Guess where Quebec gets its oil?

quizzical wrote:

  

quizzical wrote:

 claim pipelines aren't more environmentally safe than railroads and quote 69 spills since 1961 as if it's some big amount. 

One is one too many and 69 is more than one a year. That you think that is okay is the problem. No one has claimed that rail is safer per barrel of oil moved. It just isn't true that the oil will move by rail if it doesn't move by pipeline. Excess moves by rail. The point of the pipeline is to triple production. Production will not be tripled based on the availability of rail.  Therefore, comparing pipelines to rail is immaterial.

quizzical wrote:

 like really, targeting AB and pipelines is way more easy than looking into the environmental damages because of 1000's of derailments. too much work. pipelines are low hanging fruit so people can say they care and appease themselves imv. 

Again, the same quantity of oil will not be shipped by rail instead of pipeline to be shipped off the east coast, or the west coast for that matter, therefore it doesn't matter that rail is safer.

quizzical wrote:

 people in AB do talk about refineries but being wrongly attacked, by people who could be allies, leaves no room for a nation wide action. 

Then stop talking and start doing. People are not opposing pipelines because they are "low hanging fruit" and the people of Alberta are not being attacked. We are refusing to allow Alberta to impose pipelines we don't need on us that threaten our land and water. The expansion of the terminal to export oil from Burnaby will not be built based on transporting oil by rail. The terminus to export oil from the east coast is also cancelled based on the lack of pipeline.

The claim that the oil will move by rail if it doesn't move by pipeline just isn't true.

quizzical wrote:

 i think eastern Canada is fking us over and could give a rats ass about reality on the ground. 

We are not fking you over but you want to fk us over and we aren't going to let you.

quizzical wrote:

 if there was a united voice across Canada about not shipping unprocessed resources we could do a lot and achieve it. but unless the processing is back east no support so i got no fkn respect. 

Alberta doesn't need the rest of Canada to be unified to process oil within Alberta. The oil companies don't want it. They want to send the raw product elsewhere for processing in refineries they already own. There is certainly zero opposition in Quebec to Alberta processing its own oil. 

quizzical wrote:

 i live right beside the pipeline and the rail line and know how much shipping by rail car has increased with plans to increase capacity. 

Yes to cope with current production and projects already begun because they were counting on a new pipeline or three. If the oil were going to be shipped by rail instead of the pipelines then the terminals both east and west would still be under construction. They are not because the oil will not be shipped by rail. Production will not be tripled based on rail transport.

quizzical wrote:

  don't tell me fk all pondering you don't know shit and are being condescending. i am on the ground in AB and here on the transmountain route and i call bs on the atlas shrugged mentality i see going on here.

You have been condescending yourself. I am on the ground in Quebec. This is not an Atlas Shrugged mentality. You don't consider Quebec's or BC's concerns legitimate but that does not mean that they aren't. The courts have agreed that the government did not do due diligence which is why construction has been halted.

The federal and Alberta governments have acted like the pipeline is a fait acompli for years. They have broken laws to try to create facts on the ground like interfering with spawning sites on the assumption that they will be be beginning construction even though the court cases have yet to be settled.

It is the courts who determine vexatious litigation and when they determine it is they do not hear the cases . The courts only accept cases that have merit. The cases are not a delaying tactic. They are a valid attempt to stop the pipeline.

It is the governments of Alberta and Canada that have delayed the project through their constant attempts to cut corners and rubber stamp the pipelines. Consultations under Harper and Trudeau and the Alberta premiers were all a sham.

The NEB had a report stating the environmental threat to the west coast and instead of doing the responsible thing and doing further studies they tried to dismiss it.

I am 90% sure that BC will win. They don't have to argue theoretically. They have proof that federal systems are inadequate to protect the environment. Given the evidence how can the Supreme Court decide that a province doesn't have the right to do what the federal government has failed to do?

The fact that we need the courts to protect us is evidence that the oil companies and government can't be trusted to protect the environment.

quizzical wrote:

 no pondering the exploitation of the west by the east is real. 

What exploitation?

quizzical wrote:

 and you didn't get a fkn thing i said about solidarity in resource production manufacturing being beneficial for all Canadians and the environment.  

We aren't talking about resource production in general or even oil production. The opposition is specifically against bitumen pipelines. Natural gas seems to be the new thing and poses less threat to the environment so is much harder to fight against. I'm terrified of natural gas. I am appalled that there are gas pipes crisscrossing the city. I'd rather see oil being delivered to tanks like when I was a child.

We do need solidarity in resource management, against the expansion of the fossil fuel industry in all its forms.  That doesn't seem to be the kind of solidarity you are promoting.

Quebecers haven't just rejected EE.  Even though it would have been lucrative for Quebec to allow fracking to recover our oil we passed a moratorium on it.  We aren't willing to risk our environment. Not for Alberta's oil and not for the oil under our own soil.

Alberta and Newfoundland decided it is worth the environmental damage to reap the financial rewards from oil. Morally I think Canada should prevent Alberta and Newfoundland from taking that path but because Canada is a federation of provinces that joined individually it is unwise to even try. Canada may or may not have the legal right to prevent all oil development but from a practical perspective both provinces would likely leave confederation if we tried.

Likewise provinces that don't want to take that risk have the right to reject oil projects they percieve threaten their land. In the case of Quebec the feds know we aren't bluffing.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Pondering wrote:

quizzical wrote:

 no pondering the exploitation of the west by the east is real. 

What exploitation?

LMAOROF  You have got to fucking kidding. If you aren't then read any standard text on Canadian history. Geez

you know i barely listened when mom would rant about this in respect to where cereal is made. "why after all are grains processed into cereal back east and not close to where the grains are grown in the west."

now i see it happening and see it for what it is. it happens on a micro level in BC too.

quizzical wrote:

pondering, no the prairie provinces were not allowed to process the grain into cereals.

Who prevented them and how? Did the federal government pass a law saying grain could not be turned into cereal in the pairie provinces? If so I would like to know more about that law. Link, name, year it was passed, anything you know about it would be welcome.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Pondering I thought you were now an NDP'er? If you can't believe Tommy who can you believe? You are like many people privileged by a systemic advantage. When the people screwed by the system tell you about its effect you not only deny the systemic abuse but attack the victims.

And really where did you study Canadian history?

Canada is like an old cow. The West feeds it. Ontario and Quebec milk it. And you can well imagine what it's doing in the Maritimes.

Tommy Douglas

No I am not an NDPer  nor was I a Liberal. I consider the platforms among other factors when choosing who to support. Every election my vote is up for grabs. In my opinion the Singh NDP beats the Trudeau Liberals. I don't think that will change but it could depending on the platforms. I'm assuming Singh will present a platform I can support.

I studied Canadian history in grades 6 and 9 or 10 similar to most Canadians I imagine.

The thing is you are not telling me in what way the centre is or was unfairly privileged over the west. You are claiming victimhood without naming the wrong.

I really do want to know what the east has done to the west that is so terrible. Injustice abounds in Canada so I am not saying you don't have grievances I just don't know what they are. I'm not just going to take your word for it, nor Tommy Douglas' though I agree he was a great man and is the father of medicare.

Hasn't making natural resources a provincial jurisdiction, rather than a federal jurisdiction, given an advantage to the West over the rest of Canada? It seems to me that without a provincial sales tax and with the lowest provincial taxes and highest provincial incomes in Canada, Alberta has been given an"Alberta Advantage." And hasn't putting equalization into the Constitution supported provincial equality?

Doesn't it often make the most economic sense to produce goods and services close to the population that buys and uses them?

The trans-continental railway is the most obvious and arguably the most lasting element of what became known as the National Policy. It both served to deliver manufactured goods to captive markets in the West and acted as a critical element in populating the Prairies with colonists. Moreover, by the end of the century, the railway had demonstrated an ability to crush local industries in the far west by flooding the market with mass-produced central Canadian products.

https://opentextbc.ca/postconfederation/chapter/3-2-the-national-policy/

6079_Smith_W wrote:

The trans-continental railway is the most obvious and arguably the most lasting element of what became known as the National Policy. It both served to deliver manufactured goods to captive markets in the West and acted as a critical element in populating the Prairies with colonists. Moreover, by the end of the century, the railway had demonstrated an ability to crush local industries in the far west by flooding the market with mass-produced central Canadian products.

https://opentextbc.ca/postconfederation/chapter/3-2-the-national-policy/

Thank-you.

So central Canada didn't do anything. The west wanted that railway. It wasn't imposed on them. Flooding the market with cheap mass-produced was done by business not government and was a byproduct of rail. Whenever transportation is improved business takes advantage. It's called the free market. People in eastern Canada had no more choice in it than people in Western Canada. This is like Quebec still harping on the 1800s. Indigenous peoples and PoCs in North America still have a bone to pick because they really were persecuted and their communities are still suffering the effects of what happened in the 1800s. Everyone else needs to get over what happened in the 1800s.

It's being done on a grand scale now to all of Canada. We are flooded with cheap goods from around the world. Ironically if it were not for Alberta Canada would be farther left. The oil industry did cause dutch disease in eastern Canada. Even so neither of those things makes me think Alberta owes something over it nor does it have anything to do with pipeline resistance.

Rejection of the pipelines is rooted in self-protection. We owe no restitution for the sins of the 1800s. Even if we did owe restitution it wouldn't be sacrificing our land and water. Talk about a pound of flesh.

I'm certainly aware of that, but there are some people deliberatly conflating the "Golden Square Mile" (mostly anglo overloads located in a posh district in central-western Montréal) with the Québécois nation.

My point is that the notion that people here wanted it, or that it was for their benefit is absurd.

The reasons behind this whole debate so far from my perspective revolves around corporate greed. 

I think there is some confusion in this thread about the reasons for Confederation. It is true that the railway project in the Maritimes was popular there. The reasons most cited for BC, in the history that I have read, are different:

1) The BC government was in debt (as were many of the colonies as the British Empire milked colonies and left them indebted generally.)

2) The British government offered "local" government from Ottawa as an alternative to rule from London England (The colonies leaders were local but selected by the government in London). There was no real plan on the table for responsible (locally accountable) government in BC or Vancouver Island. Important to remember that Upper and Lower Canada got Responsible government in 1848. BC and Vancouver Island had to join Confederation to get anything like what was given to the Canadas. (Note: Vancouver Island and BC were merged only 5 years before the colony entered confederation in 1871.)

3) There were security concerns vis a vis the US expansion and presumption that the Canadian government would prevent annexation to the US. The railway, was argued to be a big part of that protection. The commercial aspects, were not part of the railway argument in any major way -- at least in any readings I have read, unlike the Maritimes.

As for the strangling of the West's economy, I am unfamiliar with the tariffs as a significant factor. As I understood it the main culpret was the Crow Rate which went from the 19th century to thirty-some years ago. I remember the debates towards the end as this was in my lifetime. This allowed for subsidies for farmers to get food to the East and manufacturing to come from the East. It was meant to feed the East as cheaply as possible and deliver a market for manufactured goods to the East. It prevented the west from competing in a number of respects -- first it screwed any growth into manufacturing in the West. Secondly, it put such an economic advantage to Eastern ports for Western farm products that Western ports were at disadvantage. It was cheaper to ship to central Canada than to a closer destination to process. It was instrumental in organizing the market to ship from farmers to processing in the East at lower cost than to Western destinations where processing could be done there.

There was no question that the Crow Rate that lasted 3/4 of a century was an extremely devastating low to the development of a Western Canadian economy. It was designed to profit the East and preserve a reliance of the West on the East. It was designed to create unity by making it impossible for the West to consider anything else.

Pre-confederation the economy was really more North-South. While there was no significant desire to become American, there was a desire to trade with them. The National government from the 19th century sought to stifle that.

I really did not think that politically aware people in Canada were not familiar with this since it was one of the biggest political stories of the 1970-1980s. These shipping rate subsidies really determined what was sold in Western Canada and what could be produced there. Since they were brought in before a natural economy really took off, they effectively defined to the disadvantage of the West (and advantage of the East) the kind of economy that could grow.

This is why, altering the economy of Alberta to the pleasure of the rest of the country would need to come with a significant offer to rebuild the economy in a different direction. Now that the East dislikes the kind of economy that exists in alberta and seeks to restrain it, they accept no historic responsibility for making it that way - or any responsibility to replace what came out of what they imposed.

Yes, Pondering, this was an Eastern policy that was designed to do this and it was no accident.

My argument here is not that the West was not screwed, it very clearly was, but that not every person in the East today is responsible for this or agrees with it.

History is written by the victors. When you look at railways there is of course the generous land grants at the time of building, generous to the point of obscene.  You also have to look at the freight rate schedules which were as much politically driven as they were market driven.

Here's something else in this history that is never emphasized: Constitutional Fraud. This is how BC purported to 'settle its outstanding land claims'. 

Section 91 (24): A Shield, Not A Sword

https://dissidentvoice.org/2016/01/section-9124-a-shield-not-a-sword/

"...To ensure that the Provinces did not jump the gun and regard reserved Crown land as Public land available for disposition prior to treaty, the Constitution Act, 1867, included section 90 to permit the federal government to disallow provincial legislation. That power was exercised by federal Order in council dated January 23, 1875. British Columbia had enacted a Crown Lands act that did jump the gun. It treated all Crown land as available for disposition.

The Attorney General Telesphore Fournier drafted an opinion that said the provincial legislation had to be disallowed. He cited the royal proclamation as still in force and section 109 that confirmed provincial title to unceded Crown land is 'subject to' the Indian 'Interest' in the land...The disallowance was in fact implemented by federal order-in-council dated March 16, 1875. British Columbia then enacted, also in 1875, the 'Free Grant Act'. 

It defined all ungranted land in the province as held by the province 'in fee simple' (free and clear of any Indian interest), thereby evading the reason for the previous disallowance based upon the royal proclamation and section 109 of the Constitution Act, 1867. Rather than disallow this fresh act for the same reasons, the new attorney general, Edward Blake, decided to leave the new provincial act in operation because 'great inconvenience and confusion might result from disallowance."

Once the PTB made the decision to go with this constitutional fraud to steal and appropriate Indigenous lands,  a further genocidal Indian Act of 1876 was necessary to knock the Indigenous nations out, criminalize their resistance and facilitate 'winning the West.' This continues with courts without any foundation of legal jurisdiction making rulings to perpetuate the usurpation-as-genocide. 

1875 Duty of Disallowance

http://sisis.nativeweb.org/clark/oic1875.html

Or condemn others to...

JKR wrote:

"Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

Earlier someone mentioned history is written by the victors, I will add and the victors are men. If we need to know all of history then we are indeed doomed because that becomes more impossible with every passing year.

I don't think we need to know history in general, or lists of facts and wars. We need to know patterns and they never teach those. History is taught as individual events. All the weeping and wailing over the Holocaust has made no difference other than become an excuse for the duty to act.

The most repetitive history of all is how the wealthy always end up exploiting everyone else through influencing politics. It's a permanent worldwide phenomenon.

I'm not saying knowing history isn't important. I think it is important for some people to know it. For the general population I think it is more important to know how we are being screwed over now and who is doing it.

We can't even get our world leaders to take climate change seriously and surely most of them know quite a bit of history.

JKR wrote:

Many world leaders are probably aware of the history of mass extinction events. It might be helpful if the masses were more aware of the history of mass extinction events! I guess the dinosaurs weren't interested in history. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event#Major_extinction_events...

We are all aware. What are we doing about it? I recycle, I go to protests, I vote. Even if I vote NDP or Green there isn't going to be some mass disruption in the way we do things. Look at Notley. What are you doing about it?

People are preoccupied with day to day survival and things they do have power over. Pretty much nothing comes of watching or reading the news daily. What difference does it make if I know about the California wildfires? What difference does it make if I know about Israel and Palestine? Or North Korea? It makes less difference than knowing how to sew or cook, things I can do something about. Knowing about current affairs is a social thing so you can talk around the water cooler unless you are into it like being into sports in which case it is still mainly a social thing.

Most people here are on the NDP team or no team because the NDP is slightly left of the Liberals. The BC NDP is better than the BC Liberals, the Ontario NDP is better than the Ontario Liberals, but only by enough to differenciate themselves. To be fair the population is centrist so that is where parties have to go to win but even so it still means all we have from a practical perspective is centrist choices when we get to the ballot box.

There is no genuinely populist party ready to declare war on oligarchs. Occupy happened. The opportunity was there. (Cue Magoo "who are the oligarchs?")

I am not blaming "the left" or "activists" for anything. I'm just saying this is the reality.

Earlier in the thread you said something to the effect that you didn't have the expertise to have an opinion on Alberta refineries. Nobody turned a hair. Dinosaurs have been big with children for a long time. Blockbuster movies and all. People know about extinction. You know about extinction. Just like you, many people feel they don't have the expertise to know who is right or wrong on a particular issue in terms of the path forward.

Widespread opposition to pipelines isn't happening because people know about climate change or about history. It's happening because people know about oil spills and fear them in a more immediate sense.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

I have known about climate change for virtually all my adult life and it has always guided my purchases, to some extent. 

You are not the average. there is a thing now about not using plastic straws. That is like using a thimble to empty a sinking boat. Overpackaging is rampant with no apparent laws on the horizon to discourage it. Recycling was a means to monetize garbage. Compost and paper isn't why landfills are toxic.

We have "ecocentres". They are being advertised. We are being told not to put batteries and florescent light bulbs or electronics in the garbage or recycling. I don't have a car. I'm not going to bring all that stuff to an ecocentre. It generally collects for awhile. I don't want to put it in the garbage. My brother-in-law mentioned that recycling centres have to dispose of it appropriately. So I package it carefully to be sure it is visually identifable and then it goes in the recycling.

Advertisements telling people not to do it are useless. Even people with cars won't all do it. I had to pay a 25$ eco fee when I bought my TV but I am supposed to find a way to dispose of it. For 25$ they can pick it up.

In some places stores have to take back all products like batteries and lightbulbs if they sell that class of products. That would be easy. In fact my local IGA does have a box for spent batteries that I use. Computer shops will usually take laptops back and I assume they dispose of the parts responsibly.

Quote:

Bill Gates became a billionaire employing it.

OK, but how does that relate to recycling and the environment?

Quote:

Not to mention Canada Post aka Canada flyers.

You don't have to love flyers, but if nothing else they're a huge part of CP's revenues.  I'm always surprised when I see people with "NO FLYERS" on their mailbox.  I assume those people won't mind losing home delivery some day, so long as they don't have to drop an unwanted flyer into a blue bin.

Quote:

I'd like to see all flyers relegated to racks in stores. That way if people want to pick them up they can.

It's the flyer that makes shoppers want to stop at that store.  Once I'm there, I can see ALL of the prices of things, not just the sales.