Canada making mistake?

[maryjane48]

OTTAWA — A comprehensive measure of Canada's national wealth shows it has been stagnant for decades and is too heavily dependent on housing and oil and gas, says a groundbreaking national report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

This week's federal government approval of two expanded oil export pipelines simply drives home the "imperative'' that Canada use its fossil fuel wealth to diversify the economy, IISD president Scott Vaughan said Thursday.
-Advertisement-

"What we're saying is this is a roller-coaster; we know it's a roller-coaster,'' Vaughan said at a news conference in Ottawa.

"What goes up tomorrow will come down again. If you're looking at what are the long-term trajectories to build Canada's wealth, we're saying we need to move on this (low-carbon) transition now.''

With the global community committed to a low-carbon future, the comprehensive wealth report highlights the vulnerability of the country's dependence on fossil fuels driving GDP.

"Unless Canada makes those investments in the human capital to make that bridge, we're going to be left behind — and then this imbalance we've seen will only increase,'' said Vaughan.



http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/12/02 ... 73588.html


i will say it now , i told you so

[fluffy]

i will say it now , i told you so

Told us what exactly? Somehow I don't think you're getting the whole meaning of that article.

[maryjane48]

in what way ? the article clearly states canada should be investing in the growing sectors which oil and gas is not . in particular in us the people of canada wanting and willing to work with retraining and creating opportunities for green renewable manufacturing to replace gas and oil work .



whats your take away from the article?

[fluffy]

Mr. Cheadle's Canadian Press article which you quoted in part in your opening post and which has appeared in a few Canadian news sources seems to carry a veiled condemnation of the recent pipeline decisions. I think he has cherry-picked the actual report to support an agenda that the report itself does not support. The report referred to, "Comprehensive Wealth in Canada, Measuring What Matters in the Long Run" is close to two hundred pages long and some pretty heavy reading, but the highlights can be seen here:

https://www.iisd.org/sites/default/files/publications/comprehensive-wealth-highlights-en.pdf

The report does in fact, deal more with issues of imbalance in Canadian society/economy, and the need for a way of seeing our economic performance in terms other than GDP, a measurement which sees only the bottom line monetary value of goods and services produced. It recognizes the need to look at a number of components as significant contributors to the overall conditions facing Canadians. "Comprehensive Wealth" includes traditional aspects of produced and financial capital, but goes on to include natural capital, human capital, and social capital. It also addresses imbalances between those various forms of capital within our system, and while it does identify a current over-reliance on the housing and oil & gas industries, it doesn't condemn those industries as much as identify the need for growth in other areas. The report does go so far as to recognize the blessing that our wealth in natural resources is, and its importance in helping carry us forward into a future where the world's dependence on the burning of fossil fuels is drastically reduced. It also addresses a need to fend off inequities in income distribution to forestall as best we can increasingly similar problems to those which the US is seeing.

In my mind our current government is moving along towards the direction suggested by this report, industrial diversification and the diminishing market for combustible fossil fuel products. They also recognize that in order to acheive these goals in the long term, short term remedies for a sluggish economy are of paramount importance, to be specific this means returning a measure of vitality to our oil & gas industry by opening up new markets ASAP.

[The Green Barbarian]

the people of canada wanting and willing to work with retraining and creating opportunities for green renewable manufacturing to replace gas and oil work .

If the article supports converting Canada into a nuclear super-power with hydro-electricity as a secondary source of energy, then I can see a plausible argument here. Calling wind and solar "green renewable" is a lie, and pursuing any kind of switch-over to either of these two failed sources of energy would be a loser game. I like the term "low carbon" as long as that "low carbon" means nuclear or hydro-electric power. Anything else is just stupid and evil and will result in our economy heading straight into the toilet.

[maryjane48]

In my mind our current government is moving along towards the direction suggested by this report, industrial diversification and the diminishing market for combustible fossil fuel products. They also recognize that in order to achieve these goals in the long term, short term remedies for a sluggish economy are of paramount importance, to be specific this means returning a measure of vitality to our oil & gas industry by opening up new markets ASAP.

ok but what about bc forestry industry? its renewable, trees grow, has the ability to put more folks to work and working a forest responsibly can take carbon out of the air because your helping to improve conditions for the forest to grow .


now i cant say you personally because i do not know , but where was the rally cry for these workers to spared jobs? 70 mills shutdown , and in fact most of the right was cheering when campbell and now clark were eliminating those jobs in bc ?


now its all of a sudden oh the poor oil patch workers woe is them , but forestry workers not so much?

again fluffy this isnt directed at you but feel free to answer if so inclined

[Rwede]

Campbell and Clark eliminated forestry jobs?

That's weird, I don't remember when either of them ran forestry companies.

[maryjane48]

Campbell and Clark eliminated forestry jobs?

That's weird, I don't remember when either of them ran forestry companies.

lol i see so if we imply your logic to adrian dix , he wouldn't have been eliminating jobs when saying no to pipelines because he never owned a pipeline company? wow lol that's some fancy logic you work with

[fluffy]

ok but what about bc forestry industry? its renewable, trees grow, has the ability to put more folks to work and working a forest responsibly can take carbon out of the air because your helping to improve conditions for the forest to grow .

I don't think mill closures were a result of any government policy as such, it's more an issue with collapse of global markets that have yet to recover from the effects of the 2008 economic meltdown, coupled with the current economic blow from the opil price crash. Canada's domestic demand for lumber is a fraction of what used to be produced for exports.

Reforestation is an on going project in BC, 2015 saw a quarter of a billion trees planted and the same figure was forecasted for 2016. This is largely done to replace harvested trees to keep the supply at a sustainable level but truthfully I can't tell you how close they are to any manner of equilibrium between trees cut and trees planted. I know when you fly over the province you see a lot of scars that do not appear to be supporting any new growth. I wonder what the carbon dioxide consumption is for a coniferous forest and how much of an impact increasing forested area would have ?

[maryjane48]

i never said the govt closed them down , my point was why the rally call to save oil and gas jobs , which are important , but silence on saving the forestry jobs from the right? mills asked to get govt money to stay afloat campbell said no and the right cheered . they didn't care , now they all of sudden care ? around 70 mills poof and some of the policy did affect them as in selling more raw logs , again the right said they make to much money , but far as i can tell the oil patch workers make way more .


its just a observation , but i think valid in the sense of maybe the right can only get behind a cause for workers if they think they are sticking it to someone in the process

[fluffy]

...my point was why the rally call to save oil and gas job...

It's not so much the jobs as the industry as a whole. The pipelines will allows access to markets that are ready and waiting, while markets for foresty products are dwindling. It hardly makes sense to prop up an industry that doesn't have decent prospects of showing a return. Don't get me wrong, forestry does have it's bright spots. Huge advances are being made in value added products, our very own Structurlam has become a world class operation, but the numbers just aren't there for forestry as they are for oil and gas.

It sounds odd to be sure, but at this point the more effort we put into our oil & gas industry, the quicker we can cut our ties with it.

[w84u2]

Over the past 40 years, some of Canada’s smaller, older refineries have closed. Other refineries have been modernized to increase efficiencies, expand production capacity and compete in a highly competitive continental and global marketplace for refined products. The result is that we currently have enough refinery capacity to meet domestic needs and have some left over for export to other countries.

[fluffy]

Good point. Why we aren't pushing the Energy East pipeline harder is beyond me. It seems like a no brainer.

[w84u2]

If there is this much hassle to cross a couple of native band lands in just one Province, imagine the huge number of objections across the country. Doesn't it make more sense to make the shortest trip to the boat?

[fluffy]

If there is this much hassle to cross a couple of native band lands in just one Province, imagine the huge number of objections across the country. Doesn't it make more sense to make the shortest trip to the boat?

Most of the pipe for Energy East is already in place, it's just a matter of reversing the flow direction.