Alberta

[Pappywinkle]

The UCP has been absolutely disastrous for Albertan families.

Most Albertans can hardly wait for the next election.

Alberta NDP continues to lead UCP in voter support

The Alberta NDP led by Rachel Notley continues to lead the ruling UCP led by Premier Jason Kenney in popularity among voters, according to polling data released Thursday by Angus Reid.

The poll suggests roughly two-in-five Albertans, or 42 per cent, would vote for the NDP compared to roughly three-in-10, or 31 per cent for the UCP.

The Wildrose Independence Party has 16 per cent support, followed by the Alberta Party at eight per cent and the Liberals at one per cent.

The NDP have led the UCP in terms of voter intention since March 2021, according to the Angus Reid poll done every three months, and the gap has remained somewhat steady since June 2021.

More ...

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/alberta-ndp- ... -1.5748115

And rightly so!!

[captkirkcanada]

solar to cool ice, i like it


https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/town-south- ... -1.5754011

A newly completed solar installation in Calmar, Alta., is ready to power the local arena.

Almost 11,000 square-feet of solar panels are now on the roof of the Mike Karbonik Arena in the town of 2,000 southwest of Edmonton. The 464 panels are expected to generate 165 megawatt-hours per year, about 98 per cent of the arena’s energy consumption, town officials say.

"Overall, we're anticipating at current electricity rates we'll be seeing a savings of about $5,000 a year. And we only expect that to go up as power goes up in price," councillor and deputy mayor Krista Gardner told CTV news Edmonton.

Calmar is in a partnership to provide recreational services to Leduc County residents as well. As such, the arena is one of the town's largest energy expenditures. Council expects to save $30,000 a year for the panels' lifespan of 25 years.

"The arena is a really important place in our community, and so to be able to make it more cost effective to run and more environmentally conscious is really just a win-win for us here," Gardner said.

[captkirkcanada]

Alberta’s annual solar showcase will return next month with its biggest audience yet.

The 2022 Solar Alberta Solar Show opens Feb. 7. The online conference features five days of free and paid talks on renewable power and net-zero homes.

About a thousand people had registered for the event as of Jan. 18, said Heather MacKenzie of Solar Alberta.

“We’re not starting for another three weeks almost, and we already have more registrations than any other year,” she said.

“It’s probably going to be our biggest show yet.”

https://www.stalberttoday.ca/local-news ... ns-4982347

let the sun shine

[captkirkcanada]

2 charts explain how covid is attacking babies in alberta and how many .

covbb1.png

covbb2.png

remember these are babies

[captkirkcanada]

The sign in front of the First Baptist Church Calgary on Fourth Street S.W. reads ‘Everyone Welcome,’ but a recent memo sent out to church members outlines future plans to deny membership for those identifying with the LGBTQ2S+ community.

According to the letter sent by Pastor Norm Derkson, the church is thankful for its long-time partnership with the Canadian Baptists of Western Canada (CBWC), but disagrees with other churches that are accepting of those with non-heterosexual lifestyles because it goes against their interpretation of scripture beliefs.

The CBWC has voted on a solid position with this matter, affirming and reaffirming a biblical view of marriage and sexuality, and yet these churches have been allowed to continue with practices that are contrary to our collectively stated convictions," the letter reads.

He says the goal is "to provide a procedure for addressing churches 'acting in ways contrary to our assembly ratified positions; one that both provides for hopeful restoration, as well as necessary removal from fellowship in cases where there is no repentance'."

A member of the First Baptist Church Calgary who does not wish to be identified confirmed to CTV News that the church board and members of its congregation voted in favour of recommending the motion at a meeting on Jan. 30.

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/calgary-bapt ... -1.5767010


my take is at least they are being honest and open about being bigots. thats progress isnt it?

[captkirkcanada]

Five environmental groups file statement of claim in defamation suit against Alberta premier

Over a two-year period, the ENGOs said in a news release, “groups and individuals were named publicly and targeted on social media, causing some individuals to receive death threats.”

After giving Jason Kenney more than two months to apologize for or retract his claims they spread false information about Alberta’s fossil fuel industry, five environmental groups followed through this week on their threat to sue Alberta’s premier and the provincial government for defamation.

“Our goals are to seek an apology and retraction of the untrue statements made by the Alberta government and Mr. Kenney about our organizations, which undermine our ability to educate Canadians about the risks and solutions to the climate crisis,” Environmental Defence Canada executive director Tim Gray said today.

“All we asked for was a correction and an apology, but Premier Kenney refuses to retract the false statements he made and apologize for lying about the results of the Alberta Inquiry,” Gray said.

The plaintiffs are the Dogwood Initiative, Environmental Defence Canada, Greenpeace Canada, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Sierra Club Canada Foundation, Sierra Club of British Columbia Foundation, West Coast Environmental Law and Research Foundation, and the Western Canada Wilderness Committee.

should make life interesting for jason

[fluffy]

Extractive Populism and the Future of Canada

"It is worth reminding ourselves how bitterly the fossil fuel industry and Alberta resisted the National Energy Program in the 1980s, a very mild form of nationalization that was promoted at the time as delivering “Canadian oil for Canadians.” While the oil and gas sectors fiercely opposed this “real” nationalization as a threat to corporate profit and private sector–led development, they gradually realized that symbolic forms of nationalization were extremely useful in legitimating the tar sands for publics outside of Alberta.

Consequently, over the last two decades Canadians have been subject to a flood of advertising and public relations, think-tank reports, speeches from politicians and corporate executives, sympathetic news coverage and, most recently, social media campaigns that consistently portray the oil and gas sector as if it had been nationalized, was a public enterprise designed
to serve the common good, and that its primary purpose was the provision of jobs and tax revenue and energy security for all Canadians."

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites ... %20WEB.pdf

(Scroll down to page 13 for the article quoted)

Don't for a second think that with the amount of money at stake in Alberta's oil & gas industry that there aren't measures being taken to manipulate public opinion, to paint the industry as a champion of the working man. Kenney's amateurish attempts to aid in these efforts are notthing compared to the sophistication of the real program.

[captkirkcanada]

Extractive Populism and the Future of Canada

"It is worth reminding ourselves how bitterly the fossil fuel industry and Alberta resisted the National Energy Program in the 1980s, a very mild form of nationalization that was promoted at the time as delivering “Canadian oil for Canadians.” While the oil and gas sectors fiercely opposed this “real” nationalization as a threat to corporate profit and private sector–led development, they gradually realized that symbolic forms of nationalization were extremely useful in legitimating the tar sands for publics outside of Alberta.

Consequently, over the last two decades Canadians have been subject to a flood of advertising and public relations, think-tank reports, speeches from politicians and corporate executives, sympathetic news coverage and, most recently, social media campaigns that consistently portray the oil and gas sector as if it had been nationalized, was a public enterprise designed
to serve the common good, and that its primary purpose was the provision of jobs and tax revenue and energy security for all Canadians."

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites ... %20WEB.pdf

(Scroll down to page 13 for the article quoted)

Don't for a second think that with the amount of money at stake in Alberta's oil & gas industry that there aren't measures being taken to manipulate public opinion, to paint the industry as a champion of the working man. Kenney's amateurish attempts to aid in these efforts are notthing compared to the sophistication of the real program.

they half to start somewhere and the premier is a good start considering he is big buddies with american right who bath themselves in oil

[fluffy]

Workers Won't Benefit from Oil Boom as Executives Prioritize Dividends, Existing Projects: Analyst

“Rather than investing in new oil extraction projects, companies are paying out more profits to shareholders and trying to squeeze more oil out of their existing projects."

https://www.readthemaple.com/workers-wo ... dividends/

You're not going to get an accurate picture of how Albertans are doing by measuring how well the employers are doing.

[The Green Barbarian]

Don't for a second think that with the amount of money at stake in Alberta's oil & gas industry that there aren't measures being taken to manipulate public opinion,

I am not going to think that, given you've just provided an excellent example of an attempt to manipulate public opinion, and in an extremely dishonest way. The National Energy Program was terrible for Alberta and for Canada. Revising history now just reeks of desperation, to sell a terrible narrative.

[The Green Barbarian]

Workers Won't Benefit from Oil Boom as Executives Prioritize Dividends, Existing Projects: Analyst

LOL - this is 100% total nonsense. Of course, the source is the CCPA, what else is new. What this bozo who is probably in Toronto is going against everything that everyone else is saying in the oil and gas industry right now. There definitely is going to be a prioritization of existing projects, but so what - to say that this is so evil scheme to screw over workers is just so beyond insane it's not even worth discussing. What I can't believe is that anyone puts any stock in the manipulative lying garbage the CCPA pumps out. There is no commitment to truth, only to pushing a terrible agenda of lies and total nonsense.

[Pappywinkle]

Workers Won't Benefit from Oil Boom as Executives Prioritize Dividends, Existing Projects: Analyst

“Rather than investing in new oil extraction projects, companies are paying out more profits to shareholders and trying to squeeze more oil out of their existing projects."

https://www.readthemaple.com/workers-wo ... dividends/

You're not going to get an accurate picture of how Albertans are doing by measuring how well the employers are doing.

This is 100% totally accurate.

[fluffy]

This is 100% totally accurate.

I worked in the Alberta oilsands from 2013 through to June of 2021, I watched it happen. The oil price crash in 2014/15 changed the entire landscape there. New projects that were still on the drawing board and some that had even seen a start in construction were shelved. Projects like Suncor's Fort Hills were deemed too far along to stop were completed but still struggle to some degree as construction was budgeted on a oil price of $80/barrel or higher. The focus since then has been on increased efficiency through automation. The loss of new construction projects and lower requirements for operational staff have hugely reduced the number of workers needed. Steady downward pressure on wages has also been a factor, union operators are being replaced with non-union operators at lower wages and less benefits. Sure, the producers are showing a rosy bottom line and the dividends are flowing, but there aren't as many jobs as there were a few years ago, and those that are left are paying less.

[The Green Barbarian]

Sure, the producers are showing a rosy bottom line and the dividends are flowing,

What's actually happening, not like the CCPA would know or care or bother to get out of their union-funded ivory tower to find out, is that bank debt is being paid down, after years of these companies just barely staying afloat. To focus on only on hyperbolic silliness with statements like "the dividends are flowing" is dishonest and disingenuous, two specialties of the union-funded liars at the CCPA.

but there aren't as many jobs as there were a few years ago, and those that are left are paying less.

And as anyone with a brain who has been watching the oil and gas industry has been saying, the industry is still in stabilization mode right now. Next phase is growth. To just suddenly start babbling about how "jobs aren't coming back" like the prevaricating fools at the CCPA are doing is just so wrong, selling a diseased and horribly flawed agenda. Just so awful.

[Pappywinkle]

I worked in the Alberta oilsands from 2013 through to June of 2021, I watched it happen. The oil price crash in 2014/15 changed the entire landscape there. New projects that were still on the drawing board and some that had even seen a start in construction were shelved. Projects like Suncor's Fort Hills were deemed too far along to stop were completed but still struggle to some degree as construction was budgeted on a oil price of $80/barrel or higher. The focus since then has been on increased efficiency through automation. The loss of new construction projects and lower requirements for operational staff have hugely reduced the number of workers needed. Steady downward pressure on wages has also been a factor, union operators are being replaced with non-union operators at lower wages and less benefits. Sure, the producers are showing a rosy bottom line and the dividends are flowing, but there aren't as many jobs as there were a few years ago, and those that are left are paying less.

Sadly there are many far too hyper-partisan to ever say anything negative about the oilsands industry.