Alberta and Quebec have long been allies in their opposition to the powers of Ottawa. This past election that commonality was shown in the reaction to Harpers Arts and Culture cuts. While pundits focused on Quebec's reaction they overlooked its impact in Alberta. In particular in Festival City; Redmonton.
The defeat of Edmonton Strathcona MP Rahim Jaffer was a direct result of Harpers attack on Arts and Cultural workers. After all Redmonton has a booming arts and culture community, we have the Winspear and the Citadel, the Jubilee, we have arts groups and theatre groups, a major Symphony, Jazz City, the Fringe Festival, an International Childrens Arts Festival, a Buskers Ball, the Edmonton Folk Festival and an International Street Preformers festival, etc, etc.
Edmonton Strathcona itself is one of the cities Arts hub. Known to all as Old Strathcona with its infamous Whyte Avenue at its core, it is the centre of the Theatre community hosting the second largest Fringe Festival in the world. Not only do Edmontonians produce and preform the plays, they are mass of volunteers needed to run the Fringe and the mass of visitors to the Fringe.
Did Harper miss this fact? You bet. When the uproar over his political purging of arts funding mobilized the Arts and Cultural community, it was a nation wide response. Of course the greatest coverage was its impact in Quebec where polls showed Harper's policy led to loss of support for the Conservatives.
But overlooked was its impact here in Redmonton. Harper backpedaled and announced that he had increased Heritage Canada funding, but that of course is tied to politically correct Conservative values, then he annouced increased funding for arts and culture for wait for it....children to take piano and dance lessons. He overlooked the fact that dance classes were already eligable for his childrens athletics tax credit that the government introduced last election. And how does funding piano lessons equate with funding for Symphony orcehstra's, Opera, etc. It doesn't. And so it cost Rahim his job.
Arts voters in Edmonton Strathcona voted strategically. And not only NDP and Liberals but Conservatives as well. When it comes to Edmonton Strathcona which is the Reddest part of Redmonton, we have elected NDP MLA's here. When the provincial Tories run candidates here they have been Red Tories,
Rahim was in a tough fight and he knew it. From the start he did something he has not done in previous elections, put up lawn signs. There were Jaffer signs on my street and my moms street where they had never been before. But like the Liberal signs many were on rental or commercial properties, put their in many cases not by the renters but the landlord.
Linda Duncan ran an excellent campaign, and it was based on building a base through three elections. The NDP made a break through federally in the riding when they ran Malcolm Azania, and broke through the usual two way race between Conservatives and Liberals which had left the party trailing a distant third over the years.
The Azania campaign team stayed on and recruited Linda to run last election. She further consolidated the NDP's second place standing loosing to Jaffer by only 5000 votes, votes that had gone to the non-existant Liberal candidate. In that election it was the Liberals who were the vote spliters.
But this election it was clearly a two way race, and despite his sign campaign Jaffers laziness and arrogance cost him. He did not address the Arts cuts, nor did he distance himself from the Harper arts attacks when Harper insulted all cultural workers and masses of volunteers who support them by calling them elitists. In fact he insulted some of the leading citizens of this city who are proud of the efforts they have put into fund raising for Arts and Culture, including wealth bourgoise like the Winspears who donated to have the Winspear Centre for the Arts built. Opps.
Jafers arrogance was on public display election night when at ten o'clock he got up to announce his imminent victory, which the media mistakenly announced not noticing that their were still 14 polls not counted, polls which included mine which are all strong NDP polls.
He was pulled down from the podium by an aide who told him it wasn't in the bag yet.
When he lost he was at a loss for words for several days, again Jaffer's arrogance was publicly displayed with his refusal to concide the election. He only announced his final defeat the same day he eloped with fellow MP Helen Guergis.
The delicious irony of this is that he appears to be off to Ottawa to live with Helen as her live in Assistant and Helen will have lots of time to spend with Rahim since it is speculated that she is destined for the back bench in the upcoming cabinet shuffle.
Yes Linda Duncan and her team ran a great campaign. But in the end we have to thank Stephen Harper for attacking the Arts and Culture community, it pushed her over the top. And put a bright orange spot in the middle of Blue Alberta.
And this is no minor break through. It shows that the Harpocrites policy of taking Alberta for granted cost them big time in Edmonton Strathcona. Next election that vulnerability could lead to more defeats for the Harpocrites.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Pallin's Pipeline
Sarah Pallin's American nativist politics ends when it comes to oil. The Alaskan Govenor is in the pocket of one of Canada's oldest and leading Pipeline companies; TransCanada Pipelines. But shhhh don't tell anyone. Her Drill Baby Drill rhetoric belies the fact that you can drill all you want in Alaska but the point is to get the oil and gas to a refinery. And Alaska for all its ground assets does not have refinering capacity, so that oil and gas has to get shipped south. And who will do the shipping? TransCanada Pipelines, tying Alaska into its Keystone pipeline project. The controversial pipeline will ship bitumen from the Tarsands south to the Gulf Coast for refining. In Alberta, and in fact across Canada, the pipeline is controversial for several reasons, one is it runs through disputed Lubicon Cree land, and secondly it shows that we remain hewers of coal and drawers of oil, rather than having true energy independence by doing secondary and tertiary production; refining here. Unlike Alaska, Alberta has refineries, and refining capacity.But thanks to TransCanada's cozy relationship to the Stelmach regime, like its cozy relationship with Pallin, we and the Alaskans get screwed.
During the election Harper announced that if elected he would restrict exports of bitumen, the Stelmach regime remained uncharacteristically silent over the issue. Usually Ottawa intrusion into Alberta's energy patch would elicit a hue and cry of outrage with the usual rantings about the NEP. However Harpers move was to assure Americans that Canada has continues to view them as the primary preferred customer for our oil.
With the current fiscal meltdown most of the refining expansion planned for Upgrader Alley in Alberta are now on hold which gives carte blanche to TransCanada to ship our oil and jobs south . As Ross Perot once said; can you hear that giant sucking sound as Alberta and Alaska oil jobs go south?
As Ms. Palin takes to the road to campaign with Mr. McCain, invoking the pipeline as a major victory, some Alaska lawmakers who initially endorsed her plan now believe it was a mistake. State Senator Bert Stedman, a Republican who is co-chairman of the finance committee, said that in its contract with the chosen developer, TransCanada, the state bargained away too much leverage with little guarantee of success.Of the five companies that eventually bid, Ms. Palin’s administration chose TransCanada Pipelines, which operates 36,500 miles of pipeline across North America. TransCanada had previously tried to negotiate a pipeline deal with the Murkowski administration, but was sidelined by the governor in favor of the big oil companies, some officials who were involved in the talks said. That contributed to the rift that led to the departures of Mr. Irwin, Ms. Rutherford and five others from the state Department of Natural Resources.
The proposal that TransCanada negotiated with the Murkowski administration was structured differently from the current one and had no provision for a $500 million state subsidy, said two people who reviewed it and who spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposal remains confidential.
Of the Palin aides familiar with TransCanada from those earlier negotiations, Ms. Rutherford had an unusually close connection. For 10 months in 2003, she was a partner in a consulting and lobbying firm whose clients included Foothills Pipe Lines Ltd., a subsidiary of TransCanada.
Ms. Rutherford said in an interview that after TransCanada submitted its pipeline proposal to the Palin administration, she and the governor never discussed whether her role on the team might be viewed as improper or give the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Ms. Rutherford, who said she had not lobbied for Foothills but had done research and analysis, stated that she was not one of the pipeline team members who recommended a developer to Ms. Palin. That was done by Mr. Irwin and Patrick S. Galvin, the commissioner of the Department of Revenue, she said.
The proposal that TransCanada negotiated with the Murkowski administration was structured differently from the current one and had no provision for a $500 million state subsidy, said two people who reviewed it and who spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposal remains confidential.
Of the Palin aides familiar with TransCanada from those earlier negotiations, Ms. Rutherford had an unusually close connection. For 10 months in 2003, she was a partner in a consulting and lobbying firm whose clients included Foothills Pipe Lines Ltd., a subsidiary of TransCanada.
Ms. Rutherford said in an interview that after TransCanada submitted its pipeline proposal to the Palin administration, she and the governor never discussed whether her role on the team might be viewed as improper or give the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Ms. Rutherford, who said she had not lobbied for Foothills but had done research and analysis, stated that she was not one of the pipeline team members who recommended a developer to Ms. Palin. That was done by Mr. Irwin and Patrick S. Galvin, the commissioner of the Department of Revenue, she said.
TransCanada is already building the $5.2-billion Keystone pipeline, which will carry 590,000 barrels a day from Hardisty, Alta., to refinery hubs in Illinois and Oklahoma from 2009. The expansion will take an extra 500,000 barrels a day to refineries in Houston and Port Arthur, Tex.
As well as the confirmed supplies and the possible construction delay, TransCanada said it has increased its stake in Keystone and the expansion as its partner, ConocoPhillips Corp. of Houston, has reduced its share from 50 per cent to 20.1 per cent. TransCanada now has 79.9 per cent of the pipeline, although shippers will have an option to take a 15-per-cent stake.
ConocoPhillips spokesman Bill Graham said the company is still committed to Keystone, and will be a major shipper on the pipeline, but he wouldn't comment on why the company had reduced its interest.
As well as the confirmed supplies and the possible construction delay, TransCanada said it has increased its stake in Keystone and the expansion as its partner, ConocoPhillips Corp. of Houston, has reduced its share from 50 per cent to 20.1 per cent. TransCanada now has 79.9 per cent of the pipeline, although shippers will have an option to take a 15-per-cent stake.
ConocoPhillips spokesman Bill Graham said the company is still committed to Keystone, and will be a major shipper on the pipeline, but he wouldn't comment on why the company had reduced its interest.
Currently, Alberta exports 500,000 barrels of bitumen daily to the U.S., about 40 per cent of total production of the tar-like substance from the oilsands. That will rise to one million barrels a day by 2010 when two new pipelines, the Alberta Clipper and Keystone pipelines, take bitumen to Texas and Illinois respectively.
Bitumen must be upgraded into heavy oil before it can be sent to refineries to be made into gasoline and other fuels.
Stringham disputed the suggestion that oil companies are sending bitumen south for upgrading to avoid Canada's greenhouse gas emission standards, which come into effect in 2010.
Everyone expects the U.S will have some similar standards soon, he says.
Besides, the decision on where to build an upgrader for bitumen is based on economics, not the environment, says Stringham. In some ways, Alberta is a preferred place to build an upgrader, given the low taxes and stable political environment, though high labour costs are a problem these days.
Bitumen must be upgraded into heavy oil before it can be sent to refineries to be made into gasoline and other fuels.
Stringham disputed the suggestion that oil companies are sending bitumen south for upgrading to avoid Canada's greenhouse gas emission standards, which come into effect in 2010.
Everyone expects the U.S will have some similar standards soon, he says.
Besides, the decision on where to build an upgrader for bitumen is based on economics, not the environment, says Stringham. In some ways, Alberta is a preferred place to build an upgrader, given the low taxes and stable political environment, though high labour costs are a problem these days.
But building bitumen upgraders isn't easy in the Edmonton region's upgrader alley.
Last month, the BA Heartland upgrader, partly completed near Fort Saskatchewan, was suddenly mothballed. The credit crisis in the U.S. was the major reason cited by the company for closing down the project at this time.
The very same day, however, ConocoPhillips and Calgary-based Encana began work in the U.S. on a $3.6-billion refinery retrofit to handle Alberta bitumen flowing to Illinois.
Last month, the BA Heartland upgrader, partly completed near Fort Saskatchewan, was suddenly mothballed. The credit crisis in the U.S. was the major reason cited by the company for closing down the project at this time.
The very same day, however, ConocoPhillips and Calgary-based Encana began work in the U.S. on a $3.6-billion refinery retrofit to handle Alberta bitumen flowing to Illinois.
No wonder, then, that Harper's policy to keep the bitumen here was hailed as good news in the Fort Saskatchewan area where there are plans for a dozen upgraders. "Our group feels it's a very progressive move," said Neil Shelly, executive director of Alberta's Heartland Industrial area.
"It levels the playing field for us because we will be capturing carbon dioxide at the plants in this area, and the U.S. does not have those requirements that entail an additional cost." Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, agrees those upgrading jobs should stay in Canada.
But he doesn't hold out much hope that Harper's bitumen policy will actually reduce the flow of jobs or bitumen down the pipeline.
In fact, McGowan suggests that Harper is sending a reassuring message across the border that energy hungry America will remain Canada's preferred customer and that China, with its lower environmental standards, will be on the prohibited list.
Even if the Democrats win the U.S. election, they too will want a continental energy policy, as that's the only way to reduce U.S. dependence on Venezuelan and Middle East oil.
"He's sending a signal to Washington and Houston that if he is prime minister, Canada will continue the continental energy system," says McGowan "It's the worst kind of election promise. ... He's able to give the impression he was doing something to protect jobs, without taking concrete action.
"What this really does is tie the hands of Alberta producers from looking for other customers." Pipeline builder Enbridge Inc. is one of the few companies going after those new customers in China and Southeast Asia. It's the biggest shipper of bitumen to the U.S and is currently building a $4.2-billion pipeline to the Pacific Coast, dubbed the Northern Gateway, initially to serve China.
"It levels the playing field for us because we will be capturing carbon dioxide at the plants in this area, and the U.S. does not have those requirements that entail an additional cost." Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, agrees those upgrading jobs should stay in Canada.
But he doesn't hold out much hope that Harper's bitumen policy will actually reduce the flow of jobs or bitumen down the pipeline.
In fact, McGowan suggests that Harper is sending a reassuring message across the border that energy hungry America will remain Canada's preferred customer and that China, with its lower environmental standards, will be on the prohibited list.
Even if the Democrats win the U.S. election, they too will want a continental energy policy, as that's the only way to reduce U.S. dependence on Venezuelan and Middle East oil.
"He's sending a signal to Washington and Houston that if he is prime minister, Canada will continue the continental energy system," says McGowan "It's the worst kind of election promise. ... He's able to give the impression he was doing something to protect jobs, without taking concrete action.
"What this really does is tie the hands of Alberta producers from looking for other customers." Pipeline builder Enbridge Inc. is one of the few companies going after those new customers in China and Southeast Asia. It's the biggest shipper of bitumen to the U.S and is currently building a $4.2-billion pipeline to the Pacific Coast, dubbed the Northern Gateway, initially to serve China.
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