No.

A publicly-owned resource company designed to provide maximum benefits to Canada and Canadians.

Oh, no, that sounds like Socialism. We can't have that.

if it works.....

and it's Nationalised, by all means kill it....seems to be the motto of both the Conservative/Fascists and the Liberal/Fascists....

gotta keep our rich financier friends happy....

Thinking ownership in proportion.

only 15% of the worlds' oil is owned by private companies! Oil companies are very familiar with that fact.

When dealing with them a case of our way or our ownership would be the way to work.

Why Can't We?

Stupid idea unless you are going to use it to regulate fuel prices below market. Otherwise forget about it.

Petro-Canada

The $18 billion of Petro Canada assets were sold to none other than SUNCOR.

Why can't we?

It is because we have complete morons in today's Harper government.

Another Fallacy

The rationale for setting up Petro-Canada in the first place, back in '75, was to prevent gouging at the gas pumps by the oil majors with the then onset of the oil crisis.

So what did Petro-Canada do? Continued to gouge Canadians at the gas pump. Yep.

As for Tieleman's assertion that Canada should have a national oil/natural gas company again, presumaby under a federal NDP government, that likely won't wash.

Why?

Because the majority of Canadian oil now produced is either through tight oil plays (through fraccing) or through the oil sands.

And most of Canadian natural gas is produced through tight gas/shale gas plays (through fraccing).

So what is the federal NDP position on fraccing? According to NDP leader Mulcair it's evil, a scam, and will poison groundwater supply and the environment.

So a federal national oil/ng company would obviously not be able to derive oil from tight oil plays or natural gas because they utilize fraccing.

Strike 1.

So what is the NDP position on the oil sands?

According to federal NDP leader Mulcair, the oil sands are also evil, cause "Dutch Disease", and are an environmental catastrophe.

So a federal national oil/ng company would obviously not be able to derive oil from the oil sands.

Strike 2.

So what is the federal NDP position on offshore oil/natural gas drilling in the Queen Charlotte Basin off BC's NW coast? Unlike Norway, ban it.

Strike 3.

So what is the federal NDP position on the Northern Gateway Pipeline, the Keystone Pipeline, the Kinder Morgan twinning? Against it.

Strike 4.

Enbridge wants to reverse its Line 9 in Ontario and TransCanada is also contemplating upgrading it's national mainline from shipping ng to bitumen from the oils sands.

Many First Nations and environmental groups are starting to voice their concerns about the potential catastrophe of another Kalamazoo along the streams, rivers, lakes, and other environmental areas that these pipelines traverse. At the end of the day, the federal NDP will have no alternative to oppose these as well.

Strike 5.

Which begs the question... What would a state-owned oil/natural gas company, under an NDP federal government, produce/sell in Canada?

Lemonade?!

Footnote

Tieleman:

And essentially the only substantial "asset" that Nexen owns in Canada (aside from shale gas plays) is the Long Lake oil sands project that has been struggling and beset by enormous engineering challenges, low output, and massive capital costs.

IOW, within the oil sands industry, Nexen's Long lake is deemed to be a "dog". Another reason why Nexen's CEO, Marvin Romanow, abandoned ship back in January, 2012.

As for the oils sands in general, 3 specific regions in AB:

1. Peace River oil sands;
2. Athabaska oil sands;
3. Cold Lake oil sands;

And currently 167 separate oil sands projects are either proposed, under construction, or in operation.

And most of these are Canadian-owned. Those delinated as "US owned" are mostly under the domain of those such as Canada's Imperial Oil Ltd., which is majority-owned by ExxonMobil. One almost has to utilize a proverbial magnifying glas to see Chinese investment in the oil sands.

My point? The CNOOC take-over of Nexen is nothing more than a political bogey-man IMHO.

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/10/31/who-owns-the-oil-sands/

Wasn'it back in the 80's when

Wasn'it back in the 80's when the Mulroney Government gave umpteen millions of bucks to the oil people to get the Tar Sands going? The oil people said "thanks Ottawa for the generous hand out, now fuck off". Then comes along the Province of Alberta and gives all the fresh water, for free, to process the Tar from the sand. I don't know what the ratio is today but back 20 years ago it took 23 barrels of water to make 1 barrel of Tar . Fer fuck sakes, the water was worth more than the oil. Remember about half a dozen years ago some people in Alberta figured the Province wasn't getting their fair share in royalties. Again the oil patch bullies went into action and told the Province "to fuck off and don't bite the hand that feeds you". Now compare us to Norway in how oil revenues have helped it's people; Canada is run by a bunch of fuck-ups

Fallacy upon fallacy

Petro Canada was created with broad powers to carry out exploration and development in Canada; it also had a comprehensive mandate to acquire foreign oil supplies and to engage in energy research and development; refining and marketing. The government wanted Petro-Canada to be active on the frontiers - the oil sands, the Arctic, the East Coast offshore areas - and not in the conventional oil and gas sector in Western Canada.

From the start it concentrated on growth and not profits so that it could explore and developing the frontier oil and gas basins, with sufficient autonomy from Ottawa to make its own decisions.

From the start, for anyone with a memory, Petro-Canada was the target of a campaign by right-wing oilmen and the federal Conservative Party - now the federal Conservative Party seems to prefer Chinese government owned companies...

erratum

That should be 'foreign oil suppliers'...
And it was successful in that quest acquiring several operations including Petrofina and BP Canada among others.

The sale of natural resources

The sale of natural resources is not an income, but abysmal stupidity.

Thanks to the economic theory taught in our universities in praise of an accounting system that has no debit or liability columns.

Everything is GDP.

In any case, the tar sands crime wave will come to a crashing halt, when the thousands of workers and people in the neighbouring areas start coming down with the worst cancer epidemics.

Ed Deak.

Cool Hand

I tried to understand what all that had to do with "If China Can Have State-Owned Energy Firms, Why Can't We?" but I had to give up after about 30 seconds. Such irrelevant and useless fluff doesn't counter the basic question. You assume we care what the current thinking of any of the political parties is. Ed Deak makes the point clearly above.

Why can't we have our own? A nations unity takes tenacious work.

It is much easier to post an 'open for business' sign, privatize whatever has been built up over decades, let the new corporate team draw userfees or tolls and spin financial transaction, and disruption fees through banks, extra-regional tribunals, government administration delays and financial entities.
China FIPPA will ensure profit flow whether work on the ground happens or not, and its tribunal is above Canadian law.

Why not our own? Because that is not 'market' self-regulation, the mantra of the new left and right whose modus operandi is financials, not work. And when the IMF gets its tentacles wrapped round Canadian currency... the bonds and mutant financial mechanism values will dwarf the works on the ground.

Could our children care? Could our elders?

Canada is a young immature country divesting itself of the institutional acumen and protections by which its diverse provinces can act maturely and united in their public purpose. Canada has no national Federal Regulator to inform and police its markets. Canada has no national Commission for child and youth to secure services oversight over the patchwork entities that leave isolated the Amanda Todds of today and tomorrow. Rather than steward land and people, Canada’s ‘leadership’ priority promotes ‘open for business’ self-regulating corporations which make work for financial trans-actors, great for bank profit, but little good for real workers.

If Canada matures it will unite its youth and elder care, if it does not it will be 'open for business' for more SinoForest style predation and plunder. Norway became vastly wealthy because it managed its own; and had it slowed its resource extraction model, its wealth would be all the greater for the value of its reserves.

Canada lacks the guiding institutions and leaders, if the schitzoid Conservative anti-patriotic pirate leadership is any indication. Their race to market, as the looming disaster of IMF adoption of Canada's dollar to the global reserve currency index in January 2013 suggests, is a race against Canadian-values into the global-market future for whose net benefit?

LINK//econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog1.php/2012/12/09/infographic-of-the-day-chinese-investment-in-north-america

The long and short of it is

The long and short of it is that today's imaginary monetary system doesn't represent any form of realities, but is used as a religion by special interests to enslave and destroy with fraudulent values forced on humanity.

All past economic systems in history , built on imaginary values collapsed with great damage to people and the ecology, as this present one will.

I'm living under my 6th or 7th monetary system......which one was the correct one.

Even the Canadian has been destroyed by deregulated, imaginary money, that only exists as computer figures, licencing destruction and exploitation to maintain its imaginary value, used as weapons of conquest.

Ed Deak.

Trudeau

Even though how much Alberta dislikes Pierre Trudeau, he was a man of vision. Given time the National energy program would have made a turn around and proven itself. Instead government powers were either bought off or strong armed into giving it up. We are now tenants in our own house.

National energy plan

BC and Canada should be self sufficient and sustainable in energy. We have to look at how we are going to get our energy. We must do a complete and thorough study of all ways we can generate energy, whether it be hydro, coal, solar, geothermal, wind, nuclear, wood, biofuels, gas or any other source of energy. All methods must be examined in public and these results must be made public. These studies are not to be done in private behind closed doors. The BCUC was too public for Campbell, so he ended its service. It told him that some power plans he had were not in the public interest. Only after such a study can we use an energy source. We must do this so our energy sources are sustainable and not harmful to the environment.
For example, with the Site C Dam project, we would look at the need, if any, the costs to the environment, people displaced, farmland lost, loss of a carbon sink, water use downstream and the generation of energy without producing GHG’s.
No undertaking such as mining, housing developments, highways, etc. can be done without an open environmental and sustainability analysis. We must be careful not to remove too many plants or trees, as we need them to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. Other wastes must be recycled rather than thrown into landfills or oceans. Recycling must become a major activity in our sustainable culture.
In Nova Scotia, natural gas is obtained off-shore. It is piped through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and sent to the USA. None is used in Canada and Nova Scotia get its fuel from the Middle East.
We must develop a national and provincial energy plan so we can look forward and know we can have a healthy life for future generations.
We need a national energy plan. Even Allison Redford said we needed one.

Let's hope the Robocall trials brings an end to this Rogue Gov't

IF not I think it is time for a nation wide general strike. We should have a national dialogue on these issues.
RR

Stupid idea, Bill

Norway has a tradition of responsible spending, social welfare and actively seeks to ensure no one personally profits from oil wealth to excess.

Canada has no such tradition. Our tradition is to allow a few speculators to rape the land and steal all the money. We'd fall prey to the same rip-off artists that currently run other regimes such as Russia, Congo, Venezuela, China and Britain.

Leave it in the ground til we grow up enough to manage it responsibly. If we have to do without a Skytrain or another subsidy to Bombardier, too bad.

What the vast majority of folks ....

including the author have not figured out yet is that Canadians are controlled by a hidden world government despite the sovereign nation rhetoric.

Consider how America is at war with so many nations long before war is ever openly declared. Similarly, we have a global force usurping sovereignty worldwide but because it is not openly declared to be in charge, we plod along like it isn't so.

When our understanding and more importantly our thinking about politics is so far behind the curve ball, we opt for solutions that no longer exist. One prominent example is voting for a Political Party in the vain hope you can bring about change.

Thus even complaining about what a toothless 'sovereign' state like Canada should or should not have done is meaningless. Canada as an independent nation is meaningless.

The solution is found elsewhere, right out in the open where nobody sees it.

snert

{quote]Stupid idea unless you are going to use it to regulate fuel prices below market. Otherwise forget about it

Au contraire! We may as well have One Big (state-owned) Oil Company, considering that the prices at the pumps, no matter which company sells the product, are in virtual lockstep. The righties keep pushing privatization as the way to keep prices down through competition. So what competition?

The purpose of "competition"

The purpose of "competition" is to see who can raise prices and profits higher and faster.

When we'll go shopping next week, prices will be higher in the supermarkets than they were last week and the mega corporations and banks will report record profits.

So much for " competition".

Wealth can not be created, only taken....

.....and the aristocracies of history, helped by their priesthoods, now called "economists", sure have found ways for "taking", with humanity happily giving it to them, as the Will of God, now called "economic efficiency".

Ed Deak.

"Tenants in our own house"

That is a very good way to put it. We are Tenants in our own house. Our house is now owned by foreign, absentee landlords and managed by our corrupt local governments.

So now we pay rent on what used to be our own house and you can bet your bippy those rents are going to go up.

OMG will there be anything left to sell before the rents go up and we get evicted?

Luke up to bat

Luke : "The rationale for setting up Petro-Canada in the first place, back in '75, was to prevent gouging at the gas pumps by the oil majors with the then onset of the oil crisis."

No it wasn't. It was so that Canada would have a window into the going-ons of the oil industry. We'd have a seat at the table. Plus, we could use the company to pursue national objectives regarding energy when the "free" market didn't want to put Canadian priorities first (cue laugh track).

Strike 1 Luke.

Luke : "So what did Petro-Canada do? Continued to gouge Canadians at the gas pump. Yep."

Petro-Can charged the same as everyone else. Are you saying the "free" market is gouging Canadians? But you support free markets...

Strike 2.

Luke : "As for Tieleman's assertion that Canada should have a national oil/natural gas company again, presumaby under a federal NDP government, that likely won't wash."

No, Tielmann did not presume that it would be under an NDP government. You did.

Strike 3.

As for the diversion into NDP policy on frakking... who gives a frak?

Strike 4 through 8.

Luke : "What would a state-owned oil/natural gas company, under an NDP federal government, produce/sell in Canada?"

Do you mean what would we sell abroad? First, we don't have to sell anything. Wealth does not derive from trade with other countries. This belief that if we do Britain's laundry and they do ours we're all going to be richer is sheer idiocy that too many people have come to believe in.

Weath is labour and and resources. Period. Nothing to do with trade. Selling resources to China and buying resources from the Middle East is not wealth. Its a zero-sum game. The current system is designed to produce riches for those who don't want to do any labour.

Right on Frank ! The most

Right on Frank !

The most logical, sustainable and efficient economic system is self sufficiency and local production to the highest degree.

Canada is in the most ideal position to achieve the highest degree of home based efficiency.

The main purpose of "globalization", the "free trade" rackets, and the "free movement of capital (Imaginary money created from the air)", is world control and dictatorship by an international criminal sector.

Our present deregulated monetary system, in the hands of a special interest sector, is nothing more than a pseudo religion designed for mind control by "faith".

The same way religions have always been used by aristocracies to control humanity, through history.

Ed Deak.

I wonder just how much

The Chairman plans to use race to manipulate in his latest scheme of Chinese Communist One Percenter/ Canadian Oil Company Owner collaboration? Han China and Red-Neck Alberta really are very similar in their xenophobias. Couple that with racism being technically illegal in Canada(along with a lapdog judiciary) and a slimy enough brain would have a hell of an advantage in ramming through just about anything. Just watch, soon any resistance at all will be painted in the media as "Un-Canadian" and criminally libellous. If it weren't so sickening I'd be marvelling at the political judo.

Frank, OMG!

This belief that if we do Britain's laundry and they do ours we're all going to be richer is sheer idiocy that too many people have come to believe in.

The most insightful comment of yours I've ever read.

Now you just have to see how contemporary politics and Party and corporations are at the root of these sorts of fallacies. ;)

When that revelation comes, you will understand the sheer idiocy of voting for a Party rather than an accountable human being. The crimes we endure are found in the secrecy and lack of accountability of the system, both trademarks of Party politics.

"WE THE PEOPLE..." if vehemently safeguarded, is the best answer found so far.

China workers.

The Province Newspaper ran a story today that confirms Chinese Workers will come to BC/Canada for the next 14 Years.
Wonder if Harper will take my house and give that away too?

Also on CTV was a story ranking Canada 55 of 93 countries in Frredom of Information. It is far easier to get government info in most 3rd world African countries!!!!!!!

Got to love our leaders.

I am no longer a proud Canadian, just have to win the lottery and I'm out of here!

Bob Watts

"Wonder if Harper will take my house and give that away too?"

Ask the Japanese-Canadians during WW II what they think; or better yet, ask the natives.

The government will steal and confiscate whatever the people allow it to get away with. You are meaningless to the state but for your ability to be taxed. Don't ever lose sight of what power is about, especially when it has got to the point of being virtually unchecked.

To be blunt

"To be blunt, Canadians have not spent years reducing the ownership of sectors of the economy by our own governments, only to see them bought and controlled by foreign governments instead." -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper
To be equally blunt and perhaps more truthful free trade is a proven failed paradigm for every country which has rolled with it.

It was a dark and snowy night when space aliens captured me and tried to probe me, but because I'd bin drinking canajun beer i probed them instead. Then they gave me some fortune cookies and wished me luck, then i signed an Intergalactic Agreement on the Free Probity of Respected Nations or some other bullshit title and they've bin probin me ever since. The real title was Sucked In, Sold Out, and Out of Vaseline, but you won`t find that even in the small print. That`s all i remember except for this one tiny Chinese proverb written on the side of their space ship which said: The day your horse dies and your money’s lost, your government will disown you and retire in luxury. That is known as Campbell`s Law. Or was it Mulroney`s Law, i forget.

To be honest

"To be blunt, Canadians have not spent years reducing the ownership of sectors of the economy by our own governments, ...
That's a good thing? Reducing the ownership of Canadians in their own natural resources? Who else should own it? Private companies? Foreign governments?
The prime minister defeats himself with his own words.

Thanks Frank - Bill Tieleman

For taking the mickey out of Cool Hand's rather weak arguments against a PetroCan owned by the people - weak even for his low standards!

Watch Stephen Harper's year end interview with Dawna Friesen on Global National and you'll see him almost emotional about getting government out of the oil industry - and why he isn't about to let state-owned oil firms take over more "private sector" companies in Canada. Idealogue all the way.