BC Election issues

[Urbane]

^^ Disaster? When there's economic disaster the party in power doesn't win four elections in a row.

[maryjane48]

^^ Disaster? When there's economic disaster the party in power doesn't win four elections in a row.

people have woken up . harper got turfed and now his mini me clark will be gone also .

[lasnomadas]

My last comment seems to have got lost in cyberspace. I just wanted to reply to Merry's question about pipelines. If you mean, am I against all diluted bitumen pipelines, then the answer is "Yes". However, if you are referring to conventional oil pipelines, then the answer is "No".

If the multinational oil companies in Alberta can't make a profit drilling for oil the conventional way, then they should pack up and move somewhere else, or better still, start using some of those abandoned wells for geothermal exploration. Canada is never going to meet its emissions targets if those fools up in the tar sands keep fracking for fossil fuels.

[Merry]

am I against all diluted bitumen pipelines, then the answer is "Yes". However, if you are referring to conventional oil pipelines, then the answer is "No".

As most of Alberta's oil is in the former category, eliminating the oil sands would be a major blow to the Canadian economy.

The industry is one of Canada’s largest employers, with more than 400,000 people deriving direct, indirect and induced employment from the oil sands and supporting sectors.

http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/publications/18756

What do you propose we do with the more than 400,00 Canadians who would become unemployed if we get rid of the oil sands?
What Government services should we cut once we lose the revenue provided both directly, and indirectly, by the oil sands?

The oil and natural gas industry is Canada’s largest private sector investor, with oil sands alone injecting almost $23 billion into the economy in 2015. The oil sands industry and its suppliers contribute to government revenues through corporate taxes, personal income taxes, property taxes, royalties, land sales and other costs.

http://www.canadasoilsands.ca/en/explor ... ntribution

These are serious questions that have to be answered if we are going to do as you appear to suggest, and eliminate oil sands development.

[Merry]

the point is that you have to look at what was going on in the rest of the country and then make a fair comparison.

Yes you do Urbane; I agree with you on this. But when doing so, you have to look at all the factors involved, not just the "cherry picked" few.

While the Liberal spin on that is that the NDP took the shine off what should have been a decade of stellar growth, there were other factors at play then just as there are now. The forest industry in B.C. was continuing a decline that began a decade earlier. Commodity prices were down and the economies with which we are being compared were booming.

http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/opini ... story.html

[fluffy]

Canada is never going to meet its emissions targets if those fools up in the tar sands keep fracking for fossil fuels.

Fracking in the tarsands? Please elaborate.

[Jflem1983]

My last comment seems to have got lost in cyberspace. I just wanted to reply to Merry's question about pipelines. If you mean, am I against all diluted bitumen pipelines, then the answer is "Yes". However, if you are referring to conventional oil pipelines, then the answer is "No".

If the multinational oil companies in Alberta can't make a profit drilling for oil the conventional way, then they should pack up and move somewhere else, or better still, start using some of those abandoned wells for geothermal exploration. Canada is never going to meet its emissions targets if those fools up in the tar sands keep fracking for fossil fuels.

Fracking is done in shale . It produces super light oil .
Tar sands are in 3 places in Alberta. Ft Mac. Peace river _athabasca . And cold lake . Cold lake they inject steam into conventional Wells to melt the oil put of the sand and pump heavy oil to surface that way . It is called sagd and was developed in Alberta. Peace river they drill conventional Wells with many legs . Going off in many directions . They run screw pumps and use chemicals to keep the oil pumping . These Wells don't last too long but produce a ton of oilsand. Fort Mac they just scoop it up and haul it to process it . Tar sand is the heaviest oil . Fracking produces the lightest oil . Very different . Now you have a tiny bit of insite as to what people have to do so you can be warm and have your groceries

[The Green Barbarian]

Fracking in the tarsands? Please elaborate.

They won't elaborate. They just put "dirty" words together like "tar sands" and "fracking" and make fear-mongering statements. That's called "eco-lunacy" and we see it in spades in the lunatic fringe of the NDP and what's considered "mainstream" in the Watermelon party.

[Rwede]

"Frack the Tarsands" was a song from The Clash in the 1980s.

Now the king told the boogie men
You have to let that raga drop
The oil down the desert way
Has been shakin' to the top
The Sheik he drove his Cadillac
He went a' cruisin' down the ville
The muezzin was a' standing
On the radiator grille

[Queen K]

Rwede, we didn't know you are so hip.

But here's a reasonable explanation regarding how fracking is assisting with tar sands development, maybe that was what was being referred to. Too generous? But you guys know I'm generous to a fault.

How Fracking is helping Tarsand development

http://www.ecowatch.com/how-fracking-fe ... 31279.html

And yes, EcoWatch, ewwww, I can hear it now. Green Barbarian, please don't put the CR away on May 9th based on one little link, k?

[lasnomadas]

Deflection: the common argument among the tar sands defenders.

However, I'm only going to address Merry's reply to me. To begin with, that link you provided was from 2014. What they expected to happen in 2015 didn't. There are no longer 400,000 workers in the tar sands, due to the cost of producing bitumen and the lack of profits from same. Rachel Notley has been trying her best to get bitumen to tide-water, and has met with serious opposition in all directions, for good reason. She has also given tax incentives to oil companies who invest in alternative energy projects. This is a Premier who is dedicated to bring her province and its people out of debt and into the 21st centurry at the same time.........unlike the Premier of B.C. and the Prime Minister of Canada.

My answer to your question is, the tar sands are no longer the great economic engine it once was, nor will it ever be, so the Alberta government is moving forward with its plan to meet their GHG emissions targets, while at the same time trying to appease the multinational oil corporations. Notley is walking a tight-rope, and I for one hope she doesn't fall.

[fluffy]

Deflection: the common argument among the tar sands defenders.

And obviously not uncommon among those whose tar sands knowledge is deficient. :)

[Rwede]

If we can get our Alberta oil to market, we can have 900,000 excellent jobs for Canadians.

If we elect the NDP, we are saying that we don't want 900,000 excellent jobs for Canadians.

The NDP won't give us 90 jobs, let alone 900,000 jobs, with the absolute garbage they are floating in their election platform. Their plan is to throttle back BC's economy to the 1990s and chase investment to other jurisdictions, as they have always done.

People want jobs, they want excellent jobs. Voting NDP is the single fastest way to ensure that jobs, and especially excellent jobs, won't happen.

[Merry]

lasnomadas - the article you refer to was on the Govt of Canada website, and while there are some graphs contained within it that date back to 2014, the actual article appears to be more up to date than that (note the date modified on the bottom - Date Modified: 2016-07-07)'

The 400,000 number refers to BOTH direct and indirect employment derived from the oil sands, and includes such jobs all across Canada.

I did find another article that was published in 2016, but as this one focuses mainly on the number of direct jobs in the Canadian oil industry I wasn't going to use it, because I think it's important to remember all the spin off jobs that also contribute to our economy (even in Kelowna we have a lot of fly in/fly out oil sands workers who, if they lose their jobs, will have a negative impact on our local economy). However, if we read the article and do the math it does give us a pretty good idea of how many workers are still employed by the oil sands today (my bold):

In 2014, before oil prices collapsed, the sector employed nearly 230,000 people directly. Some 30,000 lost their jobs in 2015, shrinking overall employment to about 200,000 people. Of these, 160,000 lived in Alberta, 10,600 in British Columbia, 12,400 in Saskatchewan and 17,000 in the rest of Canada.

The majority – 89,000 – worked in oil and gas services; 69,000 in exploration and production; 10,000 in pipelines; and nearly 30,000 in oilsands.

With oil prices forecast to rebound in 2017, some re-hiring is expected as investment resumes and to fill positions left vacant by retiring baby boomers, according to the Labour Market Outlook 2016 to 2020 for Canada’s Oil and Gas Industry, funded by the federal government and by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).

In its conservative scenario, oil prices remain below US$60 per barrel until 2020 and the sector hires 46,435 people. In its higher growth scenario, oil prices increase to the US$60–$80 per barrel range by 2020 and net hiring reaches 55,305 jobs.

The group estimates the sector will support an average of 660,825 to 715,250 direct, indirect and induced jobs annually until 2020.

An estimated 100,000 direct and indirect jobs have been lost so far due to the oil price crash, according to CAPP and the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors.

http://business.financialpost.com/news/ ... new-report

So, if we combine the numbers from the second article, and accept the premise that the Govt of Canada website is out of date (which I don't believe it is), that would seem to suggest that there are still 300,000 workers either directly or indirectly employed doing work related to the oilsands.

Therefore, if we eliminated the oil sands tomorrow, we would have 300,000 displaced workers to deal with, and millions of dollars of lost revenue going to the various levels of Government. What plan do you have (or know of) to deal with such a scenario? Which Government services do you think should be cut? What kind of help (if any) should be given to the displaced workers? How should we deal with the inevitable fallout, such as a potential housing crash, in places like Kelowna where a lot of those workers live?

I'm not trying to give you a hard time here lasnomadas, merely pointing out that if the Government were to do what you are advocating for there would be serious consequences for our national economy. Consequences that would have to be planned for ahead of time, and dealt with. So it's not reasonable to have a discussion about one thing (elimination of the oil sands) without at the same time having a discussion about the other (consequences and how to deal with them).

[The Green Barbarian]

I'm not trying to give you a hard time here lasnomadas, merely pointing out that if the Government were to do what you are advocating for there would be serious consequences for our national economy. .

Merry - the Watermelons don't care what happens to the economy. These are zealots, who would gladly see the entire economy burn to the ground, in the name of their religion. They can't do basic math, or deliberately avoid doing math, as they know that the numbers don't work. They never work. So it's better to just live in denial.