Alberta Politics Thread v2

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

That has to do with education not carbon tax. More people understand what it is, what it does and how stupid opposition to it is now than before.

Do you have any data to back up that claim? Who was out there educating Canadians these past few years?

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Do you have any data to back up that claim? Who was out there educating Canadians these past few years?

No. And neither do you regarding your claim that a tax people largely do not even notice paying has an effect on their support for the pipeline.



My opinion is based on the fact that the polls showing support for the pipeline all come at the exact same time the issue with BC challenging the construction process in court was dominating the news....Feb-April of this year.



Here's an article....


https://calgaryherald.com/business/e...ntain-pipeline

Almost two-thirds of Canadians say B.C. is wrong in its attempts to derail the federally approved pipeline.
“Having the discussion we’ve had over the last two weeks has been very positive,” said Tim McMillan, head of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
“The more they know about it, the more they’re inclined to support it.”

It's all about knowledge and seeing something on the news every day instead of once every six months.

[GaiJin]

Originally Posted by Bunk

The City has a system of fiscal reserves if it ends up spending less than budgeted or collecting more than budgeted.

And how big exactly are these fiscal reserves?

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Pssst....


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...heck-1.4809946

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

The social license failure debate is an interesting topic. A number of people say it failed but the reality is that support for pipelines has increased since Notley has held office. While it may not have gotten the project completed as of yet, it’s hard to argue that it hasn’t had any effect. The whole point was getting more of the country to support Alberta’s oil industry, it’s hard to argue that wasn’t the case.

An article from 2016 where Canadian support for TMX was 41%:

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/national...posed-poll/amp

And another from 2018 where support had increased to 56%:
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/globalne...psos-poll/amp/

Hey! Could you two guys stop spoiling the prevailing narrative!?

Sent from my MIX using Tapatalk

[Dion]

Originally Posted by GGG

IT was pulled by trans Canada. Not much Notley could do there.

Kinder Morgan was going to do the same thing until the Feds bought the project. Now they can't find a buyer/buyers to run it and it may be years before it get's built, if ever.

Now she's going to spend taxpayer dollars ($450,000 per week) on print and media ads to remind Canadians about how important a pipeline is to the economic welfare of Canada and Alberta. A project she has zero control over, just like Energy East.

Thus the question of why now and not back then when Energy East was cancelled. Could it be she's trying to curry favour with Alberta voters before the next election.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by GaiJin

And how big exactly are these fiscal reserves?

The target for the main one - the Fiscal Stability Reserve (FSR) is something like 5-15% of the total budget. Something like 1-3 months worth of operating budget for the whole City. The City's FSR currently sits around $400 million.

There are a bevy of other reserves - that are primarily capital reserves. Basically money that's been allocated and earmarked for expenditure, but not yet spent. This is due to the fact that the City's capital projects usually span multiple years from conception to design to construction to completion. There are other revolving reserves necessary for things like real estate transactions.

In total, I think the City's total reserves sit around $1.5b at any given time. But beyond the rainy day fund (the FSR) most of it is allocated money.

[CaptainCrunch]

Social license has nothing to do with voter polls, and everything to do with we agree to a carbon tax and the surrounding provinces clear the way for us to get our product to tide water, and the Federal Government enforces the constitution.


Instead we agreed to a carbon tax, BC and Quebec and Ontario slammed the door on the pipelines and the Federal Government sat on its a%% until it was faced with either buying the pipeline for 4.5 billion or facing a lawsuit by Kinder Morgan against the Federal Government BC and Alberta worth twice that much and an even more massive drop in investor confidence in the energy sector.


If the concept of social license is based around voter polls its a even more worthless concept as the various governments frankly ignore those polls to kill the pipelines.


The fact that we have to sign onto concepts like "Social Licenses" in order to get the constitution enforced really reflects how broken the national concept is.

[Locke]

The concept of 'Social License' is hilariously misguided.

And its easy to prove.

Kinder Morgan had 'Actual Licenses.'

You know, the ones you apply for with the Government and go through the vetting process and then they decide to approve or deny them and that counted for absolutely nothing.

So how can a fictional construct such as 'Social License' have any validity when the actual licenses dont?

Repeal the Carbon Tax. Just scrap it entirely, both the Federal plan and the Provincial plan. They did not hold up their end of the deal so neither should we.

[Ozy_Flame]

To be fair, "social license" is basically political will and public support - and in this case, to build pipelines. This was attempted to be built by the NDP with a provincial carbon tax, in conjunction with a federal carbon tax scheme that was to be implemented anyways to show that Alberta was playing ball with Canada. It didn't work out.

But if you don't have "social license" - that will and support -then it's an uphill battle to get anything done.

Perfect example - the people of the lower Mainland who oppose TMX didn't give the pipeline the "social license" to be built, and ergo, getting the actual project to go ahead.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

To be fair, "social license" is basically political will and public support - and in this case, to build pipelines. This was attempted to be built by the NDP with a provincial carbon tax, in conjunction with a federal carbon tax scheme that was to be implemented anyways to show that Alberta was playing ball with Canada. It didn't work out.

But if you don't have "social license" - that will and support -then it's an uphill battle to get anything done.

Perfect example - the people of the lower Mainland who oppose TMX didn't give the pipeline the "social license" to be built, and ergo, getting the actual project to go ahead.

They prevented Alberta from increasing our Revenue and ergo they should reduce our taxes.

The 'Social License' accomplished nothing and is now useless, so scrap it and everything that led up to it.

The fact that Social License people whining stymied a privately financed, Federally approved and licensed infrastructure project that was deemed in the National Interest shows how broken the system is and has cost our Government $4.5B and Trudeau whatever semblance of authority anyone thought he may have had.

At least Trudeau the Elder would have told the whiners to STFU and done what he was going to do anyways.

[Dion]

Corbella: The enemies of Alberta's energy industry are running the province

But what’s most ironic of all is that Berman’s views align with many of Notley’s most high profile ministers, including Notley, whose views on oil and gas only recently changed once she became premier.

Consider Shannon Phillips, Alberta’s Minister of Environment and Parks and the Minister Responsible for the Climate Change Office. Phillips was involved in No Drilling Lethbridge and helped draft the Alberta Federation of Labour’s opposition to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, which would have transported Alberta bitumen to tidewater at Kitimat, B.C. The cancellation of that pipeline by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — despite it being approved through a costly, multi-year process and then passed by the House of Commons under Stephen Harper — was partly informed by the fact that some Albertans, like Phillips, were opposed to the pipeline.

Phillips also co-authored a book with Greenpeace mouthpiece Mike Hudema, entitled: An Action a Day Keeps Global Capitalism Away. Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up! In the 2004 book’s preface, Hudema wrote: “It would not have been possible to put this book together without her. She pushed me to write it, edited my work, and contributed to its content. I owe her a heavy debt.”

Phillips, in heavy damage control mode, says she just “moved some commas around.” Oh sure. No author says someone contributed to a book’s content if that didn’t occur.

Sadly, when it comes to Phillips, I could go on and on, but NDP ministers with even more important portfolios than hers have similar views.

Alberta’s Finance Minister, Joe Ceci, has been quoted as slamming the oilsands in a Maclean’s article from Dec. 29, 2008.

“We should be able to say to Calgarians that we’re investing in things that are contributing to a positive world,” said Ceci, then a long-time Calgary alderman. “If environmental factors on some of the companies out there are less than sustainable, then we should not be investing in those areas.”

Brian Mason, the ND’s former leader and now Minister of Transportation, was quoted in a 2013 newpaper, saying: “The oilsands has given Alberta and Canada a black eye with the rest of the world.”

Then, of course, there’s Premier Notley, so desperate to hang on to power that she has suddenly seen the light, when it come to oilsands development.

From previously speaking out against the oilsands in general, she also opposed and spoke against the building of the Keystone XL pipeline and the Northern Gateway pipeline.

But, now she wants to spend billions of Alberta tax dollars on the 60-year-old Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline that Trudeau’s federal Liberal government purchased for $4.5 billion. The twinning of the existing pipeline might have been built by the private sector had all the unrealistic, anti-oil types like Notley and her cabinet ministers been onside with the project, rather than protest Alberta oil and gas at every turn for many years.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...g-the-province

[Weitz]

That’s in past man. You can’t judge them on that!

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by Weitz

That’s in past man. You can’t judge them on that!

best part of seeing the NDP lose the next election will be to judge their actions afterwards.
I bet the vast majority will go back to being exactly the same as they were before they were elected.

all Notley's pipline rhetoric is just too obvious as electoral pandering.

[Ozy_Flame]

That's in the past, man!

[burn_this_city]

Notley will probably take a run at the Federal leadership, and win. I bet she maintains the same positions she has now and tries to bring the NDP back to it's working class roots. The rest of them, who knows.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Notley will probably take a run at the Federal leadership, and win. I bet she maintains the same positions she has now and tries to bring the NDP back to it's working class roots. The rest of them, who knows.

I could see it. Then she can go back to fighting pipelines, bloating Government bureaucracy and Unionizing everyone, her life's true calling.

[burn_this_city]

If they want any chance at forming opposition or winning she needs to shed the radicals polluting the party's chances. They will be minor players running as the No Development Party.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

If they want any chance at forming opposition or winning she needs to shed the radicals polluting the party's chances. They will be minor players running as the No Development Party.

From what i have seen...that's half the caucus at least. Think they had inept and inadequate members this go round?

They are going to get trounced soundly....and for very good reason.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

If they want any chance at forming opposition or winning she needs to shed the radicals polluting the party's chances. They will be minor players running as the No Development Party.

Half of them are environmental nutjob radicals and the other half have no idea what they're doing.

Sarah Hoffman could likely at least get a job at a shooting range...Lord knows shes taken enough bullets for Notley to at least know her way around.

And Ceci might need a social worker, him finding work after this will likely take a miracle.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

If they want any chance at forming opposition or winning she needs to shed the radicals polluting the party's chances. They will be minor players running as the No Development Party.

That's pretty much most of their party, that's what the NDP is kind of founded on. Union and causes, oh and people looking for their first political job with no experience. They'll probably still be the official opposition because the Liberals are pretty much dead, and the Alberta Party has been fairly invisible.


I expect though that the NDP will be reduced to between 5 and 12 seats. The Liberals will win a couple, the Alberta party might win 5.



Rachel will resign, but she won't be allowed to run for the NDP Federally because the party doesn't like her radical right wing ways.