Canadian Oil
- Thread starter petros
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NDP in power in Ontari-owe? Nah......too many people remember Rae Days when we were so broke NDPers had to send civil service Hogs home for unpaid days off! There is a real probability so I think- of a minority govt with a Conservative premier propped up by NDP!
And yes- I know it sounds absurd that NDP and Conservatives could get along for 5 minutws but there it is- the Ontari-owe PC party is loaded with Red Tories- meaning they hold LIE-beral Lite values that will make it easier for them to cooperate with NDP.
In addition Andrea Horvath took major flack some years back in cooperating with LIE-berals during the change over from McGinty to Wynne-bag and she will NOT want to be caught propping up another LIE-beral govt!
My prediction for Ontari-owe is this: either a minority govt made up of NDP/PC or a PC majority blazing onto power as that 55 plus percent of \cdns who do not normally vote will suddenly decide they HATE Wynne-bag and her LIE-beals and swarm over to vote!
Those who are skeptical about my prediction should recall that voter turnout jumped by just short of fifty percent when Rob Ford was elected and should also recall that Mike Harris got the biggest mandate in Ontari-owe history for his second term! Its just too bad the Red Tories/ rthe LIE-beral Lite cowards chickened out and dumped Harris- but the Red Tories PAID BIG TIME for their stupidity - their politically correct poodle Ernie Eaves got crushed!
Give Ontari-owe a STRONG leader to counter LIE-berals and watch the LIE-berals CRY!
Somebody asked me: "how much money do you think LIE-berals paid a pair of sex trade workers to smear Pat Brown"?
I wonder if LIE-berals could do such a thing? Could the party that engineered the gas plant disaster, the E-health mess, the Mars building mess, Ornge, the Sudbury bribery scandal in which LIE-berals DID offer bribes but got off on a technicality, the paving contract scandals where low grade asphalt was substituted for the specified quality material, the snow plowing scandals in which companies that did not have suitable equipment to meet their contractual obligations were then SUPPLIED with suitable equipment by LIE-berals using OUR tax money, the bridge building fiascos- in which a Pickering pedestrian bridge was built upside down by a contractor who publicly admitted he had never built a bridge before, the Nippissing bridge mess in which a 3 month old bridge was closed after a Spanish company that had never built a bridge in a frost zone like Canada discovered that they had made some miscalculations!
At what point should we guess that LIE-berals- who have often been referred to as our most corrupt govt in history MIGHT very well have PAID 2 women to smear Brown? And given the holes that Brown has been poking in the allegations his accusers have made it MIGHT just be a smear with no real foundation!
AND THE REALLY FUNNY THING? If it was a smear then it BACKFIRED! Conservatives were at 42 percent voter support before the allegations and are now at 49 percent voter support! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
LIE-berals have done so much wrong for so long that now they can do nothing right!
Oh....and if there are so very many Cdn refineries then how come our oil prices spike whenever there is a hurricane in Gulf of Mexico?
And how much of that "Cdn" production is ALREADY COMMITTED to Yankee markets?
And we KNOW that the proposed Keystone pipeline is supposed to follow TWO EXISTING pipelines to Louisiana refineries.
And we KNOW that eastern Canada runs on oil from Venezuela but why is it more dangerous to run tankers up BC coast than up Nova Scotia/New Brunswick/ PEI coasts?
LIE-berals LOVE their back room deals and LIE-berals love fact that turn arguments in circles proving nothing!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enbridge
https://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/campaigns/Energy/tarsands/Pipelines-in-Canada/
edit adding your quote into my post
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The feedstock into the NE USA, which supplies Ont et al has content from AB, Sask and MB.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enbridge
https://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/campaigns/Energy/tarsands/Pipelines-in-Canada/
edit adding your quote into my post
POOR LIE-berals! There is NO oil shipped from western Canada east of the Ottawa River! And in fact- last I heard- ALL of |Ontari-owe runs on that Venezuelan crude! The Enbridge proposal to ship Alberta oil east has been frozen by LIE-beral policy failure!
LIE-berals are caught in their own words! They want to create good Cdn jobs and the best jobs are with resource extraction -but they also want to suck up to environmentalists and natives by FORBIDDING such work! So LIE-berals have a new program of environmental review in which women`s rights and a host of other nonsense MUST also be satisfied- with the added bonus of a TWO YEAR time limit! Which means no assessment will be completed before we have another federal election and the whole mess cna be reset back to NOTHING DONE!
And what kind of jobs DO LIE-berals want to create for those special few of us deemed worthy of LIE-beral special attention- meaning vote buying BRIBERY? This kind:
Here is a reminder of the dangerously spendthrift values our LIE-beral govt works with. The article presents the LIE-beral plan for buying up a huge chunk of civil service votes-in perpetuity-with the goal of keeping LIE-berals in power forever regardless of the wishes of ordinary Cdns who will be footing the immense tax bills-and there are some comments of my own in brackets):
The next “golden age” of Canada’s public service will be led by millennials, says Treasury Board President Scott Brison, and that means the federal workplace must change to attract highly valued workers under age 35.
(In other words LIE-berals cannot conceive of a Canada that is not controlled from cradle to grave by civil service Hogs dedicated entirely to LIE-beral values! And LIE-berals are rapidly enraging older voters who are trying to live on fixed incomes and inadequate pensions that are being ravaged by LIE-beral tax madness!)
“We are really well-served by an excellent public service, but we have a lot of work to do in engaging millennials more fully, in terms of transforming our public service to be open, more accountable, more transparent and less partisan,” said Brison.
Canada’s aging population poses challenges for the federal government to ensure it employs enough skilled people of all ages. The public service is emerging from an era of spending restraints and cuts with a smaller, older workforce of employees 18 to 65-plus.
(Yeah-LIE-berals ARE STUCK! Civil service pension are all in free fall towards bankruptcy-UNLESS LIE-berals can find new sacks of cash to shovel into civil service Hog pension funds! And we are BROKE. AS Margaret Thatcher pointed out: “the trouble with socialists is that eventually they run out of other peoples money”! That HAS HAPPENED here in Canada. The deeper LIE-berals dig into our pockets, the worse is our rage over the rising cost of EVERYTHING EXCEPT OUR WAGES! And the more angry ordinary Cdns get, the more LIE-berals are driven to seek out new voters to buy at any price- such as Muslims and illegals!)
(LIE-berals need for those Hog pensions to be on solid fiscal ground so they can let aging Hogs retire early to make room for millennials. But fading pension funds mean older Hogs will keep working and millennials will lose patience with govt!)
In briefing books for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is also the minister of youth, bureaucrats say the average age of new hires is now 37 and warn not enough young people are being hired permanently. In fact, in the final years of the Tory tenure, the number and proportion of permanent employers under age 35 decreased.
(Yes- Conservatives were working hard to minimize civil service Hog greed- by doing things like laying off Hogs from local Veterans Affairs offices now that the troops are home from Afghanistan- no need for lots of Hogs to procerss Veterans claims if they are no longer being injured! And civil service Hog rules permit a more senior Hog to “bump” a junior Hog and take his job away from him- govt hjad some say in how many Hog could have jobs but UNIONS decreed WHO-meaning the kids- would be FIRED!)
The Liberals, however, are targeting the large millennial generation and are working to ensure they have enough of them while adapting the public service to make it more millennial-friendly.
(Only an idiot LIE-beral would worry more about the AGE of the Hog workforce than they do about WHAT that Hog work force is actually producing in exchange for their MANY ENTITLEMENTS!)
This growing segment of the workforce — between 18 and 34 — will soon surpass the GenXers and Baby Boomers who have shaped the public service for the past 50 years. A generation comfortable in a digital environment, millennials are seen as adaptable and innovative given the right tools, work environment and independence.
However, Brison’s drive isn’t simply about age and bringing in more youth. Rather, he is looking to unleash the cultural change in the public service that politicians have promised for years. He is turning to millennials, who are generally seen to have the skills and attitudes to drive that transformation, which Brison argues could create a better workplace for all public servants.
Brison is predicting another “golden age” in the public service, similar to the post-war heyday of big ideas and policies that the leading edge of the Baby Boomers helped to implement, including such things as medicare, old age security and the Canada Pension Plan.
(Yeah-and isn’t it ODD that medicare, old age security and Canada Pension Plan are now all threatened by LIE-beral debt and unregulated spending designed to keep LIE-berals in power? Brison appears oblivious to health care rationing, to old age security eroded by rising govt costs and stagnating wages and nearly frozen Canada Pension Plan rates!)
“We believe we have an opportunity to restore and create another golden age of public service where we actively recruit the best and brightest millennials to the public service,” Brison told the Citizen.
Linda Duxbury of Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business has studied generational differences for a decade. She says millennials want less hierarchy, fewer rules, meaningful work, good working relationships, respectful managers, autonomy, recognition for their work, flexible schedules, open communication, tolerance for risk-taking, and fewer barriers to innovation. They put a premium on friends, family and hobbies and want work-life balance.
(Oh gosh-those millennial desires will render them UNFIT for the rarified atmosphere of a govt office where looking good and not pointing out that the prime minster is an emperor with no clothes are the ONLY real requirements!)
That’s a tall order for government. Blueprint 2020 is still the main road map for modernizing the public service, but briefing documents for Trudeau flag a number of “people management” issues to be tackled. They include: cumbersome staffing and classification rules, too many layers of decision-making, harassment, a toxic work environment, and rising mental health claims, outdated tools and business processes.
While a young person can make a difference in the future of the world in an NGO, the same smart, talented, idealistic young person can actually make a bigger difference in government
It’s unclear precisely what actions the government will take to make the bureaucracy more millennial-friendly. It has a list of election promises to restore trust in the public service and to make government more open, transparent and collaborative. Brison’s mandate letter from Trudeau asks him to “instil a strengthened culture of measurement, evaluation, and innovation in program and policy design and delivery.”
The government’s plan, however, faces fierce competition for these workers from the private and non-profit sectors.
Brison was on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month trying to convince millennials why they should work in governments.
“What we’re hearing is that if we are going to attract millennials to public service, public service has to become less bureaucratic, more meritocrative, less partisan, more transparent and more open. And I think if you ask citizens of any country, regardless of age, they would view these as good objectives.”
(In other words-the civil service mus become the EXACT OPPOSITE of that which LIE-berals consider useful and valuable!)
Many who want to make a difference go to NGOs, drawn by clearer causes, fewer rules and less hierarchy. But Brison said government is where they can really “move the needle.”
“While a young person can make a difference in the future of the world in an NGO, the same smart, talented, idealistic young person can actually make a bigger difference in government if government gives them the tools to do that. “
As a potential sweetener, he said the government could explore movement between NGOs and the public service through exchanges, secondments or as advisers on special assignments.
“I doubt in most cases that somebody leading an NGO can so do as much as a 30-year-old cabinet minister like Maryam Monsef in our cabinet, who is actually making cabinet-level decisions on the future of the country,” said Brison in Davos.
“At the end of the day, in a democratic country, the decisions are still made by people who put their names on ballots and who aspire to lead.”
Brison argues the timing is right. Canada’s youth faces high rates of unemployment and underemployment, and the last of the boomers, who still comprise 36 per cent of the public service, will be leaving someday soon.
The Liberals also have a very different view of the public service than the Conservatives, who wanted less and smaller government. Brison repeatedly says a strong and innovative public service is needed to deliver the government’s activist agenda.
“The Conservatives denigrated public servants for 10 years, and the reality is those Conservative attacks were based on an ideological bias and shoring up their voting base,” said Brison.
(This is WHY we call them LIE-berals! Freezing wages for already over paid Hogs whose entitlements are bankrupting the country is NOT a denigration of civil servants. Rather, it is a PROTECTION of ordinary Cdns from a militant and absurdly greedy and grossly arrogant minority!)
Duxbury said that decade took its toll on the public service’s image as a workplace where employees aren’t managed or treated well.
She said the government won’t attract bright and creative thinkers with a “whack-a-mole” culture where “anyone with new idea is afraid of sticking up their head and risk getting whacked if it’s wrong or makes a minister look bad.
“You are never going to get these creative young thinkers until you change the culture of government, and the problem for a charismatic prime minister is that everyone is expecting magic and miracles, and culture change takes time so he has to manage expectations.”
(Here is another example of LIE-beral foolishness! We don’t need a horde of smart ass types with get rich quick schemes based on limited understanding of economic history and No common sense to descend upon us with catastrophic fiscal results. What we need are people who will get the jobs DONE! LIE-berals are quietly suppressing news of just how many dual citizens are NOT paying their full taxes in Canada-while Canada Revenue Agency looks the other way because it might make their agents late for dinner if they were to chase a tax cheat across borders or time zones!)
(It would also be nice if somebody could kill off the clearly unworkable E-health program that IS STILL RUNNING! It is swallowing rather less gravy than it did a few years back thanks to the public scorn heaped on it -but we STILL DON’T KNOW IF OR WHEN the E-health job will EVER be completed! We are assured the program will be done any year now-if all goes well-but just HOW is it going? We don’t even know at this time if they are over budget as LIE-berals-badly stung by previous critics of the costly mess-have now stopped USING a budget-they just cut new cheques from time to time without the bother of asking awkward questions such as “where did the previous batch of cash go”? Or “ how far are you away from completion”?)
The truth is that LIE-berals had better watch out-the millennials have been kept in debt and poverty for so long they may decide to turn on LIE-berals with savage anger if our economic situation gets worse! One has only to recall how Our brainless Boy Justin was taunted and scorned by millennials in one of his early “town hall meetings”. LIE-beral handlers are smarter now and they screen people much more closely to ensure there wont be any repeats of the LIE-beral embarrassment! This does not mean Our idiot Boy is safe-it just means he is getting better at hiding from GROWING public anger!)
Here is why quoting LIE-beral propaganda will NOT get you respect!
Here is a reminder of the dangerously spendthrift values our LIE-beral govt works with. The article presents the LIE-beral plan for buying up a huge chunk of civil service votes-in perpetuity-with the goal of keeping LIE-berals in power forever regardless of the wishes of ordinary Cdns who will be footing the immense tax bills-and there are some comments of my own in brackets):
The next “golden age” of Canada’s public service will be led by millennials, says Treasury Board President Scott Brison, and that means the federal workplace must change to attract highly valued workers under age 35.
(In other words LIE-berals cannot conceive of a Canada that is not controlled from cradle to grave by civil service Hogs dedicated entirely to LIE-beral values!)
“We are really well-served by an excellent public service, but we have a lot of work to do in engaging millennials more fully, in terms of transforming our public service to be open, more accountable, more transparent and less partisan,” said Brison.
(Yes- LIE-berals have ben very well served by that cabal of civil service Hog unions that LIE-berals have bought and paid for using OUR MONEY! But we ordinary Cdns are NOT impressed by the huge BILL run up to buy support for LIE-berals!)
Canada’s aging population poses challenges for the federal government to ensure it employs enough skilled people of all ages. The public service is emerging from an era of spending restraints and cuts with a smaller, older workforce of employees 18 to 65-plus.
(Yeah-LIE-berals ARE STUCK! Civil service pension are all in free fall towards bankruptcy-UNLESS LIE-berals can find new sacks of cash to shovel into civil service Hog pension funds! And we are BROKE. AS Margaret Thatcher pointed out: “the trouble with socialists is that eventually they run out of other peoples money”! That HAS HAPPENED here in Canada. The deeper LIE-berals dig into our pockets, the worse is our rage over the rising cost of EVERYTHING EXCEPT OUR WAGES!)
(LIE-berals need for those Hog pensions to be on solid fiscal ground so they can let aging Hogs retire early to make room for bought and paid for Hog millennials. Its just a perpetual motion money game with LIE-berals buying the votes of Hogs who retire at 55 by supplying huge pensions while the rest of us work till age 70 getting pennies and then with LIE-berals buying support of all those newly hired Hog millennials as well!)
(We already have economic proof that we cannot pay Hogs what LIE-berals have promised them- Wynne-bag has promised Ontari-owe highschool teachers 55 billion dollars in new pension money and we don’t have it-especially with 18 other unions also in line for billions! And we certainly cannot pay Hogs what they THINK they deserve! LIE-berals have already turned our electrical system into a GIANT slush fund to channel gravy to Hogs and have slammed shut the books so we cannot see exactly what they are doing with the money! And now they are playing games with their carbon crap and trade scam- the one modeled on the disgraced European version! And all they have bought with this huge new flow of cash is TEMPORARY PEACE- that will last till after the 2018 Ontari-owe election! If LIE-berals manage to cling to power then we will be buried in a fiscal S**T storm of new fees and taxes as LIE-berals ruin us to pay for their insane promises!)
In briefing books for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is also the minister of youth, bureaucrats say the average age of new hires is now 37 and warn not enough young people are being hired permanently. In fact, in the final years of the Tory tenure, the number and proportion of permanent employers under age 35 decreased.
(And how is THAT wrong? Conservatives have recognized that Hog costs are out of control and that privatization- with the hiring on non union types at rates below Hog gravy standards is a way to control costs! Hogs do not recognize non union millennials as `new hires` because the non union types WILL BE GONE just as soon as LIE-berals can arrange it- the kids will be BUMPED OUT by older Hogs with seniority in the union!)
(This LIE-beral vision of a govt labour force is third world political garbage. In In Iraq under Hussein- fully HALF the population worked for govt-it’s a GREAT way to BUY loyalty but its no way to keep your economy sound!)
The Liberals, however, are targeting the large millennial generation and are working to ensure they have enough of them while adapting the public service to make it more millennial-friendly.
(Only an idiot LIE-beral would worry more about the AGE of the Hog workforce than they do about WHAT that Hog work force is actually producing in exchange for their MANY ENTITLEMENTS!)
This growing segment of the workforce — between 18 and 34 — will soon surpass the GenXers and Baby Boomers who have shaped the public service for the past 50 years. A generation comfortable in a digital environment, millennials are seen as adaptable and innovative given the right tools, work environment and independence.
However, Brison’s drive isn’t simply about age and bringing in more youth. Rather, he is looking to unleash the cultural change in the public service that politicians have promised for years. He is turning to millennials, who are generally seen to have the skills and attitudes to drive that transformation, which Brison argues could create a better workplace for all public servants.
Brison is predicting another “golden age” in the public service, similar to the post-war heyday of big ideas and policies that the leading edge of the Baby Boomers helped to implement, including such things as medicare, old age security and the Canada Pension Plan.
(Yeah-and isn’t it ODD that medicare, old age security and Canada Pension Plan are now all being BADLY ERODED by LIE-beral debt and unregulated spending designed to keep LIE-berals in power? Brison appears oblivious to health care rationing, to old age security eroded by rising govt costs and stagnating wages and nearly frozen Canada Pension Plan rates set too low to live on decently!)
“We believe we have an opportunity to restore and create another golden age of public service where we actively recruit the best and brightest millennials to the public service,” Brison told the Citizen.
Linda Duxbury of Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business has studied generational differences for a decade. She says millennials want less hierarchy, fewer rules, meaningful work, good working relationships, respectful managers, autonomy, recognition for their work, flexible schedules, open communication, tolerance for risk-taking, and fewer barriers to innovation. They put a premium on friends, family and hobbies and want work-life balance.
(Oh gosh-those millennial desires will render them UNFIT for the rarified atmosphere of a govt office where looking good and not pointing out that the prime minster is an emperor with no clothes are the ONLY real requirements! As for all the other `desirable workplace qualities millennials want- has it not occurred to LIE-berals that the kids want a work environment that is the total opposite of EVERYTHING on offer in a govt office? If you work for LIE-berals you will become a well paid hypocrite!)
That’s a tall order for government. Blueprint 2020 is still the main road map for modernizing the public service, but briefing documents for Trudeau flag a number of “people management” issues to be tackled. They include: cumbersome staffing and classification rules, too many layers of decision-making, harassment, a toxic work environment, and rising mental health claims, outdated tools and business processes.
(Like I said: the LIE-beral work environment is the OPPOSITE of what millennials are looking for!)
Spirit Eagle p/l (aka the new Northern gateway) will be waking up a lot of folks presently
Thank you- you make my point! Many of those so called Cdn refineries are both owned by Yankees and are almost exclusively supplying Yankees! WE have a lot of "Cdn" oil refining capacity is like suggesting that General Motors is a Cdn company just because they have one factory in Oshawa and but have their main production facilities in United States and Mexico!
Two adversarial countries, a lawless bombed-out third, and a terrorist organization come together to build a pipeline, and Canada can’t
March 12, 20186:00 AM Terry Etam12 Comments
An Afghan, a Pakistani, an Indian, and a Turk..menistanian walk into a bar. No wait, into a pipeline meeting. No wait, this isn’t a joke, it’s…I don’t even know what it is. Perhaps just best to describe it as a profound illustration of how coagulated and paralyzed Canada has become.
The group above – these four enemies/anarchies/survivors – found enough common ground to build a massive international natural gas pipeline at a cost of over $10 billion. It gets weirder; an elder statesman in global terror circles, the Taliban, stopped by to lend their support. If that doesn’t leave you speechless, think about Canada’s infrastructure situation, then consider this quote that should blow your head right off: a Taliban spokesman commented that his organization “views this project as an important element of the country’s economic infrastructure and believes its proper implementation will benefit the Afghan people.”
It would be very difficult to come up with a more devastating indictment of Canada’s developmental paralysis than this.
This is a parable for the times, a would-be/should-be reminder to comfortable elites of the west (most of us) that standing on a street corner protesting is one thing when you know with dead certainty that the second you stop anything you want is available to you. It is also a stark reminder that that is not representative of the most of the world’s experience. But it’s not just protesters; we’ve all come to take fundamentals of life for granted, becoming preoccupied with endless trivial “problems.” It’s the spillover of this attitude that created many of our developmental issues, that we can have anything we want whenever we want it, with no downside.
Westerner’s view of the world has floated away from reality on a sea of abundance. To show my magnanimity to eco-warriors, here’s a funny example from the other side, a well-off acquaintance who was inconvenienced in no small way (according to him). This is admittedly cartoonish but it’s real, and just too funny not to mention. This guy decided he needed a new set of wheels to haul the occasional kid or dog around in. After much homework and self-image analysis, he concluded that the best option was a top-line Maserati. Then the real work begins. What colour? What wheel style? What colour of brake calipers? What sort of stitching pattern on the seats, and what colour of stitching? (I’m not making this up.) Eventually, after long nights of contemplation and soul searching, he showed up at the dealership with his notes, requirements, and bargaining strategy. What happens next is almost Dickensian in its cruelty – the salespeople ignored him, completely, and it took uncomfortable firmness to corner one and begin explaining his requirements. Then the thunderbolt: he was unceremoniously interrupted and informed that they were backordered for a year, and if he wanted one now there was possibly a black one in Vancouver. Off the rack. What hurt most was that his default, infallible solution to these things (someone has to pay) was, in this situation, an utterly useless weapon.
OK that’s extreme, but surely you’ve noticed that the level of whining over minutiae is almost deafening. And we can do that, because we don’t worry about the lower rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. We have everything we want, and we have it when we want it, so we worry and complain and protest against what we see as imperfections. I am guilty myself; improper road design infuriates me, because it makes traffic inefficient and I may have to wait an extra minute or two (while sipping my latte), or I have to be really really careful at some intersection. It’s outrageous.
The above examples of boorishness however harm no-one but the boor; where it becomes significant is when we choose to halt something that will benefit millions because it offends some sensibility of ours. Protesters are no different than the unfortunate Mr. Maserati, because the demands are equally as immaterial in the bigger scheme of things. We protest what’s wrong in our little worlds because we lack perspective on the bigger picture; it’s the blind men (or, or course, women) and the elephant times millions. People protest wind farms if they don’t like the look of them. People protest pipelines because they fear a theoretical spill, that, even if it did occur, would have absolutely no impact on their life. It wouldn’t destroy a coastline, or even a fraction of one, and whoever did it would pay until they bled, and then they’d clean it up to boot. And it’s the same for natural gas pipelines, or infrastructure; we can’t build those either even if Canada desperately needs it.
Oops, there’s that attitude again; maybe that’s a spoiled, western view of “need” – we need it to help maintain our lifestyle, our social safety nets, our standard of living. TAPI, the consortium of the 4 countries above whose names I am far too tired to type again, actually does need the project and the gas. The 4 countries have a combined population of 1.5 billion people and natural gas is a matter of life or death for them.
Look at the issue another way, from a contra-Maserati viewpoint. Tata Motors, an Indian car manufacturer, introduced the world’s cheapest car, the Nano, a few years back. Oh no, cried ten thousand western environmentalists. Oh yes, cried half a billion Indians, who had previously been moving families around by motorbike (if at all). And those poorly (actually, over)-designed intersections I spend my day moaning about – most of the Nano’s purchasers would no doubt be thrilled to even have some decent pavement.
It’s not just the disparity in living standards though; it’s the vision these countries have in putting aside some staggering differences and circumstances to work towards a common objective. India and Pakistan have a long history of deadly skirmishes and tension over disputed border regions. Afghanistan has a population that doesn’t even blink at explosions anymore, and yawns at flying bullets that don’t remove facial hair. And they all found a way to work with one of the world’s most notorious terrorist organizations, one whose brief rule of Afghanistan set the country back a hundred years.
These countries understand necessity. Despite all that madness, or maybe because of it, they actually value fossil fuels, or at least natural gas, because they know it is a requirement for survival. They know what life is like on a razor’s edge. They set aside their differences for a net benefit to humanity that to them is obvious and large. And no, the words “Taliban” and “benefit to humanity” have never before been linked, to my knowledge.
We’re so fat and comfortable and smug about our entitlements (except energy blog writers, who would buy Tata Nanos in droves if sold here) that we take up fights based on what we see, and on the fads of the day. We overconsume everything, then feel guilty about it, so attack the easiest villains, like the evil corporations who provide and move energy that is only provided and moved to feed our habits. We demand major progress on climate change, but only by attacking what is in vogue. We refuse to even consider the hard choices. Fossil fuels are evil, but how will you survive in winter without? Silence. Want to ban internal combustion engines, but how will food get to you? Silence. Want to dramatically reduce emissions, but who will stop flying, like, right now? Silence.
Apparently we can learn a lot from TAPI – about humility, necessity, and, as unbelievable as it sounds, cooperation.
March 12, 20186:00 AM Terry Etam12 Comments
An Afghan, a Pakistani, an Indian, and a Turk..menistanian walk into a bar. No wait, into a pipeline meeting. No wait, this isn’t a joke, it’s…I don’t even know what it is. Perhaps just best to describe it as a profound illustration of how coagulated and paralyzed Canada has become.
The group above – these four enemies/anarchies/survivors – found enough common ground to build a massive international natural gas pipeline at a cost of over $10 billion. It gets weirder; an elder statesman in global terror circles, the Taliban, stopped by to lend their support. If that doesn’t leave you speechless, think about Canada’s infrastructure situation, then consider this quote that should blow your head right off: a Taliban spokesman commented that his organization “views this project as an important element of the country’s economic infrastructure and believes its proper implementation will benefit the Afghan people.”
It would be very difficult to come up with a more devastating indictment of Canada’s developmental paralysis than this.
This is a parable for the times, a would-be/should-be reminder to comfortable elites of the west (most of us) that standing on a street corner protesting is one thing when you know with dead certainty that the second you stop anything you want is available to you. It is also a stark reminder that that is not representative of the most of the world’s experience. But it’s not just protesters; we’ve all come to take fundamentals of life for granted, becoming preoccupied with endless trivial “problems.” It’s the spillover of this attitude that created many of our developmental issues, that we can have anything we want whenever we want it, with no downside.
Westerner’s view of the world has floated away from reality on a sea of abundance. To show my magnanimity to eco-warriors, here’s a funny example from the other side, a well-off acquaintance who was inconvenienced in no small way (according to him). This is admittedly cartoonish but it’s real, and just too funny not to mention. This guy decided he needed a new set of wheels to haul the occasional kid or dog around in. After much homework and self-image analysis, he concluded that the best option was a top-line Maserati. Then the real work begins. What colour? What wheel style? What colour of brake calipers? What sort of stitching pattern on the seats, and what colour of stitching? (I’m not making this up.) Eventually, after long nights of contemplation and soul searching, he showed up at the dealership with his notes, requirements, and bargaining strategy. What happens next is almost Dickensian in its cruelty – the salespeople ignored him, completely, and it took uncomfortable firmness to corner one and begin explaining his requirements. Then the thunderbolt: he was unceremoniously interrupted and informed that they were backordered for a year, and if he wanted one now there was possibly a black one in Vancouver. Off the rack. What hurt most was that his default, infallible solution to these things (someone has to pay) was, in this situation, an utterly useless weapon.
OK that’s extreme, but surely you’ve noticed that the level of whining over minutiae is almost deafening. And we can do that, because we don’t worry about the lower rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. We have everything we want, and we have it when we want it, so we worry and complain and protest against what we see as imperfections. I am guilty myself; improper road design infuriates me, because it makes traffic inefficient and I may have to wait an extra minute or two (while sipping my latte), or I have to be really really careful at some intersection. It’s outrageous.
The above examples of boorishness however harm no-one but the boor; where it becomes significant is when we choose to halt something that will benefit millions because it offends some sensibility of ours. Protesters are no different than the unfortunate Mr. Maserati, because the demands are equally as immaterial in the bigger scheme of things. We protest what’s wrong in our little worlds because we lack perspective on the bigger picture; it’s the blind men (or, or course, women) and the elephant times millions. People protest wind farms if they don’t like the look of them. People protest pipelines because they fear a theoretical spill, that, even if it did occur, would have absolutely no impact on their life. It wouldn’t destroy a coastline, or even a fraction of one, and whoever did it would pay until they bled, and then they’d clean it up to boot. And it’s the same for natural gas pipelines, or infrastructure; we can’t build those either even if Canada desperately needs it.
Oops, there’s that attitude again; maybe that’s a spoiled, western view of “need” – we need it to help maintain our lifestyle, our social safety nets, our standard of living. TAPI, the consortium of the 4 countries above whose names I am far too tired to type again, actually does need the project and the gas. The 4 countries have a combined population of 1.5 billion people and natural gas is a matter of life or death for them.
Look at the issue another way, from a contra-Maserati viewpoint. Tata Motors, an Indian car manufacturer, introduced the world’s cheapest car, the Nano, a few years back. Oh no, cried ten thousand western environmentalists. Oh yes, cried half a billion Indians, who had previously been moving families around by motorbike (if at all). And those poorly (actually, over)-designed intersections I spend my day moaning about – most of the Nano’s purchasers would no doubt be thrilled to even have some decent pavement.
It’s not just the disparity in living standards though; it’s the vision these countries have in putting aside some staggering differences and circumstances to work towards a common objective. India and Pakistan have a long history of deadly skirmishes and tension over disputed border regions. Afghanistan has a population that doesn’t even blink at explosions anymore, and yawns at flying bullets that don’t remove facial hair. And they all found a way to work with one of the world’s most notorious terrorist organizations, one whose brief rule of Afghanistan set the country back a hundred years.
These countries understand necessity. Despite all that madness, or maybe because of it, they actually value fossil fuels, or at least natural gas, because they know it is a requirement for survival. They know what life is like on a razor’s edge. They set aside their differences for a net benefit to humanity that to them is obvious and large. And no, the words “Taliban” and “benefit to humanity” have never before been linked, to my knowledge.
We’re so fat and comfortable and smug about our entitlements (except energy blog writers, who would buy Tata Nanos in droves if sold here) that we take up fights based on what we see, and on the fads of the day. We overconsume everything, then feel guilty about it, so attack the easiest villains, like the evil corporations who provide and move energy that is only provided and moved to feed our habits. We demand major progress on climate change, but only by attacking what is in vogue. We refuse to even consider the hard choices. Fossil fuels are evil, but how will you survive in winter without? Silence. Want to ban internal combustion engines, but how will food get to you? Silence. Want to dramatically reduce emissions, but who will stop flying, like, right now? Silence.
Apparently we can learn a lot from TAPI – about humility, necessity, and, as unbelievable as it sounds, cooperation.
Damned good thing that WE don't get our oil from Alberta. The unending blackmail would be too much.
Trade is a fickle thing.
Eliminating an option opens the door for an existing supplier to dictate their own terms
Eliminating an option opens the door for an existing supplier to dictate their own terms