Topic
Selling bitumen fast, while it's still hot, is the prime minister's myopic motivation.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper: Bitumen as slush fund for a right-wing revolution.
Recklessly blind to ruthless aims of China's state-owned firms, PM treats them as any free market investors.
"I don't think Canadians want us to sell out important Canadian values -- our belief in democracy, freedom, human rights. They don't want us to sell that out to the almighty dollar.'' -- Stephen Harper talking about relations with China in 2006
Just a couple of weeks ago the Wall Street Journal inadvertently explained Prime Minister Stephen Harper's extreme bitumen jingoism, the dismantling of domestic environmental legislation as well as Ottawa's promiscuous overtures to Communist China's authoritarian capitalists, including the perfunctory approval of CNOOC's takeover of Calgary-based Nexen.
In language that no petro politician would use, the Journal boldly announced the obvious: Canada's bitumen was "suddenly, not a sure thing." Or even a smart one. The boom was over.
(Or as the cliché and debt-ridden Alberta government recently noted in a dreary fiscal report, "uncertainty clouds the global outlook.")
Due to volatile global prices, rising construction costs in the tar sands and massive overproduction (Canada has flooded the U.S. Midwest with bitumen), the Journal reported that oil companies were rethinking their investments in the world's most costly hydrocarbon.
The Journal didn't mention China, but this totalitarian global economic engine is also slowing down while gaining political instability.
In other words tar sand developers, who have always viewed China's reckless growth as a mirror of Fort McMurray's crazy expansion, can now see icebergs on the horizon and are looking for Chinese lifeboats.
Now, the Wall Street Journal wasn't alone in sounding these warnings. Even Paul Boothe, the former deputy minister of the environment who left government six months ago, penned a commentary about Canada's bust and boom bitumen economy for the National Post.
"We can stop listening to those who proclaim the promise of the current boom and ignore the volatility that is part and parcel of staking our future primarily on natural resources. Developing our natural resources in an environmentally and socially sustainable way makes good sense. Betting the farm on them does not," wrote Boothe, an economist.
These musings on bitumen's dimming prospects from a major U.S. business paper and a former deputy minister no less shed light on Harper's abrupt conversion from Chinese critic to Chinese puppet.
They also clarify why the Harper government bluntly ignored public opinion and rubber stamped the CNOOC buy-out of indebted Nexen for three times more than its actual value. CNOOC, by the way, reports to the Communist Party of China. As such the firm has little regard for transparency, human rights or offshore oil spills for that matter.
Bitumen's ailing prospects also explain the government's secretive negotiation of a one-sided investment treaty with China that could make China's highly subsidized and corrupt state owned enterprises the nation's number one foreign investors by 2017.
Harper's disregard for democratic sentiment on these issues (Canadians and Albertans in particular remain opposed to a CNOOC sell-out, let alone the trade deal) ultimately spell one word: desperation. And desperation in a bust and boom petro state, as any North African can tell you, is not a pretty thing.
Everything must go
Economic desperation, for one, also explains why the prime minister has seemingly abandoned his own conscience on China. Several years ago Harper criticized China's human rights record and its totalitarianism. He even refused to attend the Beijing Olympics.
But with bitumen's fortunes falling faster than the NHL's prospects, Harper now proposes to sell the whole Canadian bitumen farm to Chinese state-owned corporations. Why? Well, they have enough almighty yuan to keep the overheated engine going.
Harper's singular desperation has thoroughly infected every government department. The country's new foreign policy document, drafted by Foreign Affairs Department, a new branch plant for Big Oil, not only calls for more trade with China (which consumes half the world's coal and one-fifth of its oil), but the abandonment of ethics at home or abroad in the name of the almighty dollar.
"To succeed we will need to pursue political relationships in tandem with economic interests even where political interests or values may not align." It's what Harper and other Orwellian robots smugly call "Responsible Resource Development."
Some damning Wall Street math also elucidates Harper's growing vexation. At production rates of 1.7 million barrels a day, bitumen now accounts for nearly a third of the country's export revenue, nearly one-tenth of its GDP and one-tenth of the nation's climate change emissions for which there is no effective action plan. (It took 40 years and $200 billion, by the way, to create this carbon spewing engine and unhealthy dependency.)
According to rosy growth projections by the Canadian Energy Research Institute, bitumen could (and it's a very big could) generate nearly $500 billion in tax revenue over the next 25 years. The majority of these petro dollars (70 per cent) will flow to Ottawa in the form of corporate taxes.
Without unbridled bitumen expansion now largely funded by China, this sizeable oil loot (now $5 billion a year) would slow to a trickle and thereby deprive Harper of funding for his right-wing revolution.
Bitumen revenue is to Harper what the North Sea oil loot was to Margaret Thatcher, a slush fund to politically restructure the country along libertarian principles. Thatcher, of course, didn't save a penny and Harper won't even discuss where the petro loot is going or why Canada has no sovereign fund.
But there is more dismal math. The Canadian Energy Resource Institute (CERI), an agency partly funded by Ottawa, estimates that bitumen production could increase to three million barrels a day by 2025 based on current project approvals and what's under construction.
But CERI says there will be little bitumen growth without the approval of embattled hazardous liquid pipelines to ferry bitumen to coastal ports either west, south or east.
If built (and there are no more guarantees on Canada's bitumen rollercoaster) Keystone XL, Northern Gateway, Trans Mountain and Line 9 Reversal would propel tar sands production to six million barrels by 2035. That's a three-fold expansion without any public debate, carbon accounting, federal savings plan or risk analysis.
America's dwindling oil appetite
Such cancerous growth would make the tar sands the generator of a fifth of Canada's GDP and more than one-third of the nation's greenhouse gases. It would triple the project's land reclamation liabilities from $20 billion to $60 billion. It would also turn Canada into a bitumen plantation economy of oil, for oil and by oil.
But to Harper's growing consternation there is no real market for this explosive carbon revolution. Canadian oil consumption remains flat while U.S. gasoline consumption has declined five years in a row by nearly a million barrels. Americans not only own fewer cars but drive them less.
New U.S. fuel efficiency standards combined with the Great Economic Stagnation will ensure further declines in oil consumption by one per cent every year. Meanwhile U.S. domestic production has temporarily ballooned thanks to unconventional shale plays in North Dakota and Texas. And the Chinese economy, the world's number one oil consumer, has lost its speed. (Its highly subsidized state-owned oil companies answer to party politics and not to the marketplace.)
As a consequence Harper and the nation's elites have developed nervous ticks and authoritarian visions. Alberta and federal regulators, who have never said no to a bitumen project or even considered the risks of rapid development, now find themselves pushing a Hummer-sized vehicle up a rising slope by slashing environmental laws.
Meanwhile rising oil costs and failing economies are shrinking the pavement bitumen development can navigate. Peak oil is not about running out of oil; it's about running out of dollars to buy a commodity that has increased five fold in price over the last decade.
In such an environment the economics of bitumen looks more fragile by the day. According to Houston-based RSK (UK) Limited it takes just $8 billion to bring on stream a million barrels of conventional oil in the Middle East. But Alberta's tarry bitumen, a tell-tale declaration of peak oil, requires capital investments of $45 billion just to dig the badly degraded junk out of the ground.
It then requires tens of billions more dollars to upgrade the low grade stuff into a marketable refinery product.
A recent NRCAN memo, released by the CBC, suggests that Canada has already begun running out of money in the highly inflated tar sands. The memo notes that in 2001 a company could build a 100,000-barrel-a-day project with $3.3 billion. Today the same enterprise requires a massive capital infusion of $7.3 billion. (Bitumen, a recipe for global bankruptcy, not only requires five times more money than conventional oil but returns less energy than many biofuels.)
Moreover most bitumen mining projects aren't viable without a global oil price higher than $75 a barrel. "Ever-increasing capital and operating costs could make this price insufficient to support oil sands development at forecast levels," adds the memo.
As a consequence the world's largest industrial project, a testament to the vulnerability of bigness, won't be able to support growth to three or four million barrels a day without "at least $100 billion in up-front investment."
Canadians subsidizing China
Such black math explains Harper's grotesque dealings with the Chinese, the farcical approval of the CNOOC/Nexen buyout as well as the systematic gutting of Canada's most significant environmental legislation (from the Fisheries Act to the Navigable Waters Act to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act). Harper's radical environmental surgery amounts to nothing more than an overt subsidy to Chinese state-owned enterprises and other proponents of raw bitumen exports to Asia.
Like many of Chairman Harper's political guard, Alberta Conservative MP Leon Benoit boasts that Canada's economic stability now depends on "faster green lights" for bitumen. Adding value to the resource is a silly notion he told the Vegreville Observer:
"There's already a refinery in China that makes more refined oil than the whole country actually uses and another in India that refines more than all of our refineries put together. It makes more sense to ship it out and refine it elsewhere because we already refine more than we use here."
So here lies Harper's economic dilemma. Tar sands production can't grow to fill proposed pipelines or fund his right-wing revolution unless it attracts more money and the only money available comes from the coffers of the Communist Party of China.
Harper has now banked the future of bitumen expansion on a corrupt state that employs virtual slaves in its factories, jails dissidents, disparages the United States and flouts the rule of law.
Born of Exxon
But Harper's desperation also owes something to his narrow-minded upbringing. His father worked as an accountant for Imperial Oil, an arm of ExxonMobil. It's one of the world's most powerful corporations. It is also one of the largest players in the tar sands. Exxon's big visions also inform Harper. The oil man, whom even the Economist defines as a "bully" with a "habit for secrecy", fantasizes about making Canada a "superpower" with Chinese backing.
Not surprisingly Harper's governing style incorporates many traits of Exxon's distinctive corporate culture. As U.S. journalist Steve Coll documents in Private Empire, Exxon managers are not only secretive but intolerant of compromise. Like Chinese state-owned oil companies they rarely talk to the press. The company does business with unsavory regimes simply because that's where the almighty dollar lies.
Harper's distaste for climate change science may also have an Exxon connection. Exxon campaigned against climate change science for more than decade, knowing full that climate change is as real as New Jersey's rearranged shoreline. (The company even used climate change modeling to plan new Arctic exploration efforts.) Like Harper the company also hates government.
So, the economic math on bitumen adds up to some desperate equations. To save bitumen from a production glut and a global economic reckoning (and that reality check is still coming), the Harper government has sold out Canada, debased democracy and fouled the nation's reputation.
It has allowed CNOOC, a company with one of the lowest transparency rankings in the oil patch, to buy out a Canadian firm with the some of the highest scores. It has gutted environmental legislation so that Chinese state owned enterprises and pipeline companies can build without democratic barriers. It has ignored climate change and energy security for Canadians. It has devoted millions in public funds to bitumen and pipeline lobbying abroad for Big Oil. It has attacked environmental groups and treated First Nations like Tibetans. It has bombed Libya and rattled sabers with Iran to keep oil prices high or high enough to sustain unsustainable bitumen production.
It has neglected all fiscal accountability with oil revenue and used petro dollars to lower taxes knowing that a people who are not taxed will not be represented. It has suppressed public reports and censored scientists. It has avoided democratic debate and accountability. And according to Elections Canada Harper's oil-fueled political party may even be guilty of massive electoral fraud in more than 50 ridings.
So Canada's bitumen Titanic has now left the dock and the chief pilot, an Imperial guy, does not believe in icebergs or lifejackets. However, he has hired a Chinese band as well as some Communist Party engineers to bail water. Everyone except the obsessive captain expects an explosive collision with the bergs of global public opinion, the Canadian electorate, carbon taxes or intemperate oil markets.
And that's generally what economic desperation reaps in a feckless petro state: a voyage of the damned. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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Hakuin
23 weeks ago
A little more development
And who knows, maybe we'll be able to diagnose psychopathy
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0050698
Where ever we find it.
Fiat lux
23 weeks ago
Canada's bitumen Titanic will
Canada's bitumen Titanic will sink with more people than the low intelligence of Harper and his trained seals can comprehend.
There was an article on the front page of the Nov.14 issue of the Edmonton Journal :"Oilsands pollution surprises scientists".
=====================
Quote: " The chemical "legacy" in the lake sediments indicates that oilsands pollution is travelling further than expected.
"The footprint of the deposition is potentially larger than we might have expected" says Derek Muir , a senior Environment Canada scientist, who will present the findings Wednesday at an international technology conference in the US.
A team led by federal scientist Jane Kirk, also of Environment Canada, will report that snow within 50 km, of oilsands operations is contaminated with a long list of "priority pollutants", including a neurotoxin that "bioaccumulates" in food webs"
The report says that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs are building up in lake sediments up to 100 km, from the oilsands.
========================
The list goes on and on, showing that people who work in those disaster areas are breathing in, eating and are constantly exposed to the deadliest poisons that will bring on huge cancer epidemics on the workers and the surrounding areas.
At least their funeral costs will jack up the GDP figures, making any good "economist" very happy.
The long line of "free trade" rackets destroyed the Canadian economy that could have become self sustaining with the available resources and low population, forcing corrupt governments to sell the ground from under people's feet, while killing them with pollution.
But this is the result of fraudulent economics, taught in our universities, relying on imaginary monetary figures distorting realities.
Ed Deak.
Skywalker
23 weeks ago
Treason, thy name is Harper!
Heard today that Harper was talking about setting stricter rules on foreign takeovers. This closing the barn door after the horses have bolted. The fool is at the helm, God help us all!
andsbc
23 weeks ago
forget psychopathy
How about reliably diagnosing idiocy?
Getting oil from bitumin is like drinking beer by sucking on a bar rag.
Low jobs per dollar of investment, pollution on top of pollution and selling off our resources to foreign investors/govts because the whole mess is economically unsustainable, too.
And for what? More disposable plastic widgets for the dollar stores?
Just stop it, already.
Feverish
23 weeks ago
Our sublime subPrime Minister
"I don't think Canadians want us to sell out important Canadian values -- our belief in democracy, freedom, human rights. They don't want us to sell that out to the almighty dollar.'' -- Stephen Harper talking about relations with China in 2006
To this in 2012...
"To succeed we will need to pursue political relationships in tandem with economic interests even where political interests or values may not align." It's what Harper and other Orwellian robots smugly call "Responsible Resource Development."
Including this in the near future...
http://o.canada.com/2012/10/09/ottawa-to-consider-penning-oilsands-caribou-industry-report-favours-giant-fence/
Perhaps the giant fence concept will be expanded to deal with radical environmentalist citizens of BC as the Harper omnibus revs up for its wild ride to the pacific coast. Or maybe they will save the time and money it takes to construct a fence and move straight to the idea presented in the last paragraph of the linked article... "Environment Minister Peter Kent has estimated that thousands of wolves could be shot to keep caribou alive in the oilsands region."
Crazy is as crazy does. Who voted for these lunatics?!
Conductor274
23 weeks ago
Treason
Harper is betraying Canadian values and the values of democracy in favor of China, the largest most suppressive communist government in the world, and the almighty dollar. This fits the definition of treason and he should be brought before the courts to answer that charge. But he won't. And that right there illustrates just how perverted our democracy has become.
Bob Watts
23 weeks ago
Pipeline!!!
The pipeline must now be built!
Canada is changing into a place I no longer want to live in, my daughter is age 17 and will exit Canada in 2 years. She has 20 kids in her high school grad class and 8 of them are leaving Canada, 3 of them have already gone.
Times have changed, Harper said you would not reconized Canada by the time he is finished, I AGREE!!!!
Skywalker
23 weeks ago
Mad as hell!
Today I turn on the CBC only to hear Evan Solomon interview some Harper parrot taking in circles about how this deal is somehow necessary but all others will receive careful scrutiny in the future. Yeah right! You can tell that the people have been primed with talking points and after a few minutes I start wondering just how dumb Canadians are to put up with these clowns.
We will be paying for this treasonous sell-out for decades. The notion that we need to sell away control of our resources to protect other Canadian profiteers investing in countries run by dictators and oppressive regimes is plain idiotic. If you are stupid enough to invest in places that are undemocratic and risks high, why ask me and everyone else to pay more to protect your investment? Why sacrifice our kids futures so these guys have their investment protected? If you don't want to invest in Canada and in Canadians where the profits might be less but less risky and maybe secure, then get the hell out! Go to China and take your money and Harper along with you.
Van Isle
23 weeks ago
The "Tar Sands" developement
The "Tar Sands" developement is completly unsustainable. The money that is being poured into it is staggering. It's all going to collapse. Boom and bust mentality by the oil people. Ask one question; why are we selling our oil to the US cheaper than world prices? Hmmmm....
LionWithEyes
23 weeks ago
My Thoughts,..
From the beginning I've had this sinking feeling that "Chairman Harper" was about to sink us royally. He has! The only thing left to do now is to first impeach the man, then prevent him from holding any political office or position in Canada ever again! The next step is to fix and straighten his utter mess-up, first legally, then politically re centering our dear Canada on the policies that made us champions for excellence worldwide in the first place or at least before Harper. It seems that the legal framework to achieve this outcome is doable, however, requires serious due diligence in quick-time. Impeachment proceedings will also require deep due diligence, while we put our heads together to frame the reason for the impeachment, and then DO IT! Harper must be stopped now before it will take an entire session by another government party just clean up the treachery sown fast into the Canadian Fabric...which is entirely his for the most part,.. and his doings alone,....not ours! Keep in mind that we've been kept out of any decision making processes or procedures during all of his decisions, with little to no debate permitted or considered where it might prevent or slow down his agenda.
Armistice
23 weeks ago
Just an Editing Problem you have
China "flouts" international laws - does not "flaunt" them, which would be the opposite. Flaunt means to show off. Flout means to show contempt for; as in Harper flouts the traditions of Parliament and the Canadian people.
GOOD CATCH, WE'VE FIXED THAT. MANY THANKS -- MODERATOR
Kulshan
23 weeks ago
big debt-to-GDP & First-Past-Post elections nation
What is it with these high debt-to-GDP & First-Past-Post elections, WELFARE/WARFARE type nations ??
Always quick on the trigger to go to war, provide little transparency in Gov't-to-Gov't business deals. Forgo laws for the sake of financial expediency. And favor crony private business deals and tax breaks for buddies.
People actually vote for this abusive crap??
Fritz
23 weeks ago
Another Canada Mining Story
Canadians wonder how could we be dealing with corrupt China?
Conductor274 Harper is betraying Canadian values and the values of democracy in favor of China...
The answer is simple, semantic substitutions:
"Canada also supports security efforts through the Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force (START), also managed by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, which has been working in Guatemala since 2009 and has implemented projects that improve citizen access to security..."
http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/guatemala/development-developpement/start.aspx?lang=eng&view=d
Here's the 'SECURITY' Canada is funding:
Guatemala’s ‘Little School of the Americas’
"GUATEMALA—Since February, forensic anthropologists have turned up over 400 skeletons at a military base in Coban, Guatemala... Regardless of the mass graves at the base, military and police training continues there, supported by countries like the US and Canada...
http://alainet.org/active/59918
“It is a school of assassins. The hidden side is the training of teams of military counterintelligence,” said Ba Tiul, who calls CREOMPAZ “the little School of the Americas.”
Deaf Ear Turned to Local Opposition to Mines in Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4011-deaf-ear-turned-to-local-opposition-to-mines-in-guatemala
"The latest episode in the increasingly violent disputes occurred on Nov. 19, when local residents of Mataquescuintla, a town in the southeastern department or province of Jalapa, set fire to five vehicles
belonging to the Minera San Rafael, a subsidiary of Canada’s Tahoe Resources Inc."
Here are Tahoe's semantics:
http://www.tahoeresourcesinc.com/company-information/
"The Company is dedicated to maximizing shareholder value while working to the highest standards of environmental protection and community engagement."
dorothy
23 weeks ago
Sad to say, yes.
"People actually vote for this abusive crap??"
They do, and there's the rub. People like Phil Hochstein and cohorts, and some supervisors I could mention,who seem to be obsessed with nobody having anything for free. As long as that is achieved, it appears that those folks don't mind Canada being landed in a junk-heap. They figure they can opt out and go elsewhere if the fire in the John blows up too hot. It is only us naive sots that actually have the notion of a homeland in which one settles down, who mind. This is possibly the greatest divide in our electorate, and there is no compromise. Therefore, the job is to get ALL the homesteaders out on election night. Any other pursuit is purposeless, unless we are talking about having the Law and justice deal with people who pass laws and make agreements that are unconstitutional. I do not see how that can pass even for a single day.
OwlRol
23 weeks ago
Grow and compete
Can't stand little Stevie and his cronies, surely some fascist tendencies there, might even be considered evil.
But he and they are a product of our systems, political and electoral, economic (as Ed so well outlines), consumer social and psychological.
Entrepreneurship has an important place, but I'm sick of the neighbour who can't value a relationship unless there is money to be made. Rugged individualism at its worst.
And the notion that rapid growth to outcompete others as essential? So much growth that it becomes "too big to fail". Among others, that's the tar sands scenario these days. No alternative but to keep on getting bigger, faster, harder. If we can't sell here, we've got to export, doesn’t matter if profits don’t get redistributed around the community.
Stock markets dependent on computer algorithms while hedge fund managers earn more by lunch on Jan. 2nd. than most earn all year, no real skills involved and they sure know how to screw up without penalty.
Not enough workers, bring in more, as cheaply as possible. Also develop infrastructure on the cheap and don't forget to pay the head honchos and middlemen much more than the actual workers. Sweep anything out of the way that might obstruct the growth agenda.
But many want those bigger homes, maybe 2nd. or vacation types, and the associated municipal property taxes. Likewise, non-essential 3 car garages, vacation trips, big flat screen TVs, PVRs and such, even while the older stuff still works.
Gotta have the latest stuff and services, the ads tell us we need them. Monthly bills, credit card and household debt, what are those besides addictions? Black Friday and Boxing day week frenzy?
It's sucking in religious groups, some indigenous groups, kids, teens and more, by hook or by crook, you choose. Too bad we can't get ecosystems and other species to "buy in", oh well, they're toast. Got to keep that system going and growing, it can't fail. Government and business ads tell us that and many consumers prefer to believe it. Not as scary as the alternative.
It will fail, just not yet.
OwlRol
23 weeks ago
Political differentiation nonsense
The Chinese government is about as Communist as Exxon Mobil these days. Centralized decision making in both our and their systems, no real major differences. Both push through their own agendas however, including the PR nonsense. Harper just needs to be more covert than Chinese leadership, for now.
Some things like refrigeration and better public transit are practical necessities, but so much else is needless excess.
Most people have never heard or they’ve forgotten that Rolling Stones hit, “You can’t always get what you want... but if you try sometimes, you will find that you get what you need.”
Some people don’t have enough of what they need, while many would spend more on pet excesses than helping others.
Some people are trying to make a difference, but it feels like climbing that hill of Sisyphus, especially when the dominant system tries to roll them back.
With all that in mind, can we really expect anything different from these narrow ideologues currently in power? I would like to see a broad anti-Harper “alliance”, but would that prevent a Cretien on steroids type of administration? Nonetheless, the overall agenda would be somewhat less harsh than this bunch. Surely time for change to blunt the worst of little Stevie’s nasty impulses.
OwlRol
23 weeks ago
Fritz, you are absolutely
Fritz, you are absolutely correct. Just as Brian Mulroney and George Bush Sr. walked out of Barrick Gold headquarters, grinning from ear to ear, while supporting military equipment to the most corrupt regime of the day, Suharto's Indonesia, even while the Briex fiasco was unfolding that bankrupted many Canadian investors, little has changed.
This Harper govt. is doing all it can to prevent litigation in Canada for very nasty violations by Cdn. mining companies throughout Latin America, Africa and other parts of the world.
We can't control the abuses of the people we hired to protect our mining operations, we're not responsible and here's a little election bonus to keep our voluntary regulations going.
Yeah, the government and corporate empty rhetoric keeps getting pumped out, truth mostly minimized by the MSM and unnoticed by much of the overworked and stressed out public.
Not quite the same in Canada YET, but it's coming.
murray
23 weeks ago
Danny Williams said it best.
"Harper's a fraud".
WayneF
23 weeks ago
Breathless!!
Andrew Nikiforuk you have outdone yourself!
This article paints the picture of the "Harper Problem" so very well. Harper envisions a mad legacy, this prosperity he hoped for ushering in the kind of crazy world he grew up in. And he cannot possibly see that it is slipping away - his dogma won't allow it.
As Andrew preaches to the choir here in B.C., I can see Harper supporters get that glazed-over look in their eyes trying to read this. I grew up in that narrow religious dogma, I know those eyes and the deaf ears good sense can fall on.
It remains for all of us to continue pushing for an economy based on a sustainable energy policy. Keep dialogues going with each other, and with the myriad others who see climate change as real and sustainability as our only option.
In the meantime, everyone please join the Council of Canadians in pressing Elections Canada to truly and thoroughly investigate the Robo-Call fraud allegations and reports. I have no doubt their job correctly done will uncover criminal fraud and yield the setting aside of numerous elections results. I have no appetite for 3 more years of Harper's totalitarian "leadership" nor his reckless destruction of Canadian values; that it is done through a government that is a fraud adds salt to the wound.
Fiat lux
23 weeks ago
Harper may not be a fraud,
Harper may not be a fraud, but he was born without conscience, then his low intelligence level miseducated and brainwashed with criminal economic theories.
I wrote many times that his face and expressionless eyes have been giving me the creeps ever since I first saw his picture as one of Manning's lieutenants. His handlers put glasses on him to cover his eyes, showing the same madness, as those of US House leader Boehner's. They could be brothers.
He was bound to go crazy with power in his hands and I'm giving him another year before he's forced out of office.
I don't want to see any violence against him, or his crew of trained seals, because violence never works and mostly backfires. There's too much violence in the world already. Only a string of directorships so we won't have to see that brutal face in our TV news every day.
Ed Deak.
ron wilton
23 weeks ago
The Greater Good
[ADVOCATING VIOLENCE IS NOT ALLOWED IN THIS FORUM. -MODERATOR.]
Fiat lux
23 weeks ago
Don't make martyrs of
Don't make martyrs of bums.
Ed Deak.
andsbc
23 weeks ago
Only right-wingers shoot politicians
Despite any secret desires to see a run on high-powered rifles this xmas, I think we can all agree that that attitude just mirrors Harper's own approach to governance.
Right-wingers do by force because there's no clarity in their convictions. I like to think most left-wingers still believe in education, discussion and debate to get their points across.
When one has a good opinion, one holds out hope that others can be brought to agreement.
Feverish
23 weeks ago
Action
Yes WayneF! - "In the meantime, everyone please join the Council of Canadians in pressing Elections Canada to truly and thoroughly investigate the Robo-Call fraud allegations and reports."
Waiting impatiently for the 2015 to roll into town is not going to stop Harper's steamroll of CDNS or the fracking, steaming, pumping, poisoning, excavating, diverting, selling, thieving, flooding and killing of Canada's resources and ecosystems. Al Capone wasn't sent to jail for his headlining activities, he was convicted for tax evasion. Harper must have exposed a similar vulnerability that we can prey upon.
Perhaps the robo-call scandal is his Achilles's heel, or maybe electoral finance, but there must be something we can focus on. After all, he may be human.
If he can be driven from office, we cannot then assume that all our problems are solved. It is essential that the FPP system is neutered and that corporate donations to political parties and the resulting influence on policies are strangled.
We need a government that is representative of all people and we need an electorate that is active and affective at all levels. Just as the opposition has a shadow cabinet, we need to empower more citizens to monitor and debate local, provincial and federal policy issues and recommend solutions to those that ultimately make the decisions that become laws.
Some of the multi-millions that is given to oil and gas subsidisation would be well spent funding grass-roots democratic mechanisms. Clearly the era of 'government for the people' is long past. (And its not just the conservatives that have destroyed public trust, liberals)
Many more of us need to speak up publicly and work to build a system that is truly more influenced by the people, for the broad interests of ALL Canadian people. Electoral fraud is as good a starting point as anything, IMO.
Robin Mathews wrote an interesting and disturbing piece concerning the contested results in the 2011 federal election in Etobicoke-Centre.
http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-supreme-court-of-canada-drives.html
The clock is about to strike the hour when the tolling of the bells becomes just a part of the cacaphony of revving engines, sirens, tear gas deployment, pepper spray screams and rubber bullet fire. Time to wake the f@*k up... before this unfolding nightmare becomes our reality!!!
Feverish
23 weeks ago
Sorry - Capital C and Capital L
Conservative party and Liberal party, to clarify:
(And its not just the conservatives that have destroyed public trust, liberals)
Jane Barry
23 weeks ago
Nexen
Really, the question here is how it came to be that Canadian's handed Harper the rights to a majority government which today allows this gov to make such profound decisions without scrutiny or due process and outside of historical legalities. This is what a politically apathetic nation gets when the real 'majority' can't be bothered to vote. Time to get off our high horses, stop whinging and start pressuring our federal representatives, particularly Conservatives to act in good faith, man-up and start listening to and attending to their constituents instead of keeping safely lock-stepped with Harper's dictates. Can anyone else smell their fear of standing up to him or stepping out of party line?
Ill be darned
23 weeks ago
Nexen/CNOOC
I'm betting the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline/tanker is the next thing Harper approves - regardless of the recommendations of the environmental review panel. He probably has Chinese tanks at the ready to take out the protesters.
anne cameron
23 weeks ago
thank you Andrew
Harper's majority may well be the result of election fraud... of course, our chances of finding out and proving it are slim-to-none.
I look at photo's of this guy and wonder if maybe all those stories of aliens walking amongst us aren't true...those eyes...that creepy dead-zone expression...
Rolly-polly
23 weeks ago
Harper needs to be investigated
This man has been bribed.
wvdk
23 weeks ago
coalition
The Prime Sinister and his fellow one percenters in Ottawa and Beijing are scnoockering Canadians once again. Unfortunately, he will likely be re-elected if the non-Harper majority remains divided. Nathan Cullen's run-off plan would work. Ultimately we need a Single Transferable Vote. Time to encourage active members of the Liberals and NDP to see the big picture instead of being mesmerized by the spinning gears of their respective political machines.
Feverish
23 weeks ago
FIPA will be the next straw
... and may be the one that breaks our reluctance to protest widely, loudly and publicly as a united Canada.
"I'm betting the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline/tanker is the next thing Harper approves..."
The westerly flow of dilBit (northern gateway/ trans mountain) will be exponentially more significant if FIPA is rammed down our throats, up our arses and into every other orifice.
Then there is CETA and whatever else the subPrime Minister has left drowning in the wake of the omnibus bills.
modernity
23 weeks ago
Wow
Tyee why should you or I have a say in the sale of asset by Canadian shareholders of Nexon and should others have a say in the sale of our assets? The Alberta government’s financial problems have little to do with the price of bitumen, NatGas, Alberta sweet or gas liquids but rather the inability of the people and government of Alberta to live within our means. The article is trying to argue that someone that makes $5 million a year is poor because they spend $6 million a year to be fair to the writer of the article this argument isn’t new and is currently being made by every Canadian province, Canada the US and most EU client states. Most of the over production problems in SE Sack, Fort Mac, North West BC are pipeline issues that if or when as the article states will resolve the problems.
The article than argues we should use Middle East oil because it’s environmentally and more cost effective than oil sand. This type of advice does tend to be given lot but gladly is hardly ever followed other wise it would have taken 30 days for a copy of Tyee to show up at humanities collective caves. As we all know cutting down trees making the trees into boards and boards into house is way more expensive than the cave we are currently sharing with a pack of wolves and a grizzly but only in the winter months. I am not sure why Tyee ignores the problems we already are have in putting billions of $$$ into creepy hands of fundamentalist religious fanatics when we use Middle East oil. I’m pretty sure Armco cares very little about the environment or human rights. But maybe that will be the topic for Tyee in twenty years titled “How we lost modernity for cheap oil” I wonder if they will reflect on this current advice or just jump head long into blaming America for the problem?
The most bizarre argument of all is the Exxon/Esso connection when the article blames Harpers dad wow now that is the kind eugenics theorizing that tended to fall pretty hard on deaf ears for a couple of years anyway. good to see that old progressive left theory making a comeback.
PS, Tyee do you think if or when the current rescission in the US ends that the fact that the Yanks are buying less cars and drive few miles might change?
frank2
23 weeks ago
Wayne F has it right. We must ensure Harper disappears after the
next election. I only hope that the opposition parties are able to define the problem better, and come up with clear strategies, which enable them to get support from those Canadians who voted for Harper but are not part of his "base." So far, I am not reassured, as Mulcair seems to have retreated from his Dutch disease analysis (which, as Nikiforuk makes clear, is exactly what Harper's strategy is - on steroids)
Skywalker
23 weeks ago
Why? Why?
Why? you ask, because it is not the sale of a used truck we are talking about. It is the control or a resource that is owned by the people and by future generations. Two hundred years from now what will the future generations have available if we currently act like supreme idiots and allow the control of a resource to be taken over by a foreign power? Give you head a good shake.
Trees? Trees grow in a hundred years. Does oil grow in a hundred years. WOW is right!
Skywalker
23 weeks ago
frank2
One of the problems for politicians is trying to explain a problem to the electorate that will face the country in the future. Complicated issues are not good to take into an election. You have to be able to get a 30 second sound bite for the average voter. The average voter is not very patient. So a politician will wait until a problem is "upon us" and then there will be all kinds of "solutions" proposed but by then the solution is complicated and here again, trying to explain a complicated solution to the electorate is almost impossible. Now the politician has to propose a solution in 30 seconds. Talk about the price of beer or gas and you have their attention.
Harper is banking on this happening again. We can't let him get away with this. I'm waiting for the time he starts trying to electioneer. He won't be able to hide in Ottawa or Alberta.
lynn
23 weeks ago
"So Canada's bitumen Titanic has now left the dock...."
Andrew Nikiforuk's outstanding piece of journalism, stands in direct contrast to the majority of Canadian 'reporting' that is unfailing lazy in its education of itself on crucial issues...which is probably why most Canadian journalists are unable to determine what is crucial to the interests of Canadians and our sovereignty . Their questions are thus unfailingly simplistic and expected, and because of that the punk at the helm controls the debate with deceptive nonsense that has no bearing on the reality of these dire times or on our constitutional rights as Canadians.
Canadian journalists are shirking their responsibility and duty to inform the public.
What thin gruel they continue to substitute for what should be meals of real informative substance.
Rex Murphy, Mansbridge, and most of rest of the crew... on all networks - hardly a decent hard-hitting question or complex thought among them.
If there was a warning bell rung in network news the other day it was barely audible, as the smirking punk who has ensconced himself in our pilothouse arrogantly continues to steer, indeed tragically veer this country right into the waiting icebergs that Andrew describes in clear, informed, detail here.
Thank you, Mr. Nikiforuk.
Dejavu
23 weeks ago
Harper the Puppet
Really, the question here is how it came to be that Canadian's handed Harper the rights to a majority government which today allows this gov to make such profound decisions without scrutiny or due process and outside of historical legalities."
He was never handed those rights.
Canada has transformed out of some Corporate Endeavours which were not from the People by the People.
Colonial exploits where financed and directed, by extension owned by an oligarchies who had undermined UK since Cromwell.
Our dear Queen and all Predecessors played along and are actual shareholders to what we mistake as a Democracy.
Nobody I know has a legal title to own any land and resources except to occupy and pay Taxes.
The one entity which basically owns it all are not a bunch of nice Canadians who have the illusion to enjoy freedom and liberty.
No the entity is called "The Crown"!
The "Crown" has as much to do with what you and me associate with the word "Crown" (a collectively owned property by the legal populace of a Country under the Stewardship of a benevolent legal duly elected Government) but is as federal; as the "FED" in the USA.
The Crown is an Corporation with major shareholder and you are likely not one of them.
The Royal House, I am told, hold shares, so do the intertwined Banking families and certain Elites.
Time has come for them to put this piece of global asset on the table to poker away for opportune things you and me will pay and likely die for.
It does not need any conspirity theory the victims of this increasingly faster going Russian roulette can't be buried fast enough.
Fiat lux
23 weeks ago
The Conservative Party is a
The Conservative Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the big business corporate mafia.
They can't afford to let the party go into the dumps as the PC Party went under Mulroney, who got his first directorship as a reward for his free trade rackets, as he was moving out of the PMs residence.
When the Party's numbers go to hell, the owners of it will get rid of Harper very fast while rewarding him with a whole string of directorships.
Ed Deak.
RickW
23 weeks ago
modernity
The US recession doesn't have a hope of ending until it's economy can create 50 million jobs paying $50/hr. It's that simple.
RickW
23 weeks ago
Jane Barry
You've come very close to the reality that:
A) Canada's government is a virtual dictatorship under a majority;
B) Harper knew and knows this and is willing to push this reality to the max;
C) He has 4 if not 5, years knowing all the while that Canadians will rail and bluster against his agenda - but will do nothing more than that because not enough of us are willing to break the law to get our point across.
Fiat lux
23 weeks ago
The owners of the party have
The owners of the party have a plan to let Harper go crazy for the first 2 years and sell Canada off, then to get rid of him and get somebody popular to keep the party alive as people forget the damage caused.
Harper will be out sometime within the next year, with a leadership convention in the Spring, or summer, of '04.
Those crooks are professionals and Harper, in spite of appearances, is their brainwashed puppet, as he has been since his student days in Calgary.
Ed Deak.
judisomm
23 weeks ago
oil sands and China
Given Harper's comments about the Nexxan deal, where does this leave FIPA that was supposed to have been signed weeks ago? The Enbridge Pipeline? Is he desperate enough to push it through or are his usual Albertan supporters upset enough with him to put the brakes on it? This along with the F-35 bungling cannot make them happy...
Feverish
23 weeks ago
So then Ed...
can we not throw a wrench into the plan by disposing of Steve-O before the appointed time? You mention this scenario and time-frame frequently. Care to elaborate?
I have a nothing but feelings of foreboding when I think of this guy getting more time to insert the rest of his dirty fingers into the pie, particularly if it is all according to a prescription for further manipulation.
Fiat lux
23 weeks ago
As I wrote many times before,
As I wrote many times before, I'm against any form of violence. I have seen too much of it in my life and it never solves, only makes things worse.
This is all going according to the plans of a sinister, international group, and Harper will be retired by them when his usefulness is over, even he doesn't realize himself what is going on behind the scenes.
Directorships with big monies are waiting for him. Unfortunately, before that he can do a lot of damage and the only people who can stop him are some members of his caucus who still may have some decency left.
Don't look for anything in his cabinet, They all look like escapees from some mental institution.
Ed Deak.
Feverish
23 weeks ago
Disposal by peaceful means Ed
I have absolutely no desire to see violence used either. It must be a process using legal, democratic means to have him removed from office. My query is about this time-frame and certainty you cite regarding his removal.
What is the reason you believe this scenario to be true?
Cheers,
David
Feverish
23 weeks ago
Countering the culture of deceit
There seems to be a public/ political push-back taken from the playbook of Harper himself. A multi-faceted attack on the 'Harper government' and it's hollow policies.
When one expends energy to attack on all fronts, resources are spread thin. When your front lines are thin, you become vulnerable as opposition mobilises. Where I was feeling overwhelmed and increasingly fearful, I now see that CDNS are fighting back with passion!
Exposure of the F-35 fraud seems to have caused a change in direction.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/12/06/poli-f35-pmo-government-fighter-jets.html
Tomorrow, evidence supporting the "robo-call" scandal will be heard in federal court.
http://www.canadians.org/election/index.html
FIPA has been temporarily halted and has galvinised opposition to Harper's vision of the future of Canada.
And then we have Elizabeth May, Nathan Cullen, Maude Barlow, SumOfUs, LeadNow and Hundreds of thousands of Canadians that are in active opposition to the psycho on Sussex Drive.
Many sense a crack in the damn wall of silence and an impending misstep in the choreography of the Conservative government of Canada. By throwing ourselves at them passionately and honestly on all fronts, we are making progress against this abomination. Vive le resistance!!!
Feverish
23 weeks ago
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice
Watch the video on the homepage - all 25 minutes: Is the TPP agreement a 'corporate coup d'etat'? The content is profoundly disturbing.
The private tribunals that decide these law suits represent all three horns of satan himself! (now with 50% more evil than the satan of the new testament)
These 'negotiators' must have been promised front row seats in the NWO. These 'trade deals' defy logic and are void of even basic levels of compassion for any living thing.
Fiat lux
23 weeks ago
The history of nations and
The history of nations and societies has always been controlled by ruling sectors, who have used religions, and now ideologies, to enslave people with.
Here we come again: "Wealth can not be created only taken from others, the environment or future generations"
This is a simple physical law we all learn in highschool.
The purpose of mental and physical enslavement has always been "wealth creation", in reality "wealth taking" by rulers.
Past enslavement has always been restricted to certain areas and this is why the criminals have taken control of the universities to brainwash students and the public with the frauds of globalization, deregulated money creation from the air, the free movement of capital, the free trade rackets etc. all parts of the plan to legalize and sell world take over to the sucker public.
Basically the same as the communist manifesto and planned world rule, albeit with the imagined power of imaginary capital.
Now they have compliant governments all over the world, advised by the priesthood of "economists", apart from some other religious maniacs in some parts, who are hoping to do the same with "faith".
They took control of the world resources with the perceived power of imaginary capital, and are ready to insititute world dictatorial control under the guise of "free enterprise", "competitiveness", "democratic freedoms", all similar crap to those sold under the communist "people's republics".
Harper doesn't have the intelligence to comprehend the consequences of his actions, and what he has, has been eliminated with "faith" and miseducation. Therefore he's the ideal tool, without realizing it himself.
As far the damage is concerned, it is an old trend to do the damage first and then lay low to allow people to get used to it.
Whatever happens in Canada today, couldn't have happened even 25-50 years ago, without major upheaval, as it happened when John Manley was trying to sell the MAI that backfired in a big way. Now we're all under it, enslaved by various treaties and nobody screams.
Now they can cause a world wide crash to force humanity to beg for their dictatorship and do anything, knowing that people will just lie down and comply, with the opposition parties having no idea of what is going on, thanks, again to the universities, or what they could, or should do about it ?
The good old racket of "Faith conquers all" that ruled the world from day one. Used to be known as "seigneurs' rights", now "wealth creation", under the same criminals.
Ed Deak.
rantnic
23 weeks ago
"Faith conquers all"
"Faith conquers all" and "competitiveness" are only buzzwords of the new regime.
The "People's Republics" will conquer all in the name of?????
"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty" Thomas Jefferson
Fiat lux
23 weeks ago
Of course, they're buzzwords.
Of course, they're buzzwords. The world has been governed and enslaved by buzzwords since the beginning of history.
Today's elections are not fought on policies and realities, but on word associations installed people's minds as forms of mind control used by religions from day one.
People have been brainwashed for many generations with the fraud that the word "conservative" means honesty , integrity, good fiscal management, patriotism, freedom etc., Which may have had some realities many years ago. Can anybody imagine Stanfield using Harper policies to sell off the country ?
Whereas "left wing" and "socialist" means thievery, stealing from the public and giving away everything to lazy bums, etc.
Our present "fiat" monetary system, originating from the Latin that means "be it", is basically a religious belief, selling people the idea that the imaginary values represented by it are life and death controlling realities.
The ruling classes of history have been getting away with such rackets for ever and nothing has changed, especially now, when young people can "text" and push pictures around screens with their fingers, as a form of alcoholism, to divert their attention from the reality of getting enslaved and screwed.
Ed Deak.
Peter Stockdale
23 weeks ago
Harper's wealth strategy
Harper will not be satisfied until we are all slavishly obedient. He is selling out Canada for his personal short term gain and his anticipated memberships on many corporate boards. His understanding of democracy is nil and his overweening conceit infinite. Can we wait until he has sold us out 99 % ?
Gary Warburton
23 weeks ago
What`s Next
What happens next? The die has been cast. The phonie environmental review will decide that it`s OK to ship oil from the west coast. Anyone who opposes it will be arrested, you see he has to ship oil to China, it is law. There is only one way to stop this and that is to say that the moment it is decided that British Columbia will separate from Canada. This Harper government doesn`t believe in democracy. They have an agenda, just like Nazi Germany, and they`re not interested in what you have to say they only listen to what corporations have to say. Now you have to decide.
uptoit
23 weeks ago
Sask NDP leadership candidate Erin Weir
has it right. Blogger, Buckdog - http://buckdogpolitics.blogspot.ca/2012/12/harpers-nexen-decision-puts-ball-in.html -
shares how Weir is asking an important question of the Saskatchewan government. Weir's concern is that China may sell output from the former Nexen resource base (currently 1,300 producing natural gas wells) for lower prices, thus reducing royalty income for that province.
What is to stop state-owned companies (in any part of Canada) from selling their newly-acquired resources dirt cheap to their home countries?
Surely, the provinces have thought of this outcome. Why do they support these sales and the FIPA agreement?
pwlg
23 weeks ago
only the facts, only the facts
Alberta Conservative MP Leon Benoit avoids the reality of Canadian refining when he carefully states, "It makes more sense to ship it out and refine it elsewhere because we already refine more than we use here."
We may refine more than we use but what Benoit fails to tell is 50% of the oil being refined in Canada comes from the Middle East, Venezuela and other oil producing states.
After the collapse of some of the largest financial institutions in 2008-9 China found itself holding more than $2 trillion in US treasury notes.
China's Premier, Wen Jiabao. stated in 2009 the following,
"Beijing will use its foreign exchange reserves, the largest in the world, to support and accelerate overseas expansion and acquisitions by Chinese companies."
However, China's thirst for foreign sources of oil and gas including purchasing major international petroleum companies began before the financial meltdown of 2008.
In 2006, China's state owned company China National Overseas Oil Company (CNOOC), attempted to purchase the huge US oil company Unocal which prompted a firestorm of protest and CNOOC withdrew its offer.
pwlg
23 weeks ago
something fishy here, just who gains the most
It is interesting that the share price for Nexen prior to the financial collapse of 2008 was reaching $40 a share and quickly reached a bottom price of $12 at the end of 2008.
By the end of 2010 it had reached a price of $28 a share only to see it fall to $14 a share at the end of 2011.
It is fair to assume that the takeover talks between Nexen and CNOOC began well before the actual announcement in July 2012 (which saw shares jump rapidly to $26).
From Nexen's own financial statement as of December 2011 key management personnel received $11 million in shares for compensation instead of cash. Shares at the time were worth $14. All key management personnel would have been aware of the takeover talks and must surely have known that share price would take off once an announcement was made.
Key management personnel for Nexen almost doubled their 2011 share compensation in 6 months.
Just how many other shares did these "key" management personnel and directors have?
Nexen key management and directors stand to double up and gain several 10's of millions of dollars from their other holdings such as their restricted and deferred shares.
Yup, a true net benefit for Canada.
Perhaps King Harper could define "Canada" and "Canadians".
Fiat lux
23 weeks ago
Also, what "our side" never
Also, what "our side" never mentions is that China has $2 or 3. trillion on hand and will become the biggest economic power soon, because of benefits stolen from the pockets and paid for by North American, European etc. workers who have lost their earnings to "cheap" Chinese imports, and now stand in foodbank lines..
Perhaps one day our do called "economists" and politicians may just come to grip with the facts that there's no such thing as "cheaper", but artificial games and gimmicks to transfer costs on the shoulders of others.
From the logical and physical angle, long distance exports and imports are not "cheaper", but "more expensive" , covered up by unaccounted expenses and a fraudulent economic theory that doesn't use debit and liability columns.
Ed Deak.
Hakuin
23 weeks ago
what the hell does someone who is about to retire rich care
about who the country just got sold out too? Conzies and Communist Party Of China apparatchiks are the same people.
lowball
23 weeks ago
Impeachment
Can anyone out there tell me how you impeach our current Prime Minister under Canadian law? Who can start the process? Again under the law, what has Harper done that is impeachable?
edoherty
23 weeks ago
Harper trying to boost tar sands consumption too
It is worth noting that Harper is also slashing federal transit spending at the same time as increasing road building. Basically, if it burns tar sands oil Harper loves it. See http://rabble.ca/news/2012/11/harper-clashes-transit-climate-crisis-deepends
G West
23 weeks ago
lowball
Impeachment is an American concept - doesn't and won't work in Canada.
Unless Pee Wee commits a serious crime and is convicted in a Canadian court he can't be touched.
Furthermore, he could be dumped, as Prime Minister, by Parliament - but again that's not going to happen unless he loses the confidence of the House (a House in which his caucus holds the majority).
So hang on, we're in for a rough ride!
Bailey
23 weeks ago
Time to coalesce
Harper's Conservative party is a defacto coalition, I think.
These are people who ran for parliament and won, then found themselves puppets of a despot controlled by outside forces they didn't reckon with properly. I mean the Objectivist revolution is one thing. As it plays out in the real world though, it wouldn't be necessary to exert such firm control over the members unless they were chafing under it. Maybe a lot of these guys got caught up in Faust's bargain. Sold their souls for a taste of money and power, and now are facing the big scary collection days.
If we were to form a bunch of smaller specific parties, not religiously affiliated, representing regional interests, then go shopping for candidates who might want to feel able to be themselves, we might find Mr. Harper's majority shrinks a bit, or even a lot. Then those smaller more honest parties could offer coalitions among themselves on issues and to form government.
It ought to be a more stable form, harder to buy up wholesale and less likely to wind up in jail.
All the finest impulses this nation has produced have come out of the communities in which we live and work. I think if we are to find redemption, we should look in the prairies, the mountains, the townships and the coasts. Listen to them and then do what we think is right.
Coalition government is true representative government. It's difficult and interesting and it requires an ability to face debate and compromise. And courage to believe in your people's basic values and good sense.
Despots hate it.
"Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."
----- Lord Acton
wiley
23 weeks ago
just a spelling change, go back to sleep
Canuck is now spelled CNOOC
pwlg
23 weeks ago
KOWTOW
King Stephen's last visit to China must have been difficult for a person of his size and stature.
He surely must have been made to KOWTOW to China's collectively selected Emperor. The tradition of Kowtow during the Ming period required the visiting foreign devil to kneel 3 times and prostrate 9 times in a submissive prone position. Usually requires knocking ones head to the floor.
I am positive I noticed some mild abrasions to King Stephen's forehead after his last visit there.
Zebulon
23 weeks ago
Nikiforuk's red-baiting rhetoric is getting tiresome
Says Nikiforuk: "CNOOC, by the way, reports to the Communist Party of China. As such the firm has little regard for transparency, human rights or offshore oil spills for that matter."
...unlike all those other nice, transparent, freedom-loving, non-spilling, human-rights-respecting, privately-owned oil companies in Canada and the USA?
Frankly, Nikiforuk's constant pandering to base anticommunist prejudices and orientalist tropes is becoming tiresome.