Alberta alienation and independence

[tkflames]

Originally Posted by Regorium

There's an unclear definition of stakeholder though - the previous definition was that if you are directly affected (cutting through your backyard, as you said), you needed to be consulted and compensated. I will definitely say that people along the pipeline right-of-way are more than fairly compensated for their troubles.

Now it just seems like it's literally anybody is a stakeholder. How do you get anything done when anyone has a veto? That's the thing that needs to be updated and dealt with.

You absolutely hit the nail on the head. The term stakeholder consultation is poorly defined. Not everyone has a veto and there are many court decisions to back this. However, clearly one of the ones that should have been consulted properly was not. Without going in detail through the court documents, the issue may not be a veto at all, but rather that the government did nothing to address a legitimate concern and just wrote it down.

A standard consultation process in my mind is:
1. Define the proposal.
2. Accept all concerns.
3. Address all concerns. This does not mean, make everyone's requests a reality, but legitimately review the item and if it is a valid concern. E.g. if the issue is risk of spills that were not adequately addressed, than put in spill containment initiatives. If you dont want to do that, the have an external study the issue and provide alternate solutions....a cash reserve, insurance, a fee for entering ports...etc. I suspect in this case the government did not address the whale concern and that is why they now need to study it and repeat the associated consultations.
4. Provide feedback on the actions.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by tkflames

You absolutely hit the nail on the head. The term stakeholder consultation is poorly defined.

I don’t know if it’s poorly defined or just poorly understood by the general public. One of my clients works with energy companies in stakeholder engagement. A stakeholder is never just someone who is impact by the construction, but is someone who is in an area that may be impacted if something goes wrong (a spill, for example). These areas are just randomly decided on, either, there is a lot of data that goes into defining these areas. If a spill happens near a moving waterway, for example, the likely distance of travel from the spill site is considered when establishing stakeholders.

[keenan87]

Yes, it can be done but probably won't happen legally.

"In the Constitution Act of 1982 it states that a constitutional change can be made only if seven out of ten provinces representing at least 50 percent of the population of Canada agree with the proposed change."

If it is not done legally, then you might not get the same fear treatment internationally.

[CaptainCrunch]

Right now if you went to the provinces and say that as a Federal Government you were open to redefining provincial powers or give the provinces more power.


You can bet


Alberta and Saskatchewan and Quebec would be all over it


BC would be interested in that discussion as would Manitoba, I would be Nfld would want to renogotiate, the only one that probably wouldn't be actually would be Ontario.

[FlamesAddiction]

There can be a strong case made for renegotiating provincial powers. Times change and so should government structures.

I have to admit though, I grew up in Ontario, but right close to the Manitoba border. I never really felt part of Ontario as Toronto was more foreign to me than cities like Winnipeg and Calgary.

I lived in 5 different provinces (Ontario - both north and south, BC, Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec). No matter where I lived, I never got the impression that people anywhere, Ontario and Quebec included, dislike Alberta in any way. That is on the street level. I can't speak towards federal policies and such, but Alberta has a good reputation as far as I am concerned.

[Erick Estrada]

I don't think a lot of people even in the greater GTA dislike Alberta. They simply don't care about much that goes on outside their city as the downtown folk and suburban folk have their internal rivalries that trumps what's going on in the rest of the country.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by tkflames

Clearly there wasn't...the supreme court which is responsible for upholding our laws confirmed this. As a general note, I want this pipeline and major energy projects to go through. I have reiterated this point. However, thinking that with a change of government or through separation you will suddenly get your way is naive. Also, thinking that the motivation for people opposing this pipeline and project is to screw Albertans is also naive.



There needs to be a clear roadmap for consultation. Consultation is not building a consensus, but it is also not ignoring a potential high risk activities because it is arbitrarily defined as "out of scope". This is what the court has said and they are not wrong on this front. If you dont believe that an impact assesment should not have been done on tanker traffic in a harbor as part of the overall project risk assessment, I would love to hear your reasons why. In terms of consultations, I agree that it is difficult to define a stakeholder (I.e. Is squamish nation because they see immediately adjacent but Vancouver island nations out?) I believe that there needs to be a clearer definition of roadmap for defining this going forward that is court acceptable.

While the court (Not the Supreme court) did state that consultation wasn't sufficient my position is that the federal government should change laws as required to ensure that the consultation boundaries are sufficiently designed and limited in scope such that when executed in good faith as they were on TMX that it holds up in court. The court interprets the current law of the land it does not specify what should be the law of the land.

The building of the pipeline merely transmits a good from one location to another. It should be looked at as purely that. Just like a road or rail that transports goods.

Expansions of the Ports are and should be subject to the impacts of marine traffics. This is where the impacts should be evaluated. So a project should be able to receive approval to build a pipeline but not get approval to expand a port which might kill the project as a whole but the pipeline shouldn't have to also meet the requirements of a port expansion. If the pipelines or rail or roads product fits into existing approvals at the port then there is no change to existing approvals required and the impacts should have already been evaluated.

Your argument suggests that any industrial development should be liable for the upstream and downstream affects. This is clearly not the case so the question is Why are Pipelines special?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

There can be a strong case made for renegotiating provincial powers. Times change and so should government structures.

I have to admit though, I grew up in Ontario, but right close to the Manitoba border. I never really felt part of Ontario as Toronto was more foreign to me than cities like Winnipeg and Calgary.

I lived in 5 different provinces (Ontario - both north and south, BC, Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec). No matter where I lived, I never got the impression that people anywhere, Ontario and Quebec included, dislike Alberta in any way. That is on the street level. I can't speak towards federal policies and such, but Alberta has a good reputation as far as I am concerned.

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I don't think a lot of people even in the greater GTA dislike Alberta. They simply don't care about much that goes on outside their city as the downtown folk and suburban folk have their internal rivalries that trumps what's going on in the rest of the country.

My inlaws, from near Toronto just laughed when I talked to them about western alienation years ago. They have no ill will at all, and didn't even know there was such a thing. Of course, once I mentioned it I have to hear about "visiting them in the center of the universe" and things like that, but that's about it.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by GGG

While the court (Not the Supreme court) did state that consultation wasn't sufficient my position is that the federal government should change laws as required to ensure that the consultation boundaries are sufficiently designed and limited in scope such that when executed in good faith as they were on TMX that it holds up in court. The court interprets the current law of the land it does not specify what should be the law of the land.

The building of the pipeline merely transmits a good from one location to another. It should be looked at as purely that. Just like a road or rail that transports goods.

Expansions of the Ports are and should be subject to the impacts of marine traffics. This is where the impacts should be evaluated. So a project should be able to receive approval to build a pipeline but not get approval to expand a port which might kill the project as a whole but the pipeline shouldn't have to also meet the requirements of a port expansion. If the pipelines or rail or roads product fits into existing approvals at the port then there is no change to existing approvals required and the impacts should have already been evaluated.

Your argument suggests that any industrial development should be liable for the upstream and downstream affects. This is clearly not the case so the question is Why are Pipelines special?

I think there has been some misunderstanding with respect to the Court's decision. The "failure to consult" refers to the Crown's constitutional duty to consult aboriginal peoples when the Crown contemplates actions or decisions that may affect an Aboriginal person's Aboriginal or Treaty rights.

[Wormius]

It seems like this would be such a great time for Trudeau to make statements to the Saudi's regarding their human rights transgressions and have a legitimate reason to forge ahead with pipeline and refinery building efforts out of necessity.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Quebec had an expectation that if they had voted yes to separation that they would continue to use Canadian Currency, continue to use Canadian passports, all the infrastructure that belonged to the government federally would shift to the province, Quebec based armed forces units would go to a Quebec militia, and the Federal Government never ever said "Ah no that's not how its going to work" if they had the result wouldn't have been as close as it was.

Yea, that's because the federal government hasn't had an actual exit vote happen before and hasn't planned for that scenario. Guess what's going to happen when a vote does? The Feds would put in huge amount of penalties to prevent other provinces from separating and all the passport usage, infrastructure, that Quebec just expected to be given to them would likely come at huge costs. Everything that is not formally agreed to in writing the Feds would likely just wrest back.

Just look at how screwed the UK is getting out of the EU to see as an example of what's likely to happen. All the assumptions Brexiteers sold to the UK population ended up to be 100% false. This includes, economic benefits, access to the EU free market, etc etc.