The biggest problem with labelling everyone or everything as left or right politically is it convinces people that there is no nuance and promotes tribalism. I can assure you that union members, especially in this province, aren’t all ideologically driven to only support ideas on one side of an imaginary spectrum. There’s many union members/supporters that are any combination of pro guns, pro choice, religious and/or take a number of other positions that fall on the wrong side of what you label as left and right. The “spectrum” is such a flawed concept and only serves to promote division.
I don’t think the question should be whether or not they’re pro O&G, it should be about what they actually do when push comes to shove. Does it mean that they’re always going to make similar choices in the future? No, but comparing actually building a pipeline to slowly dismantling an existing healthcare system doesn’t seem like a rational comparison.
I don’t really buy the small special interests group arguments. The land rights issues in BC are far more complicated than simply passing a bill to deny people their rights. Keep in mind too that the O&G industry finances their own special interest groups to achieve goals unrelated to infrastructure development, IMO that is causing them to lose the broader public support that would help them more easily achieve their infrastructure goals.
The sale alone is expected to be worth between $15M-$25M(not sure if those figures are in CDN or USD) and the pipeline is expected to bring in revenues of $40B to the province alone over the next 20 years not including federal tax revenues it will generate. I personally think those revenue numbers will be exceeded due to the current geopolitical environment but that’s just my opinion. To be clear I’ll reiterate my point that the government stepping in to buy KM was not the ideal way to get this done, but unfortunately it was probably the only way it was going to get done under the circumstances.
I respect yours as well…but admittedly my patience gets tested a little whenever people use the left/right labels in their arguments. None of the parties have the right balance at the moment, but unfortunately that isn’t going to change until people stop falling for the divisive rhetoric most parties and the news/social media continues to push.
Haven't posted in a while, but this was too egregious to not reply to. At best, you're severely minimizing the timeline of events or at worst, you have zero understanding of what actually happened here.
Firstly, you're looking at the value of the pipeline completely incorrectly. You absolutely cannot include the revenues to the province as those would be revenues the province would be getting whether the pipeline was owned by the government or not. That should have been pure upside to taxpayers had a private corporation like Kinder Morgan built and operated the pipeline, like they would have if the government (federal and BC provincial) hadn't completely railroaded it. So congratulations, the federal government paid $30B+ for a pipeline that's worth $15-25B per your own sources.
Secondly, you are misremembering the timeline of events and how they played out (intentionally? perhaps, as it doesn't fit your narrative). The BC government intentionally threw up legal roadblocks hoping Kinder Morgan would back out of the project. They brought forth multiple frivolous lawsuits knowing they wouldn't win given pipelines that cross provincial boundaries are federal jurisdiction. The federal government did not in any way have to supersede laws in order to combat this - Trudeau had the power as Prime Minister to refer the case(s) directly to the Supreme Court to rule to expedite the legal decisions and put an end to the frivolous BS, but refused to do so because of political optics.
So that's why Kinder Morgan dropped out, and why Trudeau had to hold the bag because if he didn't, Canada would be seen as an investment hellhole where you can just be railroaded.
But please keep minimizing the actions and repercussions of the parties at play who absolutely could have done more to prevent the colossal waste of taxpayer money and prosperity for Canadians.
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Haven't posted in a while, but this was too egregious to not reply to. At best, you're severely minimizing the timeline of events or at worst, you have zero understanding of what actually happened here.
You’re entitled to your opinion.
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Firstly, you're looking at the value of the pipeline completely incorrectly. You absolutely cannot include the revenues to the province as those would be revenues the province would be getting whether the pipeline was owned by the government or not. That should have been pure upside to taxpayers had a private corporation like Kinder Morgan built and operated the pipeline, like they would have if the government (federal and BC provincial) hadn't completely railroaded it. So congratulations, the federal government paid $30B+ for a pipeline that's worth $15-25B per your own sources.
You’re moving the goalposts here. All I said was the costs would be recouped, which they will be. Would it have been a greater benefit to the taxpayers had KM been able to build it themselves? Yes, absolutely. I haven’t disputed that at all, in fact I even said that how this played out was not ideal.
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Secondly, you are misremembering the timeline of events and how they played out (intentionally? perhaps, as it doesn't fit your narrative). The BC government intentionally threw up legal roadblocks hoping Kinder Morgan would back out of the project. They brought forth multiple frivolous lawsuits knowing they wouldn't win given pipelines that cross provincial boundaries are federal jurisdiction. The federal government did not in any way have to supersede laws in order to combat this - Trudeau had the power as Prime Minister to refer the case(s) directly to the Supreme Court to rule to expedite the legal decisions and put an end to the frivolous BS, but refused to do so because of political optics.
So that's why Kinder Morgan dropped out, and why Trudeau had to hold the bag because if he didn't, Canada would be seen as an investment hellhole where you can just be railroaded.
Your entire point here seems to be predicated on the assumption that KM would have stuck around even had the cases been expedited. If KM stated they would have(I honestly don’t know if they did or not so please share a link if that is the case) I will take that comment back.
Kind of odd to argue that the government wouldn’t expedite it due to political optics but then decided that buying and completing the project themselves would somehow be less egregious to the people you believe they were trying not to offend in the first place.
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But please keep minimizing the actions and repercussions of the parties at play who absolutely could have done more to prevent the colossal waste of taxpayer money and prosperity for Canadians.
I’m not minimizing anything. There were a lot of mistakes made along the way, but unlike yourself and a number of other people who make similar arguments I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that there was going to be any certainty of outcome had they acted differently.
We arrived at a situation where KM was walking away due to systemic problems with our courts.
Should the laws be changed to prevent this from happening in the future? Yes.
Should governments be allowed to apply changed laws retroactively to ongoing legal cases? That’s a pretty slippery slope that could easily be abused to circumvent our courts which need to remain politically neutral and I think you’d agree with that regardless of which parties are involved. Keep in mind when you allow them to do so when it suits what you want you’re also consenting for them to be allowed to do so when it’s for something you don’t want.
Given this current government’s past actions in multiple situations I think you’d have a hard time arguing that you’d be comfortable with them specifically doing so to suit their needs.
It was unfortunately a real #### sandwhich of a situation for our country and I don’t think any Canadians should be to happy with having to eat it. But given the options at the time when KM announced they had made the decision to walk away I’d prefer this outcome to no pipeline at all. I’m assuming you agree with at least that much.
You’re moving the goalposts here. All I said was the costs would be recouped, which they will be. Would it have been a greater benefit to the taxpayers had KM been able to build it themselves? Yes, absolutely. I haven’t disputed that at all, in fact I even said that how this played out was not ideal.
Your entire point here seems to be predicated on the assumption that KM would have stuck around even had the cases been expedited. If KM stated they would have(I honestly don’t know if they did or not so please share a link if that is the case) I will take that comment back.
Kind of odd to argue that the government wouldn’t expedite it due to political optics but then decided that buying and completing the project themselves would somehow be less egregious to the people you believe they were trying not to offend in the first place.
I’m not minimizing anything. There were a lot of mistakes made along the way, but unlike yourself and a number of other people who make similar arguments I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that there was going to be any certainty of outcome had they acted differently.
We arrived at a situation where KM was walking away due to systemic problems with our courts.
Should the laws be changed to prevent this from happening in the future? Yes.
Should governments be allowed to apply changed laws retroactively to ongoing legal cases? That’s a pretty slippery slope that could easily be abused to circumvent our courts which need to remain politically neutral and I think you’d agree with that regardless of which parties are involved. Keep in mind when you allow them to do so when it suits what you want you’re also consenting for them to be allowed to do so when it’s for something you don’t want.
Given this current government’s past actions in multiple situations I think you’d have a hard time arguing that you’d be comfortable with them specifically doing so to suit their needs.
It was unfortunately a real #### sandwhich of a situation for our country and I don’t think any Canadians should be to happy with having to eat it. But given the options at the time when KM announced they had made the decision to walk away I’d prefer this outcome to no pipeline at all. I’m assuming you agree with at least that much.
Please explain to me how I moved goalposts - as someone who runs economics on projects for a living, you're simply not looking at this correctly. If Kinder Morgan had completed the project on their own as a private company that $30B+ that Canadian taxpayers ended up paying would have been $0, and they still would have reaped all of the royalty revenues and benefits you're listing, so please explain to me why you would take that into consideration when looking at the $30B investment taxpayers made.
Kinder Morgan stopped construction of the pipeline due to the various legal roadblocks, and there's no reason to think they would not have continued ongoing construction of a pipeline if these roadblocks weren't removed.
To argue they would have stopped construction (and walked away from an already significant amount of capital expended) has zero basis other than pure conjecture.
At no point did I say the government should change laws retroactively for current cases. Trudeau was well within his current authority to refer the cases to the Supreme Court - he chose not to hoping he could play both sides of the fence, but when Kinder Morgan called the bluff and wanted to pull out, he realized he had to take action for fear of greater political fallout. These events happened in series, not in parallel as you suggest and therefore your point about "he wouldn't have bought the pipeline if he cared about optics" holds no water. At every point he only cared about what would make him look best (or in this situation, less worse) rather than what was best for Canadians.
Please explain to me how I moved goalposts - as someone who runs economics on projects for a living, you're simply not looking at this correctly. If Kinder Morgan had completed the project on their own as a private company that $30B+ that Canadian taxpayers ended up paying would have been $0, and they still would have reaped all of the royalty revenues and benefits you're listing, so please explain to me why you would take that into consideration when looking at the $30B investment taxpayers made.
I’m not debating that Canadians aren’t getting as much financial benefit as they would have had the government not had to buy the pipeline at a cost of $30B. I don’t know why you’re having so much difficulty understanding that.
The comment I was originally responding to(which you’re quoting me on and, perhaps unintentionally, trying to twist my words on) was someone saying taxpayers would be at an overall loss for buying KM and building the pipeline, meaning we wouldn’t ever recoup the $30B we invested. You appear to agree with me that that is not the case so I’m not sure why you’re continuing to suggest that I’m saying something that I’m not.
I think it’s worth pointing out that in this post you appear to have abandoned taking the asset sale returns into account for your figures, you hadn’t in your previous post and I’m pretty confident the government hasn’t announced that they will be giving KM away since your previous post. Doesn’t change the overall point but I’m just not sure how over exaggerating is helpful here, especially when you’re trying to accuse someone of manipulating facts.
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Kinder Morgan stopped construction of the pipeline due to the various legal roadblocks, and there's no reason to think they would not have continued ongoing construction of a pipeline if these roadblocks weren't removed.
To argue they would have stopped construction (and walked away from an already significant amount of capital expended) has zero basis other than pure conjecture.
The government bought the pipeline about 4 months after KM stopped construction. I think you’re being overly optimistic if you believe all of the cases against them would have been heard and ruled on within that timeline even had the government expedited the cases.
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At no point did I say the government should change laws retroactively for current cases. Trudeau was well within his current authority to refer the cases to the Supreme Court - he chose not to hoping he could play both sides of the fence, but when Kinder Morgan called the bluff and wanted to pull out, he realized he had to take action for fear of greater political fallout. These events happened in series, not in parallel as you suggest and therefore your point about "he wouldn't have bought the pipeline if he cared about optics" holds no water.
I’m going to again refer to the 4 month timeline, which was in reality less than 2 months as according to the article as KM investors were scheduled to meet May 31st to discuss next steps. Some lawyers on here who have more experience dealing with the Supreme Court can speak to this far better than I but I have a very hard time believing that they could have expedited all of those cases in that timeline.
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At every point he only cared about what would make him look best (or in this situation, less worse) rather than what was best for Canadians.
Yeah it’s unfortunate that there’s a lot of that going around in politics these days and we as Canadians are stuck picking up the pieces of the short sighted decisions our “leaders” make for their own gain.
I’m not debating that Canadians aren’t getting as much financial benefit as they would have had the government not had to buy the pipeline at a cost of $30B. I don’t know why you’re having so much difficulty understanding that.
The comment I was originally responding to(which you’re quoting me on and, perhaps unintentionally, trying to twist my words on) was someone saying taxpayers would be at an overall loss for buying KM and building the pipeline, meaning we wouldn’t ever recoup the $30B we invested. You appear to agree with me that that is not the case so I’m not sure why you’re continuing to suggest that I’m saying something that I’m not.
I think it’s worth pointing out that in this post you appear to have abandoned taking the asset sale returns into account for your figures, you hadn’t in your previous post and I’m pretty confident the government hasn’t announced that they will be giving KM away since your previous post. Doesn’t change the overall point but I’m just not sure how over exaggerating is helpful here, especially when you’re trying to accuse someone of manipulating facts.
The government bought the pipeline about 4 months after KM stopped construction. I think you’re being overly optimistic if you believe all of the cases against them would have been heard and ruled on within that timeline even had the government expedited the cases.
I’m going to again refer to the 4 month timeline, which was in reality less than 2 months as according to the article as KM investors were scheduled to meet May 31st to discuss next steps. Some lawyers on here who have more experience dealing with the Supreme Court can speak to this far better than I but I have a very hard time believing that they could have expedited all of those cases in that timeline.
Yeah it’s unfortunate that there’s a lot of that going around in politics these days and we as Canadians are stuck picking up the pieces of the short sighted decisions our “leaders” make for their own gain.
Four month timeline….in addition to the previous months and years of legal and regulatory roadblocking. But sure, let’s only measure the time from Kinder Morgan announcing the halt to the sale. Nothing else happened before that. But hey, I’m the one moving goalposts, right?
It seems our fundamental disagreement is that you don’t believe the federal government could have done anything differently to keep the project on the rails and a private company continuing their investment. I (and many Canadians) feel they purposely refused to take action for political reasons, and that was a direct cause of Kinder Morgan pulling out and the government having to pull together the pieces.
It doesn’t seem that we’ll agree on this point, so I’ll just go back to lurking. Had to call out your misleading post first.
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Four month timeline….in addition to the previous months and years of legal and regulatory roadblocking. But sure, let’s only measure the time from Kinder Morgan announcing the halt to the sale. Nothing else happened before that. But hey, I’m the one moving goalposts, right?
On the last point? Yes you absolutely are, I’ve already explained my reasoning for saying so and thus far you’re conveniently ignoring that so I’m not sure there’s any benefit to repeating it again.
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It seems our fundamental disagreement is that you don’t believe the federal government could have done anything differently to keep the project on the rails and a private company continuing their investment. I (and many Canadians) feel they purposely refused to take action for political reasons, and that was a direct cause of Kinder Morgan pulling out and the government having to pull together the pieces.
Yeah you’ve made your opinion clear. You haven’t proven it to be correct, particularly your mischaracterization of my position, but you’ve made what your opinion is very clear.
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It doesn’t seem that we’ll agree on this point, so I’ll just go back to lurking. Had to call out your misleading post first.
That’s fine. To be frank I don’t care much for your antics of coming out of “lurking” to take pot shots at someone over a difference of opinion and then running away in what comes off as a desperate attempt to get the last word in (with yet another pot shot) as if it somehow adds credibility to what you’re writing.
I’d encourage to continue posting and being part of the discussion but obviously you’re free to make whatever decision you feel is best for you.
On the last point? Yes you absolutely are, I’ve already explained my reasoning for saying so and thus far you’re conveniently ignoring that so I’m not sure there’s any benefit to repeating it again.
Yeah you’ve made your opinion clear. You haven’t proven it to be correct, particularly your mischaracterization of my position, but you’ve made what your opinion is very clear.
That’s fine. To be frank I don’t care much for your antics of coming out of “lurking” to take pot shots at someone over a difference of opinion and then running away in what comes off as a desperate attempt to get the last word in (with yet another pot shot) as if it somehow adds credibility to what you’re writing.
I’d encourage to continue posting and being part of the discussion but obviously you’re free to make whatever decision you feel is best for you.
You can’t really argue with stupidity and ignorance on a subject someone clearly doesn’t know anything about - such as how economics should be assessed on projects. That’s why I prefer to lurk and laugh at the complete ignorance and refusal to understand from posters like you.
The article is an opinion piece being written by a we-can-win-the-war-on-drugs psychopath from Toronto.
I suspect everything that man just wrote outside of the quotes from union officials is probably playing in the gray area of being entirely unable to be corroborated while being as sensationalist as humanly possible with out ever actually having set foot in a BC hospital.
You can’t really argue with stupidity and ignorance on a subject someone clearly doesn’t know anything about - such as how economics should be assessed on projects. That’s why I prefer to lurk and laugh at the complete ignorance and refusal to understand from posters like you.
Doubling down eh?
If it helps, I for one believe that you’re much smarter than anyone that you think you are.
In all seriousness though, I must say that I find it quite amusing that someone would actually resort to name calling while trying to convince someone else that they’re intellectually superior to them. Good stuff, and as a bonus it leads me to wonder if any of the posters who pretend to be legitimately offended when others post personal attacks on here will be rushing in to comment.
Is that $25k exit tax real or is PP making up more stuff?
No. There's no fee or proposed fee. It's a protection mechanism that already exists to withhold capital gains until the taxes are filed so you can't leave the country without paying your taxes
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ThePrince Well said...but then again posters like him tend to revise history quite a bit as long as it fits an agenda or narrative. He most certainly knew what happened at the time.
Jan. 27, 2016: The federal Liberal government says assessments of pipeline projects such as the Trans Mountain expansion will now take into account the greenhouse gas emissions produced in the extraction and processing of the oil they carry. Proponents will also be required to improve consultations with First Nations.
May 29, 2017: The B.C. NDP and Greens agree to form a coalition to topple the provincial Liberal party, which could only manage a minority in the previous month’s provincial election. The parties agree to “immediately employ every tool available” to stop the project. The coalition defeats the B.C. Liberals in a confidence motion a month later, paving the way for John Horgan to become premier.
Jan. 30, 2018: B.C. government moves to restrict any increase in diluted bitumen shipments until it conducts more spill response studies, a move that increases the uncertainty for Trans Mountain.
March 23, 2018: Green party Leader Elizabeth May and NDP MP Kennedy Stewart are arrested at a protest against the pipeline expansion; Federal Court of Appeal dismisses a B.C. government bid challenging a NEB ruling that allows Kinder Morgan Canada to bypass local bylaws.
April 8, 2018: Kinder Morgan Canada suspends non-essential spending on the Trans Mountain expansion project and sets a May 31 deadline to get assurances that the project will be able to proceed.
May 29, 2018: The federal government announces a deal to buy the pipeline and expansion project from Kinder Morgan Canada for $4.4 billion.
These multiple challenges by Horgan to stop the pipeline at all costs got Kinder Morgan stuck in a costly quagmire and despite already coming out ahead in court cases, the NDP-Green coalition kept challenging. Kinder Morgan would likely have filed a NAFTA dispute and won multi billions of dollars in damages as a result of these actions.
Also a reminder that Singh and the NDP under him have always been dead seat against and opposed the pipeline from day one (or as Singh once called it "increasingly obsolete fossil fuel infrastructure") and let one of his MPs illegally protest the pipeline and blocked a road, while Trudeau decided leaving on a trip in the middle of a major Canadian crisis was a great idea. Also a note, Mulcair was personally in favour of pipelines including Energy East, which largely lead to his outing as a leader.
It was unfortunately a real #### sandwhich of a situation for our country and I don’t think any Canadians should be to happy with having to eat it. But given the options at the time when KM announced they had made the decision to walk away I’d prefer this outcome to no pipeline at all. I’m assuming you agree with at least that much.
It was a real #### sandwich brought to us by the BC NDP / Green Party and the Federal NDP / Green Party that choose to sabotage our country's economic interest and take all measures available including illegal ones to virtue signal to extremes at the detriment of Canada (at a time of great turmoil for the industry and Alberta's economic future no less), while Trudeau and the Liberals sat idling by letting it deteriorate until they had absolutely no choice but to act to avoid irreparable harm to Canada. Lets also not forget Energy East was killed under the Liberals despite it being a much needed pipeline to interconnect Canada's energy grid.
And all you can say is it wasn't ideal? Considering how often you like to remind folks of the UCP wasting 1.4B on a pipeline in the Alberta thread (a pipeline with full approval no less), I am really surprised that you are actually defending the TXM fiasco and not rightfully blaming the 'socially conscious' parties that made it happen and cost Canadian taxpayers multi billions of dollars as a result. TMX is expected to be sold for pennies to the dollar now that it's completed as well. And I even thanked your recent post and considering the situation, buying the pipeline was a better option than no pipeline.
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Originally Posted by iggy_oi
We arrived at a situation where KM was walking away due to systemic problems with our courts.
Put the blame where it rightfully belongs. Our courts was not the problem and it's an absolute cop out of an answer.
Last edited by Firebot; 05-07-2024 at 09:00 AM.
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You can tell even she doesn’t realize how stupid she is when she doesn’t catch herself with the line “At least plastic kids can be recycled, but this? This just dissolves…” in trying to correctly identify which is better for the environment.
If it looks like a clown and acts like a clown…
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On a more eloquent note while I’m still reeling from those eyebrows, this is what I was referring to in the other thread about politicians (Conservatives and Liberals) not just leading from a place of fixing what’s broken, but actively trying to hurt people they don’t like along the way.
It’s impossible to tell what she stands for. Environmentalism? She kinda says that, then contradicts it. You’d think it would be supporting business since that’s a typical Conservative thing, but she’s standing there trying to encourage a boycott on a business that employs thousands of Canadians because of pizza and woke lids. So, the only thing it appears she actually stands for is anti-wokeness (and pizza) which isn’t standing FOR anything. So many politicians now are just empty populist morons who want to make things worse.
I hate this dumb ####.
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