Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[Azure]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Some of the same people who were trying to argue for these projects back then are actively lobbying to do the same sabotage(for a lack of a better term) to other industries. It’s a #### show because of how much corporate money is in politics. It’s not impacting only one industry or special interest group.

You’re right on a lot of your points, though there are more factors that were involved in why the projects didn’t get off the ground but right now it’s pointless and unproductive to play the blame game, we need to find solutions. The blame game is what got us here in the first place. Unfortunately our elected officials can’t seem to pull their heads out of their asses, think pragmatically and do their job: represent and fight for the best interests of their constituents.

The solution is not to elect the same morons into power that created the mess in the first place.

I am NOT the biggest PP fan, but at least he's talking about reducing regulatory burdens that create a lot of these issues. Including getting rid of bill C-69. Carney on the other hand is very anti-pipeline, anti oil & gas, and anti Canada natural resources. He's a turncoat Liberal loser who will say anything to get elected. First its the carbon tax needs to be higher, now its the carbon tax needs to be modified because Canadians don't like it. If its such an effective policy, he sure don't seem to support it anymore. But I guess he's like Doug Ford. Say and do anything to get votes.

And yes, I know PP is doing the same thing. Yes I know he's never had to actually present policy, or actually honestly do much of anything.

But end of the day PP and the CP are just as guilty as the Liberals. Maybe even more because they like to talk up a big game but do nothing.

After that the provinces, especially Ontario & Quebec are very much at fault for the interprovincial issues. Its a bloody joke at this point how we talk about this stuff but nothing is ever done.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Free market is saying that is it cheaper to refine oil in the US in refineries located in Texas and export it back to Canada, than refining the oil in Canada.

Free market says that when oil crashed to negative pricing in 2020 and Irving finally bought Alberta oil as it was finally profitable to do so, it was cheaper to ship it across the fricking Panama Canal than it was for it to travel within the same country (which Energy East would have facilitated interprovincial trade).

https://twitter.com/user/status/1257709178719633409

Free market dictates it made more economical sense for Onvitiv to relocate it's Calgary headquarters to the US.

Free market dictates that Shell divested its oil sands assets for more lucrative projects outside of Canada after significant political turmoil in Canada and new proposed regulations such as Bill C-69 showing worsening situation.

The free market will do what is most profitable. Canada is currently not very friendly to investments within Canada.

The free market dictates it’s cheaper to ship to the gulf or mid west than the east coast of Canada so that’s where pipelines get built.

See if you can find that barge cost, energy east was a bad project from a capital investment point of view when compared to things like keystone, TMX and gateway.

I think shell divested from Canada do to environmental reputation concerns in Europe as CNRL was happy to scoop up those assets for cheap.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by GGG

The free market dictates it’s cheaper to ship to the gulf or mid west than the east coast of Canada so that’s where pipelines get built.

See if you can find that barge cost, energy east was a bad project from a capital investment point of view when compared to things like keystone, TMX and gateway.

I think shell divested from Canada do to environmental reputation concerns in Europe as CNRL was happy to scoop up those assets for cheap.

The free market is now saying that Trans Mountain is a massive net positive for Canada, and even at the $30b cost the government might actually get some decent ROI for its investment.

But to tell that to anyone over the past 10 years they'd think your crazy, and no private company would have paid even half the $30b to build that pipeline.

Why? Its already going to increase revenues $7-8b PER YEAR, and they're really only getting started.

Fact is that Canada is showing over and over again that we are a terrible place to build these mega projects. So why will any private company go for it when there is a damn good chance that their money will be lost and in the end they'll have nothing to show for.

Trans Mountain pretty much proved that.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by shotinthebacklund

https://338canada.com/federal.htm
results were as of yesterday. Safe to assume the Liberals were always going to close the gap before election with a new leader.

The results are as of yesterday but since it’s a polling model it’s using previous polls to make a guess at the current situation. It will be tuned slowly not to overstate rapid change.

Its polling is only including up to the 18th. It includes the two Ekos polls showing significant movement and one nanos post Carney and whatever polling from before Christmas depending on how sensitive the model is.

So if Ontario is tied as the EKOS and Mainstreet models suggest the odds in the model do not represent that situation. We don’t have sufficient polling yet to draw conclusions right now.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Azure

The free market is now saying that Trans Mountain is a massive net positive for Canada, and even at the $30b cost the government might actually get some decent ROI for its investment.

But to tell that to anyone over the past 10 years they'd think your crazy, and no private company would have paid even half the $30b to build that pipeline.

Why? Its already going to increase revenues $7-8b PER YEAR, and they're really only getting started.

Fact is that Canada is showing over and over again that we are a terrible place to build these mega projects. So why will any private company go for it when there is a damn good chance that their money will be lost and in the end they'll have nothing to show for.

Trans Mountain pretty much proved that.

That’s why the government in Canada should be building pipelines and not the private sector. The private sector makes money on tolls for oil. Canada makes money by lowering the differential on every barrel and expanding production.

Governments should build infrastructure. The private sector cases always end up skewed

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by GGG

The free market dictates it’s cheaper to ship to the gulf or mid west than the east coast of Canada so that’s where pipelines get built.

See if you can find that barge cost, energy east was a bad project from a capital investment point of view when compared to things like keystone, TMX and gateway.

I think shell divested from Canada do to environmental reputation concerns in Europe as CNRL was happy to scoop up those assets for cheap.

I get that everybody thinks (and is probably right) that Energy East had flawed economics and that’s why it could never launch but the next layer of the onion is to ask why that is and is the why reasonable.

Does it make sense that transporting oil to BC then loading on a boat then shipping the boat around the planet should be an economically superior alternative (at any time) then building a pipeline to eastern Canada? Or does it have to do with insane regulatory and land acquisition burden coupled with massive reputation risk and a host of other issues that find themselves rolling into capital and operating costs and thus rendering a project uneconomic? Maybe those issues, you know, don’t need to exist…

You can add a ton of bricks to a struggling man swimming and if he drowns blame the swimmer but it also could have something to do with the bricks.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by GGG

That’s why the government in Canada should be building pipelines and not the private sector. The private sector makes money on tolls for oil. Canada makes money by lowering the differential on every barrel and expanding production.

Governments should build infrastructure. The private sector cases always end up skewed

Without reducing the regulatory overhead that prevent these projects from being built on time and on budget it doesn't matter who pays for them, they are likely not going to be built at all.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

I get that everybody thinks (and is probably right) that Energy East had flawed economics and that’s why it could never launch but the next layer of the onion is to ask why that is and is the why reasonable.

Does it make sense that transporting oil to BC then loading on a boat then shipping the boat around the planet should be an economically superior alternative (at any time) then building a pipeline to eastern Canada? Or does it have to do with insane regulatory and land acquisition burden coupled with massive reputation risk and a host of other issues that find themselves rolling into capital and operating costs and thus rendering a project uneconomic? Maybe those issues, you know, don’t need to exist…

You can add a ton of bricks to a struggling man swimming and if he drowns blame the swimmer but it also could have something to do with the bricks.

And its not just pipelines.

Canada has a wealth of natural resources in many other sectors as well. Why would any company invest into a mega project in Canada, especially one that is cross provincial when its very likely that the project will never actually get built?

Its like the idea that Churchill could be a deep water port. We're going to study it for 15 more years, and then decide its not worth it because some enviroweenie doesn't want to disturb that 'beautiful boreal landscape.'

Its the Canadian way.

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by GGG

The free market dictates it’s cheaper to ship to the gulf or mid west than the east coast of Canada so that’s where pipelines get built.

See if you can find that barge cost, energy east was a bad project from a capital investment point of view when compared to things like keystone, TMX and gateway.

This is quite the revisionist history. Energy East was most certainly profitable at its inception, and TransCanada would not have proposed it if it was not.

Keystone would have been very profitable and for sure was Plan A in terms of effectiveness, yet was first shut down by the Obama administration. In response to the delays in approving it, the Energy East west-east pipeline was seen as the next best option to help Canada's energy infrastructure. Effectively, the Energy East pipeline was plan B.

The Energy East pipeline was fully endorsed by the Liberal NB government and the Canadian CPC government. The main opposition was Quebec's government who campaigned against it and activist groups. Trudeau campaigned against it claiming for need of more regulation. It became a hot topic during the 2015 election.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-b...tion-1.3280814

People forget how deeply polarizing the pipeline was and how much opposition it had with sites and groups, and a provincial government dedicated against it. With the oil crash and the Canadian political climate with the decision to restart the approval process from scratch in 2016, the project was no longer tenable and too challenging.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_East

https://environmentaldefence.ca/stopping-energy-east/

https://350.org/energyeast-win/

Canada should have worked together to make the pipeline happen to strengthen our energy infrastructure, but the political will was against it. The Trans Mountain purchase was a bone thrown to the industry with less political consequences.

I think shell divested from Canada do to environmental reputation concerns in Europe as CNRL was happy to scoop up those assets for cheap.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/she...ands-1.4016874

It was political pressure and no longer being a strategic fit (carbon tax was implemented in Alberta, oil royalty review was being planned, political sentiment was hostile to oil sands). Kinda like how Amazon shutting down its Quebec operations is due to strategic fit, when we all know why it is shutting down (union).



This political environment is what investors had to face, and with pending regulations as a business it no longer made sense to deal with such a hostile environment.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by Azure

Its like the idea that Churchill could be a deep water port. We're going to study it for 15 more years, and then decide its not worth it because some enviroweenie doesn't want to disturb that 'beautiful boreal landscape.'

Its the Canadian way.

Churchill is currently a deepwater port, it just can't be used much of the year by ships, and is limited the rest of the year because the rail line's capacity it limited due to the subsurface (basically when it's frozen enough that heavy trains can get to Churchill, ships struggle, and when it's not frozen enough to cause ships trouble, train capacity is limited).

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by Firebot

This is quite the revisionist history. Energy East was most certainly profitable at its inception, and TransCanada would not have proposed it if it was not.

Keystone would have been very profitable, yet was first shut down by the Obama administration. In response to the delays in approving it, the Energy East west-east pipeline was seen as the next best option to help Canada's energy infrastructure. Effectively, the Energy East pipeline was plan B.

The Energy East pipeline was fully endorsed by the Liberal NB government and the Canadian CPC government. The main opposition was Quebec's government who campaigned against it and activist groups. Trudeau campaigned against it claiming for need of more regulation. It became a hot topic during the 2015 election.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-b...tion-1.3280814

People forget how deeply polarizing the pipeline was and how much opposition it had with sites and groups, and a provincial government dedicated against it. With the oil crash and the Canadian political climate with the decision to restart the approval process from scratch in 2016, the project was no longer tenable and too challenging.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_East

https://environmentaldefence.ca/stopping-energy-east/

https://350.org/energyeast-win/

Even if it was not profitable at the time, Canada should have worked together to make the pipeline happen to strengthen our energy infrastructure, but the political will was against it. Many projects are not profitable yet heavily subsidized



This really says otherwise

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/she...ands-1.4016874

It was political pressure and no longer being a strategic fit (carbon tax was implemented in Alberta, oil royalty review was being planned, political sentiment was hostile to oil sands). Kinda like how Amazon shutting down its Quebec operations is due to strategic fit, when we all know why it is shutting down (union).



This political environment is what investors had to face, and with pending regulations as a business it no longer made sense to deal with such a hostile environment.

Without getting into all of the details of your post, it gives one the impression that you believe that all, or at least the vast majority, of regulatory concerns (which were, as I understand it, largely based on environmental risks and interference with aboriginal title and aboriginal rights) on the Energy East pipeline were meritless. Is that fair to say? And if so, how did you arrive at that conclusion?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

Churchill is currently a deepwater port, it just can't be used much of the year by ships, and is limited the rest of the year because the rail line's capacity it limited due to the subsurface (basically when it's frozen enough that heavy trains can get to Churchill, ships struggle, and when it's not frozen enough to cause ships trouble, train capacity is limited).

Yes, increased usage would require ice breakers to be operating in that area, and infrastructure built to increase the rail capacity.

So we're saying we don't know how to build rail lines anymore, and we can't buy ice breakers?

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by Makarov

Without getting into all of the details of your post, it gives one the impression that you believe that all, or at least the vast majority, of regulatory concerns (which were, as I understand it, largely based on environmental risks and interference with aboriginal title and aboriginal rights) on the Energy East pipeline were meritless. Is that fair to say? And if so, how did you arrive at that conclusion?

https://globalnews.ca/news/10970516/...eline-tariffs/

“We are staring into the abyss of uncertainty right now with climate change, the climate crisis and the American threat,” Phillip said in a news conference ahead of a meeting with B.C. First Nations leaders and the provincial cabinet in Vancouver, highlighting the U.S. administration under President Donald Trump.

“I would suggest that if we don’t build that kind of infrastructure, Trump will – and there will not be any consideration for the environment or the rule of law or anything along those lines.

“I think that we can do better. I think we need to do better.”

Stances can and do change when global situations and priorities change.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by ThePrince

If only there were people a decade ago, or five years ago, or three years ago, or last year who thought we would benefit from additional infrastructure to diversify the markets Canada sells into. If only there were people who screamed at the top of their lungs that Canada has a wealth of resources, and we can benefit by accelerating the development of those resources for the good of all Canadians.

People who would have fought back against the over-regulation and bureaucracy that's creeped into trying to get any infrastructure projects off of the ground.

Wish there was people like that around back then. Nobody at all could have seen this coming because diversification is stupid, and not at all a risk mitigation strategy that's used extensively throughout the world to manage financial risk.

Oh well, guess we'll just be screwed for the next four years because it's too late to get anything approved or built in the next four years, and then we'll forget about it until the next time this comes up.

The most prominent form of Canadian arrogance is thinking we're the ####, when really we just so happen to live next to the largest economy in the world and have been able to feed them the fuel they need to grow for decades. We've squandered the opportunity to use that to help us gain an economic advantage and diversify our markets, and instead gone the other way to virtue signaling and a massive superiority complex bred from this arrogance. We are no different than the child who grew up with a rich daddy that paid for everything, and think we somehow earned it.

Unfortunately all these people, including all the members of government, lobbying groups, First Nations groups, environmental groups, etc, etc....are all going to act like 'what are you looking at me for' as its now become painfully obvious that they have all compromised Canadian economic security for the past few decades with their ridiculous policies and overall moronic outlook on how our country should operate.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

I get that everybody thinks (and is probably right) that Energy East had flawed economics and that’s why it could never launch but the next layer of the onion is to ask why that is and is the why reasonable.

Does it make sense that transporting oil to BC then loading on a boat then shipping the boat around the planet should be an economically superior alternative (at any time) then building a pipeline to eastern Canada? Or does it have to do with insane regulatory and land acquisition burden coupled with massive reputation risk and a host of other issues that find themselves rolling into capital and operating costs and thus rendering a project uneconomic? Maybe those issues, you know, don’t need to exist…

You can add a ton of bricks to a struggling man swimming and if he drowns blame the swimmer but it also could have something to do with the bricks.

I think that it taking an extraordinary economic event to make barging make sense in the short term is a reasonable outcome and one that we shouldn’t consider in whether or not pipeline development made sense.

It will always be cheaper to ship Alberta oil to the US or two the west coast as all the costs and burdens you remove apply equally for all projects.

If you want east west you need government subsidies. Look at the history of the crow rate for shipping grain or going even further back the construction of the railroad.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by Azure

Yes, increased usage would require ice breakers to be operating in that area, and infrastructure built to increase the rail capacity.

So we're saying we don't know how to build rail lines anymore, and we can't buy ice breakers?

Who's supposed to be building the trains and buying the icebreakers?

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by Firebot

https://globalnews.ca/news/10970516/...eline-tariffs/



Stances can and do change when global situations and priorities change.

That didn't really answer my question.

[Torture]

I know you'll hate that this is from the CBC, but I think it's a reasonable take. Who's building Energy East now? It was a major major project - much larger than twinning TMX and we saw how much that cost. TransCanada's split....is SouthBow interested (doesn't seem like it), another pipeline company? The Government?

The article points out that much of the reason it was even economically feasible for TransCanada was that they were converting existing natural gas pipe for a significant portion of the route. Other companies won't have that advantage.

While it's politically convenient to say 'build it now! - there's no project proponent and nothing to approve. Even if there was, any rammed through process is going to get overturned in an instant in the courts, particularly on the duty to consult with Indigenous peoples. Even if you started digging tomorrow it's probably not build for at least another 5 years.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-b...y-nb-1.7439701

[Azure]

I think everyone knows that Energy East isn't being built anymore.

I honestly think that even if every level of government would agree to whatever it takes to get it built, it still wouldn't happen because the courts would stop it, especially when it comes to First Nations agreement which is NEVER going to happen.

[Azure]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1883899165736050981