Art Of The Deal

Drill, Baby, Drill Western Separatism 96 Comments

Your move, Justin.

U.S. President Donald Trump has issued an executive permit allowing a $22-billion international railway to be built between Alaska and Alberta.
 
“Based on the strong recommendation of @SenDanSullivan and @repdonyoung of the Great State of Alaska, it is my honor to inform you that I will be issuing a Presidential Permit for the A2A Cross-Border Rail between Alaska & Canada. Congratulations to the people of Alaska & Canada!” the president tweeted Friday. […]
 
Treadwell said the the system will transport bitumen, potash, sulfur and grains.
 
“We believe we have a project which is competitive with pipeline and one of the reasons why it’s competitive is because its risks can spread over several different commodities,” he said.
 
Treadwell says if all goes according to plan, work on the project would begin within three years and be completed in six.
 
The company said it will now begin an “extensive environmental impact assessment” (EIA) under Canadian legislation for the Yukon, B.C. and Alberta.

96 Replies to “Art Of The Deal”

  1. I’ve been saying for years that why not railroads instead of pipelines? They are a multipurpose pipeline. Albertans better get ready for another kick in the teeth though as Libs will never allow it. The full phase out of Alberta power is underway.

    1. They know rail is higher risk but don’t care —Lac Megantic.

      I totally agree that the phase out of provincial powers is underway. This government has been fighting to become the central source of every decision of consequence.

      They clearly hate the west.

  2. I had read, somewhere that part of the green restart / napalm that the Fed’s are going to create new parks through the north to limit development. A huge portion of northern Canada.

    If that’s true then they could realistically kill any route through the Yukon. Let’s face it, BC won’t break a sweat for a rail line to Alaska.

    1. The Feds also hate the people who live in the North. in fact they despise anyone not from the laurentian corridor. Which swings down through the Bruce peninsula to end at Kingston BTW but hey, Toronto, money!

    2. Bullshit.

      It’s the “Erin O’Toole Effect”; there’s a solid PM in the waiting who works his magic from Day 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      (End sarc)

      1. beware Americans bearing gifts. A good idea on paper but this is exactly how the colonial powers chopped up China. Rail lines with concessions 200 miles (or some such deal) on either side of the line. We could use this service but boy we have to make sure Canadians do well by this. If its gains traction at all.

        1. Le Turd-le is allowing(selling) a large port in Nunavut to the chinese!.. They are building weapons storage warehouses(JK!) in Langley BC.. We are like the African nations bought out by chinese and then pressured into giving up much of their sovereignty.. We are being sold by ……Can’t say it. We all know this but we forget . It needs HOC mention so the rest of the country hears about it.
          I heard some where the land up North is 50 x 15 miles..

  4. “The company said it will now begin an “extensive environmental impact assessment” (EIA) under Canadian legislation for the Yukon, B.C. and Alberta.”

    It’s safe to say this project will still be under review when most of us are dead and gone.

    1. “Yukon, B.C. and Alberta”

      Avoid BC at all costs. The only reason this would be built is because of the assholes in BC. Go through 200 km of the NWT. It would intersect an existing rail line into the NWT north of Peace River.

      1. Most people I know in NE B. C. would probably welcome it. The ex-pat Lotuslanders won’t and the same sort of watermelons that gripe about the Site C dam wouldn’t either.

        As for Victoria, the attitude would be: “Fort Nelson? Fort St. John? Who cares?”

          1. It’s often been said that as far as Lotusland is concerned, Canada ends at Hope, about an hour’s drive out of Hongcouver. That’s pretty much Victoria’s attitude to the rest of the province until it’s time for another election.

      1. Already taken care of. Bill C-69 was put in place to stop projects like this. Butts has authored a process to halt any project while producing income for his eco-terrorist friends. Look ahead to ten years of hearings before the ‘NO’.

    3. IOt’s safe to say this project just committed suicide. The greenies and liberals do not want resource development. All those dirty materials they use come from somewhere else. Rather like California, or Germany, importing electricity because they want to be green.

  5. Several problems.
    1) our election rules; enormous monetary barrier to entry
    enormous “50,000,000 signatures required” barrier to entry
    enormous “you’re a NAZI if you are not a Liberal” CBC barrier to entry
    enormous “we have conservative in our name, and we had 20 years to balance the budget, but we didn’t” party system barrier to entry

    2) no leadership
    an actual leader, would have already broached the subject of statehood with President Trump 3 years ago
    an actual leader would be invoking the not withstanding clause 3 times a day, shoving it in their faces
    an actual leader would have already used said clause, to bypass all environmental reviews and consultations

    This railway will never be built. Because they cannot even remove a tent from Wascana Park. One “sacred fire” on the route, and it is over.

    1. Well, it may never come to fruition (common sense being what it is in Ka-eh-duh), but think of the heads exploding or the media meltdowns just talking it up. The story only came out yesterday and on three blogs today there are write ups about it. And people are watching.

    2. Sacred lands will suddenly be discovered. Pristine wilderness that man cannot dare touch. Environmental studies that never end.

      You all know the drill.

      1. Wasn’t there an article a while back about some protest group planting archaeological artifacts on certain parcels of land? (“Hello, Ancestors ‘R’ Us?” Do you have a case of spear points in stock?”)

        Oh, and don’t forget about “reparations”.

  6. That’s a project that is dead before it begins. The Spawn’s watermelon coalition wouldn’t mind strangling western potash and grain shipments along with bitumen.

    1. I agree. President Kamala Harris and Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland will never approve the rail line.

  8. Your PM will “spread the risk” … by simultaneously killing multiple commodities with a single supra-Parliamentarian action.

  9. The indians will never go for it. Environmental groups in the U.S. and Toronto will finance endless court challenges by tribes.

  10. He can do what he wants.
    It’s not like there is any pushback.

    Too bad for the welfared Maritimes, captured and plantationed by the First Biggest Liberal Asshole Of All!

    So many of those poor pitiable pathetic peons had a glimmer of Freedom; hoping against hope that The Real Conservatives, Western Conservatives, would show those Big City MTV Liberal vandals a thing or two!

    Ontariowe/Quebec Green Ideologues killing the black gold industry?
    Taking a man’s livelihood used to be a fighting proposition.
    Not today.
    Not in Canada.
    Not anywhere in Canada.

    Yup. West sure showed them.
    Two things alright.
    Ass cheeks up.

    All hat no cattle commentators can apologize anytime for the big log they missed all those years.

    “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your Maritime brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your Maritime’s brother’s eye.

    1. I’m a Maritimer, and I am not a peon, but do feel peed on. Come to think of it, all working Canadian taxpayers feel peed on about now. It’s a sign of the times.

  11. You mean between Alaska and Canada West? That’s the only way it’s going to happen in Trudopeia.
    The Americans don’t care, Trudeau will buy if from them to prevent completion.
    We are screwed with the Trudeau/Lewis, I mean Singh deal, but I (don’t) repeat myself.

    A big problem is we haven’t paid the bills from the last Grit genuflection to socialism, and we have a progressive Marxist prepared to virtue signal his way to a ruinous but green credentialed legacy, with our borrowed money.

    Which we wouldn’t do for ourselves, so he has to. No shit Sherlock. Because he wants to, now we have to. End this insanity!

  12. The powers that be will do everything they can to stop this.

    After all, a prosperous country is one that tells its leaders to bugger off when things are good and no one needs a public official wasting their time.

  13. I don’t expect a single tie of that railroad to be built unless and until Canada is liberated by the United States armed forces.

  14. This is a “Sign”.
    President Trump cannot come out and say”I support Western Canadian Separation and will welcome a land link to Alaska,into the Nation in a heartbeat”.
    Just cannot be said on so many levels,while still pretending to see Confederated Canada as an Ally.
    But any US President who unified the Continent of North America into one nation,will live in history.
    Canada is ripe for the picking,from North Bay to Surrey BC the taxpaying citizens are labelled enemies of the State,aliens in the land they built.
    Loud little Islands,our cities ,made up of yapping Parasites chattering amongst themselves,are convinced they are the power.Surrounded by vast regions of isolated individuals who are wondering why,why do I tolerate these vicious creatures?

    The State model of the Republic of the USA,along with a tried and true constitution and dollar of much better standing than the Trudeau Buck..these are not trivial things .

    We will not stand until we chose our hill.
    For without borders,defined and defended,no law applies.
    A country is built on a chosen set of rules,applicable within chosen borders.
    This is so fundamental that endless wars have been waged over the minutia of who controls where.

    Western Independence,with a set of values identical to the US Constitution would be greeted with great joy by a US President,especially one who has been repeatedly insulted by the self righteous twits of Ottawa.

    But we need to choose.
    What will be our “shared Values”?
    Within what region?

    Approving this plan,serves notice.
    The USA wants more trade and is willing to help Canada achieve that goal.
    What does Eastern Canada want?
    More useless virtue signalling?

  15. Seems to me that something similar to what is on the horizon regarding this rail line happened within living memory. When America tried to isolate Japan from resources it needed, a war was the result. Should Canada consider isolating the need for Alaskan oil by America, it will end up on the end of a really short rope. A war is a non-starter but America will impose sanctions that will make the steel and aluminium tariffs look like the proverbial pimple on the elephants backside. The Monroe Doctrine can be fulfilled incrementally. A majority of Albertans have been and are p*ssed at the continual attitude that the RoC has for them. A secessionist movement in Alberta will get massive financial aid from America. A majority of Albertans have more in common with America and specifically the State of Montana than they have with either BC or Sask. Should Alberta secede it would leave BC isolated for a while until they also had to join America out of economic need. Saskatchewan would then secede shortly thereafter. The Monroe Doctrine could be accomplished within our lifetime, and all because Canadians are dumb enough to keep voting for politicians that feed them the line that the government will take care of them. Politicians that cannot grasp the basic principles of governing.

    1. America doesn’t need resources from Alaska in amounts to even consider sanctioning Canada, let alone war – only political fallout would bring about a war, not resource extraction and transport from Alaska – simple dry and wet freight by sea and the existing infrastructure is enough to satisfy US demand from Alaska, now and in the future unless something unforeseen happens.

      Also, Japan didn’t attack the United States because they thought the United States would “isolate” them from resources.

      Japan could have taken the Dutch oil fields without attacking the Philippines, let alone Pearl Harbor.

      No, the reason why the Japanese attacked America was because of their own domestic and Asian politics – they attacked to demonstrate the superiority of Pan-Asianism….

      …Even Chiang Kai Shek, who used to side with the Japanese, was convinced the US was a better fit for a Chinese future (Chiang had been trained and groomed in Japan)

      – THAT is why the Republic of China’s flag (and now, Taiwanese flag) follows the same design pattern as the American flag.

      Many people of the time (from Hitler to Churchill) recognized that the United States had already surpassed Germany and the UK – to say nothing about Japan. If they only knew the true extent what was in store for them – Semiconductor technology coming out of Bell labs in the early 30s, industrial technology and standards such as capacitors 4 orders of magnitude more precise than what Europeans could conceive for design-work, Robotic Naval weapons system slaved to radar in the late 30s, clockwork uranium refinement technology that would produce 30 short tons of uranium metal a month for nuclear research (Germany’s best year was less than 1 ton in an entire year), etc, etc, etc.

      Japan was humiliated, and their domestic media of the time makes clear they talked themselves into a position where a blow against America was a psychological “necessity”. By their own reasoning, America was too weak-willed to fight back – that was the prime motivation for Yamamoto – not that America was a threat – but that America was “easy pickings”. That is the reason for Yamamoto’s gloating article which was printed throughout the Japanese Empire after Pearl Harbor, and was picked up in every newspaper in the world, from Japan to Germany to America.

      And once America was “humbled” and “humiliated”, the Chiang and rest of the Asians would fall in line with the Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere with the Yamato Race, their Yamato Damashii, in the “Flying Geese formation” (as would the presumed Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere which stretched from Siberia to Australasia).

      Modern revisionist historians pretend that Japan had a more strategic reason for attacking Pearl Harbor,m saying that once Japan conquered the Dutch and British colonies, THEN America would attack Japan….this is a bald-faced lie…Germany, after all, had already attacked the Netherlands and Britain ITSELF, and America was in no way obligated to declare war on Germany.

      It’s an obvious lie – and again, it is used to mask the real motivation for the Japanese attack – a motivation who’s character looks that much worse for Japan (and the Asians who followed them) after the War ended.

      Because the Japanese never regarded America as having the gumption because of their isolationism (which was VERY public and relayed to them through their vast intelligence network of Japanese communities inside the United States, prominently in Hawaii and California. And Japan wanted to prove to all Asians the superiority of the Yamato race, and the prominence of the theory beyond Pan-Asianism…

      …which is why it started a Race-war against the White Country, in hopes of convincing Asians to rally behind them.

      And for a time, it worked – Asians of every stripe DID rally to the Japanese banner when it looked like they were winning against a Race many Asians resented. After all, the Japanese were clearly the superior of all the Asians – the “champions” of Pan-Asianism, and Yamato Damashii was sweeping throughout Asia.

      But then a funny thing happened: In the name of all Asians, the Yamato Race started a Race war against White Countries to prove their superiority and validate the “Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere”.

      But what does it mean when that Yamato Race, the superior Race of the Asians – is conquered by a White Country?

      Not “Repulsed”.

      Not “Defeated”.

      “Conquered”…

      …In every sense of the word; Occupied by those it thought its Racial Inferiors, their “god” Emperor brought low as a fraud and made subservient to the Conqueror’s design, its Religion permanently desecrated as a result, those who would resist dead from combat or execution… and the remaking of Japan’s people and her children in the image of its Conqueror, something that would have horrified the proud Yamato Race just a few years ago.

      Bottom line: This is why Asians at the time reviled the Japanese immediately after World War 2 – not because of brutality per se, Asian demeanor towards each other always tended to lack empathy especially regarding “loss of face” – but because of a deeper, far more visceral and heinous Taboo.

      Japan took it upon itself to ask the ultimate question on Race, one that in their defense, many Asians had long been asking themselves.

      After Japan’s Conquest, many people throughout the world scrambled to disavow both the Question and the Answer. And no greater incentive existed to muddy the waters and forget, than for the Japanese themselves.

  16. Shhh, does Jason know about this? Has he spoken with Justin and Jagmeet who together are running the country, one being dependent on the other.

  17. A lot of blithering nonsense from a lot of wannabe Western separatists. Jacques Parizeau would beat the lot of you hollow over how to do separation. You passel of whiners don’t even have your own police force. How do you expect to control your own laws and their application when OTTAWA controls all the fellows with guns in your provinces? Ottawa can stop this dead in its tracks by simple application of the Trudeau-amended Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA). Even easier, they can simply organize their friends in First Nations to blockade your roads and rail lines for the effect that happened last January. And without your own police force, you can do NOTHING.

    So tell me you’ve formed your own provincial police force (s) and I might believe you. Otherwise you’re all hat and no cattle.

  19. Obviously the Turd government will once again demonstrate that they will shut everything down in Canada that might actually benefit Canadians. They must keep a large dependant class. There is no other reason to keep such a self serving idiocracy as out political class.

  20. I’ve often wondered why the remainder of the Energy East pipeline actually had to be built through Quebec & New Brunwsick. From what I can tell, the existing pipeline runs almost all the way to the St . Lawrence River. Could they not get the pipeline to the SLR, load oil onto tankers and send the tankers up the SLR, around Nova Scotia and into Saint John NB? Since there are tankers already coming to Saint John from the Middle East and elsewhere, there can be no reasonable objections on environmental grounds.

    1. The St. Lawrence Seaway doesn’t have the capacity to handle tankers of any kind. Remember, the ship limitations of the Seaway were determined by the capacity limits of the Welland Canal between Lakes Erie and Ontario. The ability to widen the Seaway in any way is zero. What it is is what it will stay.

      1. You can only get tankers/ships of a certain size up to Montreal on the SLR. Biggest I boarded in Port of Montreal was only 78000 tonnes. A pipsqueak in the tanker world. It was loading grain to Russia back when Daddy Turd was PM. Even the Venezuelan ones tied up at Levis were only 78,000 tonnes, back when oil went for peanuts. The shipping channels are dredged to a certain depth, for a certain size and with the Mafia that operates in Kaybec, there’s no guarantee for the SLR. You want to move stuff to market from NA, size matters. Same for the arse end of TMX in Hongcouver. Gateway was for VLC to VLCC sized tankers to Asia, or go home. Alberta should have downed tools on that one. Biggest in Burnaby is 120,000 tonnes and only loaded to 80% capacity and they go down to Cali, mostly. First Narrows bridge is the limiting factor….low tide only for these ships. How do I know? I grew up in Montreal, lived in Vanc and sailed on oil tankers in a previous life. Been involved with the oil industry for about 50 years, from shipping it, pumping it, to drilling for it.
        As for the TMX, if it wasn’t for the fact that Seattle is landlocked pipeline wise (there aren’t any INTO Washington Sate) and the US Navy camped out in port, the GD TMX wouldn’t exist. Vancouver would be still using COAL heat. Oops, we (in Alberta/Saskatchewan) supply ALL your hydrocarbons used from BC to downtown Montreal in this country, plus a whack of natural gas and most of the propane used. Remember the shortages last winter ’cause tracks were blocked by whiny Injuns? An inconvenient FACT to the brain dead in this country that live in vibrant Tronna/Montrea/Ottywah.
        If I was Kenny, I’d shut it all in at the wellhead in January…repairs, see. Have at it with the windmills and solar, dorks. You couldn’t generate enough hydro power to run things, especially withe electric vehicles in winter.

    2. 740ft long, 78 feet wide, 26 feet deep is the max size in the Seaway.

      I could not find an example of a Seawaymax tanker, though they may exist.

      1. No such animal exists. They vary the load size to fit the requirements and the current water depth.

  21. Another example of Trump playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers. Obviously he’s keeping up on Wexit. Lots of things to negotiate through but Trump is good at that. If Alberta becomes a new state and Manitoba stays in Canada I am so moving. I’ll happily give up my home to one of those diversity types who will be fleeing east.

    I wonder if this has anything to do with the huge Communist Chinese trading complex being built up north.

        1. The location, Alec, is no accident. Fort Drum is within easy striking distance of all of Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal.

  22. 3 years? Ha. This will be under review for 20 years IF it even makes it that far.

    UCP and Maverick need to get very vocal about the benefits of this project to Alberta. It’s cancelation might move the needle enough towards separation. (Hopeful but doubtful)

  24. there is an existing link to alaska already in the form of rail barges, a railway over land is a lot safer than that.

    1. They ran a pipeline for AV gas in WW2, right beside the Alaska Highway, for ferrying aircraft to Russia. Still there, lying on the dirt. Build it bigger, the “service road” is already in place.

  25. Self defeatism isn’t a strategy for success. I say it’s worth a hard to the mat fight to get built. The rail line is a great idea for the USA and particularly the Republicans for multiple reasons: 1) They desire a direct land bridge to Alaska. 2) They maintain direct control over energy shipments from NA to Asia which maintains foreign policy clout over growing threats like China and North Korea. 3) Alberta (and to some degree Saskatchewan) is the most populous concentration of conservatism in Canada which would immediately help the Republicans if it became the 51st state and offset the harm posed by D.C. and Puerto Rico statehoods. 4) The direct gain in energy resources, agriculture, strategic minerals like Uranium, Coal, Potash and Fresh Water is immense and would give the USA long term security.

    In short if Canada doesn’t want us the USA is showing the next place to call home. Succession into a separate sovereign nation isn’t a realistic outcome. But at least the business environment would be much better. Under Trump it could happen very quickly if the people of Alberta voted for it.

    1. Agreed Martin B. It is worth it. Perhaps they could twin it with the Alaska highway, upgrading it, and using it as a service road for the railway, as well as a highway for those who wish to drive to and from Alaska. If Alberta joins the US, or appears they might, I’ll uproot, and move to Alberta, until BC joins in.

  30. Not likely to happen in my lifetime but anyone who is willing to poke the left, the liberals, trudeau or the east in the side (or anywhere else) with a pointy stick has my congratulations and a hardy job well done.

  31. Back in the day, there was a railway all the way to Pine Point, NWT (just east of Hay River). Rather suspect the rails were removed when the mine was shut down, but the original rail bed should still be there and could be a quick starting point for this project.

    1. Hell, when I worked in Whitehorse they were hauling the same ore (Pb, Zn) on trucks from Faro, YT to Skagway, Alaska, then by ship to Vancouver, then train to the Cominco smelter in Trail, BC in 1990. And made money. Probably still doing it today.
      What’s that saying “Think Big”?
      WEXIT!

  33. For all you Globble Warmenting Karens and Greta Stunnedstills out there, CO2 is readily dissolved in H2O. A sciencey fact you didn’t learn in High School. The Front Ranges of the Rocky Mountains, just west of me and framed in my dinning room window are composed of some 40,000 feet of the stuff and is currently being laid down in the warm waters of the Bahamas as I type and also in the warmer parts of the Indian Ocean. Read up on the “Carbon Cycle” as a refresher. Those same mountain ranges loaded with CO2, extend to the tip of South America and north to Alaska.
    When a 4 wheel drive, solar/electric farm tractor is invented that outperforms a diesel one, I’ll change my tune. And for all those anti oil/CO2types out there…do your part, stop breathing FIRST before I join your ranks. My last name isn’t Lemming.

    1. // CO2 is readily dissolved in H2O. A sciencey fact you didn’t learn in High School. //

      Cm’on. Any kid who drank pop knew that in grade school.

  34. The original Alaskan highway was built in 8 months. Now it takes 3 years just to do a study. Canada has become a sad and pathetic country.

    1. And even if the study is completed, the outcome almost always scuttles the project. I mean, how long did the Berger inquiry take to come up with a decision that just about everybody already knew what it would be?

      Horsing around like that is a Canadian tradition.

    2. You forget, the US Army built the Alaska Highway, not Kan-eh-duh and the US are probably still paying the maintenance today. A bunch of the original routes have been abandoned/modified or moved, even within the time frame I worked in that part of the world. The original airstrips to ferry aircraft to Russia are still in casual to heavy use. Dawson Creek is Mile Zero. If you want a taste of history, make a trip to the Yukon someday, if carbon tax isn’t a hindrance. I’ve done the Alaska Highway as far as Burwash Landing, plus the one to Skagway (South Klondike #2), up to Faro, Dawson City and beyond, Robert Campbell Highway, the loop to Haines Junction-Haines Alaska ferry to Skagway-Whitehorse up the Chilkoot Inlet. There’s more to Canada than just the Trans Canada Highway.

      2. The original Alcan (which was the highway’s name at first) was built with a lot of curves, with the straight stretches being fairly short. According to what I heard, the reason was to prevent the Japanese from using it as a landing strip if they managed to invade that part of North America.

        The furthest north I’ve been on that route was Liard River nearly 50 years ago. There were some places where the highway was little better than a cow trail, particularly around Steamboat Mountain. The original wooden bridge that crossed the Muskwa River coming into Fort Nelson was still in use in those days.

        Over the years, much of the highway was straightened out and the older sections fell into disuse. One example is where it crosses the Kiskatinaw River not quite half an hour’s drive north of Dawson Creek. The highway was re-routed around the old curved wooden trestle bridge nearly 40 years ago and the newer section crosses the gorge with a concrete structure. The older part of the highway, particularly the bridge, is now an historical site.

        The Fort St. John airport was, when we moved there, designed for military use, going back to WW II. (The main runway was extended about 2 years after we arrived.) When the Armed Forces held war games somewhere in the vicinity of Pink Mountain about 50 years ago, the airport was used as a base for bringing in troops and supplies as well as a fuel stop. Even when the Abbotsford firm Conair came north with its vintage warbird water bombers to fight fires during the summer, it based them at FSJ because the airport could handle those types of planes.

        1. Steamboat was paved, the last I was there in 1991. First time was still gravel in 1989. The highway is pretty good now, so any folks making the attempt to Whitehorse, or angle off as far as Dawson City would find the drive easy peasy, except for localized weather like snow in October, or June, especially around Steamboat Mountain. They do get Chinooks up there in winter, where you freeze your butt off down in the valleys and strip off higher up.
          Whitehorse is a great town, winter or summer. Lots of interesting folks. They had a couple of air shows when I lived there, our office overlooked the Yukon River and we would watch F-18’s streak by at 2nd floor level, or a big 4-engined Aurora do it’s thing that they wouldn’t get away with at the CNE. The last year I was there the dog races had snow trucked in at the start, it was shirt sleeve warm in February, 1991. No snow downtown and the Taku still stood.

      1. It had to be built in a hurry. Most of the highway was gravelled, at least the part I travelled before I moved away from Fort St. John in the late 1970s.

        1. As of about five years ago it is all paved (at least to Haines Jct.). A mixture of asphalt and that bituminous chip-seal type of surface.
          Watson Lake also has a huge airport that could/can handle the big bombers. I always enjoyed the sign-post forest.

  35. Trump mentioned 2 of the 3 us rep/senators: Lisa M not mentioned.

    I’m surprised Trump did not announce it as a ND to AK. Pickup AB, SK goods on the way.
    Would Trudeau deny ND to AK? Trump would whack Trudeau / Freeland continually if denied.

  36. “potash, sulfer, and grains”

    Who are they kidding? Not me. There is zero economic reason to move any of these commodities over this export route (I suppose with the exception of Alberta separation).

    This is all about the bitumen. And here, the economic case is pretty damn good. Their $22 billion railway might actually make sense.

    1. Let me elaborate.

      1. This transport route sidesteps the political restraint on oil exports of the provinces on both sides of Alberta and the enviro-loonies in the US to the south, and again will allow the expansion of oil sands output.
      2. Oil sands are rather straightforward to extract, and immense in volume.
      3. An important kicker is that transport by rail requires no dilbit. An large part of the cost of transporting the oilsands bitumen out by pipe is the diluting lighter solvents (dilbit) they add to make it flowable by pipe. They must return it back to reuse it, or they acquire more as it is left to be consumed in the downstream refinery. Either way, it is a large added cost.

        1. One last comment. It is very telling that the route mapped in the article does not penetrate BC. If this is correct, they need only Yukon and Alberta onside. The smaller this group, the easier to get it to work.

          1. Ok, one more. Last, I promise. It is notable that the railroad proposal goes through Fairbanks, and so does the existing Trans Alaska Pipeline. Is this possibly also a plan to support the declining volumes of that pipeline in light of the depletion of Prudhoe Bay? Offload at Fairbanks and pipe the last leg to port. Just a thought.

          2. Also need the Northwest Territories in the “avoid BC” scenario. It’s all moot anyway…
            Bill C-69 and the various native groups have already killed this thing in the womb. No one is going to spend over $1-billion and five years of lobbying/studying/assessing just to have Trudeau/Freeland say “No” at the end.

  37. they say “cut the head off the snake”, Butts in this case it’s cut the asshole off the snake, and the Turd will be so lost!

  38. Like I posted before; make their heads explode and light their hair on fire, just talking about it. It will be a sort of entertainment while paying your carbon tax to heat your home this winter.

  40. Trump should say it is ND to AK, needs to be started in 6 months. If Trudeau balks, say in 6 months no rail transport through Detroit that has a Cdn destination: if Canada says no US to US through Canada, US says no Canada to Canada through US.
    Once railway is build ND to AK, Canadian goods will get on board.

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