The National Post is reporting that "Senators voted on Thursday to save Ottawa’s controversial oil tanker ban, potentially ending a prolonged pushback in the Senate against legislation that has been met with intense criticism by Western provinces and the energy industry." You mean Western Province not Provinces. BC wants to protect the environment, Alberta does not.
Having said that I will once again appeal for calm and try to balance the extremes. On one side we have defiant Alberta arrogance which is completely out of control. On the other side we have a simple desire to support sustainable business. Burning natural gas is good, burning coal is not. Unrefined crude oil is a part of life. Unrefined tar sands bitumen is not.
One minute we have Alberta in our grill saying we have absolutely no say whatsoever about how much oil passes through our port. If oil tanker traffic becomes too congested, too bad we have no say in the matter. They can ship as much tar sands bitumen to China as they want and if there is a spill or collision, then too bad so sad. Alberta won't pay a dime for clean up. That was completely outrageous.
Now the next minute we hear rumblings on a complete oil tanker ban on the coast of British Columbia. I'm like WTF? From one extreme to the other. Alberta's economy would completely collapse. There's no need to create a manufactured emergency.
When Jason d*ckface Kenney said he was going to turn off the taps to BC I was like go f*ck yourself. There's no negotiation after an offensive threat like that. I said if you cut off the taps then we close our port and no oil tankers leave the port of Vancouver. I didn't mean actually do that. I simply stated that would be the natural response to Kenney's outrageously offensive threat. The point of me saying that was to show that Kenney can't cut off the taps to BC because we control the port. That balance of power would then preserve the status quo.
As much as I'm sick and tired of Alberta arrogance, there is no need to completely destroy them. There's no need for that. I will admit that banning tanker traffic would be good for BC in that we could use that oil for domestic consumption and stop getting screwed over by the oil monopoly. Instead of sending that oil to China they could send the unrefined crude through the existing pipeline to Chicago and Detroit. It would be a win win for North America.
China could get their oil from Russia or the US. The only reason they don't is because Canada subsidized their oil for them. We practically gave it to them for less than it costs us to extract and produce it. That was bad business.
Nevertheless, I will once again appeal for calm. Forcing tar sands bitumen on us with no control over the volume and no help for clean up is ridiculous. So is banning all tanker traffic completely. We need to balance the extremes and find a compromise. It really is that simple.
China has stopped buying crude oil from Western Canada after record purchase in 2018
Compare prices for gasoline at the pump in Canada vs. the US. You guys are getting ass-raped and have been for years. I'm pretty much an "open markets" kind of guy usually, but different solutions for different people and situations. While I'm likewise not a fan of a government mandated solutions (mainly because these folks tend to screw up anything they touch, usually because they're busy lining their pockets) but in Canada's case, nationalization of the oil resources so that they benefit "Canadians First" (sounds vaguely Trumpian I know, but whatever) might prove an effective method of dealing with the problem. Canada is more than a little socialist anyway, so no real biggie on that account.
ReplyDelete