Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee
edit: to put a little more perspective here; according to a Financial Post article on November 11, the current differential picture is a pace of losing $100,000,000,000 per year. That's $100B. Global demand is still growing. Oil is Canada's number one export.
How many Olympics does that pay for? How much public benefit and economic stimulation? That pace in 1 year is enough to pay off 10 provincial and 3 territories debts.
That is a staggering number to sneer at, which Canada is currently doing. That is a staggering number to turn our backs on.
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You made some good points in your post, even if some were based mainly on your opinion and we’re clearly presented with a political narrative.
But as someone who would like to see the BS that is holding up pipelines stop, I must say it’s incredibly frustrating and disappointing to see supporters of pipelines resort to these kinds of misleading arguments.
The $100B differential shortfall would not wipe out $100B in debt across the provinces in a year, because that money wouldn’t be just handed to the other provinces. It would certainly be taxed and that revenue can’t be ignored, but unless it were to be taxed at 100%(which it won’t be) it’s just plain and simply misleading to try and argue it could eliminate debt across the provinces in 1 year.
Resorting to this kind of misrepresentation of the facts only helps opponents of Alberta’s energy industry because as you pointed out in your post when people don’t trust what they are being told they are unlikely to support what you’re trying to get them onboard with. Support for pipelines has been increasing across the country in recent years, why slow it down by giving people a reason to be pessimistic about the actual benefits? The facts on the economic benefits speak for themselves, even if the message isn’t getting through to people as quickly as you or I would like it to, there’s no benefit in presenting misinformation.
Do you think Nenshi’s “10-1 return” line helped with making a case for the olympics, or do you think it’s more likely that his blatant hyperbole made people more skeptical overall towards the bid? From what I’ve been hearing and reading the past couple of days my guess would be the latter. Don’t be a Nenshi
