Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Titan2]

Originally Posted by The Unshuffler

So you’d risk your entire provinces future on being dependant on US goodwill?

That’s all that’ll happen, you’d be landlocked with next to no military power, if the US said we’re taking over your oil fields, what exactly would stop them?

They wouldn’t even need to invade, if they simply stopped buying Alberta oil the economy would collapse in next to no time

You’d literally be bending over asking to be rogered more than a policeman’s radio

If you don’t like decisions being made for you in Ottawa, well Washington DC is even further away

Well, there is always NATO... oh wait.

When someone tries to capture an incredibly complex issue into an incredibly basic proposition, there is a pretty good chance they don't understand all of the issues.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by troutman

Alberta would be a “ghost nation”. 500,000 + people would move back to their provinces of origin immediately, causing a huge brian drain among other big problems.

100%. In addition to a massive 'brain drain' of trained and educated professionals, a separate Alberta would need to now suddenly create its own currency and defense structure, and (rebuild) its healthcare infrastructure - all extremely expensive propositions - all while dealing with massive depreciations and losses in property and asset value and the emigration of many businesses outside of Alberta (look at Quebec as an example of this). All of this in addition to a litany of other legal and structural issues, domestically and internationally, that would need to be considered as well.

Separation is not only a stupidly conceived idea that appeals to the lowest common denominator of personalities, it also boggles my mind that people are so 'hard done by' by Canada that this is even in discussion. We live in arguably the best nation on Earth as it is... people would literally die to have the privilege and the lives that we do here in Canada. Us that were born here, we literally won the global genetic lottery.

[Fuzz]

We are getting so screwed. People take billions out of Alberta's resources, and leave us with the bill. Good thing we can fund healthcare with all the royalties though.

Dwight Popowich is a landowner in Two Hills, where he has been engaged in a years-long battle to have the orphan well on his property cleaned. He launched last year’s complaint to the ethics commissioner and last week’s complaint to the AER. He says the contentious 2025 Mature Asset Strategy has given landowners have little faith their concerns are being heard, particularly after an alleged exchange with the strategy’s architect David Yager in which Yager told him he expects favours from Premier Danielle Smith.

The complaints follow a years-long process in which Popowich and 900 other landowners inherited orphan wells, and the 2025 unveiling of new policy recommendations that have drawn widespread criticism from across the province.

Popowich says he signed a lease with Paramount Energy Trust, later Perpetual Energy Inc., in 2008.

In 2017, he learned the well on his property had changed hands, sold to a company called Sequoia Resources. He didn’t know about the sale until the cheques stopped coming. Sequoia declared bankruptcy shortly thereafter.

When Sequoia purchased nearly 2,000 wells from Perpetual Energy Inc. in 2016, it took responsibility for environmental liabilities totalling an estimated $225 million. It purchased the wells for the nominal price of $1. Sequoia later launched a lawsuit against Perpetual, alleging its chief executive knew the deal would send the buyer into bankruptcy.

“This is nonsense. If you’re underfunded, please explain why. According to the law, when you look at the funding, they’re not supposed to be underfunded.”

The OWA is funded by an orphan fund levy issued to energy companies annually. A report last year showed the OWA was facing a funding shortfall of $1.2 billion.
“When you turn around and allow the industry not to properly fund that, is it really a safety net? It’s full of holes,” he said.

“Meanwhile, the taxpayer is paying guys like myself. There’s 900 of us. We’re not being paid rent. We’re compensated for our financial losses. So we are indemnified against those losses through the taxpayer.”

https://medicinehatnews.com/news/loc...broken-system/

This is state supported robbery.

[troutman]

Family > Community > City > Province > Region > Country would be the generic ladder in Canada.

I would dispute that all people view the world in that priority. There is social science research that suggests half of us are wired to think conservatively (self-centred, local focused) and half of us think liberally (humanist, global). I assume there are evolutionary advantages for the human race to have both kind of thinkers. Also, I don’t think people are totally binary, and all of us can have strong feelings on both sides of the spectrum.

What keeps me up at night is the environment and climate change. I will fight to the death a coal mine at Grassy Mountain. That might personally benefit me, but I’m more worried about people downstream and future generations. I’m also very protective of my family and community. But I have family across the country. I can join them any time in a zoom call, or be there in person in 4 hours.

Most of us seem to have no problem cheering for a baseball team 4000 km away.

[woob]

But heaven forbid we revisit royalties now and then or talk about increasing them. That would be madness!

[Harry Lime]

Why is Alberta borrowing billions? New debt report lacks specific details - Rocky Mountain News

https://www.rmoutlook.com/beyond-loc...ssued-11815858

Until 2021, Alberta publicly listed the purpose of each borrowing, whether tied to infrastructure, refinancing or supporting a provincial agency. That information is no longer part of public filings.

In response to questions, Marisa Breeze, senior press secretary to Finance Minister Nate Horner, said Alberta’s reporting remains “some of the most transparent in North America.”

This is kind of a huge problem. Buying bonds globally and not saying where the money is going or why, and then having the bond mature decades from now. You can literally line your pockets with billions, and be dead before the people know what you've done.

[#-3]

I drove past a petitioner setup on Nose Hill Dr around Arbour Lake today, rolled down my window, flipped him off, he didn't seem to notice, it didn't really make me feel better.

[Engine09]

Saw a table and sign set up in the Southcenter Mall parking lot as well.

Silly me, earlier at the dogpark I bagged up my dog's turds and threw them in a garbage can. Obviously I should have held onto that bag for a bit.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Just the same podunk logic that makes them think the individual knows best about everything. It's an extension of "don't trust the experts". 4000 km is too far away, but so is Edmonton. Why would I want someone form Edmonton making my decisions? That's insane. I'm nothing like people from Edmonton. I think people from NW Calgary should make all the decisions for my existence, but through grass roots community centre votes.

Nonsense. You'd break up a country for that? Is that the best you've got? Pathetic.

The general idea that you want decisions to be made as close as possible to the people they affect is a sound one. You wouldn’t want snow plowing run by people in Montreal or Vancouver in vastly different weather experiences.

The problem is the poster doesn’t recognize that some decisions need to be made at scale or it would be very inefficient. But if we had Benevolent AI running things it would be hyper local decision making with detailed local input making the broader country level decisions.

Your argumentation of this guy has stupid logic is going to galvanize him as a separatist.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

We are getting so screwed. People take billions out of Alberta's resources, and leave us with the bill. Good thing we can fund healthcare with all the royalties though.


https://medicinehatnews.com/news/loc...broken-system/

This is state supported robbery.

The big companies are as angry at this crap as these landowners as they pay the bulk of these clean up costs. The AER needs to have better oversite and greater stake. Environmental liabilities need to be ahead of bond holders in the bankruptcy waterfall. If would push bond holders to ensure that companies manage these liabilities in the same way they do other debt.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by woob

But heaven forbid we revisit royalties now and then or talk about increasing them. That would be madness!

The NDP government reviewed the royalty framework and found it widely fair accomplishing the goal of encouraging investment and generating royalties for the government. Things haven’t materially changed in the industry since then.

[fotze2]

Problem is that Alberta doesn't own all the mineral resource. Freehold owners do. There is a crown royaly calc but ownership pre-dates Canada's existence. Same as CP rail. Would much rather that that line didn't go through the middle of the city but it's a non starter. Same as native bands we cannot just annex it (i guess we could but).

The freehold companies are way better stewards of the resource than the government. Ruthless and relentless like Prairiesky. If you find out they own rights its a nightmare, crown is no problem usually.

I started the firdt many years of my career at the orphan fund. Remember, this is paid for almost entirely from other companies. Do restaurants pay into a fund for competitors failures? If that breakfast place goes belly up, does Phil's cover it. F no.

The cleaning up of messy sites is another matter and the govermnent f'd the dog at that. Famous story of imperial oil selling some dogcrap old propert to a dentist who had no clue, so it was orphan fund eventually. Thats where the liability management program was born. Iol knew what they were doing, gov't did not and allowed it.

When we have town halls with landowners, number one question is 'when are you gonna drill on my land'. Its amazing cash for basically nothing. I think we wrote a cheque yearly to this cattle guy for $1.5MM a year.

Famous quote out there, if your water well is pooched and get out the binoculors to look for a rig. Well your well is where you have the cattle crapping all day. Fecal coliforms don't come from a gas well. We just shock chlorinate it and test because it is not worth the hassel.

But the companoes not paying their bills is definitely a problem.

Alberta is the biggest oil company in Alberta and benefits with profits all day long why should they not bear a burden where f'd up and allowed it and profited from it as an owner.

[fotze2]

The gov't gave Taqa $10MM to convert their crossfield gas plant to acid gas injection. The entire economic model was to prolong until they had to clean up the massive sulfanene plume under it under the guise of environmental stewardship. Idiots.if you keep the site active you don't have to start reclam. $75mm pushed out 20 years makes the econs favorable.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by GGG

The big companies are as angry at this crap as these landowners as they pay the bulk of these clean up costs. The AER needs to have better oversite and greater stake. Environmental liabilities need to be ahead of bond holders in the bankruptcy waterfall. If would push bond holders to ensure that companies manage these liabilities in the same way they do other debt.

One problem is that big companies offload old poorly performing wells to shell companies with no ability to financially reclaim the wells. The company then goes bankrupt and offloads the wells to the OWA. The original owner gets away with the profits and offloads the liabilities. This has been going on for years. We are being robbed.