Funny about campaign promises. Most people take them with a large grain of salt, yet once in awhile, large segments of us are drawn in by the hope for a better day, hope fueled by an earnest politician who seems intent on upending the traditional shoddy, cynical and ultimately heart-breaking
Continue readingTag: Kinder Morgan
Politics and its Discontents: That’s Another Fine Mess He’s Gotten Himself Into
In a post yesterday, The Mound offered a searing assessment of Justin Trudeau’s abject failure on the climate-change file. Only the most ardent acolytes of the Prime Minister will fail to see that his soaring rhetoric has far outpaced his level of achievement. Says Mound: Raising public awareness about climate
Continue readingIn-Sights: Postmedia distortions
Postmedia’s Colby Cosh demonstrates the truth of Jefferson’s quote, “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”
Continue readingIn-Sights: Inevitable change
This weekend, Kinder Morgan Canada Limited (KML) suspended all “non-essential activities and related spending” on its Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. They blamed “continued actions in opposition to the project.” That’s only part of the story…
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: And the Arsehole of the Day Award Goes to – Deron Bilous
He’s Rachel Notley’s minister of economic development and trade, “Bilious Daren” Bilous. Minister Bilous wins the Arsehole of the Day Award for referring to his fellow NDP legislators in British Columbia as “a bunch of shitheads” during a meeting with municipal politicians in Edmonton. Bilous says he ought to have
Continue readingIn-Sights: Questions
With which group will Justin Trudeau identify? This one? Or, this one? It was sponsored by subsidized fossil fuel and extractive industries and held on the edge of Vancouver’s inner harbour, one of the places in British Columbia and Washington put at greater risk if dilbit shipments increase. Credit: Bob
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Of Premiers and Pipelines
In an interview with the National Observer last week, Justin Trudeau raised more than a few eyebrows by comparing B.C. premier John Horgan to former Saskatchewan premier and climate policy obstructionist Brad Wall. “Similarly and frustratingly,” said the prime minister, “John Horgan is actually trying to scuttle our national plan
Continue readingIn-Sights: Fossil fuel pollution we forget
After Canada’s federal government and its energy regulator chose to examine broader environmental effects of Trans Mountain’s Energy East pipelines, including upstream and downstream emissions, the American owned company abandoned the project. According to Alberta politicians and their fossil fuel puppeteers, investigating all impacts of oil and gas development are an
Continue readingIn-Sights: BC’s failing grade in climate change
In a report issued today, Auditor General Carol Bellringer says the BC government is not adequately managing risks posed by climate change. She finds: Government has work underway to adapt to climate change, but more needs to be done. Government has not comprehensively assessed the risks posed by climate change, and
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Great. Now Notley Imagines She’s Speaking for All Canadians. You Too?
Rachel Notley is taking to the interwebs in her war with British Columbia. If it’s war B.C. wants, it’s war she’ll get. Now the Alberta premier, speaking for Alberta and all Canadians (including you, I guess) is going to expose the recalcitrant coastal curmudgeons, damned hippies and geriatric draft dodgers,
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Globe and Mail Letter
In today’s Globe and Mail, you will find a letter from me (fourth from the top, under the heading “In the national interest”) relating the present interprovincial pipeline kerfuffle to global efforts efforts to solve the climate crisis. Never hurts to remind ourselves how much is really at stake.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Alberta NDP’s Sour Grapes Strategy will only strengthen Coastal B.C.’s nearly universal opposition to pipelines
PHOTOS: Grape vines grow in B.C.’s beautiful Okanagan Valley, one of the prime wine producing regions of the world (Photo: Kelowna Wine & Cuisine Flickr, Creative Commons). Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, B.C. Premier John Horgan, and Alberta Opposition Leader Jason Kenney. With Alberta’s Sour Grapes Strategy, the official boycott
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Setting the Record Straight on Trudeau, Notley, Bitumen, and Our Future.
What’s the difference between all-out nuclear war and catastrophic climate change? So far we haven’t been stupid enough to resort to all-out nuclear war. Both of them can end civilization, indeed most life on Earth. The way we’re going it’s unclear which will get the job done first. Canada, of
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Democracy And Pipelines
Andrew Nikiforuk believes that Canadian democracy is in trouble. The most recent sign of that fact is the National Energy Board’s approval of the Kinder Morgan pipeline: On Thursday the scandal-plagued federal agency ruled that Kinder Morgan, a U.S. pipeline company that’s the spawn of Enron (remember that tale of
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: An Increasingly Tattered Cloak
That would be the one Justin Trudeau wraps himself in with such rectitude whenever he attempts to convince the public of his climate-change bona fides. Increasingly, both his cloak and his rhetoric are wearing thin. The latest example of the hollowness of his public persona comes with news that his
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Pro Forma Response
While Justin Trudeau will undoubtedly be praised by some for his polite reaction to these activists, his perfunctory response tells all you need to know about the disparity between his usual soaring rhetoric and his increasingly disappointing environmental inaction. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau thanked a pair of environmental protesters for
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Just Sayin’ It Sounds a Little Weird to Me.
America’s new ambassador to Canada is Kelly Knight Craft. It looks like we got a winner this time. Her remark that there is good science on both sides of the climate change debate made me wonder just who Ambassador Knight Craft is and what she’s all about. It turns out
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: I Missed This Last April. It Seems Justin Did Too.
This comes directly from the business page of Canada’s most oil-friendly newspaper, The Calgary Herald. It’s from April 24, 2017 to be exact. China’s ambassador to Canada tried to allay concerns about a possible free trade pact between the two countries, addressing worries surrounding state-owned enterprises snapping up oilsands assets.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Would Jason Kenney kill the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion for short-term political gain in Alberta? Just askin’
PHOTOS: Jason Kenney, at left, in his fevered imagination, visits the Alberta Army on the B.C. front. (Photo of an actual event, heaven only knows what, grabbed from Mr. Kenney’s Twitter feed.) Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, B.C. Premier John Horgan, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, all of them keeping
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline was based on faulty assumptions
One of the key faulty assumptions underlying Canada’s approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline is that Alberta’s bitumen is being unfairly discounted by U.S. buyers and that its price can be maximized by getting it to Asian markets. The post Approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline was based
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