Oil Unions: Cut Keystone Pipeline

mentalfloss

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Jun 28, 2010
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Oil Unions: Cut Keystone Pipeline

OTTAWA - Alberta's oil industry union bosses want the Keystone XL Pipeline axed. “Our union opposes the XL pipeline for a whole number of reasons, including the impact on the environment, the loss of potential jobs and the harmful effect on the Canadian economy,” Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) union, said.

“You pump it (bitumen) to the United States, they get the jobs and we end up with the environmental mess that's left over.” The labour reps compare the export of raw bitumen to U.S. refineries to the export of raw logs to China, at the expense of millworking jobs in British Columbia. They want the bitumen refined in Canada and then exported to other countries.

“A study shows if the Keystone XL pipeline is constructed, more than 465,000 jobs will be created in the United States by the year 2035,” Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, said. “Why on Earth are they (Harper and his ministers) going south of the border to promote the construction of a pipeline that will create tens of thousands of jobs south of the border while creating almost no new jobs here in Canada.”

Some workers in Quebec, meanwhile, want the pipeline built across Canada, so the raw product can be refined by workers in that province instead. “This is stupid, that while we are pumping that stuff to the States, we are depending on importation on the eastern side of the country,” Gaetan Menard, CEP secretary-treasurer, said.

“Right now you have tonnes of workers from Quebec who are working in the tarsands, so they would be more than happy to work in Montreal instead.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said, Wednesday that building the pipeline is a “no-brainer.”

“The number of jobs that would be created on both sides of the border is simply enormous. The need for the energy in the United States is enormous,” Harper told Bloomberg TV in New York City. “The alternatives for the United States are not good and, you know, on every level, not just economic, political, social, even environmental, the case is very strong for this.”

The proposed $7 billion, 2,673-kilometre pipeline is set to run from Alberta to Saskatchewan, then south through the American heartland, linking to Texas, where it will be refined into gasoline and other oil products.

Oil Unions: Cut Keystone Pipeline | Canada | News | TORONTO SUN
 

Mowich

Hall of Fame Member
Dec 25, 2005
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I admire your persistence in this matter, mentalfloss, misguided though it may be. From everything petros and others have shown us, this indeed is a done deal. I am not happy about it and still fear the consequences to our coastline but the ink is long dry on this deal.
 

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
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I'm just posting the news as it comes.

The environmentalists had their say. Now, apparently, those that believe this is detrimental to our economy are piping up as well.
 

damngrumpy

Executive Branch Member
Mar 16, 2005
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All resource products should be refined or produced into product in Canada. It should
now be a Canada jobs first policy and everyone else second, America wants to do it to
us so we need to protect our jobs first.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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There is something some need to know to understand how things work. You can't pipe finished gasoline or diesel over long distances at high speed. Friction and compression of fuels tend to make things go BOOM. Think diesel engine.
 

TenPenny

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Jun 9, 2004
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Location, Location
We should not be exporting raw materials, if we have the capability to refine it here, or are able to built that capability.

But our governments have worshipped at the altar of exporting raw materials, while they wonder where the jobs and economy went.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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We don't have the capacity or the water. This oil goes on the open market for export (mainly China) and will not be gasoline for Americans.
 

Nuggler

kind and gentle
Feb 27, 2006
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Backwater, Ontario.
Apparently, once the oil hits Texas, it gets refined (?), and pumped into Chinese tankers (?). so I read.

We Canuks just love taking a big sledge hammer to our own feet. Feels so good.

As Petros said: "too late"

"Helluva job there, Brownie." George Bush to someone named Brown in charge of Katrina "cleanup".
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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When the people you owe say "jump."...you say "How high?" Without the current level of Chinese investment into oil/gas/potash/lumber/food Canada would be ****ed.
 

Nuggler

kind and gentle
Feb 27, 2006
11,596
140
63
Backwater, Ontario.
When the people you owe say "jump."...you say "How high?" Without the current level of Chinese investment into oil/gas/potash/lumber/food Canada would be ****ed.

I think people realize that. They're just very unhappy about the extent to which offshoring, and factory closings have happened. Like you said, it's too late. And that's just too fukkin sad.

Like the song says; "the mill has shut down and she ain't comin' back"
 

Nuggler

kind and gentle
Feb 27, 2006
11,596
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63
Backwater, Ontario.
I've been babbling about this **** for 5 years. What more of a warning do people need? 10 years?


Yep. Sometimes NOBODY pays attention. "They" gettem thinking bout how bad unions are, or how dangerous it is to cross the street, or unreported crime, long arms registration, and the like.

Every time you hear some politico screaming about bilingualism or multiculturalism, better not pick up the soap.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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There is no shortage of diversions and rational thought seems to have gone out the window ages ago.

Where were the hippys in 2006?
 

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
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Ethical oil?

Apparently not..


Keystone XL: A pipeline that should not be built

We are living in a market economy, but that doesn't mean there aren't choices to be made.

We could be living in a smart market economy. One that invests in education and training, in innovation, in new ideas. That competes at the high end. That makes sure, in many ways, that it leaves no one behind. One that shares its benefits more equally – much more equally. There is much to say about that. We'll get to it.

And then there's the dumb market economy we're living in instead … increasingly, courtesy of the Harper government. Exhibit A: the Keystone XL pipeline.

If you haven't heard of this project, you should. It is, in many ways, the keystone to Stephen Harper's approach to the Canadian economy, and to what passes for environmental policy in this government.

The pipeline's purpose is to export essentially unprocessed bitumen, in the largest possible quantities, out of Canada and to the petrochemical complex in Texas. Where it will be processed into finished fuel, plastics and chemicals in a myriad of forms for sale around the world, including back into Canada.

We could say that this is just taking advantage of an opportunity. The Americans are running out of domestic oil. They are looking for a substitute. By plugging Canada into Texas, we are fulfilling our franchise as America's largest energy provider. “Ethically,” as the project's mummers and barkers would have it.

But what is really going to go down that pipeline are Canadian jobs. And forgone capital that belongs to our children and grandchildren. And then, there's the small matter of the environment.

Let's start with Canadian jobs. In promoting and facilitating this project, the Harper government is, once again, scripting Canada in the world economy to be a source of raw, unprocessed resources. Tommy Douglas used to rail against this in the 1940s. Then: Why are we exporting raw logs when we could be exporting furniture? Now: Why we are exporting raw bitumen when we could be exporting the hundreds of products that are derived from our own petrochemicals?

The answer is that Mr. Harper – and his friends in the industry – are, as neo-cons and the interests they serve always do, going for the quick buck. The easy solution. The road where everybody gets their bonus and their new car right now. Everyone except the people of Canada – who get to live with the consequences of an over-valued petrocurrency, without benefiting from the value-added economic activity our own resources generate.

Dumb.

So then there is the question of foregone capital – the theft from our children and grandchildren. The quick-buck boys behind this pipeline project seek to mine the maximum amount of bitumen, as quickly as possible, at the lowest possible royalty rates (note the debate on this issue in Alberta when Premier Ed Stelmack tried to address it), sold for the lowest possible price – all immediately to be spent in a supposedly “low-tax” environment.

Imagine instead developing our petroleum resources more deliberately; charging appropriately for those resources; ensuring they build a job-rich industrial, value-added economy here in Canada – and that most of the treasure derived from these one-time, never-to-be renewed fossil resources were preserved in an investment fund. Then our children and grandchildren would inherit both a high-job, developed economy, and a pool of capital to build a future economy with. Mr. Harper has turned his back on this better alternative.

Dumb.

Then there are the environmental issues, which are not small. There is the immediate issue of hyper-development of Canada's tar sands in the service of another country's industrial economy. We not only pay the opportunity costs discussed above. We also get to pay the full environmental price. A brutally scarred landscape. Numerous other direct and indirect environmental insults. And a vast emission of carbon at every stage.

And then there is the perversion of Canadian policy in the service of this development. Canada has not only become one of the world's great sources of carbon – and thus of climate change. Our Conservative government has become one of the principal obstacles to co-ordinated global action to address climate change.

Dumb, on a global scale.

So what is to be done? Let's begin with what is not to be done: That pipeline should not be built.

And then we need to have a very large conversation with our energy industry in this country – in the first instance, with the goal of reminding them that they are in this country.


Keystone XL: A pipeline that should not be built - The Globe and Mail
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It's starting to really pile on now..

Law Aides Oilsands Foes

CONSERVATIONISTS ON BOTH sides of the border are using an obscure American trade law normally used against whalers to pressure Canada over its management of the entire oilsands industry.

The push comes as protesters continue to fight a pipeline that would bring more oilsands crude from Alberta into the United States. A coalition of American and Canadian environmental groups has filed an application under what’s known as the Pelly amendment, which empowers the U.S. president to impose trade sanctions against any country weakening international efforts to conserve endangered species — in this case woodland caribou, whooping cranes and dozens of other species of migratory birds.

"(A) weak regulatory environment, lack of enforcement of existing laws, and the overwhelming influence of the oil and gas industry in Canada have allowed the tarsands industry to expand at breakneck pace without regard for the devastating impacts on migratory birds, woodland caribou and the ecosystems on which they rely," the petition reads.

"Canada has been unwilling to put mechanisms in place that would prevent or mitigate such harms and thus contributes to the diminishment of the effectiveness of domestic and international efforts to protect these species."

The petition is intended to force a dialogue between the two countries, said Sarah Burt of Earthjustice, the California-based environmental law agency that filed the papers. "There’s a very rational conversation that can go on between the U.S. and Canada that goes something along the lines of, ‘Hey, Canada, we really want to import this stuff, but we’re getting a lot of pushback from our constituents who are concerned about the environmental impacts. It would make it a lot easier on us if you could improve some of the environmental management.’

"This petition is designed to open up some of those conversations."

Last week, a Pelly amendment finding against Iceland caused U.S. President Barack Obama to suggest that co-operation with that country on Arctic issues should be linked to changes in Iceland’s whaling policy.

A Canadian government spokesman was not available for comment.

The environmental coalition has presented its case to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, who must determine whether Canada’s actions are harming conservation efforts. Salazar will then make a recommendation to Obama, who is authorized to impose a variety of actions, including trade sanctions.

In its brief, the coalition points to studies from both the Canadian and Alberta governments that acknowledge woodland caribou are disappearing in the province, largely due to habitat loss from industrial development. It points out that the species is listed under the Western Hemisphere Convention, signed by the United States and Canada in 1942.

The brief also highlights the whooping crane, one of North America’s most endangered birds and a species covered under the Migratory Bird Convention, which dates from 1916.


Reduced to a mere 22 individuals in 1941, careful conservation efforts have restored whooper populations to about 300. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spends about US$6.5 million every year on those efforts.

But the birds migrate twice a year through the oilsands region. U.S. and Canadian studies have found some cranes pause there.


Law aids oilsands foes - Canada - TheChronicleHerald.ca
 
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