Rex Murphy Rocks

[blackpowder]

Although now the boom bust is not a function of a commodity market.
It's an assassination.

[blackjack]

He (Peter Loughheed) probably never dreamt public servants would end up costing so much.

[Oliver88]

Rex Murphy for Governor General.

[Hamloc]

Can't read the National Post article as it is behind a paywall. But i can imagine what it says.

As host of the CBC phone in show, Rex did a good job listening and asking questions.

His column in the National Post reveals his political opinions. But every news outlet that is run as a business knows who their audience and readers are and tailors their opinion content to that audience. Rex is just doing his job.

Alberta oil is still flowing and is profitable. Especially for the integrated oil companies. Demand looks to increase in the short term.

Alberta has always been a boom and bust economy overly dependent on a few commodities that go up and down in price. Most Albertans know this, but when things are rough, Albertan politicians try to blame everyone else but themselves.

Alberta has been the richest province per capita with the highest incomes and still is. What happen to all the wealth that was created? And before you blame Ottawa remember, Albertans pay the same federal tax that every other Canadian does relative to their income.

Albertan's and their oil company influenced politicians, have chosen to have low royalty and tax rates and spend much of their one time resource revenue on core services. Some people mistakenly believed high prices and the boom would last forever.

Peter Lougheed is rolling over in his grave.

I certainly do agree that Albertan’s continue to elect governments that promise low taxes instead of electing governments with plans for sound fiscal management and taxation policies that allow the saving of energy royalties for future generations while paying for existing government services. That being said I do get tired of Peter Lougheed constantly being put on a pedestal as an end all and be all of good governance. While he was a strong leader he did create what became an unaffordable bureaucracy after he retired that created $21 billion of provincial debt by 1993 and laid the groundwork for the long tenure of Ralph Klein!!

[redleaf]

Speaking of the assassination I thought some might like this cut and paste ............“lol”.............
A Fairy Tale of Canada" by Gwyn Morgan

Once upon a time in a northern Dominion called Canada, there was a thriving oil industry that provided fuel for vehicles, trains and airplanes. There was also a large natural gas industry that kept the people warm during the long cold winters and supplied the raw material for plants that manufactured plastics, detergents, fertilizer, synthetic clothing and a great many other items needed and used by people every day.
That oil and natural gas industry employed more than a million people and its exports were the biggest contributor to the county's international balance of payments. People working in the industry were proud that their operations were among the most technically advanced and environmentally responsible in the world.
Then a report written by a scientific advisory group called the International Panel on Climate Change was published, stating that the earth was warming and carbon-dioxide emissions from burning 'fossil fuels' were the likely cause. And so it came to be that lowering emissions of the very substance that plants need to breath in the same way as animals need oxygen, and that provides the fizz in soda drinks and the bubbles in champagne, became the world's most important environmental priority.
Suddenly, after fueling the world's progress for centuries, oil, natural gas and coal became environmental pariahs. Eco-elves flew in from far and wide to proclaim Canada's oil and gas industry a major contributor to global warming. But in the real world, the industry contributed just a small part of Canada's emissions, and Canada's emissions were only two per cent of global emissions.
Nations of the world gathered together in the magical Kingdom of Japan and promised they would reduce the use of fossil fuels. But a decade later, fossil-fuel emissions had gone up, not down. So, world leaders gathered in the French Fifth Republic to once again pledge reduction of fossil fuels. But even as world leaders announced this pledge, three dozen countries, including two with more than a third of the people in the world, continued to build hundreds of new coal-fired power plants. Coal was already the biggest source of carbon dioxide and those new plants would raise coal emissions by another 40 per cent.
That meant that, even if Canada were to disappear into stardust, its tiny share of global emissions would be replaced in a matter of months. Amazingly, these realities mattered
not to Canada's starry-eyed prime minister, who vowed that his little northern country would set an example to the world.
His paladins imposed special taxes on the users of fossil fuel, creating hardship for the people while also weakening the dominion's competitive position with its largest trading partner. The prime minister journeyed to the main oil and gas producing province,hoping to use his imagined charisma to convince workers worried about losing their jobs that 'phasing-out' their industry was necessary to stop global warming.
People asked the prime minister what was to replace all that fossil fuel energy?
He proclaimed that it would be 'green energy' generated by the wind and the sun. But the people knew that the wind only blew some of the time. And that, in this northern land with little sunlight during short winter days and none on long cold nights when energy is needed most, solar was useless. And the government had not learned from experience in a province called Ontario, where billions of dollars spent on green energy had yielded only small amounts of very expensive and unreliable power that needed back-up fossil-fuel power plants to prevent black-outs.
The folly of relying on green energy was undeniable, but, alas, neither the eco-elves nor the prime minister took heed. Neither did they face the truth that trying to force down Canada's already tiny global emissions would hamstring the country's most important industry only to have its fossil-fuel production, and emissions, replaced by production from other countries.
The prime minister and his paladins remained convinced their green dream would come true, if only they believed. So, this fairy tale of doing good for the world became a nightmare for this small northern dominion. Sadly, the rest of the world didn't even care.

****The End***** (coming soon)



Gwyn Morgan is the retired founding CEO of Encana Corp.

[sawfly1]

I am no expert on any of this
But the US can do what it dam well
Pleases, have they ever done anything different.?
Softwood ,tarrifs steel aluminum, farm subsidies.
If it is in their interest, they might do it.

Time for us to get off our ass and get the oil a port in
This country and avoid the middle man in Texas.anyway.
The US has enough of their own oil for now anyway.
Stop the whining,
Whether Trudeau wants it or not , what difference does it
make?

[burnt]

I am no expert on any of this
But the US can do what it dam well
Pleases, have they ever done anything different.?
Softwood ,tarrifs steel aluminum, farm subsidies.
If it is in their interest, they might do it.

Time for us to get off our ass and get the oil a port in
This country and avoid the middle man in Texas.anyway.
The US has enough of their own oil for now anyway.
Stop the whining,
Whether Trudeau wants it or not , what difference does it
make?

I concur.

If only it was really that simple.