respond

Brian Jean (WR) and Ric McIver (PC) responded exactly as we expected they would—with bluster and righteous indignation.

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Mr McIver and Mr Jean

Mr Jean said the royalty review was a waste of time and created uncertainty which threw thousands of Albertans out of work.

Mr McIver said the review was unnecessary, damaging and confirmed the PCs had it right all along.

Both implied nothing changed.

Apparently neither checked the chart on page 62 of the Review Panel’s Report which set out 15 differences between the existing royalty framework and the modernized royalty framework.

What’s new?

Ms Notley’s “modernized” royalty framework shifts toward greater certainty by applying the revenue-minus-costs royalty model to all hydrocarbons and making the royalty calculation easier because costs are more clearly defined.

It rewards companies that reduce costs through innovation and efficiency and requires oilsands companies to become more transparent and accountable for costs. This in turn will reduce the number of disputes about cost deductibility, inconsistent royalty treatment and the lack of information about prices, the status of projects and the amount of royalty payable. All of which will increase public trust in the system as a whole.

The NDP government’s focus on costs is a startling turn of events for an industry that has long argued it deserves special breaks, including rock bottom royalty rates, because it operates in a “high cost basin”. Did they miss the fact that Alberta is a land-locked province requiring pipeline transportation for their products when they made their initial investments?

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Premier Notley

Ms Notley’s new royalty formula (revenue-minus-costs) results in a flat 5% pre-payout royalty and a post-payout royalty that can increase as the commodity price increases. It applies to new wells drilled after Jan 1, 2017. Existing wells will remain under the old royalty structure for another 10 years.

What could be simpler than that? (Okay, it’s more complicated than that, but it’s a heck of a lot simpler than Ric McIver’s party’s royalty framework!)

Royalty Review PLUS

The Review Panel went beyond the number crunching to include recommendations to encourage the creation of value-added industries.

The Panel called for a natural gas strategy to support the Climate Leadership Plan by providing a “bridge” from the hydrocarbon based economy to one more reliant on renewables. It called for additional support to value-added industries including the partial upgrading of bitumen, which would increase existing pipeline capacity by up to 30% and the expansion of Alberta’s petrochemicals, fertilizers, biomedicals and pharmaceuticals industries.

Interestingly, the Panel was reluctant to tackle environmental issues like orphan wells, tailings ponds and the need to create an Alberta Environmental Information Agency similar to the US EIA. It stated such concerns were being addressed elsewhere.

Industry and media respond

Here’s where it gets embarrassing for the staunch defenders of the oil patch, Messrs Jean and McIver.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers called the Royalty Report a “balanced review” that was the result of a “fair and credible process, one Albertans can trust.” The Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors expressed concern about the focus on cost reduction (read: our paycheques) but remained “cautiously optimistic”.  Precision Drilling was “impressed”, Seven Generations said the Report was “thoughtful and comprehensive” and MEG Energy was “pleased”.*

Deborah Yedlin, the Calgary Herald’s energy columnist (who was apoplectic when the NDP swept into power) praised the Review Panel for its “elegant and thoughtful recommendations”.

What?

Given all this praise from industry and media one wonders, did the Review Panel go too far?

I don’t think so. The Panel presented evidence that Alberta is in the “middle of the pack” when it comes to royalties collected and investment in the industry. It recognized that Alberta is at the mercy of global oil prices and our biggest customer, the USA, is eating our lunch. It presented realistic recommendations designed to enhance innovation and efficiency.

Most importantly, it recognized that Alberta’s economy is based on fossil fuels, but provided a blue print for value-added diversification, including the recognition that natural gas is the “bridge” to renewable energy.

Where do we go from here?

Ms Notley will continue to be a smart, realistic premier who consults with experts and the people before implementing policy based on evidence, not ideology.

Messrs Jean and McIver will continue to huff and puff and revert to ideology when the evidence doesn’t support their position because that’s what conservative leaders do to shore up voter support.

Albertans will continue to assess the NDP and the conservatives as they march toward the next election …and if the Royalty Review is any indication Ms Notley has a good chance of returning to power four years hence.

*Daily Oil Bulletin, Jan 29, 2016

Posted in Economy, Energy & Natural Resources, Environment | Tagged , , , | 39 Comments

Down for the count

Posted on January 31, 2016 by susanonthesoapbox

Ms Soapbox went on a blitz trip to Vancouver Island.  She got home late this afternoon and discovered that her brain is capable of nothing more taxing that deciding whether to watch Sherlock: The Abominable Bride or Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.

Sunday’s post will appear on Monday.  Anyone want to wager what it’s about?  (Clue: it includes the word “royalty”).     

Posted in Uncategorized | 12 Comments

Notley’s Approach to Trans Mountain (boys, get with the program)

Posted on January 24, 2016 by susanonthesoapbox

“Projects like pipelines shouldn’t pit one province against another—they should stimulate conversations that recognize the economic needs and positions of all provinces.”—Alberta premier, Rachel Notley  

It doesn’t matter what Rachel Notley does to support interprovincial pipelines it’s never enough—at least not according to Wildrose leader Brian Jean and Alberta Party leader Greg Clark. Witness how they turned BC’s lack of support for Trans Mountain into a blistering criticism of Notley’s support for the project.

The Jean machine on full throttle

Brian Jean was all over the BC government’s refusal to support Trans Mountain calling it a “body blow” to the energy sector and proof that Rachel Notley’s climate strategy didn’t deliver the social license Alberta needs to move ahead with energy projects because BC “rejected her entire platform.”

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Mr Jean

Clearly Mr Jean did not read BC’s submission.  If he had he would have realized that BC’s concerns relate solely to Trans Mountain’s failure to provide evidence backing up its claim that it can provide world-class marine and ground spill prevention and response capability.

What’s bugging BC?

Given that Trans Mountain based its application on its ability to provide world-class spill prevention and response it’s not surprising that this became the BC government’s primary focus.

BC repeatedly asked Trans Mountain for information about its Emergency Management Program. It got heavily redacted documents or nothing at all (Trans Mountain cited confidentiality concerns).

BC said it was unable to support the application not because it was skeptical about Rachel Notley’s climate strategy, but because Trans Mountain failed to address the government’s concerns about spill prevention, leak detection, ground and marine spill preparedness and response planning.

Now Ms Notley may be a remarkable politician but even she would not be able to persuade the BC government that Trans Mountain can provide world-class spill prevention/response without having the hard evidence to back it up.

Greg Clark counts pages

Greg Clark notes that Rachel Notley’s submission is a mere six pages compared to BC’s 140 pages and dismisses Notley’s submission as a “half-hearted, last minute response”.

Let’s start with the page count complaint.

BC’s 140 page submission boils down to 34 pages of argument on the spill prevention/recovery issue. The remaining 106 pages consist of detailed amendments to the NEB’s draft conditions, a book of authorities containing past board decisions, a consolidated version of the National Energy Board Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (in English and French) and excerpts from Enbridge’s Northern Gateway evidence.

With respect to the 34 pages of content, they focus on nothing but Trans Mountain’s lack of evidence in connection with spill prevention and recovery.

The only way Ms Notley could minimize BC’s concern about Trans Mountain would be to demand that Trans Mountain give her the evidence it refused to provide to the BC government so Ms Notley could submit it to the NEB under her own signature.

A brazen but utterly unrealistic strategy.

Notley’s submission: a national focus

Rachel Notley urged the NEB to approve Trans Mountain for the benefit of all Canadians. She argued the project is necessary and desirable in the public interest (in other words it meets the NEB’s criteria for approval).

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Premier Notley

She said her climate change strategy supports Alberta’s need to develop its resources in a sustainable and responsible manner, that pipelines are the safest and most economical way to transport oil and gas and such resource development benefits all Canadians.

She relied on expert evidence from Muse Stancil and the Conference Board to support her arguments in favor of Canada-wide economic benefits.

She pointed out that the project will favorably impact crude prices and increase market optionality.

She urged the NEB to recommend approval of the pipeline to the federal cabinet for the benefit of all Canadians.

The last word

Ah yes, the federal cabinet.

Former NEB chairman, Gaetan Caron, says the NEB doesn’t look at provincial, territorial or regional interests. It looks at Canada’s national interests and considers whether they are served with Trans Mountain and without Trans Mountain.

If the NEB likes the vision of Canada with Trans Mountain it will focus on how to make the pipeline safe (which brings us right back to why BC refused to support Trans Mountain in the first place).

Ultimately the go/no go decision will be made by the federal cabinet.

Ms Notley gains nothing by bashing the BC government. She understands this and has put significant time and energy into building a productive relationship with the provincial premiers and Justin Trudeau (unrolling her climate strategy just before the Paris Climate Summit was a master stroke).

Mr Trudeau’s cabinet will make this decision without paying a lick of attention to blustery politicians like Brian Jean and Greg Clark because inter-provincial pipeline projects are nation building projects; they shouldn’t pit one province against another no matter how much the boys want to strut their stuff in the media.

Posted in Economy, Energy & Natural Resources, Environment, Politics and Government, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 18 Comments

Bishop Henry Pontificates on Gay Straight Alliances

Posted on January 17, 2016 by susanonthesoapbox

On January 13, 2016 The Most Reverend Frederick Bernard Henry, the seventh Catholic Bishop of the diocese of Calgary well and truly lost it.

Henry wrote a pastoral letter denouncing Education Minister David Eggen’s “edict” that public, Catholic, French and charter school boards must support LBTQ students who wish to form gay-straight alliances (GSAs) and queer-straight alliances (QSAs) in accordance with section 16.1 of the School Act.

He said it was an act of totalitarianism.

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The Bishop

Henry’s argument (if one can call it that) is this:

  • Before Pope Francis became pope he gave a speech about the need for “sovereign love”. This was in the context of Argentina’s election of a new government and serves no purpose other than to give Henry a flimsy platform for his allegation that the NDP government is totalitarian.  
  • The “madness of relativism and the madness of power as a monolithic ideology” impede sovereign love.  Henry is concerned you won’t buy his totalitarian argument so he’s thrown in relativism (judgment is relative, it depends on the situation, the person, or the era) and power as a monolithic ideology (10 principles espoused by Kim Yong-ju, younger brother of North Korean leader Kim Il-sung demanding absolute loyalty to The Great Leader).
  • Eggen’s “edict” is secular and anti-Catholic and smacks of relativism and totalitarianism. Why? Because Henry says so.
  • Catholic schools believe all children are loved by God (including LBTQ students presumably).
  • Catholic schools are inclusive, teaching compassion for everyone regardless of age, race, sex, gender or sexual orientation…but…
  • God created males and females and they should accept their sexual identities.
  • Sexuality, as defined by Henry, means the capacity to love and procreate.
  • Sexuality is tempered “according to God’s plan for the appropriate expression of love in the marital relationship of a man and a woman”. Ah, so that’s it. Eggen’s plan violates God’s plan which apparently was delivered directly from God’s lips to Henry’s ear.
  • GSAs and QSAs are “highly politicized ideological clubs” intended to cure society of “homophobia” and “heterosexism” and this is not a Catholic view of sexuality. No kidding! It’s also not the NDP’s view, or any sane person’s view, of Section 16.1 of the School Act.  
  • And lastly, the Supreme Court of Canada in the Loyola case said the state cannot tell a Catholic school how to explain its faith. True, but in the Loyola case, the state won a partial victory.  Quebec passed legislation making all schools teach a course on world religions in which doctrine, practices and ethics would be taught neutrally. Schools could apply for an exemption if they offered an alternative course. Loyola wanted to teach the course from a Catholic perspective. The SCC said Loyola had to teach doctrine and practices neutrally but it could teach ethics from a Catholic perspective. NOTE: Henry is not offering a Catholic alternative to GSAs and QSAs. He’s denouncing them as anti-Catholic heresy.

There’s relativism and then there’s politically correct relativism

Does Henry’s unwavering belief in universal truth untainted by relativism apply to all societal issues? Um, no.

The Catholic Church played a major role in assimilating Aboriginal children into the Euro-Canadian Christian culture by removing them from their families and placing them in residential schools. It was a universal truth that assimilation was the only way to treat Canada’s Aboriginal population.

However, on Feb 24, 2014 Henry joined the Catholic Bishops of Alberta and the NWT to apologize for the role of the Catholic Church in this process. Apparently Henry’s belief in the absolute doctrines of the Catholic Church has some limits.

Let’s try this as a limit:  Children should not suffer at the hands of bigots. Not in residential schools in the interests of assimilation, nor in Catholic schools because a bishop thinks Catholic doctrine is under threat.

How sad that a man of Bishop Henry’s stature fails to understand the first principle—God loves all children, period.

Posted in Culture, Education | Tagged , , , , , | 28 Comments

The Fly Report: Why TCPL Sued Obama and the US Government

Posted on January 10, 2016 by susanonthesoapbox

TransCanada Pipelines (TCPL) just announced it is going to sue the US government for $15 billion under NAFTA and while they’re at it sue President Obama for exceeding his power under the US Constitution.

Some lawyers say TCPL has a good case, others call this a “Hail Mary” long shot. Ms Soapbox thinks its hubris on steroids and asked The Fly On The Wall to check it out.

NOTE: The Fly is a fictitious insect deployed by Ms Soapbox to eavesdrop on Big Business when it does something spectacularly inane.      

The Fly Report

Twelve TCPL directors settle themselves in the board room. They’re about to make a Very Serious Decision: Sue or Don’t Sue.

Russ Girling, CEO, fires up a power point presentation that sets out the facts and recommends a course of action. A phalanx of lawyers stand ready outside the board room in case Mr Girling is asked a question he can’t answer. (This is unlikely because Mr Girling knows everything).

The power point presentation starts with a “How We Got Here” slide.

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Mr Girling CEO TCPL

Mr Girling explains that Keystone XL was delayed for seven years before being rejected by President Obama. He skips through the reasons for delay, preferring not to dwell on TCPL’s refusal to re-route the pipeline in 2008 to avoid the Ogalla aquifer and Sandhills in Nebraska thereby inflaming landowners and environmentalists alike. TCPL relented in 2011 when the Governor of Nebraska asked President Obama to reject the application. Had TCPL re-routed Keystone XL three years earlier it could have avoided becoming a political football in the 2012 Presidential Election.

Mr Girling quickly moves to the “Alternatives” slide. It sets out a number of options including:

  • Just let it go already. Focus on Energy East and a myriad of other projects presently in development.
  • Wait until after the 2016 Presidential election. If the Republicans take the White House, reapply for a presidential permit. It’s a slam dunk with any GOP president except that loon Trump who will be too busy building a wall between Canada and the US to focus on a cross border pipeline.
  • Launch a lawsuit under NAFTA. Demand $15 billion in damages (the lawyers step in to explain how TCPL can claim $15 billion when the cost of the pipeline is only $8 billion and TCPL can re-use some if not all of the pipe piled up on the right of way for Energy East). Use the time between now and the hearing date to try to negotiate a monetary settlement with the US Government.
  • Launch a constitutional challenge alleging President Obama exceeded his power under the US Constitution.
  • Go whole hog and launch the $15 billion NAFTA claim and the constitutional challenge.

Some directors are stunned; do we really want to sue the US Government and the President of the United States? Others ask a few innocuous questions to show they’re listening. Most nod wisely, they can see where Mr Girling is heading and they’re team players (huzzah huzzah).

Mr Girling turns to the “Potential Outcomes” slide which goes into detail on the NAFTA/Constitutional Challenge scenarios:

  • Win the NAFTA claim. Pocket $15 billion or a lesser amount (minus tens of millions in legal fees):  Sweet vindication but highly unlikely given the US hasn’t lost a NAFTA claim to its NAFTA partners once in 22 years.
  • Win the Federal Court claim that Obama exceeded his constitutional authority:  A hollow victory because Obama will be out of office when the decision is rendered but it may serve as a warning to his successor…assuming it’s not Hillary.
  • Lose the NAFTA claim and the Constitutional Challenge:  A likely outcome, but hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Shareholders are out of pocket tens of millions in US dollars for legal fees and the cost of lost productivity for TCPL employees and contractors dedicated to this file, however TCPL might recover something in negotiations with the US government before the hearings begin.
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Mr Obama President USA

Mr Girling then presents the “Unintended Consequences” slide which sets out two consequences:

  • The federal Liberal government’s relationship with US government is damaged. Consequently TCPL’s relationship with the Liberal government will suffer. Who cares? What have the Libs done for us lately?
  • NAFTA’S dispute resolution mechanism is like the TPP dispute resolution mechanism and thousands of anti-TPP activists join the landowners and environmentalists in opposing Keystone XL. Pffft! Ignore them. Activists have no power. At this point Mr Girling is reminded that in 2008 he told the directors to ignore the Nebraska landowners and environmentalists and look where that got us. Mr Girling disagrees, saying Keystone XL was killed by Obama politics, not environmentalists. The directors nod wisely, not daring to challenge Mr Girling on that non sequitur.

Mr Girling pauses. He takes the temperature of the Board. Yes, they support the “sue the bastards” option (huzzah huzzah). That takes Mr Girling to the key points on the “Next Steps” slide:

  • Reassure shippers still backing Keystone XL that TCPL will move mountains to make crude-by-rail available to tide them over until Keystone XL is approved by the next US President (BTW, the rail hub at Hardisty is now top priority).
  • Figure out how to slow down Energy East because there isn’t enough bitumen around to fill both Energy East and Keystone XL.

Any questions? Nope, the Board falls into line just as Mr Girling expected they would.

The Fly concludes Mr Girling suffered a tremendous loss of face when President Obama rejected Keystone XL. He needs to “do something” about it. He’s launched a couple of law suits, the lawyers will get rich and all is well in the land of Big Business.

Huzzah! Huzzah!

Posted in Energy, Energy & Natural Resources, Environment | Tagged , , , , , | 25 Comments

Five Resolutions for Rachel Notley

Posted on January 3, 2016 by susanonthesoapbox

Ms Soapbox’s first round of New Year’s resolutions for a politician (Alison Redford) were ignored, but she’s a persistent soul and will try again. This time she’s prepared five resolutions for Premier Rachel Notley.

  1. Stay the course on your climate change policy (and all your energy related policies for that matter).    

Ignore Wildrose leader Brian Jean who says your $3 billion carbon tax is a “back-door PST” which will not stop Albertans from polluting or result in more pipelines being built.

Mr Jean is spouting nonsense. The carbon tax is not an all-in sales tax. It applies to carbon, not clothing, hence the name. Economists disagree with Mr Jean; they say carbon taxes do indeed change people’s behavior and finally, the carbon tax will improve Alberta’s “green” reputation which increases the likelihood pipelines will be approved (that’s why Calgary’s major oil companies support it).

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Premier Notley

Mr Jean vows to kill the carbon tax if he wins the election in 2019. That’s a one heck of a big “if”—see Resolution #4 below.

Rachel, your climate change policy is sound. It will serve you well when you meet with your provincial and federal counterparts to hammer out how the two levels of government will work together to help Canada achieve the climate change goals it agreed to in Paris.

  1. Provide more clarity on how the government will repay the $6.1 billion debt forecast in the October 2015 budget.  

Albertans get it. We need to borrow to fund infrastructure projects which are in a sorry state thanks to the PC government’s mismanagement.

But Albertans are justifiably skittish about borrowing money to fund operations because borrowing for the day-to-day running of the government is unsustainable.

Finance Minister Ceci hinted that certain campaign promises like child care benefits and improvements to seniors’ home care may be delayed. While this is unfortunate, it’s better to go slow and get it right than plunge the province so deeply into debt that even your die-hard supporters will wonder whether it was wise to vote NDP in May 2015.

  1. The media is not your friend

Local media is unsupportive. It will not provide context for your policies so you must provide the “big picture” yourself.

For example, when S&P downgraded the government’s credit rating from AAA to AA+, the media characterized it as a shocking blow. Only a few national papers put this story in the broader context—namely that the other two ratings agencies, DBRS and Moody’s, did not follow suit. They confirmed Alberta’s AAA rating.

The Wildrose and PCs will use these contextual gaps against you. Head them off at the pass by providing the media with a crisp outline of the “big picture” so that your announcements are reported in the right context.

  1. Do not underestimate the Progressive Conservatives

Brian Jean is positioning himself as Alberta’s next premier, but the real threat comes from the Progressive Conservatives, not the Wildrose.

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Wildrose leader Brian Jean

Mr Jean is so divisive that he’s turned into a Donald Trump Mini-Me. He is trying to scare up rural support by vilifying the NDP as the socialist horde. He hopes to attract urban voters by creating a Wildrose/PC “consolidated conservative coalition”.

Rural scare mongering will consolidate the base but not expand it. Urban voters will not back a Wildrose/PC coalition (assuming it gets off the ground) because they’re too progressive to regress on social policy. If push comes to shove they’ll go back to the Progressive Conservatives…provided they ditch Ric McIver, joining anti-gay pastor Artur Pawlowski in the March for Jesus parade was not exactly Mr McIver’s finest hour.  

If the PCs want to survive they will force Mr McIver to resign in favour of a leader like MLA Sandra Jansen who is socially progressive and appears to have integrity. Not only did she break ranks with the PCs to vote with the Liberals and NDs in favour of a motion to support gay-straight alliances in schools, she apologised for sponsoring Jim Prentice’s ill-conceived GSA rebuttal bill when the Liberals brought the matter back to the Legislature a few months later.

If the PC party elects a leader like Ms Jansen, it will be a force to be reckoned with in 2019.

  1. Never pull back on your high-wattage personality, but stay focused on what matters to Albertans  

Rachel, you’re blessed with intelligence, political acumen and charisma.

3dobhioYou moved quickly in 2015 to pass legislation banning political contributions from corporations and unions, realigning the tax structure, addressing climate change and enhancing farm safety.

Your 2016 agenda is equally ambitious. One of the first things out of the chute will be the results of your royalty review. And while royalty restructuring is welcome, the energy sector will continue to languish due to factors beyond your control.

Now is the time to focus on problems you can control—healthcare wait times, public education that is variable in quality and cost, seniors’ care, etc. These public services are hamstrung by calcified PC thinking and need a fresh perspective. If you address the problems that have plagued Albertans for over a decade and the economy improves you’ll have an excellent shot at a second term in office.

May the Force be with you!

Posted in Alberta Health Care, Economy, Education, Energy & Natural Resources, Politics and Government, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 23 Comments

The Art of Conversation

Posted on December 27, 2015 by susanonthesoapbox

The Soapbox family had Christmas dinner at a friend’s house this year. The guests included a former federal cabinet minister, an HR executive, two city planners, a philanthropist, a lawyer, an engineer, an animal lover and a legal assistant. They ranged in age from 28 to 70 something.

The conversation was lively; touching on Harper (boo) and Elon Musk (yay), the Charter of Rights and the Museum of Human Rights, Alberta’s double whammy of Notley and Trudeau, the economic down turn, the Orient Express and how to make good gravy. Everyone was engaged and engaging.

There wasn’t a cell phone or tablet in sight.

The quality of the conversation reinforced Sherry Turkle’s thesis that the world is a better place when we resist the siren call of our electronic devices and engage in the art of conversation.

The siren call

Sherry Turkle is a clinical psychologist at MIT. She says the over-use of electronic devices has created a generation that is easily distracted, easily bored and less responsive to others. Her research with college students of the smart phone generation shows a 40 percent decrease in the capacity for empathy.

Sadly, the root of the problem starts at home.

mobile-smartphones-pile-ss-1920The WiFi generation of parents prefer their iPhones and tablets to face to face interaction with their children. This undermines their ability to teach their children trust and self-esteem, let alone how to carry on a conversation in more than 20 second snippets.

Turkle reports that parents use bath time to check their email instead of giving their kids hershey kiss hairdos.  Baby bouncers come fully equipped with a slot for an iPad. Elementary schools download the year’s curriculum on tablets cutting down on face to face interaction. Children spend their lunch hours hunched over Facebook (apparently it’s OK to check your Facebook page if you’re in a group where three or more people are talking) and employees text and email each other instead of walking down the hall to sort out a problem.

Turkle says we must set aside electronic devices and create spaces for face to face communication if we want children to develop better, students to learn better and employees to perform better.

Ms Soapbox agrees. We had the luxury of raising the little Soapboxes in the pre-electronic devices era. We didn’t argue about putting away their smart phones, instead we debated whether they could watch an additional 5 minutes of TV (they were limited to 30 minutes each on week nights—their friends thought they lived on Alcatraz).

On special occasions we’d go out for breakfast (never dinner which took too long and increased the risk of a child flaming out before the bill arrived). We taught the children that conversations were like a tennis match. First I lob the ball to you, then you lob it back to me. When we ran out of topics to amuse a three year old and a five year old we’d draw connect-the-dot animals on paper napkins.

As the children matured we perfected the art of conversation over dinner (we always ate together) and in the car. It’s amazing what a child will tell you in a car; perhaps because they know you can’t strangle them when you’re flying down the freeway at 110 mph.

And now the children are adults. They can converse with anyone from a former cabinet minister to an elderly relative in poor health.

No devices? What?

Turkle isn’t asking us to throw our devices into the sea. (Thank God. The only time Ms Soapbox was without her iPhone was on the Orient Express. She thought she’d go berserk with no WiFi but quickly settled into the joy of reading a book without having to check her phone every 5 minutes for an important message from Buzzfeed).

article-1358363-0d418cce000005dc-544_634x333

Steve Jobs dines with Barack Obama

Turkle isn’t promoting new devices to free ourselves from our old devices by blocking everything.  Instead, she suggests we designate device-free zones like the kitchen, the dining room and the car to allow conversation to flourish without interruption. She points out that Mr iPhone himself, Steve Jobs, banished all electronic devices from the dinner table so his family could discuss books and history.

Which brings me back to Christmas dinner.

I hope you and your family and friends had many delightful conversations over Christmas dinner and you’re resting up so we can continue our Soapbox conversations in the New Year…

…and no, our on-line dialogue won’t hasten the demise of face to face conversation. From what I’ve seen, Soapbox readers have more than enough empathy and compassion to go around.

Have a very Happy New Year!

Sources:

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-november-16-2015-1.3320565/smartphones-hurt-our-face-to-face-relationships-says-sherry-turkle-1.3320628

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/books/review/jonathan-franzen-reviews-sherry-turkle-reclaiming-conversation.html?_r=0

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/oct/18/sherry-turkle-not-anti-technology-pro-conversation

Posted in Celebrations, Culture, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 29 Comments

The Rules-of-the-Universe-Do-Not-Apply Christmas List

Posted on December 20, 2015 by susanonthesoapbox

The politicians on a break and so are we…

Ms Soapbox is curled up in front of the fire playing with her Christmas List. Like most of us she has pretty much everything her little heart desires—a comfy home, loving family, semi-loving dog (Ms Soapbox ranks 3rd in Ziggy’s affections behind Missy and Mr Soapbox), and way more stuff than she needs.

Here’s Ms Soapbox’s list so far:

  • Books: political, historical, biographical and crime fiction
  • DVDs ranging from schlock (Indiana Jones, Laura Croft) to quality BBC mysteries
  • Fuzzy socks (the old ones transferred their fuzz to my pants…a sticky-paper clothing brush would also be nice)
  • Flannel PJs (the old ones have lost their flannelly oompf)
  • A Time Machine (check with Elon Musk, confirm he’s solved the riddle of time travel and can guarantee that if I inadvertently squash a bug in the past I won’t return to a world governed by Donald Trump).

The first four items are self-explanatory, but you may be wondering where in time Ms Soapbox would like to go. Or you’ve decided Ms Soapbox put too much rum in her eggnog, but hey, it’s Christmas, we’re playing.

Ms Soapbox wants to go back in time to watch the magical moment when someone (I’m convinced it was two little kids) discovered fire.

fire-1Think about it. It’s not easy to create fire. The most common way is to twirl a hard wooden stick in a hole in a piece of softer wood until the soft wood starts to smolder and then add a bit of dry tinder, blowing gently until the tinder ignites.

Playing with sticks and bits of wood is exactly what children in the Lower Paleolithic would be doing on a rainy afternoon. Everything would be going well until the soft wood started to smolder. Afraid that they’d unleashed a demon, they’d throw some dry leaves on the smoke and inadvertently set the place on fire. Then after being scolded by their parents, they would sneak back to the two pieces of wood to see if they could do it again.

That’s my theory and I’d love to check it out.

At this point in the blog Ms Soapbox would normally embark on a discussion about the creativity of children and how helicopter parents are hampering the advance of civilization but I’m more interested in hearing what’s on your Christmas List.

If you were a time traveller where would you go? Perhaps you don’t trust Elon Musk to get it right, in which case is there someone living or dead you’d like to invite over for dinner? Maybe you’d like to examine the large Hadron Collider up close and personal by taking a ride on the Higgs boson?

What would you put on your Christmas List if the laws of the universe and human nature weren’t forces to be reckoned with?

Posted in Celebrations, Science, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 20 Comments