Official (Alberta) Oil Discussion Thread

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

I just don't think people in other jurisdictions think too much about oil and gas, or care. I think they are mostly ignorant about their energy consumption and how much they actually consume, as individuals, and their jobs aren't directly linked to it. Then when they hear about 'pipelines' it's a very negative reaction because the only thing that hits the media are spills. It's not like the media publishes often about how successful pipelines really have been. And people are just ignorant, and politicians pander to these ignorant people.

Energy is only 10% of Canada's GDP. It sucks, but in Alberta we just don't have the numbers from a critical mass to the economy perspective nor population perspective. Regardless, it still stings the Canadian economy but not to the level most Albertans may be led to believe. And I'm not justifying the double standards, complete bull#### of the rest of Canada basically sticking their noses up at Alberta and acting superior when they aren't, I'm just saying. We probably think it's more important than it is because we live it and many of us work in it.

Think about if you lived in Ontario, and somebody came to you and said do you support pipelines? You work at a box factory or some stupid #### and you don't even know anything about oil and gas or even what your energy consumption level is at. You'd probably think hmmm... do we need a major polluting thing out there? I guess Albertans might lose jobs. Oh well, I won't. Nah, no pipeline. Don't care really, whatever.

So lets say that you work at a forest destroying carbon emission emitting air and water polluting box factory. But I can feel better about myself because Oil is bad and I'm going to fight that.

[Peanut]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

I think the point of the appeal court overturn is that industry dropped the ball.

The court admitted that the fed engagement requirements were almost minimal for this mega project. Yet actual engagement still fell far short of what was specified by the feds

And the kicker: two of the judges on the appeal court were appointed by Harper's government.

Even the conservatives on the appeal court saw this effort dropped the ball.

Have you read the actual decision? I think you misunderstood the legalities. My understanding is the approval has been overturned due to a failure of the Crown (ie the government, not industry) to complete their consultation requirements. The decision actually goes so far as to praise Enbridge for the consultation work that was done by them. The Crown dropped the ball on their consultation requirements and the appeal was granted based on that.

My understanding is that consultation was required about 5 different times, by industry and the province and the feds, throughout the process of developing the project, submitting regulatory applications, during the regulatory review (joint panel review), and then when the approval was issued with it's 209 conditions there was a HUGE consultation requirement within many of those conditions for on-going project activities during construction, operation, monitoring, etc.

My personal opinion only... It's just... a little bit nuts, quite frankly. How much consultation is enough consultation? The threshold is incredibly high at this point. 8 years of industry consultation. Provincial consultation. Joint panel review consultation. Federal consultation.

The joint panel determined the project was in the best interest of Canadians. Consultation is not meant to be a veto lever for affected parties, Imo.

[Slava]

I haven't read the decision, but wasn't the implication that the government consulting wasn't completed in good faith? That was what I saw reported.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

So lets say that you work at a forest destroying carbon emission emitting air and water polluting box factory. But I can feel better about myself because Oil is bad and I'm going to fight that.

that's correct. I didn't say it was right or fair, just probably what the majority of Canadians think. I agree with your sentiment, the problem is nobody else really cares I don't think.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Peanut

Have you read the actual decision? I think you misunderstood the legalities. My understanding is the approval has been overturned due to a failure of the Crown (ie the government, not industry) to complete their consultation requirements. The decision actually goes so far as to praise Enbridge for the consultation work that was done by them. The Crown dropped the ball on their consultation requirements and the appeal was granted based on that.

My understanding is that consultation was required about 5 different times, by industry and the province and the feds, throughout the process of developing the project, submitting regulatory applications, during the regulatory review (joint panel review), and then when the approval was issued with it's 209 conditions there was a HUGE consultation requirement within many of those conditions for on-going project activities during construction, operation, monitoring, etc.

My personal opinion only... It's just... a little bit nuts, quite frankly. How much consultation is enough consultation? The threshold is incredibly high at this point. 8 years of industry consultation. Provincial consultation. Joint panel review consultation. Federal consultation.

The joint panel determined the project was in the best interest of Canadians. Consultation is not meant to be a veto lever for affected parties, Imo.

Bingo, otherwise it'd be referred to as approval, not consultation.

It's well known within industry that virtually all consultation processes are supposed to be handled by a level of government (provincial or federal) and by industry. Well, sorta. Formally consultation is thought to be handled by governments, but they never do anything, and they just leave it for industry exclusively to do. Now that things are not getting approved because the governments have mega dropped the ball, that's a problem.

[Tinordi]

I'm sure all the usual suspects will find ways to ignore this latest data point proving just how badly Stephen Harper screwed the oil patch.

[Locke]

Time to run a Pipeline straight North through the Arctic to Russia!

[Violator]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

I'm sure all the usual suspects will find ways to ignore this latest data point proving just how badly Stephen Harper screwed the oil patch.

He truly was the lame duck prime minister.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

I'm sure all the usual suspects will find ways to ignore this latest data point proving just how badly Stephen Harper screwed the oil patch.

Uh, no? Harper was a disaster for the oilpatch. I don't think I've ever said otherwise.

[Azure]

Disaster is a nice way of putting it.

[Flash Walken]

Albertan's should ask themselves whether they think a wildrose, PC or NDP party is most likely to get buy-in from the rest of Canada for a pipeline.

Considering the federal and provincial conservatives have failed miserably, the answer to that question might be surprising.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Albertan's should ask themselves whether they think a wildrose, PC or NDP party is most likely to get buy-in from the rest of Canada for a pipeline.

Considering the federal and provincial conservatives have failed miserably, the answer to that question might be surprising.

To me it would appear that the reality is the provincial government can only do so much anyway. Not many are going to admit this, but provincially I think Redford made the most progress toward this in recent years.

At some point the federal government is going to be the ones who get this done though. They have the jurisdiction and will need to make it happen. It really doesn't matter which provincial party is in power though because they're all in favour and that is logically all they can do.

[GaiJin]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

I'm sure all the usual suspects will find ways to ignore this latest data point proving just how badly Stephen Harper screwed the oil patch.

Wasn't he supposed to be a dictator that just undemocratically rammed whatever through. I guess I can trash bin that bit of leftist garbage now.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Albertan's should ask themselves whether they think a wildrose, PC or NDP party is most likely to get buy-in from the rest of Canada for a pipeline.

Considering the federal and provincial conservatives have failed miserably, the answer to that question might be surprising.

Why they sucked up to the rest of the country in terms of ecological policy to get more positive traction on the pipelines, and they got kicked in the ball by BC, and by Wynn in Ontario, so the answer, I think should be surprising to you Flash.

At this point, unless we get a strong Federal Government that actually has a desire to support the energy industry in Alberta, we're fisted.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Why they sucked up to the rest of the country in terms of ecological policy to get more positive traction on the pipelines, and they got kicked in the ball by BC, and by Wynn in Ontario, so the answer, I think should be surprising to you Flash.

At this point, unless we get a strong Federal Government that actually has a desire to support the energy industry in Alberta, we're fisted.

There was a strong federal government that had Alberta and it's energy industry as a top priority for a decade and look at all the amazing progress that was made on pipelines.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

There was a strong federal government that had Alberta and it's energy industry as a top priority for a decade and look at all the amazing progress that was made on pipelines.

Yup and then Trudeau came in and buried it more with the moritorium on tanker traffic, and lengthening the review process with no promise to commit if the NEP recommended a pipeline.

Harper was bad for Oil, this Prime Minister will be worse.

He probably wants to finish the work of his old man.

[Azure]

Sorry, but Harper royally screwed up. He had 10 years to do something. And a majority.

There was zero progress made.

Completely unacceptable.

[monkeyman]

Harper was always between a bit of a rock and hard place with his government. He had to try and balance the interests of western Canada without looking like he was playing favourites to the Eastern population. I think in time, his government will be looked back on as a fairly successful one. I think it's also worth reminding people, the Last Liberal government was brought down by scandal and the one before that by poor economic policies such as the NEP. The Liberals have a history of exploiting Western Canadian interests so excuse me if i have very little faith the current government is going to be any different.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Yup and then Trudeau came in and buried it more with the moritorium on tanker traffic, and lengthening the review process with no promise to commit if the NEP recommended a pipeline.

Harper was bad for Oil, this Prime Minister will be worse.

He probably wants to finish the work of his old man.

lol

[Kavvy]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Yup and then Trudeau came in and buried it more with the moritorium on tanker traffic, and lengthening the review process with no promise to commit if the NEP recommended a pipeline.

Harper was bad for Oil, this Prime Minister will be worse.

He probably wants to finish the work of his old man.

Of any jab against our PM, this one really seems to annoy me.

Albertan's are reasonable people who I hope judge their leaders by their actions, and we don't judge kids by their parents mistakes, yet I hear this over and over and over.

People hide behind "well its only a joke", yet it is a joke which is well repeated.

I truly believe my parents generation are still so pissed at his dad that somewhere deep down they want our current PM to act like him, against their own self interests, just so they can vent that old outrage.

His dad screwed up royally, but the current PM doesn't have that guilt.

There are enough valid points to be critical on our PM that you don't need to bring this into the discussion - joking or not.

Edit: I should add that my rant comes from the constant fear mongering I heard that Justin wants to hurt the west or hates the west, which when you get down to the facts, doesn't appear to be true at all (even if he isn't "good for the west, which is another discussion). Relating him to his dad, who did seem to hate Alberta, just gives fuel to those thoughts people already have.