When climate is #10 on the list, you put it on the backburner. His focus should be issue #1 and I would argue it is based on his early comments in the leadership race.
There has been a lot of talk about chewing gum and walking. I think Avi (or anyone running to be a party leader) is able to chew gum (have a climate policy) and walk (everything above climate on the lists) at the same time.
You clearly haven't been paying attention to what Avi Lewis says and continuous to say.
Agreed. We need to maximize the resource we have while it is viable to do so, and use the fruits of that to aid the transition into climate-friendly initiatives. Guys like Avi would have us shut down oil tomorrow if he could will it into being. Avi should join the Greens.
There is a difference between Anti - Oil and good climate policy. His messaging is anti oil. Anti oil is an Anti labour position.
I think talking about positively funding green projects while making tax revenues off of oil would be a much better approach.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TorqueDog
Agreed. We need to maximize the resource we have while it is viable to do so, and use the fruits of that to aid the transition into climate-friendly initiatives. Guys like Avi would have us shut down oil tomorrow if he could will it into being. Avi should join the Greens.
Just looking at the tweet from Avi:
Quote:
The relentless increase in Oil and Gas production in Canada has already cancelled out all GHG reductions in all other sectors and made us a climate pariah in the G7.
And there's no business case for another oil pipeline to tidewater - that's why the Big Oil subsidiary known as the AB UCP government has to front this.
The time is past for showering any more public money on the most profitable industry in history, and we need to move our economy beyond oil and gas urgently - the planet is on fire, it’s still in our lungs from this past smoke season.
Let's roll out renewables and storage with wartime scale and urgency instead.
And let's take care of fossil fuel workers while we do it - no way a single worker should pay for this.
In fact, the oil industry keeps showing us that they're happy to increase production while shedding their workforce.
Why would we keep rewarding that behaviour?
There is nothing in there about "shutting down oil tomorrow". The argument is that zero new public dollars should be invested oil. I agree with that and it kinda sounds like you guys are saying the same.
The punchline is that Oil and gas should be filling the public coffers, not draining them. The public sector should be investing in transformative or diversifying industries, not propping up existing industry.
He even calls out that fossil fuel workers need to be taken care of in the transition. Considering the thousands and thousands of people being laid off in Alberta by Oil companies over the last couple of years, this would be a welcoming message to have a government help people who are being abandoned by their companies after years or decades of faithful work.
I do not see much difference between his tweet and the posts from you two.
There is nothing in there about "shutting down oil tomorrow". The argument is that zero new public dollars should be invested oil. I agree with that and it kinda sounds like you guys are saying the same.
No, because that would be stupid. In order to maximize the resource, yes, there will need to be some investment of public funds. I'm in favour of trying to strike the right balance between the amount of investment for maximum benefit from said investment. Zero new public dollars is the wrong answer.
__________________
-James
GO FLAMES GO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
Typical dumb take.
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to TorqueDog For This Useful Post:
No, because that would be stupid. In order to maximize the resource, yes, there will need to be some investment of public funds. I'm in favour of trying to strike the right balance between the amount of investment for maximum benefit from said investment. Zero new public dollars is the wrong answer.
Based on what?
Are you saying we should continue our existing levels of subsidizing the industry? Or, should we be giving them even more money?
How much of that money should be tied to their local workforce? Oil companies are laying off people by the thousands to shift work to automation, AI, or offshore resources.
Apparently Alberta has lost 45,000 oil and gas jobs from 2014 to 2023 and we know there were more layoffs over the last two years. To put it another way, if O&G has laid off 26% of the Alberta O&G workforce in the last decade, shouldn't that be a sign that the industry is not a good partner to invest in?
Or on the flip side, if 45,000 have been laid off by that industry then shouldn't our priority be to invest the limited public dollars into other industries where employment will actually increase?
Are you saying we should continue our existing levels of subsidizing the industry? Or, should we be giving them even more money?
How much of that money should be tied to their local workforce? Oil companies are laying off people by the thousands to shift work to automation, AI, or offshore resources.
Apparently Alberta has lost 45,000 oil and gas jobs from 2014 to 2023 and we know there were more layoffs over the last two years. To put it another way, if O&G has laid off 26% of the Alberta O&G workforce in the last decade, shouldn't that be a sign that the industry is not a good partner to invest in?
Or on the flip side, if 45,000 have been laid off by that industry then shouldn't our priority be to invest the limited public dollars into other industries where employment will actually increase?
What do you consider subsidies?
We definitely should continue exploration tax credits and royalty holidays for capital investments. Those are the two most common ones brought up.
In the pipeline file we should underwrite regulatory approval risk for proponents as it was the conservative and liberal governments who have made the regulatory process no longer viable for private companies.
I like the concept of Carbon taxes spent by industries should be able to be be offset by capital investments into CO2 capture or emissions reductions.
Other than that I wouldn’t want the government to fund another pipeline as the constructor.
What specific subsidies would you like to see cut?
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to GGG For This Useful Post:
Are you saying we should continue our existing levels of subsidizing the industry? Or, should we be giving them even more money?
How much of that money should be tied to their local workforce? Oil companies are laying off people by the thousands to shift work to automation, AI, or offshore resources.
Apparently Alberta has lost 45,000 oil and gas jobs from 2014 to 2023 and we know there were more layoffs over the last two years. To put it another way, if O&G has laid off 26% of the Alberta O&G workforce in the last decade, shouldn't that be a sign that the industry is not a good partner to invest in?
Nothing happened in 2014? Curious date to select. Almost like if a commodity based industry has highs and lows.
Alberta's GDP is made up of 24.6% in oil and gas and mining. It also represents 5.4% of total employment in Alberta (2022 number). Avi Lewis wants to eliminate this down to zero with a vague hand wavy promise of workers being taken care of. You apparently want to remove this and replace it with...what? All because you personally think they are not good partners to invest in?
The drop in oil prices has temporarily relieved the pressure to dig up fossil fuels as rapidly as high-risk technologies will allow. This pause in frenetic expansion should not be viewed as a crisis, but as a gift.
He calls the loss of jobs seen in a downturn as a gift. He boasts when companies like Imperial lay off 900 jobs pointing that it isn't climate activists doing the cuts but the industry itself (even though again if left to him, there would be 0 workers in oil and gas).
You’ve long advocated for environmental stewardship and against fossil fuels, while the NDP is traditionally the party of labour — sometimes, these two causes can be diametrically opposes. How do you plan to balance labour and environment priorities?
I don’t agree with the narrative of jobs against the environment. I think that whole framing was created by the fossil fuel industry to delay and derail climate action.
I do think there are lots of workers in the oilpatch and in other fossil fuel regions of our country who didn’t choose to live in places where that was the main industry. I have always believed passionately that those workers cannot pay the price for getting off fossil fuels, which is just a hard reality of our world.
Why are you trying to defend him on something he has been extremely vocal about wanting to eliminate? He's literally pitying workers for not choosing to live in places like Alberta. Who the heck talks like that?
And this is also disproportionally directed at oil producing provinces. Folks in Vancouver or Toronto aren't going to see an impact.
When talking of oil and gas subsidies and numbers usually thrown around by activist groups, most are related to loan guarantees for the Trans Mountain pipeline, and public financing (meaning loan).
$8 billion in loan guarantees for the Trans Mountain pipeline.
$7.4 billion in public financing through the Crown corporation Export Development Canada.
$1.3 billion for carbon capture and storage projects.
So what subsidies are you specifically talking about (speaking federally)?
Also why are you focused about subsidies to oil and gas when they are higher in many other industries? See Stellantis and that fiasco. Are they suddenly beacons of responsible corporatism because they had a play in EV and batteries?
As part of the agreement, Canada and Ontario will provide performance incentives to Stellantis-LGES of up to $15 billion, subject to conditions and benefits to Canada and Ontario.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolven
The punchline is that Oil and gas should be filling the public coffers, not draining them.
We definitely should continue exploration tax credits and royalty holidays for capital investments. Those are the two most common ones brought up.
In the pipeline file we should underwrite regulatory approval risk for proponents as it was the conservative and liberal governments who have made the regulatory process no longer viable for private companies.
I like the concept of Carbon taxes spent by industries should be able to be be offset by capital investments into CO2 capture or emissions reductions.
Other than that I wouldn’t want the government to fund another pipeline as the constructor.
What specific subsidies would you like to see cut?
At a high level:
1) No more public money for pipelines. If the new Major Project Office is going to do the job of clearing red tape then a private proponent that sees the value in a pipeline can step up and work with the MPO to make it happen
2) Orphaned wells are going to cost Alberta over $1B - the O&G industry should be paying for that
3) No more royalty reductions, tax breaks, grants, or special loans for O&G - https://fossilfuelsubsidytracker.org/methodology/
4) Do not let them off the hook on tailings water. They need to invest into how to clean that water up to the point where they can reuse it within their process. Or better yet, make their CEOs drink it once they say it is "clean".
What have you debunked? What exactly do you think you have said that is insightful?
You can't even read what Lewis is saying and summarize it objectively. He said (from what you quoted):
Quote:
I don’t agree with the narrative of jobs against the environment. I think that whole framing was created by the fossil fuel industry to delay and derail climate action.
I do think there are lots of workers in the oilpatch and in other fossil fuel regions of our country who didn’t choose to live in places where that was the main industry. I have always believed passionately that those workers cannot pay the price for getting off fossil fuels, which is just a hard reality of our world.
You took that and turned it into:
Quote:
Why are you trying to defend him on something he has been extremely vocal about wanting to eliminate? He's literally pitying workers for not choosing to live in places like Alberta. Who the heck talks like that?
And this is also disproportionally directed at oil producing provinces. Folks in Vancouver or Toronto aren't going to see an impact.
But you are just making #### up even as you quoted him. He said that Albertans shouldn't suffer as a part of an energy transition off of fossil fuels. That is a valid sentiment. Most Albertans over the last ... 50 years? Have been talking about the need for industry diversification so that when the oil industry finally ends that our entire province does not turn into one of those ghost towns where the local factory closes and everyone has to leave. That is not a comment about pity, that is a comment about having a strong transition strategy to protect the people.
Also, you did the same thing to me in your last post. I said "he should put climate on the backburner" and you quoted my exact words and then ignored them and rambled off about your hate for the guy and tried to point out how I am not paying attention.
However, I am paying attention and I commented that he should prioritize the other 7 issues that the pollsters are saying are above Climate on the list. Based on the clips I am seeing/reading, he is trying to prioritize people and jobs even if he is keeping climate in his talking points.
He also hammers on electoral reform a lot and I think that is a huge issue that Canada needs to address, even though it doesn't directly tie to labour.
Latest video from Avi. 99% populist content but careful, you guys might get triggered because he is advocating for electric cars to be built.
I like how he ties it back to his early work and shows that it is not just him waving a flag or having an opinion but defending worker's rights is something he is passionate about and puts time and energy into supporting.
The Federal government has treated Canada's own resource sector like a problem to be managed and not the economic boon it should have been. Canada bled competitiveness over the last decade, while the US and other producers took full advantage of it. Major export projects were stalled, strangled, or scrapped outright and bills C-48 and C-69 injected enough uncertainty to freeze billions in prospective investment. The Americans were busy boosting export capacity, we did f-ck all. You can't win a race when you never leave the starting line.
The CER has pointed out that Canadian O&G investment peaked in 2014 at more than $80 billion USD and has fallen sharply since -- we're talking a 56% drop -- and notes "access to transportation infrastructure is a distinctively Canadian challenge". That's the regulatory version of saying we couldn't get our product to market even when global demand was begging for it.
Ottawa managed to hit the industry both in what they did and in what they failed to do. Active policy decisions raised costs and slowed development, and passive inaction left critical infrastructure projects grounded, delayed, or politically radioactive. We lost ground because the federal government made it harder to build, harder to invest, and harder to compete.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolven
Latest video from Avi. 99% populist content but careful, you guys might get triggered because he is advocating for electric cars to be built.
Corsi's right, how old are you? Who gives a crap whether he's advocating for electric cars to be built, who has voiced an aversion to that in this thread? No one has brought it up, it's irrelevant to everything everyone has been saying about why Lewis is a bad choice for a party that needs to re-think itself to regain relevance.
But listen, this is your thread so you can do whatever you want with it, including sh-tting in it like this if you're so inclined. Don't let me tell you otherwise.
__________________
-James
GO FLAMES GO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
Typical dumb take.
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to TorqueDog For This Useful Post:
The Conservative leader touted his plan, which proposes charging a carbon price on fuel and putting more electric vehicles on the road, as one that strikes a balance between combating climate change and protecting jobs and economic growth.
What part of "Avi Lewis preaches controversial policies that makes him unelectable for many and reaffirms NDP being out of touch with Canadians" don't you understand? You are being completely daft on purpose and bringing up EVs instead of refusing to admit this only affirms it. You haven't addressed him sabotaging the NDP chances in the 2015, his battles on anti-oil ideology with his own party affiliates in the Alberta NDP, to the point of calling Notley the "new Patron saint of the corporate welfare bums".
And every NDP leader or candidate goes around and prances on picket lines for a photo op in between lattes. That's not impressive (especially considering the NDP's record while propping up the Liberals on back to work legislation has been abysmal). That's the champagne socialism part that they are famous for. Yet NDP still continues to lose more and more blue collared workers to other parties including the Conservatives (which is why they are now polling at 5%).
Lewis has been repeatedly questioned over the years on his stances being very directly opposed to a more pro-labour movement, and all he can ever say is blame the oil industry for creating a narrative, and that workers will be taken care of /jedi-hand-wave.
Again, why are you so hell bent on Lewis becoming the leader to the point you are going after multiple posters and defending him to this degree? Especially when the NDP has obvious better options (see Ashton) with better pro-labour root pedigree?
Corsi's right, how old are you? Who gives a crap whether he's advocating for electric cars to be built, who has voiced an aversion to that in this thread? No one has brought it up, it's irrelevant to everything everyone has been saying about why Lewis is a bad choice for a party that needs to re-think itself to regain relevance.
Careful, you're dangerously close to being called a corporate shill.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I just watched the video...it's even worse than I thought. He didn't even go to Ingersoll to show solidarity with union workers, or even talked with them directly. He made a Youtube short vlog while walking the rough urban streets of Vancouver to talk about the union's story after getting light of it while social media browsing, and use it as a backdrop to politicize with the same tired build EV, get more union job, nationalize car building rethoric, reminiscing about his filmmaking days from 20 years ago?
Jesus...that's the video you used? You want us to give a slow clap or something?
At a high level:
1) No more public money for pipelines. If the new Major Project Office is going to do the job of clearing red tape then a private proponent that sees the value in a pipeline can step up and work with the MPO to make it happen 2) Orphaned wells are going to cost Alberta over $1B - the O&G industry should be paying for that 3) No more royalty reductions, tax breaks, grants, or special loans for O&G - https://fossilfuelsubsidytracker.org/methodology/
4) Do not let them off the hook on tailings water. They need to invest into how to clean that water up to the point where they can reuse it within their process. Or better yet, make their CEOs drink it once they say it is "clean".
I'm sadly going to cite a podcast, rather than an document, so harder for people to check my citations, and obviously paraphrasing from memory.
But Energy vs Climate podcast estimates the well cleanup liability in Alberta to be as high as 30-40% of every dollar in royalty revenue that Alberta has ever received from industry, the would be something in the range of $100 Billion. They also estimate that while Orphan Wells is only carrying about 1-2% of that liability currently, the regulations are built to create a bubble in the distant future where the vast majority of that will get dumped on them without recourse. This is a very real enormous subsidy that isn't well accounted for, because it's being obscured from public view through regulations.
At a high level:
1) No more public money for pipelines. If the new Major Project Office is going to do the job of clearing red tape then a private proponent that sees the value in a pipeline can step up and work with the MPO to make it happen
2) Orphaned wells are going to cost Alberta over $1B - the O&G industry should be paying for that
3) No more royalty reductions, tax breaks, grants, or special loans for O&G - https://fossilfuelsubsidytracker.org/methodology/
4) Do not let them off the hook on tailings water. They need to invest into how to clean that water up to the point where they can reuse it within their process. Or better yet, make their CEOs drink it once they say it is "clean".
If you support 3) that is an anti oil opposition particularly around royalties.
Non-produced oil generates no royalty so a royalty reduction for pre-payout projects is not a subsidy. It’s a misunderstanding of how the royalty structure works. The NDP under Notley prepared an excellent report determining on how to ensure investment and maximizing Alberta’s stake from oil Royalties. I’d suggest reading that report and then revisiting the idea that Royalty discounts are subsidies.
I tend to agree with you around 1 but I think the government needs to underwrite the risks of regulatory approval not being granted. This would be a direct subsidy otherwise there will be no proponent because the regulatory risk is too high.
2) Orphan wells are paid for through the Orphan well Levy. The AER should be much more restrictive around sales of liabilities and speed of abandonments by solvent companies. I agree that this should be expanded.
The drinking water thing is kinda ridiculous as there is a tonne of surface water you would not drink for a wide variety of reasons. But I concur that more investment is required.
For this thread, here's a great idea. The government runs everything and collects all the money, then divides it equally among all citizens for our wages.
Not equally. From each according to their means and to each according to their needs. (Not original, I read that somewhere else... can't think of where...it may have been a manifesto of some sort)
__________________
E=NG
The Following User Says Thank You to Titan2 For This Useful Post:
In seriousness, and there's no way to say this without being condescending, I think it's great that you're really invested in the next iteration of the NDP, but you sound like a kid who just got to college and your brain is expanding and you've been exposed to all these new ideas and you're absolutely sure you've got everything all figured out and if people would just listen to you these huge, important problems would all be solved. This thread has repeatedly demonstrated that you don't have a clue what you're talking about on any of these topics. It's just such a hopeless naivete that it's impossible not to look at and be a bit vicariously embarrassed.
Everything that's important - and a lot of stuff of questionable importance - is enormously complex when it gets to a level of government policy. There are cascading impacts of even small tweaks to public policy, forget about things like attempting to "align AI with Canadian requirements", whatever that even means. It is extremely clear that you have a very superficial understanding about these topics, yet are expressing strong convictions about what should happen with this self-assured certainty that either speaks to a terrible case of Dunning-Krueger or - and this is why I asked what I asked earlier - the folly of youth that many of us have fallen victim to.
Just take a step back, calm the #### down, ask a lot more questions, and assume that you do not have any answers unless the area under discussion is one where you're a bona fide expert. Because the guns-a-blazing approach you're taking to this stuff is not a good look (as people in this thread have repeatedly tried to get you to understand either with gentle nudges or otherwise).
I have heard this before:
The disappointing part is that this is a good conversation and Wolven is helpful in putting up points for discussion. The problem is his inabilitiy to absorb information and apply it to his pre-conceived notions and see how maybe they don't hold up under the new information.
There was lead found in some food so we need to nationalize the entire vertical of the food industry? Wow. What goverments do best is to create and support the structure that allows businesses to start and thrive, while at the same time put in reasonable regulations and enforcement to ensure those businesses don't take advantage of their position to the negative impact on citizens. However, this has to be balanced by maintaining the freedom of choice of the citizens. A very tough job.
