Uh oh. Duck and cover. It looks as if Great Oil Pimp Leader is trying to whip us into a nationalistic frenzy, by demanding that the United States stop treating us like a national park.
Any decision on developments such as the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline should be left to Canadians, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says.
"Just because certain people in the United States would like to see Canada be one giant national park for the northern half of North America, I don't think that's part of what our review process is all about."
Or ELSE ....
Because NOBODY treats us like hillbillies or park people and gets away with it !!!!!
Of course Great Warrior leader will also have to tell Exxon, BP, Daewood International, Sinopec, the Koch brothers, and the Chinese Communist Party, which owns a big chunk of Penn West Petroleum, they can't come to the pipeline hearings either.
Because if he claims THEY are Canadian, it will remind me of the priceless moment when this oil bimbo went on TV and claimed that Ethical Oil was a "small grassroots organization."
Only to have that gaseous emission blow up in her face.
And see the naked truth exposed.
Which is hopefully what will happen if Great Oil Pimp Leader tries to claim that building the Northern Gateway pipeline is in Canada's national interest.
When it's actually a deadly threat.
Enbridge's radical growth projections would expand the scale of the mammoth tar sands project and triple current levels of production by 2035. Hughes calls such irrational growth a threat to the nation "in the light of the long term energy security and environmental interests of Canadians."
Furthermore, "the absence of National energy strategy which safeguards the long term energy security and environmental interests of Canadians means there are no constraints on the uncontrolled liquidation of Canada's intrinsic energy resources."
Oh boy. If you thought the Banana Republic of Harperland was ridiculous enough. Wait until we have to deal with the fascist State of Alberia.
The separatist party — Alberia Special Party (ASP) — eventually bullies its way into government using Nazi tactics to convince Alberians of the Big Lie: the Feds (a coalition government, no less) and the “enviro-vermin” are planning to take over the oilsands.
Alberia then separates from Candidia, dispatches border guards, executes environmentalists as traitors, and proceeds to extract bitumen from the oilsands at a reckless pace.
Because judging from all the Big Lies, we're definitely heading in that direction eh?
Yup. Never trust those Cons. Never forget to ask them. Why do you hate Candidia so much?
And whose side are you really on?
A careful and measured development of the oil sand I have no issue with. Thankfully, the idea that a complete shutdown of all development is just a pipe dream. The consequences would be disastrous to the entire country. I have no problem with people advocating for the shutdown of development. I will ardently defend their right to do so even though I vehemently disagree with them. I just wish they would explain exactly what they see happening to the average Canadian reliant on the energy industry if all development ended as they so boisterously demand.
ReplyDeletehi Way Way Up...as I've said before I'm realistic about the oil sands, I'm not for closing them down. I do care about Canadian jobs at a time when there are fewer and fewer of them. What I am for is slowing down their development for all the good reasons mentioned in the article I quoted. The present is important, but so is the future...
ReplyDeleteOh I didn't mean to paint you into the "shut them all down now" camp. Not my intention at all. I suppose I'm still looking for a decent answer to this question from someone who thinks along those lines though.
ReplyDeleteI fall more into the "shut it down" camp, or at least close enough to attempt to answer that question. (Perhaps more along the lines of "Freeze it right here.") However, the inherent problem with answering that question is that you can't do it properly in less than 5,000 words (if not a Royal Commission or two) like you can just run around pimpin' oil and yelling "jobs, jobs, jobs". That's because it requires properly redesigning economic, trade, energy & environmental policies so that this reckless plundering isn't "needed" to keep us afloat.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the answer can be arrived at faster if we ask it the other way around. How did we survive before the Tar Sands? What did we do back when the price of oil wasn't high enough to make it a profitable venture? We did OK. The "importance" of the Tar Sands is overrated, but is largely the result of decades of failed policies and political expediency.
For example, our Free Trade policies have resulted in the continual decline in manufacturing, which we managed to slow for a while with our intentional "low dollar" policy. That's the kind of job an average working stiff could feed a family with, the kind of job working stiffs who now find themselves Grapes of Wrath-ing to Alberta to get. Factories are fleeing, hell, even white collar jobs are disappearing.
It's no coincidence that the new manufacturing powerhouse, China, is keen on buying/controlling our natural resources and sending them back home so they can turn them into value-added products for us to ring up on our credit cards.
Our increasing reliance on natural resources, especially finite ones like oil, is a losing strategy...especially the way we're doing it. We're just giving them away as fast as we can with little or no value-added. There may be a lot of short-medium term cash generated, but there are only so many jobs sucking our oil out of the ground. We may be headed toward a nation of manual labourers working in mines & such and domestic servants for the 1% crowd.
But one thing is for absolute certain. Whichever way it happens, (shutdown or empty out) the Tar Sands are probably going to close at some point in our lifetimes, so it's a question we all better have a damn good answer to as soon as possible. That oil is the money we keep hidden our mattress for emergencies. Once it's gone, it's gone for good.