Turns out pleasing your friends doesn’t turn them into friends, either.
The province takes one economic blow after another from Canadians, despite NDP Premier Rachel Notley’s cheery efforts to make friends across the country.
Tuesday’s flat rejection of the Energy East pipeline by 82 Montreal-area municipalities means Alberta is now under virtual economic blockade.
Every cross-border project that matters to the energy industry is stymied by objections from provinces, municipalities and interest groups.
And it’s a funny thing — the objectors never seem to mention Alberta’s noble climate change policy, the one that was supposed to soften opposition to pipelines.
Juxtapose.
I trust Montreal area mayors will politely return their share of $10B in equalization supported by west #EnergyEast https://t.co/DUtlu4VjPx
— Brad Wall (@PremierBradWall) January 21, 2016
Garotted by their own flag. Ya gotta love it.
S T U P I D Q U E B E C E R S
And yet Quebec still expects to receive equalization payments from Alberta. I agree with the person who suggested we only send them down via a pipeline, though I would add “only one that goes through to the East Coast”.
The French disease is gift that keeps on giving.
It’s only fitting that a province that elected the Spawn is also against the most dynamic part of the Canadian economy and one that has thoroughly subsidized its basket-case welfare status. If it weren’t for their parasitic addictions, they would have separated years ago but now that demographics have passed them by on the separation file, it seems they are certainly not above degrading their hosts along the way. Oh well, the $10 per barrel wasted in rail over pipeline transportation along with lost opportunities from world pricing amounts to billions of potential dollars not going into the hands of ignorant and hypocritical Quebec (and Alberta) politicians. Perhaps their innumeracy (or mindless faith amounting to green theocracy) explains how they see an intellectually vacuous poseur and substitute drama teacher as somehow being qualified to be elected PM.
A few years back I noticed drilling rigs in, the St Lawrence River.
Would you be surprised to know Quebec HAS a domestic oil and gas industry.
I s:$t you not….
The oil company I work for was planning this time last year to drill 36 new wells this year.
They had the rig set up to drill one last week and the order came to shut it down and send everyone home.
No money for operations, existing wells are being shut-in at an alarming rate.
They will drill zero wells this year and for the foreseeable future.
Oh, and about that NDP Climate Change policy?
Same as the PCs had with vanishingly small distinctions amounting to no difference.
Maybe this will be a wake up call for Premier Notley; she is naive and nice and fuzzy and warm, but that doesn’t seem to cut it with the east. They would rather import dirty oil from Venezuela by oil tanker than use Canadian produced oil . As far as Quebec is concerned they have never been part of Canada and don’t want to be except when it comes to getting more money for their welfare systems and taking over western businesses like the dairy business in BC. I wish they would separate but then the natives wouldn’t like that. It would be fun to see though. What could Alberta do with 10 billion dollars in transfer payments. It’s time for western politicians to revolt.
Quebec hasn’t been developing very much its oil and gas resources supposedly for environmental reasons, but also because it doesn’t want to spoil those equalization payments by no longer qualifying as a have-not province. Once Quebec ever separated, it would be drill baby, drill.
Most of those meetings about the pipeline in Ontario and Quebec have been highjacked by environmental activists and suburban climate change believer women.
Cheerleader Zoolander is off in Davos convincing the world elite to invest Trillions into Canada not in the resource sector but in our resourcefulness. Meanwhile back home these Montreal mayors have drawn back the curtains in the land of Oz revealing their true nature and Eastern Canadas idea of resourcefulness. Please send money but expect a shakedown. They don’t just bite the hand that feeds them. They have to take a finger or two…. Lets not forget the people of BC here, and the native bands who have claim to 125% of BC, and with every native band along the way in Canada who expects their fair share of workers to be employed by the investor, who don’t show up for work but still want a cheque….
Who do they think in the investment community would want to invest anywhere in Canada when it is controlled by several layers of hacks. At least with the mob you pay once.
I’m tired of amateur hour at the comedy club. After awhile it starts to sound like nails on the chalkboard. And I’m not the only one noticing. The real barometer is the valuation of our currency and the investment dollars in our economy who are fleeing Canada faster than any other G20 country.
Sunni days indeed.
why doesn’t the silly cow use Unicorn Express to transport the oil.
eastern paul, yes there is a huge oil pool just north of the St. Lawrence river if my memory serves my correctly
sunshinegal it doesn’t help when 3 out of 4 western premiers are so revolting themselves.
Its so bad that we can only look forward to 3 1/2 years from now we can expect a bounce with the electorate. Hope its not too late for the economic dead cat bounce.
BC is a basket case. Its either enviro Nazis, native bands shakedowns or welfare basket cases. The Clark government is fixated on LNG. Plenty for me but none for thee.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
When will the West hold a referendum? When will they make a decision to separate from the ROC?
The future for westerners will not improve until they are able to chart their own course both politically and economically. That will only happen when they remove the shackles that the Laurentian elites force them to wear as second class citizens. It’ time for change.
The economy continues to slow – CP Rail is laying off 1000 workers – less freight means less work. You don’t need a car or truck from Ontario if no one is buying. But what the hey, some third world dictator and his family are going to be enriched by our federal and provincial governments with carbon taxes.
“The future for westerners will not improve until…”
… the price of a barrel of crude goes way back up again.
Québec is indulging in moral preening yet again – which is pretty rich for a province leading the way on the legalized killing of the infirm, the elderly and children.
A strategically-minded Federal Government would get behind this kind of “shovel-ready” infrastructure project in a flash but don’t expect anything from “Selfie Central” in Ottawa. And when it comes to strategic infrastructure, remember, this is a country that can be severed overnight by the effect of winter on one lousy two-lane bridge at Nipigon.
Albertans elected the government they deserve and so did Canadians it would seem. So it appears that the only thing we’re shovel-ready for is shovelling manure.
Dan, stupid Canadians!!!!!
It seems pretty clear that Ontario and Quebec have formed a pact to block Alberta oil. If Ontario ever regains its sense and gets rid of Wynne it should form a pact with Alberta to take Alberta oil to its refineries in Sarnia and also pipe cleaner oil (i.e. green oil) to the east coast via a US route thus blocking Quebec and the Maritimes which all benefit unfairly from equalization payments (which are essentially a Federal tax on natural resources, except hydro-electricity of course).
Until men become men again, or at least try to emulate Brad Wall, this will go on and on. We here in Alberta have, thanks in part to the slime dwellers like Braid writing in the broke Herald have been stricken with this leftie dolt for a premier, typical NDPee, they think like Turdo that budgets balance themselves and look at me in this selfie, oh and that pipeline oh well I have the new Kanye West CD wanna hear it. Canadians and Albertans have elected idiots, there will be consequences for electing idiots, this is just the start. The media went on and on about Harpers belly, Harpers eating or pocketing a wafer, trying and succeeding in vilifying a great man until they got this fickle flake as PM, now they take great pains to photograph and publish all photos of Trulander in a “large and in charge picture”, in Alberta the broke Herald do the same for Snotley, well kiddies you wanted a Kartrashian Canada, you have it, you have change without the hope I’m afraid. The suck up media for all things liberal is the real enemy, so when there are no more transfer payments from Alberta, thank Political Correctness and the CBC CTV Global Herald Star etc media for emasculating men, and elevating failure and foolishness.
This is the solution. The fact that the Quebec mayors are united in this is puzzling. Don’t any of them want to boost their economy? Don’t any have a modicum of common sense? What’s in it for them? Maybe they are holding out for bribes? Do they think this is a vote getter? If yes, Quebecers are dumber than I thought. Leave it to Quebec to choose a lose/lose.
“Emulate Brad Wall”!! Are you kidding. The east must be trembling when Brad Wall tweets.
He had better do more than that and fast or is he just trying to look tough for the spring election.
How about communicating about the Canadian reality. We are not stupid in the west. But it could be said we are mushrooms.
http://www.westcan.org/Audio/DHCintNathanClarke.mp3
You can thank the AGW believing MSM for all of this. For how long now has the media vilified anything to do with energy resource development and that includes pipelines. Add to that the rent seeking native bands constantly looking for payola and now PM Butts who is a priest in the energy hating religious cult.
Frances >
“And yet Quebec still expects to receive equalization payments from Alberta”
And yet Notley still expects to give them!
“Quebec hasn’t been developing very much its oil and gas…….”
Like most Third World Countries they also don’t have any industry infrastructure to develop or produce any.
As with Nigeria they need Alberta or US/ UK expertise to move forward.
If Canada or Alberta had any leadership they would insist that Quebec only hire Western English speaking people/ companies for oilfield work in Quebec like they do for the French in Federal Parks.
The West (and by extension the oil companies) have been going at this all wrong. We should be financing protest groups to shut down all tanker traffic in the Saint Lawrence River. Starve the refineries in Quebec and they will beg for a pipeline.
There’s an obvious answer to this – see winface.com/smith under “budget blues”.
The idea is simple: Alberta and Sask get together to build a pair of million barrel refineries close to the U.S. border. The refined product moves south under NAFTA – by truck, rail, and barge so no approvals from outside the two provinces are needed; footlose labor now unemployed in Fort Mac and the Edmt area get jobs; and the inevitable next oil crisis leaves both provinces stinking rich again.
“This demonstrates Ottawa is a comic opera orchestrated by self-interested Eastern politicians and a waste of time and money for Western Canadians. If Western Canadians cannot see now the futility of remaining in Canada, stay tuned, things will only get worse. The truth, which we have tried to communicate about Western independence since 1974, is rapidly becoming the prime focus of Western Canadian awareness….”
Now, this is the kind of east-west relations I remember from the last federal Liberal era. . Not too long ago I was describing how when the provincial NDP were in power in Saskatchewan they constantly provoked urban-rural tensions. Quebec leaders and Liberal PMs (but I repeat myself) never change and neither will the west’s response:
Quebec: you’re not giving us enough, give us more.
The West: you’re taking too much, if you don’t want to help then at least leave us and our economy alone.
Somehow, the Ontario/progressive media sees this the same – regional whining. The Quontario leaders attitude towards the west will be the death of Canada. They’ll never understand, no matter how dysfunctional their economies become. They’ll always want to take money from us and use political power to harm our economy. The self-righteous tyranny of beggars.
Great idea. What is the name of your refinery venture and are you selling shares?
Or do you mean it is not economically viable and you want the government to do it?
Once you refine oil it has a shelf life. The right answer is to pump the oil along pipelines to the refineries which are located in areas of good transportation infrastructure. It is no coincidence that Keystone was cancelled at a time when the USA is developing its own massive oil & gas reserves. This keeps American oil flowing and Canadian oil expensive and captive.
Now with Notley’s NDP in power in Alberta we can see first hand how foolish it is for that province to promote green energy at the expense of its substantial oil & gas assets. One requires money while the other produces money. Go NDP! Go Liberals!
Forty years of PC rule in Alberta gave that province the lowest provincial deficits in the country. The NDP are now correcting that “problem”, one downgrade after another.
Jim;
In essense what has changed in Canada over the past +300 years. This country was created to exploit western resources by those in TO and Montreal. The only time that relationship has been challenged is during the recent oil boom. Instead of challenging the status quo openly the Harper governments played along in an effort to gain eastern support for a economically stronger country. They failed.
Every weakness in the eastern economy was blamed on oil. The most corrupt province in the country and one of the most corrupt in NA led the charge. Not only does Quebec and of course Ontario see the west as a cash cow but they see it as a political threat to their hegemony. Instead of openly discussing the collapse of eastern manufacturing fingers are pointed.
There is a fundamental split culturally and economically between east and west. Since there was no discussion during the Harper era the opportunity for unity will slide and that slide will accelerate with a falling economy. The East is not finished with the West by any stretch. A ‘carbon tax’ will come and that will be based on revenue and not income. Yes, a skim off the top! To complete the effort the way governments are elected in Canada will be changed to lock in the election of ‘progressive’ governments which are dominated by the East.
Where does this leave the West? As a originating Reformer I never supported the party moving east. My wish was Reform gaining provincial governments in BC, AB and SASK and eventually MAN. Brian Palliser, a old Reformer, hopefully becomes the new Premier of Manitoba. Brad Wall’s government has significant Reform ties. Wildrose had those ties as well but talks of merging with the PC’s is a negative IMHO. That leaves BC and that is a real problem. If those 4 provinces can develop a unified political group there will be some hope for the West. It will not change the perception in the East but it would allow the West to assert a more independent direction. Such a movement would require a serious education effort of citizens to explain the reality faced by the West. The forces ranged against such a movement would be immense and not restricted to eastern Canada.
If Notley actually wants to be useful, she should convince Toyota to assemble trucks in Alberta. Then we wouldn’t have to buy trucks assembled in the East. It wouldn’t be all that hard to convince Albertans to buy locally.
Why pick on Quebec only? Ontario is on record as against Energy East and the BC government has obstructed Gateway & now flip flopped on Trans Mountain. These provinces are blockading Western crude from any source, oil sands or otherwise, from all three prairie provinces, trans-shipped via pipelines to markets outside their jurisdictions. They can pay Venezuela for their crude. Frankly, it is trade warfare against all the three prairie producers, and I think against the law. Screw the feds on this. They want trade warfare, we can oblige. Their are no benefits to Confederation under the current scenario, so make life difficult for these pricks. Or separate. Sever east-west trade.
I think this is an opportune time to rip up the tracks into BC & out of Ontario, stop NE BC gas shipments into Alberta, impose import taxes on BC, Quebec & Ontario goods and/or boycott all products from BC, Quebec & Ontario. It’s not like we don’t have oil & gas for our own use, or land to grow stuff to feed ourselves. I say grow dairy production & any other “managed” trade commodity used by central Canada to force high prices on consumers & flood the market. We have plenty of lumber of our own, we can brew our own beer & booze, stick Ontario with higher uranium prices just because we can. Who they gonna buy it from to feed their reactors, the Russians? Vehicles we can get from the US if need be. F&ck the CAW! We’ll build our own, if necessary.
I am not a homegrown Albertan. I was born & raised in Ontario, educated in Quebec. I know all about these kleptocrats. Piss on ’em. If Notley can’t get her finger out on Alberta interests, even after slamming us with carbon taxes, royalty reviews and garbage climate change balls & chains to suck up to the ecofreaks in these provinces, she can either grow a pair & defend our interests, or resign.
We negotiated a TILMA agreement with BC several years ago, that’s Trade, Investment & Labor Agreement for the uninitiated. Tear that up. No BC trades, professionals, legal or anything will find work in Alberta. We can do the same for the other two as well.
It’s time to take the gloves off on inter-provincial trade obstruction. When CN & CP can’t get rail traffic to western & eastern ports, someone is gonna call that useful idiot, currently our PM & rip a strip off the clown. If Transcanada can take the US government to court over NAFTA, Enbridge, Transcanada, Interpipeline, Pembina pipeline can sue the three obstructionist provinces on blockading their efforts to export oil out of western Canada. Quebec wants the ROC to kick in to fund Bombardier for $1.8 BILLION, the Harper government bailed out the CAW & Ontario/Quebec auto plants, took $75 BILLION of mortgages off Toronto bank’s books during the last crash, these obstructionist putz’s can take a long walk off a short pier for Equalization payments from Alberta & Saskatchewan. I can easily not file taxes for 2015 & forever more. Come & get me boys.
If we can’t get satisfaction on a major component of prairie provinces’ economy, then what’s the point of remaining as part of Canada?
Construction of new refineries would be subject to Federal approval of their environmental impact. Guess whether a Trudeau govenrment would let that happen.
Count BC out. It’s controlled by Vancouver which is rotten to the core with eastern scum bags.
“The fact that the Quebec mayors are united in this is puzzling. Don’t any of them want to boost their economy?”
Hey, I love Montréal, I have great memories from my student days there (and warning to everyone at SDA: I learned to drive there too).
But you know what? Non-French-speaking visitors to the city could be forgiven for wondering why some company named “A LOUER” seems to own so many of the commercial and industrial buildings there.
Whoee, a strongly worded tweet, that’s telling them heh
Firewall time, there are many provincial responsibilities invaded by the federal gov’t. Cut the strings…
Separate from the ROC? Is that really such a good idea now? Now that Alberta voters seem to have fallen in love with the NDP?
I do not agree that Notley is “naive and nice and fuzzy and warm.” I see her as a vicious idiologue – stupid probably – but intent on doing the maximum damage to Alberta. Probably other governments in Canada don’t trust her one cm.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/wynne-notley-meeting-1.3414744
Wynne and Notley are promising to “work together” on their climate change plan.
With their combined economic expertise, both Provinces should be cold weather Greece in a few months.
The NWT has a payroll tax paid by every nonresident working there. If you work in the NWT but commute in from elsewhere you pay the tax.
Alberta and Saskatchewan need to implement the same thing.
The NWT tax is 2 or 3%, we need to implement a 10% tax on any nonresidents working here.
Make it only applicable to Quebec workers to begin with.
“Firewall time, there are many provincial responsibilities invaded by the federal gov’t…”
Such as?
Education and health are two examples…provincial responsibilities. The Canada Health Act only applies if the province takes the funding. Like Trump says, poor negotiators…
“I see her as a vicious idiologue – stupid probably…”
You nailed ‘er, John. 🙂
“The NWT has a payroll tax paid by every nonresident working there. If you work in the NWT but commute in from elsewhere you pay the tax.”
Every working NWT resident pays the payroll tax too.
“Make it only applicable to Quebec workers to begin with.”
Nice try. But patently unconstitutional. At the risk of the blindingly obvious, territories are not provinces. They have no inherent constitutional powers, only those granted to them by – drumroll! – the Federal Government! No Federal Government would permit a territory to discriminate against non-residents by province of residence.
Refusing the Canada Health Act welfare, and privatizing the system would draw in every ambitious health care provider in Canada. Especially with a few incentives…can you imagine the squawking from the rest of the welfare receivers?
Not that Wall would have the guts to do it, strongly worded ‘tweets’ is all he can manage.
“Education and health are two examples…provincial responsibilities. The Canada Health Act only applies if the province takes the funding. Like Trump says, poor negotiators…”
Nope.
There is no Federal “department of education” at all and the powers of Health Canada with regard to provincial health care systems are entirely circumscribed. The Federal Government has no power to direct how a province will operate its health care system.
“In essense [sic] what has changed in Canada over the past +300 years. This country was created to exploit western resources by those in TO and Montreal.”
Three hundred years ago Canada didn’t even exist. The Canada of 1867 had only four provinces and no territories and Pacific coastline until the 1870s.
Alberta and Saskatchewan didn’t exist until 1905. If, s you claim, “those in TO and Montreal” just wanted to “exploit western resources”, it would have made little sense to create two provinces with constitutional powers.
Far better to have kept them as territories.
The Federal Government has no power to direct how a province will operate its health care system.
They do if the province takes the federal funds. Look it up…education is less ‘official’, but lots of federal funding involved. Everyone knows he who pays the piper calls the tune…
As I stated, the Federal Government has no power to direct how a province will operate its health care system.