Alberta Politics Thread

[Makarov]

^ Its worth noting that (a) Transalta is a publicly traded company and therefore likely a small proportion of shareholders are likely Albertan; and (b) even among that small proportion, shares are not evenly distributed among Albertans. Therefore, your argument doesn't really make any sense.

[Kjesse]

It's pretty interesting that the market pushed the stock price upward for the companies sued when the lawsuit was announced. Tends to show what the market and the analysts think en masse about the lawsuit. The normal expectation would be for a price drop on any significant lawsuit from a government.

As I understand it, everyone knew the government was going to try to do something about the return of the ppa's, but that they would do this was not expected at all.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by Makarov

^ Its worth noting that (a) Transalta is a publicly traded company and therefore likely a small proportion of shareholders are likely Albertan; and (b) even among that small proportion, shares are not evenly distributed among Albertans. Therefore, your argument doesn't really make any sense.

Yeah I know Transalta is publicly traded. I wasn't making an argument. I was just noting how idiotic Sarah Hoffman is for not understanding what in fact she is talking about or doing. Thanks though.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

It's weird they're trying so hard to make this their Gotterdamerung. And profit really is the heart of it. A pearl from Sarah Hoffman...



Yeah like how dare they try to make a profit every single year. Maybe Sarah would have everybody who collected big fat transalta dividends give back 20% of their earnings from the last sixteen years. That would really protect Albertans from Albertans. Or something like that.

I don't know why anyone expects anything different from her, she's never worked in the private sector in her life, she's pretty much been a NDP worker since she got out of school, so asking her to understand the private sector mentality is like asking me to understand the quantum mechanics of a wormhole.

She's driven by party philosophy and not by how the real world actually works.

And its not just her its a thing that spreads across all parties where you have life time politicians who define policy without understanding that it has real world effects.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I don't know why anyone expects anything different from her, she's never worked in the private sector in her life, she's pretty much been a NDP worker since she got out of school, so asking her to understand the private sector mentality is like asking me to understand the quantum mechanics of a wormhole.

She's driven by party philosophy and not by how the real world actually works.

And its not just her its a thing that spreads across all parties where you have life time politicians who define policy without understanding that it has real world effects.

True. Which is why I wonder at people who expect Jason Kenny to be a steady pilot of the economy. He studied philosophy and poli sci until he was 22, worked as a lobbyist until he was 29, and has been an MP ever since. He's the very definition of a career politician.

[Shazam]

Jason Kenney is a poor choice for leader.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

True. Which is why I wonder at people who expect Jason Kenny to be a steady pilot of the economy. He studied philosophy and poli sci until he was 22, worked as a lobbyist until he was 29, and has been an MP ever since. He's the very definition of a career politician.

Well, he's not a lawyer. That's a good start around these parts.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

Well, he's not a lawyer. That's a good start around these parts.

I'm telling you, what this province needs is an accountant.

[Shazam]

Canada had an economist and everybody hated that.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

True. Which is why I wonder at people who expect Jason Kenny to be a steady pilot of the economy. He studied philosophy and poli sci until he was 22, worked as a lobbyist until he was 29, and has been an MP ever since. He's the very definition of a career politician.

The thing is though, this can be okay. The politicians in power themselves are just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg, what about the people in the background?

There should be experienced people behind the scenes advising these people. Joe Ceci shouldnt be unilaterally making Alberta Fiscal Policy, does he not have someone there advising him?

Joe: "We're going to give every Albertan their own Polar Bear!"

- Well you see sir, thats an ill-advised move for the following reasons: the cost and logistics of acquiring a sufficient number of Polar Bears and then transporting them here and then distributing them in conjunction with the whole 'godless killing machine' aspect that Polar Bears tend to convey leads me to suggest that this plan is batcrap crazy you idiot.

"I see. Scrap plan 'Polar Express' then!"

Are there no experienced and trusted advisors helping these people out? The PPA clause and unilateral decommissioning of coal plants is a perfect example. I get the environmental aspect of it but did no one stand and be counted and lay out the very obvious consequences of this plan?

And if there is no one doing this then why not? You cant have everyone in the room thinking the same way, there should always be a voice of dissent:

"This is a bad plan because...I disagree with you and here are the reasons why....In my experience this isnt going to work because..."

And if there are people within the party doing this and they're just being summarily ignored then thats a serious indictment of the party as well. Of any party, NDP or PC or whatever. There has to be balance.

It just feels like they're just doing what they want and either remaining blissfully ignorant of the consequences or they just dont care.

[Shazam]

Nope, they do not.

Ceci was totally gung ho on raising royalty rates until someone very high up at CNRL told him Alberta already had the highest rates in NA. At a party. Good jorb Ceci.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Nope, they do not.

Ceci was totally gung ho on raising royalty rates until someone very high up at CNRL told him Alberta already had the highest rates in NA. At a party. Good jorb Ceci.

And things like this concern me, as they should concern us all.

For my part, when I label the NDP a Merry Band of Idiots I do so because one of my clients was at the meeting between Notley and Murray Edwards and I know, fairly reliably, exactly what happened and what was said so I'm comfortable in my assertion that these people have no idea what they're doing.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Locke

The thing is though, this can be okay. The politicians in power themselves are just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg, what about the people in the background?

There should be experienced people behind the scenes advising these people. Joe Ceci shouldnt be unilaterally making Alberta Fiscal Policy, does he not have someone there advising him?

Joe: "We're going to give every Albertan their own Polar Bear!"

- Well you see sir, thats an ill-advised move for the following reasons: the cost and logistics of acquiring a sufficient number of Polar Bears and then transporting them here and then distributing them in conjunction with the whole 'godless killing machine' aspect that Polar Bears tend to convey leads me to suggest that this plan is batcrap crazy you idiot.

"I see. Scrap plan 'Polar Express' then!"

Are there no experienced and trusted advisors helping these people out? The PPA clause and unilateral decommissioning of coal plants is a perfect example. I get the environmental aspect of it but did no one stand and be counted and lay out the very obvious consequences of this plan?

And if there is no one doing this then why not? You cant have everyone in the room thinking the same way, there should always be a voice of dissent:

"This is a bad plan because...I disagree with you and here are the reasons why....In my experience this isnt going to work because..."

And if there are people within the party doing this and they're just being summarily ignored then thats a serious indictment of the party as well. Of any party, NDP or PC or whatever. There has to be balance.

It just feels like they're just doing what they want and either remaining blissfully ignorant of the consequences or they just dont care.

I don't even believe that this boost to the Carbon Levy to these companies is even about decommissioning coal plants, its about taxation.

It would be different if the infrastructure was there or the alternatives, so you could basically go to these utilities and say if you stay on coal it will cost you $150 million bucks a year, but if you go to these unicorn fart powered generators that we have built it will cost you the same as it used to cost you.

Instead its taxation without alternatives. We don't have alternative sources of power in place, and probably won't for several years, so the NDP is basically saying you have to pay this stupidly massively increased levy until we get our poop together, put out bid requests, study them, approve them, then start building.

So the logical question from these companies would be how long do we have to take it up the a$$ using these coal plants or whatever until you have a cheaper alternative in place?

Its ultimately a gouge by the NDP and there's no penalties for them delaying or not doing something, they would continue to milk the cow until it died.

So today, its a thank goodness for them that the less profitable clause was put in place, because I doubt that they would have bought these things without it.

And if they weren't there, would the energy companies sued to get out of the agreements.

Nope, and again the NDP would have been able to play them as the villains as they jacked up their rates and passed the costs onto the consumer. Look at those monster corporations, we need to protect you from their gouging so we're going to regulate utility bills, and they can just take the loss.

It was a pretty bold plan by the NDP, and they would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for the less profitable clause, and really the press and opposition parties pointing out that they knew about the clause and proceeded anyways, and its pretty much this governments fault that our utility bills will do an Ontario and spike because of their blunders.

I would expect that the utilities for lack of better word, aren't worried about this court challenge at all, because they frankly know that they can probably tie this up in court for years, and appeal the crap out of it if they do lose.

But the NDP will also lose the public relations battle for this, and if they lose the election, the delays will mean everything to the utilities and the opposition parties.

[GaiJin]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Canada had an economist and everybody hated that.

They would have loved him if only he could have figured out how to reverse the camera on his Q10.

[Shazam]

It is actually about degrees of loss. There is no scenario, other than there being no carbon tax, where you, as a consumer, will not be paying more money for your utility bill.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

True. Which is why I wonder at people who expect Jason Kenny to be a steady pilot of the economy. He studied philosophy and poli sci until he was 22, worked as a lobbyist until he was 29, and has been an MP ever since. He's the very definition of a career politician.

Yes he is, and he's been a very effective MP and was the guy that was handed the more difficult files, I also believe that he has better advisors and better resources then the NDP have. Frankly the NDP started appointing union hacks and Environmentalists from the start, with very few voices from the actual energy industry in this province.

So instead of actually, I don't know trying to understand how things work in the private sector, they bought in ideologues. Almost like the old Soviet Politburo had Communist theoreticians that had votes at the table.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Shazam

It is actually about degrees of loss. There is no scenario, other than there being no carbon tax, where you, as a consumer, will not be paying more money for your utility bill.

Yeah, but now they've unnecessarily added a whole other level to your bills because of this. So we're going to have a carbon tax and a repayment on our utility bill. In a sense, the NDP seems to think that we have these tremendously deep pockets.

[Shazam]

That's the NDP way.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

Yeah I know Transalta is publicly traded. I wasn't making an argument. I was just noting how idiotic Sarah Hoffman is for not understanding what in fact she is talking about or doing. Thanks though.

I don't think you've demonstrated that at all. It's entirely plausible that the Alberta government is attempting to protect Albertans from the PPA buyers.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Makarov

I don't think you've demonstrated that at all. It's entirely plausible that the Alberta government is attempting to protect Albertans from the PPA buyers.

It more feels like the NDP government protecting themselves from taking another credibility hit.

No matter which way they did things, its Albertan's that are taking the hit on this, so they've done a piss poor job of protecting us with their policies.

They've actually chosen the path of greatest damage in terms of protecting Albertans.

They've now put Albertan's basically on the hook for a $2 billion dollar mistake on their part.

As its been discussed recently here and in the papers, they had the third option of letting these PPA's go back into the pool to be managed there and resold or renegotiated, but at least the hit would have been less then $2 billion dollars.

Now they've poisoned that well, and on top of it with this lawsuit, they've reduced the credibility of this government in terms of attracting outside investment to build their alternative energy sources.

This is all about the NDP making a major screwup, plowing ahead with a bad Carbon Levy plan that gave no alternatives to these companies except to accept that the NDP was going to massively tax them for as long as they wanted to and not realizing that these companies are actually smart and used a clause that was put in during negotiations that was on record.

This isn't about the NDP protecting us, this is about the NDP screwing up and then floundering about to cover up how stupid they were.