DIY SOLIDARITY MUTUAL AID

Edmonton's Sikh community is coming together once again to make sure those in need have food on the table

© Sikhs For Humanity/Facebook Sikhs For Humanity volunteers serve up food in this photo from 2019. 

Edmonton's Sikh community is coming together once again to make sure those in need have food on the table

Sikhs For Humanity, an initiative started seven years ago to help those who cannot afford to feed their families, is giving away groceries.

Previously, the group served prepared meals like pasta, samosas, coffee and tea in a tent set up at Hope Mission every Saturday during the summer.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic this year, the group decided to offer free groceries instead.

"A lot of people are going through difficult times nowadays and people lost their jobs and things like that," volunteer Manjit Nerval told CBC's Edmonton AM. "We decided to help out as many of you can."

The first event of the year took place a week ago in the parking lot north of Sherwood Park Costco on Buckingham Drive.

Nerval said they were prepared to give away groceries to 400 families but only 100 cars showed up.

"We had some extra food and we ran it down to a few of the apartments around Sherwood Park, lower income apartments," he said.

He said from his conversations with people he learned many were out of jobs and in need of their service.

"They really appreciate it," he said.

He said members of the group pool money together and then individuals go on grocery runs. Some people donate food and perishables.

Nerval said they plan on distributing groceries for the next few months and then hope to move their work to a new kitchen they are building in downtown Edmonton.

"We plan on opening mid-April so we can serve the people," he said.

Helping the less fortunate in the community is part of Sikh faith. Temples, called gurdwaras, house community kitchens and dining halls.

"It's somehow in our blood," Nerval said. "We are taught to help others because we consider everyone to be like our own brother and sisters, because we are all one."

MODI'S NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION 

Changes in Indian farm laws could benefit Canada, 

(NOT REALLY)expert(s) says

"I mean people are still scratching their heads trying to figure out what the ramifications of these reforms are," 

SAY THREE EXPERTS  VS ONE NEOLIBERAL SHILL

VANCOUVER — Changes to India's farm laws could open up the second most populous country to Canadian farmers, although a lot remains unknown about how a liberalized market might affect nations looking to export their produce, experts say.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

A freer market in India would help corporations and countries that see it as a destination to sell produce, said Shashi Enarth, an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia's institute for resources, environment and sustainability.

"It'll be good for Canada if these three bills are introduced and they sail through," he said in a recent interview.

He said the bills stipulate "that you can sell (agricultural produce) anywhere you want, you can buy whatever you want, and so that way it is good for Canada."

India recently introduced three farm bills that constitute a step toward greater liberalization of her agricultural market.

But after two months of protests by farmers, the Supreme Court of India has temporarily put on hold their implementation and ordered the creation of an independent committee of experts to negotiate with opponents of the legislation.

THIS IS WHAT HARPER DID TO THE CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD

Among other things, the bills would allow farmers to sell their produce outside government-run market committees, and they would remove minimum support prices for certain products.

They also allow farmers to forge agreements with private companies to produce a certain amount, which is then sold directly to the companies.

The protesting farmers say they fear the government would stop buying grain at minimum guaranteed prices under the laws and subject them to corporate exploitation by driving down prices for their products.

The farmers are continuing a blockade of highways connecting New Delhi with the country's north. They have threatened to intensify the protest by organizing a massive tractor rally in New Delhi during Republic Day celebrations on Jan. 26.

Data from Statistics Canada show India was the world's largest market for legumes, with imports valued at $1.4 billion in 2018. Canada was the country's second largest supplier of pulses, such as lentils, dried peas, beans and chickpeas.

Raji Jayaraman, an associate professor at the University of Toronto's Munk school of global affairs and public policy, said Canadian exporters may benefit in the medium to long term, especially if there are further steps toward liberalizing agricultural markets in India.

“The farm bills don't directly affect tariffs on agricultural imports to India, so any effect is going to be indirect,” she said.

How Canadian agricultural exports fare will depend on how the changes affect the prices of agricultural commodities, she added. If Indian agricultural corporations exert their market power, then the new laws might result in lower prices received by farmers and higher prices paid by consumers for agricultural commodities, she said.

“Ironically, this may help Canadian farmers who are able to sell their products to the Indian market more cheaply.”

Greg Northey, Pulse Canada's vice-president of corporate affairs, said the organization is watching the developments in India closely and considering how they might affect farmers here.

"It's an important market for sure, one that we care about and one that we've had a long-standing relationship with, and one we want to continue to export to," said Northey, whose organization represents growers, traders and processors.

Most pulses in Canada are grown in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, with bean production concentrated in southern Ontario and Quebec, its website says.

The organization is analyzing how the new laws in India would impact Canadian farmers, he said. But they don’t have a good understanding yet and haven’t come across an analysis of how changes in India’s laws will affect imports and exports, Northey said.

Jayaraman said a lot of people are fearful about the liberalization of agricultural markets in India because it is a large employer. The majority of farmers in India own less than one hectare of farmland and operate on a subsistence basis.

"And so, anything that touches and reforms agricultural markets is going to have ramifications for subsistence livelihood for hundreds of millions of people," she added.

Jayaraman also cautioned that the future of the Indian farm market is still unknown under the proposed laws.

"I mean people are still scratching their heads trying to figure out what the ramifications of these reforms are," she said.

"I'm going to say the jury is out. It's really going to depend on how the market evolves as a result of these reforms."

— With files from The Associated Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 21, 2021

Hina Alam, The Canadian Press

Climate-related disasters taking bigger bites out of Canada's economy: Report

The cost of climate change impacts is becoming more and more clear: a new report suggests weather-related disasters in Canada shaved billions of dollars off of Canada’s GDP growth over the last decade – amounting to 5-6 per cent of that growth annually.

Weather disasters are costing Canadians more and more due to climate change

“Let’s face facts: These kinds of disasters are extremely expensive, both in terms of damage to property and businesses, but also in terms of lost economic output,” Ryan Ness, the adaptation research director at the Canadian Institute of Climate Choices, told The Weather Network. “When people are displaced by a flood or fire, they can’t work.”

As for damage to property and businesses, that’s drastically up as well. From 2010–2019, the total cost, around $14.5 billion, was twice what it was in the 24 years previous. That’s keeping in mind that the total cost of disasters over that quarter-decade was boosted by a single event: The 1998 Eastern Canada ice storm, which did $7 billion in damages.

Per-disaster costs are way up as well. The report estimates the average disaster did around $8 million of damage in the 1970s, but that figure is now closer to $110 million, an increase in real dollars of 1250 per cent.

© Provided by The Weather NetworkClimate-related weather disasters, such as 2016's Fort McMurray, have become more damaging in recent decades, both in dollar figures and human impact. Image: Fort McMurray wildfire/Mark Robinson. 

DESPITE THE NDP GOVT SAVING THEIR LIVES AND HELPING DEAL WITH THE FIRE AND AFTERMATH THE UNGRATEFUL WRETCHES VOTED UCP

READ MORE: New record for billion-dollar disasters in 2020

That’s based on figures from two sources: The Canadian Disaster Database, which tracks events that are declared disasters by the government dating back to the 1970s, and the Insurance Bureau of Canada, which includes weather-related insurance claims from catastrophic events of at least $25 million since 1983.

“Although there are some differences between the data sets because they’re tracking different things, they show the same trends over a number of decades: That these catastrophic weather events are becoming more frequent, and total costs and average costs are going up,” Ness says.

Aside from the average costs, there are the significant disasters to take note of, such as the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, which sent more than 80,000 people in the heart of Canada’s oil country fleeing to safety and destroyed 5-10 per cent of structures in the community.

The total price tag—the combined property, infrastructure, business interruption, and other indirect costs—came to around $11 billion, the report says, which was the equivalent of around 3.5 per cent of Alberta’s GDP, or about a year and a half of lost economic growth.

INCOMPLETE INFORMATION

The institute’s report recommends Canada’s federal, provincial, and municipal governments boost spending on disaster prevention, and do a better job of coordinating that approach between themselves. It also says governments and financial regulators enhance public disclosure and transparency of the economic and social risks in the public and private sectors—making clear to Canadians what’s at stake in the decades to come. After all, it could be argued that climate change is setting the stage for these disasters to be even worse.

© Provided by The Weather Network

The researchers say Canada's various levels of governments should boost spending on disaster prevention and improve coordination. Image: 2011 Goderich tornado damage, credit Robert Tugwood.

READ MORE: Ottawa to hike federal carbon tax to $170 a tonne by 2030

However, one point the researchers make is that action on climate change mitigation may need to be taken on incomplete information, since the exact economic costs of individual disasters are hard to quantify in advance.

When asked how to make that point, Ness says that though we may not have all the information, the data that we do have all show the costs are enormous and getting bigger–something that more and more Canadians are experiencing for themselves.

“We will never have perfect information but we already know enough to see that the consequences of not being prepared will vastly outweigh the cost of preparation,” Ness argues.

As well, Ness says Canadians’ appetite for climate action seems to be growing, citing polling data from December.

This poll, conducted by Abacus, found 83 per cent of Canadians want the country to be seen as “determined to help combat climate change.” Drilling deeper, Abacus also found 83 per cent of Canadians want to be seen as “producers of goods that come with good sustainability credentials,” and 76 per cent wanted the country to be seen as “an economy that runs on renewable energy.”

“This debate has shifted rapidly and a climate plan is increasingly viewed as central to an economic plan for the future,” Abacus chairman Bruce Anderson said at the time of the poll’s release.

WATCH BELOW: AS FOSSIL FUELS SLIDE, INVESTMENTS ARE SHIFTING TOWARDS RENEWABLES


Ness, for his part, says one way to help to get more people on board with mitigation costs is to focus less on emissions reductions and abstract economic impacts, and more on the relatable impacts on people.

For example, the 2013 Alberta floods, followed soon after by the 2018 Fort McMurray fire, not only damaged the economy, but also disrupted people’s employment and livelihoods. And even now, years afterward, people in continue to experience higher levels of mental illness and depression.

“We aren’t talking about abstract increases in average annual temperature or percentage changes in rainfall that people often find it hard to relate to,” Ness says. “These are billions of dollars in losses that are costing Canada and Canadians right now, and that will only get bigger.”

Equinor divests stake in Canada oil sands producer Athabasca

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway's Equinor said on Wednesday it has sold its stake in Athabasca Oil, a Canadian firm producing carbon-intensive oil sands.

© Reuters/Ints Kalnins FILE PHOTO: 

Equinor's flag flutters next to the company's headqurters in Stavanger

Majority state-owned Equinor sold 100 million shares, representing an 18.8% stake in Athabasca for a total of 18 million Canadian dollars ($14.2 million).

Equinor, formerly called Statoil, received the shares in 2017 as part of a deal to sell its Kai Kos Dehseh oil sands project in the Canadian province of Alberta.

"This was just a financial holding that was part of the deal when we exited... We have no other interests onshore Canada now," an Equinor spokesman said.

Athabasca produced 20,200 barrels per day of oil sands crude in the third-quarter of 2020, accounting for about two-thirds of its total output, according to regulatory filings.

In 2017, Equinor pledged not to invest in oil sands, a heavy oil resource, production of which requires more energy than production of conventional sources and thus resulting in higher greenhouse gas emissions.

(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, editing by Terje Solsvik)

Silver lining: Biden's scrapping of Keystone pipeline allows Canada's Trudeau to move on

Biden's ambitious climate change plan includes $2 trillion in investment for clean-energy infrastructure over four years and "opens up opportunities for collaboration" with Canada

 

AND IT MEANS OUR NATIONALIZED PIPELINE TO THE WEST COAST; TRANSMOUNTAIN, WILL BE COMPLETED TO FULFILL TARSANDS SHIPPING ORDERS 

By Steve Scherer

© Reuters/Chris Wattie FILE PHOTO: Canada's PM Trudeau shakes hands with U.S. Vice President Biden during a meeting in Trudeau's office on Parliament Hill in Ottawa

OTTAWA (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden's move to scrap the Keystone XL oil pipeline, while a blow to Canada's energy sector, is a blessing in disguise for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is eager to embrace the new administration, two sources familiar with the matter said.

Biden formally revoked the permit to build the pipeline on Wednesday, killing the $8 billion project to pump oil sands crude from Alberta to Nebraska.

"At first glance this is bad news... but at least now the matter is settled and won't be souring bilateral relations for months to come," a diplomatic source from a major allied country said.

"Canada hasn't had to expend any serious political capital with the Biden administration on the pipeline and can now focus on the many other areas where Trudeau feels the two nations should cooperate," the source said.

Trudeau was the first world leader to congratulate Biden after the November election, and hopes to be the first to meet with him in a bid to turn the page on the Donald Trump era, when relations between the two countries were often turbulent.

A Biden spokeswoman said the president's first call to a foreign leader would be to Trudeau on Friday.

In a statement late on Wednesday, Trudeau said "we are disappointed but acknowledge the President's decision" while welcoming his move to rejoin the Paris agreement on climate change.

"I look forward to working with President Biden to reduce pollution," he said. Trudeau, first elected in 2015, has consistently said cutting the greenhouse gases widely blamed for global warming is a big priority.

Trudeau is also weighing a possible snap election this year, and he has much riding on his ties with Biden.

"The relationship is much bigger than one project," said a Canadian source familiar with the matter.

Keystone XL was meant to carry 830,000 barrels per day to the United States, but ran into fierce domestic opposition.

During his election campaign, Biden promised quash the pipeline, which Trudeau has supported since before he became prime minister.

The permit revocation "is not the best way to start off" with a new president, said Roland Paris, a former foreign policy adviser to Trudeau and University of Ottawa international affairs professor.

"This issue should not be seen as a litmus test to the relationship because there are many other areas where Canada will be able to cooperate with the new Biden administration," Paris said.

Trudeau told Reuters last week he was looking to Biden to re-engage with allies around the world, and that he wanted to discuss climate change.

Biden's ambitious climate change plan includes $2 trillion in investment for clean-energy infrastructure over four years and "opens up opportunities for collaboration" with Canada, said Sara Hastings-Simon, a researcher at the Colorado School of Mines.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer, additional reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Sonya Hepinstall)

Environment Minister Says Canada-U.S. Opportunities Are ‘Bigger’ Than Keystone XL

© Provided by HuffPost Canada Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, left, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hold a press conference in Ottawa on Nov. 19, 2020.

OTTAWA — Federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson signalled Tuesday that the Canadian government won’t dwell on U.S. president-elect Joe Biden’s expected announcement scrapping the Keystone XL pipeline, and will instead seek to ensure there is no better ally to the United States on the climate file than Canada.

Speaking on a panel with John Podesta, the former campaign chair to secretary Hillary Clinton, counsellor to president Barack Obama, and chief of staff to president Bill Clinton, Wilkinson said the run-up to Biden’s inauguration had “offered a welcome dose of climate optimism.”

“He won a mandate from the American people with climate action being very much a central pillar of his plan for economic growth,” Wilkinson told the audience, virtually gathered for the chat hosted by GreenPAC.

Biden had put together a team of “thoughtful experts” to deliver on his “all of government effort,” Wilkinson said, noting two former Obama-era appointees, Gina McCarthy, the environmental health expert who ran the Environment Protection Agency, and John Kerry, who as former secretary of state helped forge consensus towards more ambitious targets and financing commitments at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) in Paris in 2015, will be back in the White House.

Wilkinson welcomed Biden’s promise to return the United States to the Paris Agreement — a move that could come as early as Wednesday — and said he looked forward to forging new opportunities for co-operation.

While the “Trump administration moved away from multilateral and domestic climate action four years ago,” the minister said, Canada pressed forward with action to fight climate change, by putting a price on carbon and introducing regulations on methane and phasing out coal. “This was not simple, given the integrated nature of the U.S. and Canada economies,” he added.

“With the inauguration of the president, the new president, I believe there is significant alignment between his climate plans and our government’s climate agenda and then a lot of scope for collaboration from electricity grids to automotive sector to protecting nature and species at risk,” Wilkinson said, at times appearing to read from a prepared text.

“There is no doubt that the incoming U.S. administration will be looking for strong allies in the fight against climate change, and they will find none more determined than right here in Canada,” he added.

Canadian energy opportunities with the United States are bigger than any one project.

Federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson

Asked about Biden’s decision to scrap the Keystone XL pipeline, a move that some Canadian outlets reported over the weekend could also come on Day 1, Wilkinson responded: “Canadian energy opportunities with the United States are bigger than any one project.”

A headline in The Washington Post this week suggested Biden’s decision to follow through on his campaign pledge to cancel the project “signals a rocky start with Canada.”

The controversial 1,947-kilometre expansion project is expected to deliver 830,000 barrels per day of crude oil from Hardisty, Alta., to Steele City, Neb., where it will link up with the existing Keystone pipeline to reach refineries in Texas. With some parts of the project already completed and construction activities underway, its owner, TC Energy, previously expected the pipeline to enter service in 2023.

Amid environmental concerns, TC Energy has tried to argue that, aside from creating more than 10,000 jobs and helping to ensure continental energy security, the project will have net zero emissions by 2023 and be powered by renewable energy by 2030.

Wilkinson said while Canada is fully committed to moving to net zero emissions by 2050, it also believes it “needs to extract value for the resources that it has” and to use some of the revenue generated through that to invest in accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy.

While the government’s support for the pipeline is clear, Wilkinson said that should not stop the parties from pursuing the other “enormous opportunities” to work together.


RELATED

© Provided by HuffPost Canada

Kenney: Biden Owes Canada ‘Respect’ Of Hearing Case For Keystone XL

THEY HAVE YEARS AGO, JUST GET OUR MONEY BACK FROM TC

© Provided by HuffPost Canada

Pipeline Operator Promises Keystone XL Will Have Net Zero Emission

HA HA HA OF COURSE ITS A PIPELINE

© Provided by HuffPost Canada

Biden To Rescind Keystone Pipeline Permit On Day 1: Transition Documents
BOOM! RIP KXL 

Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.

The release from the Prime Minister’s Office said “Canada has made the case for the project, including recently to President-elect Biden, and Ambassador Hillman and others in government have also been speaking with high-level officials in the incoming administration.”

PRIMING THE PUMP OF TC WHILE IMPOSING CUTS TO PUBLIC SECTOR UNDER AN AUSTERITY BUDGET THAT MAKES NO SENSE

Kenney, whose government invested $1.5 billion in the project and recently offered $6-billion more in loan guarantees, said he urged the federal government to do everything possible to convey a clear message to Biden that “rescinding the Keystone XL border crossing permit would damage the Canada-U.S. bilateral relationship.”

The Alberta government’s response to the conversation suggests Trudeau “agreed with Premier Kenney that a retroactive veto of the border crossing would create a troubling precedent.”

But Ottawa’s public statement about the conversation makes no mention of it. Instead, it suggests Trudeau is eager to work with the Biden administration on shared priorities.

Wilkinson said he was “very optimistic” real changes on tackling climate change were now afoot.

“In addition to having a president in office who will focus on climate,” he said, the investment community is now looking at the climate issue as one of the fundamental bases on which they make investment decisions. “That’s fundamentally different and I think it’s very powerful.”

© Provided by HuffPost Canada John Podesta attends a forum in Las Vegas on April 27, 2019.

Public opinion is also changing, he said. If you asked Canadians 10 years ago about climate change, he said, people believed there was a choice to be made between reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the economic penalty associated with doing that.

“If you look at public opinion polls in this country now, the vast majority of people believe that addressing climate change will be good for the economy and good for their economic prospects,” he said. “That changes the nature of the conversation.”

“I feel like we’ve been pushing this boulder up this hill for many, many years and we’ve finally gotten to the top. And this is kind of the time where you actually start to see the boulder going down the other side of the hill with its own momentum.”

Throughout the one-hour conversation, Wilkinson highlighted several areas where he felt the United States and Canada could work together.

“If I can be so bold, I would like to suggest a few things where we would really like to see American leadership,” he said.

He hoped Canada and the United States could set enhanced methane regulations that could be a standard for the rest of the world. Same in the transportation sector.

Canada is also “looking for U.S. assistance” in the run up to COP 26 on addressing climate and nature together. “I think engaging the United States in that conversation, I think is very consistent with what the Biden folks have been saying, would be very helpful.” © Provided by HuffPost Canada Joe Biden delivers his victory address after being declared the winner in the 2020 presidential election in Wilmington, Del. on Nov. 7, 2020.


He also asked for U.S. help with the Powering Past Coal Alliance, a push to rapidly phase out of coal-fired power plants around the world, including those that have taken to decrease pollution emissions, in order to meet the net-zero commitment.

“We certainly can use the enhanced ambition on the part of the Americans to help leverage the rest of the international community. And I think we will be looking for American leadership in part, in particular, to help us with some of the countries that perhaps have been a little bit more recalcitrant on the climate file, major countries, including Brazil and Russia,” he said.

Podesta suggested Kerry would be up for the task. “He knows how to get ambition out of a multilateral system.”

But he warned that the Biden team would first be focused on getting its own house in order.

“The United States lost a lot of credibility over the last four years. So the most important thing the United States can deliver is domestic action that I think can be taken forward to the international system,” he said.

Biden has promised to be net zero 2050 and to have a 100 per cent clean power sector by 2035 — which Podesta called “ an audacious goal, and one that’s achievable but will be difficult.”
Biden will want U.S. to be ‘good partners’ with allies: Podesta

While Biden’s early focus is on getting the pandemic under control, getting vaccines distributed and restarting the economy, Podesta said there would be a lot of action on climate right at the beginning.

“From rejoining Paris to reversing the actions of the real assault that President [Donald] Trump made on environmental protection across a range of fronts during his four years in office,” he said. The White House will be focused on co-ordinating the decarbonisation of the U.S. economy, while also re-engaging internationally, he said.

“[Biden] will put us back into a framework where we’re good partners with our allies and partners around the world, where there’s a new embrace of responsibility in the multilateral sector. And I think it’ll be a welcome change,” he said.

Wilkinson suggested the United States may want to learn from Canada on some protection projects it has accomplished with Indigenous peoples, such as Indigeneous Protected and Conserved Areas.

Podesta suggested there are many different areas in which to forge partnerships and cooperation.

“I’m not an American who thinks America knows everything about everything,” he said. “And I think we have plenty to learn from the Canadian experience, particularly in terms of Indigenous management.”

The Biden administration, he suggested, will be eager to work on common areas, such as protection of the Arctic, on migratory corridors, and on other files where Trump’s actions will be reversed.

“The wrecking crew is still at work,” he said, citing recent changes to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act that will “need to be reversed.”

The Trump White House recently rolled back the 100-year-old law, saying the government will no longer fine or prosecute companies that unintentionally cause the death of birds — such as in oil spills or in toxic waste ponds. Environmentalists worry that that means companies won’t be encouraged to mitigate bird deaths and they fear more protected species will die.

Last month, the Trump administration also rolled back protections for fish and wildlife under the Endangered Species Act. And this week, it sought to finalize plans to open up 80 per cent of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve to oil and gas drilling, threatening the habitat of polar bears, caribou, and migratory birds.

“You’ll find a strong partnership in the … U.S. agencies, which will be led by people who care about nature,” Podesta told Wilkinson.This article originally appeared on HuffPost Canada.

THE DEAD END OF KXL 2005-2021

It's time to let Keystone XL go, ambassador says

in 2020, it was estimated that total oil and gas employment in Alberta was 128,180, and thus the number of lost jobs represents 2.2 per cent of the total sector employment in the province

KENNEY CUTS PUBLIC SECTOR UNION WORKERS JOBS WHILE THROWING MONEY AT KXL EVEN NOW

© Nati Harnik/The Canadian Press Opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline demonstrate in Omaha, Nebraska in 2017.

Canada's ambassador to the United States says there's no chance of President Joe Biden walking back his decision to kill the Keystone XL pipeline — so she's turning her attention to other pressing bilateral issues.

"It's obviously very disappointing for Albertans and people in Saskatchewan who are already in a difficult situation," Kirsten Hillman said in an interview airing Saturday on CBC's The House.

"But I think that we need to now focus on moving forward with this administration, and there are so many ways in which we are going to be aligned with them to our mutual interest that I'm eager to to get going on that."

Biden vowed during last year's presidential campaign to rescind Donald Trump's permit for Keystone XL, which would have linked Alberta's oilsands with refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. And he did, making it one of the first executive orders he issued within hours of taking office on Wednesday.

While the move was applauded by progressives in his Democratic Party and in Canada, it struck a heavy blow in Alberta. TC energy, the company building the pipeline, halted construction and laid off a thousand workers.

 

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney lashed out this week at both Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, accusing the federal government of abandoning the oil and gas sector.

THE ONLY TIME KENNEY MENTIONS UNION JOBS WHEN HE ISN'T ATTACKING THEM

WITH UNION BUSTING LEGISLATION

He released a letter to Trudeau on Friday calling on the federal government to retaliate by imposing economic sanctions on the United States or by demanding compensation for TC Energy and his government — which invested billions of provincial taxpayers' dollars into the project. The premier even took his case to Fox News on Friday.

"It's very frustrating that one of the first acts of the new president was, I think, to disrespect America's closest friend and ally, Canada, and to kill good-paying union jobs on both sides of the border and ultimately to make the United States more dependent on foreign oil imports from OPEC dictatorships," Kenney told the Fox audience. "We don't understand it."

Hillman didn't comment directly on Kenney's demands, insisting instead that Canada remains the "best partner" for helping Americans meet their energy needs.

"But we have to recognize that the Biden administration has put fighting climate change at the centre of their agenda," she said. "Not only their domestic agenda but their international agenda."

Goodbye, Keystone — hello 'Buy American'

Keystone's abrupt death isn't the only recent challenge to a Canada-U.S. relationship that's been severely tested over the past four years by Donald Trump. Many Canadians see Biden as not only a more reliable partner but as a friend to this country.

Some of his policies suggest otherwise. Hillman said she's already spoken to the White House about another Biden campaign promise — this one to restore "Buy American" requirements for major government contracts, a move that could freeze Canadian companies out of U.S. government work.

"Less than an hour after the end of the inauguration ceremony, we were in touch with top-level advisers in the White House and discussed many things," she said. "Among them was Buy America."

  

© Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images U.S. President Joe Biden signs a series of orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, after being sworn in on January 20, 2021.

Biden is proposing a massive, $400 billion infrastructure program that would award contracts exclusively to U.S. companies. As big as that program is, it will be dwarfed by another Biden proposal — to invest $2 trillion in clean technologies and infrastructure.

Hillman said such protectionist measures are not new. In the past, Congress has imposed restrictions to limit or exclude foreign companies from bidding on infrastructure projects, or from supplying U.S. companies that do.

Canada has successfully negotiated exemptions to such policies before — most recently through the 2010 Canada-U.S. Agreement on Government Procurement, which gave companies in this country access to stimulus projects funded under the U.S. Recovery Act.
No link between Keystone and carve-out, says Hillman

Hillman was asked in The House interview if the federal government's muted response to the Keystone decision is tied to its hopes for getting a carve-out for Canadian businesses under Biden's Buy American policy. She said there's no connection.

"Our job here is to work with the administration to demonstrate to them, factually, that as they pursue their domestic goals, the highly integrated supply chains that we have with the United States are essential to protect and preserve for their economic recovery objectives," she said.

"I'm optimistic that we are going to be able to have meaningful conversations with them around how they can meet their policy objectives while also being sure that we protect our mutually supportive supply chains."

Hillman said she sees other opportunities for cross-border cooperation in the Biden administration's decision to rejoin the Paris climate accord and the president's vow to meet the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Canada's hopes for a green tech boom

Biden has nominated former secretary of state John Kerry as his special presidential envoy for the climate — a new cabinet-level position intended to underscore Biden's personal commitment to addressing climate change.

"That provides a lot of opportunities for green tech, for Canadian clean energy, for working together on emission standards, for innovation in our automotive industry," Hillman said.

The Trudeau government is trying to position Canada as a global leader in green technology fields. It introduced legislation requiring Canada to become a net-zero emitter by mid century and last month unveiled this country's first national strategy to develop hydrogen as a fuel source.

That's the long game, of course.

For now, the Trudeau government must also deal with the challenge here at home: preventing the fate of Keystone XL from becoming the dominant issue in Canada-U.S. relations that it was the last time a Democrat was in the Oval Office — and Joe Biden was his vice president.

Why the U.S. isn't in desperate need of the 

Keystone XL pipeline

© TC Energy/The Associated Press A lot has changed since the Keystone XL pipeline project was first proposed in 2005. For one thing, the U.S. has increased its own oil production and has become far less dependent on imports.

Ramped up domestic oil production and alternative supply routes have lessened the U.S.'s need for the hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil that would have been pumped daily through the now-cancelled Keystone XL pipeline, some industry experts say.

On Wednesday, not long after being sworn in as president of the United States, Joe Biden fulfilled a campaign promise by signing an executive order scuttling the 1,897-kilometre pipeline expansion as part of the administration's effort to fight climate change.

The project, first announced in 2005, would have carried 830,000 barrels of crude a day from the oilsands in Alberta to Nebraska and connected with the original Keystone pipeline that runs to Gulf Coast refineries.

"I really don't think that this works out to be a major, significant change to American oil supply right now," said Warren Mabee, director of Queen's University's Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy. 

"The flow of oil out of Canada ... is now a much smaller part of any big U.S. energy strategy. They've got the capacity in the States to be able to make up for that. They're not really counting on the additional capacity, the growth that Keystone XL would bring."
A 'gut punch'

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was disappointed with Biden's decision, but Alberta Premier Jason Kenney called it a "gut punch" and federal Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole described it as "devastating."

© Evan Vucci/The Associated Press U.S. President Joe Biden signs executive orders on his first day in office. He wasted little time cancelling the Keystone XL project.

While supporters of the project north of the border say the decision represents a major loss for Canadian jobs and oil production, it likely won't have a similar negative impact on U.S. oil supply, some experts say.

And that makes the prospect of changing the administration's mind even more unlikely.

"A decade ago, we were integral," Mabee said. "In fact, the United States would think of Canada as part of the United States when they were looking at their energy supply. And I don't think that's the case anymore."

As well, there was no guarantee that adding 800,000 barrels a day of capacity would lead to 800,000 barrels a day of additional production in the oilsands, said Mabee.

With Canada already moving 500,000 barrels a day by rail to the U.S., Keystone XL may have just picked up the slack from the rail system, he said.
Weaned off imports

Video: How Joe Biden’s plans to block Keystone XL pipeline will affect Alberta (Global News)

TIRED OLD TORIES 44 YEARS IN POWER 

THEY WERE THE SHILLS FOR BIG OIL

KENNEY JUST KEPT SHOVELING THEM MONEY 

THEY DON'T NEED

In the years since Keystone XL was first proposed, the U.S. significantly increased its oil production through the hydraulic fracturing of shale. This resulted in a 230 per cent surge in U.S. crude production, or an extra 6.9 million barrels a day, said Michael Tran, managing director of global energy strategy at RBC Capital Markets. Total U.S. crude imports have dropped significantly as well.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2019, the U.S. produced about 19.25 million barrels per day and consumed about 20.4 million barrels. 

Since the 1990s, Canada's share of total crude oil imports to the U.S. has increased, accounting for 56 per cent of the supply in 2019.

However, by that time, total U.S. crude oil imports were down by about one-third compared to 2005 volumes.

"So the U.S. has just really weaned its way off of global imports in a really big way during that period," Tran said. "The domestic shale revolution has completely altered the U.S. landscape and its dependency on foreign oil. 

"The U.S. need for Canadian oil is not to the same urgent degree as it has been in the past."

© CBC News

David Braziel, CEO of RBN Energy, an energy markets consultancy based in Houston, Texas, said that when the Keystone XL project was first announced, back in 2005, the U.S. was certainly in need of the additional capacity that would have been produced. 

But as the project continued to stall, the industry found alternative supply chains. Producers began relying more on rail to transport oil supplies while other pipelines expanded incrementally to help move those additional barrels to U.S. markets, Braziel said. 

The U.S. is also counting on the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which heads west from Alberta to B.C. and connects with a pipeline to Washington state, and Enbridge Line 3, which also begins in Alberta and crosses Minnesota to Superior, Wis.

In late July, the Trump administration approved the existing Keystone pipeline to ship 29 per cent more Canadian crude into the U.S. Midwest and Gulf Coast.

"So, there's a lot of additional capacity that could come on to fill the gaps. If the Keystone XL was there, [we would] definitely use it, but if it's not there, then there are other ways to get to market," Braziel said.

Andrew Lipow, CEO of Lipow Oil Associates, a petroleum consulting firm based in Houston, Texas, said the Keystone XL pipeline certainly could have been used to increase crude oil production that ultimately would have been delivered to U.S. refineries, many of them on the Gulf Coast, displacing imports from other parts of the world.

"And those other imports that the Gulf Coast relies on come from areas of the world that may be politically unstable or have other supply issues," he said.

Major exporter

As well, while shale production has resulted in the U.S. becoming a major exporter of crude oil, that oil is of the "light sweet variety," Lipow said. And many U.S. refineries are configured to prefer the heavy sour crude that comes from Alberta.

"The Canadian crude is actually less expensive than the light sweet crude coming out of the shale producing regions [in the U.S.]," he said.

Still, while the U.S. refineries would prefer Alberta crude pumped through Keystone XL, they can still use U.S. crude oil, he said.

Meanwhile, U.S. motorists are unlikely to see any spike in gas prices as a result of the Keystone XL decision, Mabee said. 

"It's not going to leave Americans paying three times as much for their gasoline," he said. "It probably won't affect their price at all."

Biden's Keystone XL death sentence requires Canada's oil sector to innovate

In one of his first acts of office, U.S. President Joe Biden has issued an executive order that effectively kills the Keystone XL pipeline project

.

© (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) U.S. President Joe Biden signs his first executive order in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 20, 2021, in Washington.

The order states that the pipeline “disserves the U.S. national interest” and that approving it would be inconsistent with his campaign climate pledges.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney called the move a “gut punch” and an “insult” and has threatened legal action to recoup Alberta’s $1.5 billion investment in the project.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement that expressed disappointment, but struck a far more conciliatory tone. He signalled a desire to work with the Biden administration and implicitly conceded that the pipeline won’t be resurrected again.

While the reaction from Alberta implies Biden’s move came as a shock, the truth is that cancelling Keystone XL was a key part of Biden’s election platform and was telegraphed clearly throughout the campaign.

Obama’s rejection

It’s worth remembering that Keystone XL was rejected previously by Barack Obama’s administration in 2015, after several years of controversy, and that the environmental concerns used to justify that decision have not gone away. This decision should have been expected and planned for.

But it would seem that both Alberta and TC Energy (formerly TransCanada) felt that there was a good chance the project would proceed despite Biden’s election win. Early in January 2021, TC Energy opened bidding on existing pipeline space expected to be freed up by the construction of the new line.

The Keystone XL cancellation will significantly impact Canada and Alberta. TC Energy has estimated that Canada would have added 2,800 jobs directly associated with this project, mostly in Alberta, and contends the United States would have seen 10,400 new positions.

Let’s put that in perspective: in 2020, it was estimated that total oil and gas employment in Alberta was 128,180, and thus the number of lost jobs represents 2.2 per cent of the total sector employment in the province — a very significant proportion for a single project.

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Alex Panetta Pipes intended for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline are shown in Gascoyne, N.D. in April 2015.

The loss of Keystone XL also will impact future projects in the province’s oilsands. We know that one of the reasons that companies are reducing investments in the oilsands is that there is a transport bottleneck that affects the ability to get new product to market.

Keystone XL would have been able to move 830,000 barrels per day. Total Canadian oilsands production is only 2.9 million barrels per day, so adding Keystone XL may have attracted new investment to the oilsands to take advantage of this transportation capacity, which in turn would have meant billions in royalties to the province. GDP growth resulting from this investment would have benefited all of Canada.

The cancellation of Keystone XL could leave Alberta out-of-pocket for the $1.5 billion invested by the government earlier this year. This investment — almost $400 for each individual in the province — may be recouped through legal means or reinvested by the company, or simply written off.

The province also made $6 billion in loan guarantees that may be recovered. Overall, however, the province will likely lose money on this deal — and the voters ultimately will decide the price.

Energy East born again?

So what’s next?

There have been reports that some of the pipe and materials may be sold for scrap if Keystone XL can’t move forward. In reality, the majority of the actual pipe has not yet been laid, meaning pipes could easily be repurposed for other projects. So some investment may be recovered over an extended time.

Indeed, TC Energy may look to the past when figuring out its next move.

One option that might be explored is revisiting Energy East, a pipeline that would have seen 1.1 million barrels per day of Alberta oil travel over 3,000 kilometres to reach tidewater at Saint John, N.B.

Energy East was arguably the most complicated infrastructure project ever imagined in Canada, involving the federal government, six provincial legislatures, hundreds of municipalities and 180 traditional Indigenous territories. The project would have crossed thousands of waterways ranging from streams to major waterways including the South Saskatchewan, Red, Ottawa, and St. Lawrence rivers.

The project was hugely controversial, and was cancelled in 2017 — partly because former president Donald Trump had re-approved Keystone XL earlier that year.

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson Security guards try to restrain a demonstrator from interrupting the National Energy Board public hearing into the ultimately doomed Energy East pipeline project in August 2016 in Montréal.

Rethinking pipelines

But before backing yet another pipeline project, Alberta and all of Canada ultimately need to decide if more pipeline capacity is really needed.

Keystone XL struggled to find investors prior to Alberta’s decision to provide funds. The frequently cited “Canadian discount” in oil prices, which entails Canadian oil being sold at lower prices than the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) index, has in recent months been reduced as oil prices have begun to recover.

In Ottawa and in Washington, policies to address the climate emergency have taken precedence over new investment in conventional, fossil fuel-based industries.

The future of Canada’s oil sector may not be in volume, but in value.

Consider that four to five per cent of the volume of oil becomes high-value products like plastics, rubber and chemicals; these products can account for 40 per cent or more of the value derived from a barrel of oil.

New refineries are being designed that focus on these value-added products and minimize bulk fuel products; these new facilities may be smaller and require far less in terms of input, reducing the need for new pipelines.

The death of Keystone XL is a wake-up call for the oil sector. The old way of doing business is fading away, and it must innovate to survive.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Warren Mabee receives funding from the Canada Research Chairs foundation and from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

Destructive protests by anarchists and extremists signal divided left as Biden administration begins

WAPO LIBERAL CLAPTRAP

FALSE EQUIVALENCIES

THE  DIVIDED LEFT IS IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

A UNITED LEFT IS OUTSIDE THE PARTY

The hundreds of far-left and anarchist demonstrators who gathered in protest mere hours after President Biden swore the oath of office Wednesday signal a fracturing on the left that could become a scourge for the new administration, political leaders and experts say.

© Maranie R. Staab for The Washington Post Protesters burn a “Biden for President” flag outside of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland on Wednesday.

VANDALISM IS NOT VIOLENCE
Some activists are carrying their destructive tactics into a new administration to voice rejection of centrist ideologies they believe will do little to address existential worries over climate change, economic inequality, foreign wars and racism. 

The vandalizing of the Oregon Democratic Party headquarters by extreme-left demonstrators on ­Inauguration Day has split Portland liberals, and federal agents’ launching of tear gas at crowds that descended on the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters produced scenes reminiscent of similar summer standoffs ordered by President Donald Trump.

In Seattle, a march organized by anarchists and the city’s Youth Liberation Front branch roved through neighborhoods, chanting expletives at both Trump and Biden, some breaking windows at the original Starbucks. In Denver, dozens of demonstrators burned an American flag and yelled epithets at police.

James Ofsink, president of Portland Forward, a local advocacy group for liberal causes, said the growing tension in Portland’s progressive circles — and the elation with which right-wing pundits and politicians have watched far-left demonstrators destroy Democratic structures, sometimes literally — is emblematic of a larger tug of war happening in the nation.

“Portland is going to continue to be a microcosm of the political divides, especially among the left, that we’re seeing across the country,” Ofsink said. “The idea that middle-of-the-road Democrats can say with a straight face that we need to take things slowly or do things in a very deliberate way rubs a lot of people the very wrong way.”


Violent and destructive activity among far-left groups has been increasing nationwide, according to a recent study by the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a  RIGHT WING nonprofit policy research group. 

Though nearly 70 percent of terrorist attacks and plots in the U.S. last year were committed by white supremacists and far-right militia groups, according to the study, the portion led by anarchist and anti-fascist groups rose to 20 percent from 8 percent in 2019. 

FALSE EQUIVALENCY (NO TERRORIST ATTACKS HAVE BEEN ATTRIBUTED TO ANY @ ORGANIZATION) ALL ARMED ATTACKS WERE WHITE POWER NO ANARCHIST ARMED ATTACKS.

© Maranie R. Staab/For The Washington Post Portland police officers confront a group of protesters prior to their planned march Inauguration Day in Portland, Ore.

Seth G. Jones, the center’s director, said violent far-right events like the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville — which resulted in the death of a counterprotester — have prompted many of the far-left groups to arm themselves and organize more events that have also become increasingly violent and destructive.

“There is additional danger coming down the road where we have this extremism almost feeding on each other, almost inspiring one another,” Jones said. “Based on recent trends, we can expect violent far-left networks to conduct explosive, incendiary and firearm attacks against police, government and corporate targets.”

Portland has been a hotbed of both extreme-right and extreme-left activity, a trend that Wednesday’s destruction suggests will continue.

More than 100 protesters in black bloc — all-black attire meant to anonymize the wearer in a crowd of similarly dressed people — had gathered on Wednesday at Revolution Hall, a music venue in the southeast part of the city, before a handful of demonstrators broke off to bash in the windows of the vacant Democratic headquarters while others shielded them from view with large, black umbrellas.[California church known for its anti-LGBTQ beliefs is bombed]

Hours later, another group protested outside Portland’s ICE headquarters — a demonstration that had been advertised on social media with the tagline, “What’s outrageous? Kids in cages!” — calling for the dissolution of the agency. Prosecutors allege protesters “threw large rocks” at federal officers, the demonstration ending in explosions and clouds of gas as federal agents unleashed a barrage of chemicals and sparking munitions that skidded across the pavement toward crowds of protesters.

Fourteen people were arrested during several Inauguration Day protests in the city. Prosecutors are pursuing charges against four individuals, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office said in an email Friday — all in their 20s and alleged to have participated in a riot. Prosecutors cautioned that number may not be final, as an investigation is ongoing and police are expected to file additional reports.

© Maranie R. Staab for The Washington Post Protesters broke the windows of the Democratic Party of Oregon’s office in Portland during a march held on Inauguration Day.

Mark Bray, author of “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist’s Handbook,” said the graffiti that the Portland protesters left behind and the flags some carried included anarchist symbols. There is a “fair amount of overlap” between the ideologies of anarchists and antifascists. Both tend to be anti-government, opposed to both the Democratic and Republican parties, and frequently protest on Inauguration Day and at the parties’ annual conventions.

“Broadly speaking they want directly democratic, self-managed communities at the regional and macro-regional levels,” said Bray, a historian and lecturer at Rutgers University who helped organize Occupy Wall Street. “They want decision-making from the bottom up versus the top down. They reject capitalism.”

Portland’s protests undercut claims by Republicans that far-left groups have embraced Biden and have committed destructive acts in support of his policies, said Oren Segal, vice president of the Center on Extremism at the Anti-Defamation League.

“There have been so many efforts to link Biden to the radical elements of the left, including antifa,” he said. “This demonstrates a disconnect between that messaging from the Trump administration and elected officials, who tended to lump together the left more broadly with these radical elements.”

Many  LIBERALS   on the left have criticized how such groups have demonstrated their ideologies, fearing it weakens their unity and message. Gregory McKelvey, a political consultant and vice chair of the Democratic Party of Oregon’s Black Caucus, noted that some activists “who want to empathize with the extreme left finding it hard to do so right now.”

BAD TIMING

“I don’t think these tactics work. It alienates people, and growing the coalition is essential to creating change,” McKelvey said. “I also think Trump was abhorrent and Inauguration Day was a day of the country really getting to exhale and celebrate and to do so and feel as though someone is telling you there is no cause for celebration when clearly there is, it’s frustrating.”

© Maranie R. Staab for The Washington Post Protesters in Portland march during a demonstration against racial injustice on Inauguration Day.

But McKelvey, who has for years attended racial justice demonstrations in Portland, added that many in the city’s activist community also continue to lash out against police and the government as a result of months of trauma — being on the receiving end of crowd-control munitions, including tear gas, as well as the ongoing pandemic and economic anxiety.

“We can argue about if this is strategic or not, but I do think there is also an element of lashing out because the world is messed up right now and people are messed up right now,” he said.

McKelvey worries that the conversation that has followed Wednesday’s clashes has distracted from the key issues he and other community organizers hope that the Biden administration will address, including climate change and systemic racism.

“On the scale of everything that’s going on in the world, for anybody’s top priority to be ‘there were four broken windows or graffiti on the DPO building,’ it doesn’t compare to the fact that George Floyd was murdered and we still have a flawed criminal justice system in our country,” he said. “I might think broken windows is bad, but it’s not going to be my fight.”

Three of those arrested as a result of the destruction in Portland on Wednesday were accused of damaging the offices of the Democratic Party of Oregon. Austin Nuchraksa, 25, is accused of smashing a window at the party headquarters with a “silver metal baton,” according to court documents, after marching with a group that carried banners declaring “WE DON’T WANT BIDEN — WE WANT REVENGE” and “WE ARE UNGOVERNABLE.”[Move on or fight on: Americans remain sorely divided as Biden’s quest for unity begins]

After Nuchraksa was detained by police, officers said they smelled gas and found four green beer bottles, wrapped in socks, with cloth wicks protruding from each bottle’s mouth, according to court records. The homemade molotov cocktails were “leaking gasoline all over the inside of the backpack,” prosecutors wrote. Nuchraksa was charged with participating in a riot, first-degree criminal mischief and unlawful possession of a destructive device.

Kai-Ave Douvia, 22, is accused of using a “pry-bar kind of tool” to break windows at the DPO building, according to court documents. He was charged with first-degree criminal mischief and participating in a riot.

Nicole Rose, 25, is accused of helping to break windows at the DPO by handing a “metal baton” to another demonstrator who then used the baton to break the glass, according to court documents. Rose later took the baton back and used it to “break the rest of the window,” prosecutors wrote. She was identified using live-streamed video of the event and charged with second-degree criminal mischief and participating in a riot.

Those arrested have been released on their own recognizance, according to Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office records. The Washington Post’s efforts to reach them Friday were unsuccessful.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) has not publicly spoken about the protests and did not respond to a request for comment.

Several others were arrested for the vandalism at the ICE federal building. Trevor Colter, 26, allegedly threw a “projectile” at officers outside the building while officers attempted to disperse the crowd, according to the District Attorney’s office. Colter, who was charged with rioting, resisting arrest and second-degree disorderly conduct, was later found to be carrying a large knife, bear spray, a collapsible baton and three fireworks, according to court documents.

Protesters who participated in Wednesday’s demonstrations in Portland said the people who perpetrated destruction and committed acts of vandalism at the Democratic Party’s building were a small number of more than 100 protesters who had gathered for a march meant as a left-wing rebuke of the Biden presidency.

Later, outside the ICE headquarters, protesters chanted “not my president” and lit a Biden campaign flag on fire. Some spray-painted a message onto the federal building in a condemnation of Trump’s immigration policies that separated migrant children from their parents: “Reunite families now.”

Julie Tate in Washington and Jennifer Oldham in Denver contributed to this report.