Author Topic: Environment, Economy, Politics. (Read 104652 times)

Walleyes · « **on:** February 16, 2016, 08:28:27 AM »

This should be an interesting thread over time. Air your grievances here lets just keep it civil (best we can).

Couple interesting reads I came across this morning.

http://boereport.com/2016/02/16/global-demand-for-oil-is-rising-and-the-world-would-benefit-from-more-alberta-oil-not-less/

http://boereport.com/2016/02/16/canada-supplies-an-abundance-of-raw-materials-that-the-world-requires-as-cleanly-and-efficiently-as-possible-youre-welcome/

Walleyes · « **Reply #1 on:** February 16, 2016, 01:05:46 PM »

Communism at its finest in our home.

http://www.therebel.media/notleyisabully

AxeMan · « **Reply #2 on:** February 16, 2016, 06:37:20 PM »

Quite the battle "The Rebel" and Notley have going.
Sit back and enjoy. Apparently, she doesn't like criticism....

LeverAction · « **Reply #3 on:** February 16, 2016, 06:58:32 PM »

Transparency is her enemy. She has no idea what she doing and people are starting to see that, so she is keeping the door closed. When times are tough you need a tough leader. It will take years after she is gone to dig this great province out. The world wants what we have, unfortunately she's not selling it.

Walleyes · « **Reply #4 on:** February 17, 2016, 11:22:31 AM »

Ahh oops we made another mistake,, cause we are clueless idiots fumbling our way through this thing.

http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/ndp-government-rescinds-decision-to-ban-ring-wing-media-outlet-from-press-briefings

AxeMan · « **Reply #5 on:** February 17, 2016, 02:31:56 PM »

Priceless....talk about back peddling.

greylynx · « **Reply #6 on:** February 17, 2016, 03:02:31 PM »

"Yikes". What's the NDP going to be pulling next? Stay Tuned....

Walleyes · « **Reply #7 on:** February 17, 2016, 04:57:57 PM »

Something for you all to look at and sign if you feel it's in our best interest.

http://www.energycitizens.ca/it_s_time_to_build_that_pipeline

LeverAction · « **Reply #8 on:** February 17, 2016, 05:27:51 PM »

Now didn't they say they made a mistake about bill 6 also. Seems they do things, wait till we correct them, then change their minds. How again do we follow a leader that is always two steps behind us? So this is still year one right, man it's a long road!

Walleyes · « **Reply #9 on:** February 17, 2016, 05:44:00 PM »

And let's not forget about the royalty review. They were so convinced the Cons were lying and the people were getting ripped off they had to spend millions of our dollars reviewing it. Lost how many millions for companies that lost investors while the whole thing was being looked at and for what.. To come to us after 6 months and say once again,, they were wrong Albertans are in fact getting their fair share.. Oh gee maybe they should have listened to the companies or at the very least left it alone until things were stable. But no let's throw some gas on the fire and destroy this thing while we can.

IDIOTS !!

greylynx · « **Reply #10 on:** February 17, 2016, 06:10:35 PM »

The results from the royalty review was a slap in the face to the environmental-scam industry.

I wonder what kind of program is on the NDP books to appease that group.

AxeMan · « **Reply #11 on:** February 17, 2016, 06:20:00 PM »

Quote from: greylynx on February 17, 2016, 06:10:35 PM

The results from the royalty review was a slap in the face to the environmental-scam industry.

I wonder what kind of program is on the NDP books to appease that group.

They have that $3 billion dollar carbon tax policy (tax grab) already. They will funnel that to the scam artists no doubt.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/albertas-new-climate-plan-a-3-billion-tax-grab-that-will-increase-emissions-wildrose-leader-says

Walleyes · « **Reply #12 on:** February 17, 2016, 06:37:19 PM »

Not to mention the Union bosses that were pissed. Which makes little sense when you consider a lot of the construction jobs and operating jobs on the plants are union jobs why would they want a program that would obviously hinder those operations.

Socialist,, not the brightest bunch I know but man,, you got to be smarter than that.

And whats equally scary is what are they going to do to appease those groups,, how long is that going to take to fix after they are gone in 2 years,, my goodness.

LeverAction · « **Reply #13 on:** February 17, 2016, 07:48:23 PM »

This perfect storm,( NDP Provincial, Liberal Federal and low oil) will take us years to spring back. Low oil is the least of our problems though, when the price rebounds we have the two worst parties in power to manage it.

honkerhitter · « **Reply #14 on:** February 18, 2016, 05:30:57 AM »

Yep the NDP are digging a huge hole going to be tough for any following Gov. To dig out of. This down turn is Global but seems to hit us particularly bad because of the lack of infrastructure to get our products to market effiecently. Definitely not good for Alberta or her residents, what it does do is handcuff Notley somewhat . They won't have the budget or support for a bunch of radical changes . If she was in power with 100$ oil the hole dug could never be filled in .
Turdo on the other hand hasn't figured out the country is pretty much broke without Alberta being prosperous, raised with a unlimited gold card visa mentality the country as whole will be up shit creek in a couple years. Once again interest rates will be climbing steadily with him in power, pay off any loans while you can. I'm sure tempted to re mortgage and atleast get a five year buffer.

Walleyes · « **Reply #15 on:** February 19, 2016, 01:06:17 PM »

Another so called oops. It's only dirty if you're caught I guess.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/government-appointed-tribunal-chair-says-ndp-inappropriately-solicited-support-1.3452169

And making the future even brighter for more companies in our province.

http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/transalta-corp-puts-alberta-investments-on-hold-amid-frustrations-over-provinces-climate-change-policies

I wonder when it's going to don on these asshats that these companies they are driving out of buisness or at the very least making it miserable for them are for the most part dividend paying companies. When they make business tough for them they make it double bad for the population. Not only does it put the working man out of a job it forces profits down which drives dividends down which makes it hard on people that are retired and relying on these as a means of income.

Not that it matters I guess hey, cause you know the rallying cry of the socialist, it's only 1% of the population that lives off of these big companies. Asshats !!

BruceW · « **Reply #16 on:** February 19, 2016, 01:58:51 PM »

Fellow I went to grade school with's father was a staunch ndp'er, "back in the day" (school teacher). Told me one time he asked him what they would do if they ever actually got elected.

Said his father chuckled, thought about it for a minute, then said, "Well, the first day we'd bankrupt the province, the second day we have no clue".

Looks to me like he had it figured. Easy to hold true to ludicrous dreams when there's no consequences, different story if you try to make chasing rainbows a job.

Bottom line, IMO investment money has been leaving the province as fast as it possibly can ever since the election and every time the ndp opens their mouths the pace and urgency for investors to get their money away from here quickens.

Nothing chases away business faster then steadily increasing taxes, steadily increasing needless bureaucracy and the severe limitations that puts on freedoms, not to mention the obvious coming crippling debt due to what I would describe as utter incompetence.

Honestly I can't see a better way to drive away business than they've been doing, except maybe to start targeting industries for severe gov't interference.............oh, wait...........

Walleyes · « **Reply #17 on:** February 22, 2016, 05:54:10 PM »

Gary Lamphier: How much money has flowed out of Alberta to Ottawa? A lot

Gary Lamphier: How much money has flowed out of Alberta to Ottawa? A lot
If you’re still wondering why oil-rich Alberta doesn’t have a massive sovereign wealth fund like Norway, consider this.

Alberta is a province, not a country. Ergo, we don’t get to keep all the wealth we generate in this province. Not even close.

I realize this runs counter to the preferred narrative in Canada, where politicians and media types insist Alberta either “put all its eggs in one basket” by failing to diversify its economy (hello Christy Clark), or that Albertans “spent like drunken sailors” during boom times.

Sure, there’s some truth to those arguments. But the far bigger reason why Alberta isn’t rolling in filthy lucre is that we are part of a federation called Canada.

Ergo, most of our tax revenues go to Ottawa, and are then redistributed to fund a vast array of social, health and educational programs in Quebec, the Maritimes and the rest of Canada. The federal equalization program alone, under which Quebec receives nearly $10 billion a year, is just part of that wealth transfer.

When economists say Alberta has been Canada’s key engine of growth in recent decades, that’s really what they mean. Without Alberta’s energy wealth, this country would have been a fiscal basket case long ago. Now that Alberta’s oil-fired economy is also struggling, Canada is heading for the fiscal swamp.

So just how much money has flowed out of Alberta to Ottawa? A lot. Between 2000 and 2014, on a net basis, Alberta’s individual and corporate taxpayers shipped an estimated $200 billion-plus to the federal government. That’s what left the province, less what the feds reinvested here.

To put that lofty figure in perspective, it’s nearly 12 times the value of the $17.4 billion Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund. No other province — including Ontario, with three times Alberta’s population — even comes close to matching this province’s contribution to the federation.

During Alberta’s boom years, back in 2007 and 2008, the province’s taxpayers shipped more than $20 billion annually, on a net basis, to Ottawa. And when oil prices returned to triple-digit levels after the 2008-2009 recession, the cash gusher from this province returned. In 2011, for instance, it reached nearly $19 billion.

Even more remarkable, few Canadians seem to be aware of this, except in the vaguest sense. Conspicuously, I’ve never seen these numbers reported in the national media or disclosed by federal and provincial politicians.

And after calling not one but four leading public policy think tanks, I couldn’t find a single expert who has researched this data, or who was willing to discuss it at any length. Some seemed downright defensive about it, as if it was “un-Canadian” to explicitly acknowledge one province’s outsized contribution to the federation.

The only reason I’m now aware of the massive amount of money that has flowed out of Alberta in recent years is due to the efforts of one man. Fred McDougall, 78, is a former deputy minister of forestry who served under former Alberta Premier Don Getty in the 1980s.

After leaving the provincial civil service in 1989, McDougall was recruited by Weyerhaeuser, the U.S.-based forest products giant, to run the company’s Alberta operations. After working for Weyerhaeuser for 12 years, McDougall retired in 2007, although he did part-time consulting work for several years after that.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
Page 2 of 2
Just to be clear, McDougall isn’t an activist, an axe grinder or even a member of any political party. He’s just a thoughtful, straight-shooting Albertan who wanted to know for his own edification what Alberta’s financial contributions to Ottawa amounted to over the past 15 years or so.

He knew it was big, but after spending considerable hours crunching the relevant numbers from Statistics Canada, and comparing that data with stats compiled by Alberta Finance, he admits he was shocked by the scale of what he found.

“My main motivation in doing this was to see what the magnitude of it was and to get some accurate numbers,” he says. “I wanted to see quite simply how much money has been going out of Alberta and being allocated by the federal government to other provinces.”

McDougall was also motivated by the fact that other provinces, which have benefited immensely from Alberta’s energy wealth, are now explicitly or implicitly opposing new oil export pipelines, thus jeopardizing Canada’s economic future.

“Other provinces have basically been trying to extort benefits out of pipelines going through their province. To a certain degree I can understand that, but when it gets to the point where they are as bellicose as (Montreal mayor) Denis Coderre has been, I just find it sickening,” he says.

“I’m really disappointed as a Canadian that we’ve got a federation that tolerates this kind of thing. I mean we’re talking about staggering amounts of money here, so maybe other provinces have to share a bit of inconvenience and a bit of environmental risk. But they’ve been directly benefiting from Alberta’s economy for years.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, Fred. Too bad the rest of Canada seems determined to look the other way in Alberta’s hour of need.

[email]glamphier@postmedia.com

Walleyes · « **Reply #18 on:** February 25, 2016, 07:41:55 AM »

http://boereport.com/2016/02/25/us-energy-independence/

Walleyes · « **Reply #19 on:** February 26, 2016, 07:52:46 AM »

Don Getty passes.

Was not to bad of a leader as I recall. RIP sir.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2542140/former-alberta-premier-don-getty-dies-at-82/