They have their transfer payments to keep them warm.
Hydraulic fracturing in Nova Scotia may be a viable practice in the future, but it should not proceed right now.
“We conclude that the province is not able to make fully informed decisions either for or against the development of unconventional gas and oil resources by hydraulic fracturing at the present time,” said the final report from the Nova Scotia Independent Review Panel on Hydraulic Fracturing, released Thursday.
The panel, headed by Cape Breton University president David Wheeler, acknowledged the controversial method of extracting natural gas could create a major economic and employment boost in the province, with potential benefits to the regional economy topping $1 billion per year and 740 to 1,480 jobs created during the development phase.
h/t rzr
Frack the lot of them, they’re so used to sucking up equalization, working half the year, voting Liberal to ensure their lifestyle remains the same.
The Pony Man goes East to visit and interfere in the electoral process with nothing to offer up beyond talking out of both sides of his mouth according to how his puppeteers pull the strings.
I’d like to know where their dole would come from if the Oil cannot be sold due to all the opposition to the building of the pipelines?
Ahhh Cape Breton. Self inflicted poverty and misery. They will happily use fossil fuels fracked elsewhere but prefer welfare at home instead of economic independence.
I live in Nova Scotia. The best thing that could happen to this province would be to cut off all transfer and other welfare payments from the “have” provinces. Sure we’d suffer in the short term, but Nova Scotians have been in Canada longer than anyone else and we’ve got hard work in difficult conditions burned into our DNA. We might drop to the level of Poland temporarily, but we’d bounce back. However just as with blacks in the US, the leftists have no interest in turning off the “heroin” of welfare payments.
A province of Chicken Littles. Anyone with a work ethic in Atlantic Canada is working in Alberta. All the rest are pretty much worthless humanity lacking any ambition whatsover.
They have been useless all my lifetime, and I accept their worthlessness. What bothers me is that Ontario seems to be charging headlong into the Luddite abyss. They can actually remember back to before they destroyed their economy. The useless Maritimers can’t.
“All the rest are pretty much worthless humanity”
That’s a really nasty remark. Do you kick your family members in the stomach when they’re down as well?
You might want to remember that Alberta is very fortunate to have — by sheer chance — been situated on top of a lot of oil. Just like Saudi Arabia. If the situation was reversed and Alberta was a wasteland while the Maritimes was overflowing with oil, I’d like to think we’re better than to stoop to such despicable insults toward our less fortunate fellow citizens.
It’s absolutely disgusting the government has not yet killed off the federal transfer program.
“We conclude that the province is not able to make fully informed decisions…”
Well aren’t you special!
Yes, the remark was nasty. But your reply shows you misunderstood the article. Yes, Alberta sits on billions of barrels of oil, but they also had the balls to develop it. Nova Scotia on the other hand has declined to retrieve its natural gas resources via fracking and thus is a needy province – when it need not be.
“That’s a really nasty remark. Do you kick your family members in the stomach when they’re down as well?”
Can the truth be nasty? I guess so. At one time, the federal government offered pretty much 100 % of cost in grants and tax credits to build manufacturing plants in Cape Breton. A few bit. First thing they did was unionize and get the thing shut down. It happened again and again. The workforce has to be worse than Mexico for companies to turn down the opportunity for almost free facilities.
What has wealth got to do with resources? What does Japan have, other than ambition? If Alberta were Nova Scotia, we would be too environmentally conscious (lazy) to develop the oil and be similarly broke. Heroin addicts/transfer payment addicts, same effect.
This is the same tactic that Quebec has been using. Living large off the efforts of others and then playing morally superior when it comes to development of their own resources.
Time to cut them all off.
In fact, if they want to keep equalization in place they need to change the formula to one that recognizes the POTENTIAL VALUE in the resources in the province whether the province decides to develop them or not. In other words, have the province put their money where their mouth is. If the province decides it wants to develop, fine. If not, that’s fine too but don’t expect taxpayers in other provinces to pay for your decision.
After all, a principle isn’t a principle until it costs you something.
Re: family members who are down
I wouldn’t kick them in the stomach, but I also wouldn’t let them live on my couch and eat me out of house and home. I’d expect them to get off their butt and get a job and a life.
Ah yes, the standard “You might want to remember that Alberta is very fortunate to have — by sheer chance — been situated on top of a lot of oil.”
That is the babbling of someone who has his head so far up his rectal orifice that he can’t see straight. I would point out that Venezuela has LOTS of oil and the place is an economic sewer. I would also point out that it isn’t just oil that gives the economy a boost. It is also physical location, history, type of resource and a million other things, but primarily it is about POLICY.
Toronto is located in a specific location which is to its benefit, Ontario and other provinces have all kinds of resources which they can either choose to develop or not. Or, they can deliberately frustrate that development and then point fingers at others.
I’m sick of that stupid comment about Alberta being fortunate to have oil. It is the argument of the lazy who can’t think very deeply. Virtually every location has some kind of a benefit over another. The trick is to recognize it and build on it. I guess you believe the benefit in your neck of the woods is to keep playing what amounts to the welfare game and play victim.
Maybe you should wise up.
“a significant period of learning and dialogue”
Such is the dialogue of useless nonsense, the question & answer should have been about all the evidence of why fracking should not be allowed. The report doesn’t have that level of negative certainty condemning fracking, such that fracking must win by default. Not may things in the world of science have all things known & understood, but an affirmative expectation in the absence of a known negative is normal.
Equalization is not a motivator for provinces to be fiscally responsible, they use Federal transfer payments for health etc recklessly and then blame the Feds for their messes. Quebec is the biggest, most shameless bummer for perpetual equalization given it’s a resource rich province.
Between the Indians and Equalization one has to wonder how we can still have the best economy among the industrialized nations during this global downturn.
We know the media frenzy when Harper said he wanted to get the Atlantic provinces out of the culture of dependency and the great huff the slackers in that region got into. IMO he has nothing to lose there, they’ll never vote Conservative, he may as well can Equalization, we’d all be better off over the long haul.
Mr Wheeler’s interview with CBC radio this morning might prove interesting. I’m pretty sure he’s saying that risks to groundwater and from wastewater are very small. But that people in N.S. have to find out more about this before the process moves forward.
http://www.cbc.ca/informationmorningns/2014/08/29/nova-scotia-not-yet-ready-for-fracking-says-final-report/
“Royalties to the province would peak at just over $200 million per annum around 40 years after commencement of drilling and would deliver just under $6 billion in total over a 60-year development and production time scale under the lower-medium case.”
6 billion over 60 years from gas royalties compared to 1.6 billion per year from equalization. No wonder they refuse to frack. Scrap equalization and see how fast they put those straws into the ground and start sucking.
We in the Maritime Provinces a damned lucky to be part of a federation which includes Alberta & Saskatchewan. I’m not sure that Wheeler went into this exercise with a completely open mind although that may be unfair to the man. Nevertheless, some remarks he made, before the process was complete, lead me to have reservations on his impartiality.
Commentators above who allege that ” Anyone with a work ethic in Atlantic Canada is working in Alberta.” are only incorrect in that there are some working in Saskatchewan. “Cape Breton. Self inflicted poverty and misery.” True. I have been hearing the same whine from that Island for over 50 years.
Rex Murphy did a magnificent piece on the debt that Newfoundlanders ow Alberta.
All I can say, standing in Digby, NS, is “God Bless the Western Canada”
You might want to remember that Alberta is very fortunate to have — by sheer chance — been situated on top of a lot of oil.
Heh, interesting how most of that oil and gas stops at that imaginary line at the AB, SK border. Just look at an oil and gas map…
For those who say AB is just ‘lucky’…this map beautifully illustrates the line between the useless and the productive.
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2829/1097/1600/oil-gas-map.jpg
Well let’s see…Apparently more research into fracking is needed to ensure that it is safe, healthy, non-destructive, blah blah blah…
Fracking was first introduced in Oklahoma in 1949. 65 years ago. In that time, the world has not stopped spinning, the oceans haven’t drained and the ground water hasn’t disappeared. Anywhere. How much more “research” do these clowns need?
Of course, a paltry $200 million per year in royalties hardly compares with the $3 billion Nova Scotia will get from productive, self-sufficient Canadians this year alone.
It has nothing to do with potential environmental harm; it has everything to do with an unwillingness to get off their collective butts. As a previous poster said, it’s too easy to sleep on someone else’s couch and eat their food.
Well said both times.
The welfare cheques will not be cut off as they are too ingrained in certain areas ofour society. On this fracking topic in Nova Scotia and elsewhere, the fruit fly doctor’s bunk has been brainwashed for too many years into many people and now assisted by foreign money.
This bit of hypocritical Luddite behavior is actually a mirror of The Spawn’s position on fracking. Trudeau wants to do this nationally and it’s likely that the majority of Ontario and Quebec support him.
Thank you Steve;
I spent time in Nova Scotia at the end of the fifties and early sixties while in the R.C.N. The longest specific stretch ashore was spent in Cape Breton during a refit.
Several of my Mates were born and raised in Nova Scotia and as an Ontario temporary transplant I was fortunate in spending time with their families.
As you have described they all were hard working independent individuals contributing to the families well being and also to their communities.
I recall sitting in a lobster boat with the father of a girl, as he was pumping out the bilge with one hand while doing a minor lobster trap repair with the other hand. I volunteered to pump the bilge to free up both of his hands for the repair work.
After watching this Ontario city born younger man by a full generation, struggle to pump with two hands and not accomplish as much as this lobsterman was doing with one hand, he asked me to pass a bobbin of twine to him. When I let go of the hand pump to reach for the bobbin, this lobsterman of many years quietly grasped the pump handle and returned to pumping as he had.
I was comfortable to sit and talk as we were doing prior to my offer to pump. Once again learning about the capability and temperament of the Maritime family man. Cheers;
Wait a minute. You mean the science isn’t settled?
And then came 10/2/40 Pogey and frigged up the works.
The pogey didn’t frig up the works. The people who took it did…people who think others owe them a living because of their lack of ambition to go where the work is…or, to even vote for policies that would bring the work to them.
And the provincial premiers call for a National Energy Program. Ha! In your dreams!
The way it works is that rival rent seekers and politicians
“down home” are content to thwart each other until both sides
get the dog bone bid up to uneconomic levels and uncle sugar
in Ottawa gets to hand over a pile of cash to get things moving.
What should really happen to such provinces and their municipal
lackeys is that when they won’t move on such obvious economic
initiatives that would benefit everyone, the lost estimated
potential yearly prov/muni revenue from such projects should be
deducted from their federal govt grants. Would also be good to
use the same idea with the obstructive and recalcitrant leaders
of certain Indian reserves.
Congratulations to Newfoundland for taking advantage of its petroleum resources and becoming a “have” province no longer drawing equalization. Somewhat likewise Saskatchewan. May they serve as an example to others.
Newfoundland will now not receive equalization payments according to this chart and, B.C. has always been a HAVE province except for a few years of NDP rule back in the early 90’s. It appears that many here do not know B.C. contributes heavily to all of the HAVE NOT provinces and always has done. And, there is also much resentment that Quebecers consistently argue that they pay more to Canada than they receive whether out of sheer ignorance or brainwashing — or just dumb.
“Quebec will receive the most from equalization payments in the 2013-2014 year.
However, per capita, PEI benefits the most. In the 2013-2014 year, the following provinces will receive equalization payments:
Quebec ($7.833 billion)
Ontario ($3.169 billion)
Manitoba ($1.792 billion)
New Brunswick ($1.513 billion)
Nova Scotia ($1.458 billion)
Prince Edward Island ($340 million)
The following provinces will not qualify for equalization payments in 2013-2014:
Alberta
Saskatchewan
Newfoundland and Labrador
British Columbia …..
“Cape Breton University president David Wheeler”
The good academic could be a guest on the “Jerry Seinfeld” cast.
His conclusions are “All about Nothing” what a fraud!
Manitoba might want to break the habit of electing communist governments. They seem to prefer having a big piece of a small pie.