PMO PO Danny Williams

Slightly overwhelmed by all the election coverage yesterday was news that Danny Williams was not going to attend the crowning of the new leader of his provincial PC party, his replacement. Party brass all were shocked and dismayed.

Shocked that Williams won't attend tribute: premier

While some have suggested it was because of this;

Former aide to Danny Williams backs away from oil board

I think this had more to do with it

Tories, Quebec ink oil exploration deal

The Conservatives are getting rid of a long-standing irritant with the Quebec government just days before an expected election call, signing a deal that opens the door to oil exploration in the St. Lawrence and fuels hopes for economic development in poor parts of the province.

The agreement to be unveiled on Thursday in Gatineau, Que., will lead to exploration for billions of barrels of oil and natural gas in the Old Harry field in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which straddles Quebec’s boundary with Newfoundland.

A 1967 Supreme Court of Canada ruling upheld the federal government’s ownership of offshore resources.

A joint secretariat will be set up to oversee federal-provincial responsibilities regarding the management of the offshore resources and an independent tribunal will mediate potential conflicts, including an overseas boundary dispute between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. Millions of dollars in royalties are at stake.

The Old Harry site straddles a boundary defined in 1964 by Quebec and the four Atlantic provinces. The boundary places most of the Old Harry oil and gas reserves on Quebec’s side of the line. Newfoundland and Labrador is challenging the boundary, and the announcement gives the province an equal say over the makeup of the tribunal.

Another interesting point about this deal was that it was done in private, days before the election call, and it resulted in this....

Federal Tories buy the silence of the Quebec Liberals

And it was hard to believe Christian Paradis, who is Prime Minister Harper's Quebec political lieutenant as well as natural-resources minister, when he said Thursday's agreement on the Old Harry offshore oil and gas deposits had nothing to do with the federal election.

It was easier to believe Quebec's natural-resources minister, Nathalie Normandeau, who said that "never have the planets been so well aligned" for what looked like the hasty settlement of a 12-year-old difference between Ottawa and Quebec.

And the agreement on Old Harry is only one sign of an apparent political arrangement between the federal Conservatives and the Quebec Liberals.

The arrangement was apparently made between Harper and Premier Charest in a private meeting last week, when the prime minister came to the provincial capital to announce an airport expansion.

In the deal, the Quebec Liberals would refrain from criticizing the Conservatives, the party most likely to form the next government, possibly a majority government, until the federal election is over.In return, the Conservative government would sign agreements giving Quebec more money.

On Wednesday, Charest defended the Harper government against criticism from the sovereignist parties in Ottawa and Quebec City over the absence of a harmonization settlement in the federal budget.

And he said that in this federal campaign, h...e will not publish an open letter asking the parties to state their positions on issues of particular concern to his government, as he had in the past. Charest said "the idea of a letter is a bit passé," even though his intervention in the 2008 campaign to criticize the Conservatives for culture spending cuts had proven effective

The Reason For Alberta's Deficit-Big Oil

Just like back in the nineties when Alberta gave big tax breaks to big oil, we went into a deficit. And Deja Vu if it didn't happen again.

Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) paints a picture of declining production and royalties from Alberta's natural gas industry for the rest of the decade, but sharply rising oilsands royalties.

Royalties from natural gas and the oilsands totalled more than $8.8 billion in 2009, but just over $4.6 billion in 2010 -a big cause of the provincial deficit.

"The government is running a province which assumes they will take in $6 billion to $8 billion a year, and this is not happening," CERI CEO Peter Howard said.

Premier Ed Stelmach has said the province aims to balance its budget by 2013. CERI's estimates suggest that will be a challenge if they are depending on royalties.

The institute estimates Alberta will be back to 2009 royalty levels by about 2016, when oilsands royalties will be more than $7.2 billion, with just $1.1 billion coming from natural gas.

Yep Big Oil gets Royalty breaks that resulted in the deficit and schools get cuts!

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach says school boards may have to "hold some of their labour costs low" in coming years as the province looks to rebuild its coffers, but critics blame the Tory government for looming teacher layoffs.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Provincial+education+funding+falls+short/4494419/story.html#ixzz1HcKHRDNU

Premier Clueless

Koch Industries registers to lobby Alberta gov't - CBJ.ca - The Canadian Business Journal

Koch Industries registers to lobby AB govt :: The Hook

Billionaire Tea Party financiers register to lobby Alberta government

Alberta premier says he doesn't know Koch brothers or who they are lobbying |

Gee I guess Mr. Ed hasn't been reading the press lately, its so lonely at the top, surrounded by sycophants who read the news and interpret it for you. And who they are lobbying is your Government Mr. Ed.

Koch Industries Handles 25% of Canada Tar Sand Oil

OpEdNews - Article: Koch Industries, Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline...BP on the Prairie?

Nope never heard of them says Mr. Ed.

Gee did he cut them a Royalty cheque?

The Tyee – The Kochs: Oil Sands Billionaires Bankrolling US Right

Where is Wisconsin?

Billionaire Conservative Koch Brothers Behind Wisconsin Union Busting?

Class War in Wisconsin - Auburn Journal
The Koch brothers, who own Koch Industries Inc, and whose combined worth is estimated at $43 billion, have now been tied with Walker's election and his push to eliminate collective bargaining rights for public workers. The Kochs have long backed conservative causes and groups, including Americans for Prosperity which organized the Tea Party and which launched a ‘Stand with Scott Walker’ website recently.

ALBERTA FEDERATION OF LABOUR | Alberta unions condemn Wisconsin decision to strip collective bargain

Sounds like they would feel right at home in anti-union Alberta.

ALBERTA FEDERATION OF LABOUR | Unions ask Stelmach to confirm he's not considering U.S.-style attack

Unions defend middle class | Comment | London Free Press

The war in Wisconsin

By GIL MCGOWAN, Special to QMI Agency

Gil McGowan is president of the Alberta Federation of Labour.

What does all of this have to do with Canada?

In the past two weeks, major news outlets have published columns echoing the Tea Party attack on unions.

Don't expect guys like the Koch brothers to stay out of Canada's politics. They may already be funding the Wildrose Alliance and Tory leadership candidates in Alberta. (We can't know for sure, because both parties refuse to reveal their donors).

So, be prepared for the war on unions and the middle class to move north.

And of course Alberta is the home to the Anti-Climate Change lobby so the Koch Brothers will feel right at home

Kochs Profit from Canadian Eco-Nightmare

Koch Brothers Behind Environment Killing Measures
What has been less widely reported is that as soon as Walker entered office, he cut environmental regulations and appointed a Republican known for her disregard for environmental regulations to lead the Department of Natural Resources. Walker is opposed to clean energy job policies that might draw workers away from Koch-owned What has been less widely reported is that as soon as Walker entered office, he cut environmental regulations and appointed a Republican known for her disregard for environmental regulations to lead the Department of Natural Resources. Walker is opposed to clean energy job policies that might draw workers away from Koch-owned interests. What has been less widely reported is that as soon as Walker entered office, he cut environmental regulations and appointed a Republican known for her disregard for environmental regulations to lead the Department of Natural Resources. Walker is opposed to clean energy job policies that might draw workers away from Koch-owned interests. interests.

A Tax Some Repubicans Like

The Carbon Tax, which by the by is actually in effect in Alberta.

Which brings us to Alberta's small carbon tax. It has one – $15 a tonne for companies that exceed certain emission limits, with the money going into a technology fund. The trouble is that $15 a tonne is too low today to generate a lot of money, and will certainly be far too low tomorrow to generate the income the government will need to finance this expensive policy option.

However in Alberta the beneficiaries of this tax are the taxpayers; big oil.

And so with this model it should be no surprise that another capitalist who supports taxes is the CEO of Exxon; in this case the much hated Carbon Tax that Republicans and Harpocrites claim will kill jobs.

But a carbon tax appears to have little support in Ottawa. Both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion have rejected the idea in the past, saying it will damage the economy.

Then there are Republicans who support carbon taxes because it undermines cap and trade, which by its sheer complications cannot actually function in the real market place.


Ironically its not Republicans but environmentalists and social justice advocates in California opposing it in favour of a carbon tax

February 16, 2011

But the environmental justice groups that brought the lawsuit against the Air Resources Board oppose the cap and trade program. These groups include the Communities for a Better Environment and the Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment.

“Cap and trade will create toxic hotspots in low-income communities of color,” said Maya Golden-Krasner, a staff attorney for Communities for a Better Environment.

Those who support cap and trade say the revenue gained from the trading of emission rights will be used to forge programs for these poor populations, Pincetl said.

This argument does not satisfy the environmental justice community, though.

“This heavy reliance on cap and trade won’t get us where we need to be,” Golden-Krasner said.

The coalition seeks methods other than cap and trade to reduce carbon emissions.

“We are supportive of AB 32,” Golden-Krasner said. “We just want to see the Air Resources Board actually examine alternatives to cap and trade.”

These alternatives include a direct tax to carbon emissions.

It is also the reason Alberta was the first province to impose a carbon tax, to avoid cap and trade.

Why GOP Rep. Bob Inglis is looking for a new job.

Tue Aug. 3, 2010 2:00 AM PDT

Inglis voted against the cap-and-trade climate legislation, believing it would create a new tax, lead to a "hopelessly complicated" trading scheme for carbon, and harm American manufacturing by handing China and India a competitive edge on energy costs. Instead, he proposed a revenue-neutral tax swap: Payroll taxes would be reduced, and the amount of that reduction would be applied as a tax on carbon dioxide emissions—mainly hitting coal plants and natural gas facilities. (This tax would be removed from exported goods and imposed on imported products—thus neutralizing any competitive advantage for China, India, and other manufacturing nations.)

Here was a conservative market-based plan. Did it receive any interest from House GOP leaders? Inglis shakes his head: "It's the t-word." Tax. He adds, "It's so contrary to the rhetoric we've got out there, to what Beck, Limbaugh, and others are saying."

January 2009

The world's biggest oil company, Exxon Mobil, has softened its hardline position on climate change by throwing its weight behind a tax on carbon emissions.

In a significant shift in stance, Exxon's chief executive, Rex Tillerson, told an audience in Washington that he considered a tax to be a fairer route to curbing emissions than a cap-and-trade system of pollution allocations.

"As a businessman it is hard to speak favourably about any new tax," said Tillerson. "But a carbon tax strikes me as a more direct, a more transparent and a more effective approach."

support for carbon taxes has been taken up by a growing cadre on the far right, including Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, economist Arthur Laffer, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), and yes, even climate wingnut Sen. James Inhofe (R-Gamma Quadrant). Hell, throw in a refunded gas tax and you get America's Worst Columnist© Charles Krauthammer too. Are we to believe that these folks understand the threat of climate chaos, want to reduce climate emissions the amount science indicates is prudent, and sincerely believe that a carbon tax is the best way to accomplish that goal?

Is a carbon tax in America's future?

By Timothy NoahPosted Thursday, Nov. 9, 2006, at 5:40 PM ET

Two days after the election, a movement is afoot to achieve an audacious Democratic goal. The weird part is that the people behind it are Republicans.

In a Nov. 9 Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Bush speechwriter David Frum suggested that President Bush propose a carbon tax. N. Gregory Mankiw, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Bush White House, suggested the same thing in an Oct. 20 op-ed in the Journal, and former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan talked it up in late September. Harvard's Martin Feldstein and Weekly Standard contributing editor Irwin Stelzer like the idea, too. Slate "Moneybox" columnist Dan Gross took note of this unexpected GOP trend in an Oct. 8 New York Times column ("Raise the Gasoline Tax? Funny, It Doesn't Sound Republican").

On a purely theoretical level, it's not at all inconsistent for a Republican to advocate a carbon tax. Conservatives prefer taxing transactions to taxing income because it's a way to avoid progressivity; rich and poor get taxed at the same rate. (In his op-ed, Frum makes no bones about wanting to use the carbon tax to "split the opposition" and to lower taxes on "work, savings and investment.")

The reason that that conservatives can support a carbon tax is because it is a Pigovian Tax, which is a classical liberal economic argument.

Pigou Club is described by its founder as “an elite group of economists and pundits with the good sense to have publicly advocated higher Pigovian taxes, such as gasoline taxes or carbon taxes.”

Pigou Club was founded by Dr. Gregory Mankiw by stating his legendary manifesto in the Wall Street Journal. As time passed more and more economists were added to the list of people supporting the Pigou Club. They include people from all sides of political spectrum.

Ducks Worth More than Workers

Well it seems that if you kill a worker in Alberta you only have to pay $1500

Syncrude also paid a court fine of $10,000 fine and $1,500 to the victim's family.
But if you kill ducks you pay $3million or $ 1,875,000 per duck.

According to the commercials the $1,500 would be a spit in the bucket in funeral costs alone. How pitiful, while the media and government praise the judicial fine to Syncrud, based on previous rulings the fine is put towards paying for a Health and Safety program. While this is an attempt to ameliorate a bad practice, why is the fine required, rather a ten year funding for all OHS training at Keyano College would be even better. And really $1,500 is a less than a spit in the bucket when it comes to the millions that Syncrud pulls out of the ground weekly.

Hewers of Wood, Drawersof Oil

This headline once again reveals the untainted truth; China is a capitalist nation and as a world power of capital is Imperialist.

PetroChina, Encana and the eventual export of B.C. natural gas

Regardless of the ideology proclaimed by the state, the fact is that China is a capitalist economy; even if it is a state capitalist one.

As Herr Dr.Marx points out it's about the relationships we have to the means of production, who controls it and who doesn't. In other words once you have industrial production and capital in perpetual production by a working class, capitalist society exists, regardless of its political superstructure. The transformation of peasants into an urban proletariat is the key function of capitalist means of production. And China fits that description as much as England did in the late 18th Century or America in the late 19th Century.

The irony in the relationship between Canada and China is that they are both state capitalist economies. One is more bourgeois democratic, the other is based on an authoritarian command economy. However the state, is crucial in both political economies in determining national interests.

In the case of Canada we are once again being the hewers of wood and drawers of water, a resource based export economy to developing industrial economies. Today we are hewers of wood and drawers of oil.

Is China Western Canada's new best friend?

``Between 2000 and 2010, Canadian exports to China have increased by 3,300 per cent. In fact, Canada surpassed Russia this year as the biggest exporter of softwood lumber to China.''

BC wood-culture push brings Chinese success

This is reminiscent of the original colonial model of Canada vis a vis France and Britain, and then our relationship with America. Now we deal with a modernizing industrial China, as their new resource base as we sell off our manufacturing to other global capitalists.

French Canada was initially a colony of resource extraction, not a colony of settlement. During brief periods when settlement became paramount, Canada was a theocratic society, reminiscent of modern Iran. And when settlement and development was finally pushed determinedly, Canada became a laboratory in
which Jean Baptiste Colbert, the father of French mercantilist economics, tested his theories with development schemes similar to Third World misadventures in the 1960s.

The irony is that the current Federal government in Canada is politically opposed to China, yet they espouse the virtues of free trade, going so far as to call themselves libertarians on this matter. But the fact is that the Harpocrites right wing ideology belies the political economic reality which is Canada, it has always been a state capitalist nation.

However the nature of Canadian political economy belies any true tradition of free trade. It evolved from mercantilism to state capitalism, without the problematic tendencies of free trade.

The first share capital corporations were the North West Company of Fur Traders, and the Hudson Bay Company, fur trading companies that still were mercantile, not really free enterprise. They relied on being monopolies. In fact all of the early capitalist development in Canada was monopoly mercantilism run by a few families. Whether it was fur trading or canal building.

Henry Hudson’s 1610 claim for Britain to the lands around Hudson’s Bay lay unexploited until 1670, when Charles II granted his cousin, Prince Rupert, a fur trade monopoly and rechristened the region Rupertsland. Rupert organized The Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudsons Bay (a.k.a.
The Hudson’s Bay Company, or ‘the Bay’), a joint stock company, to raise funds.10 The forts, trading posts, and ships required - as well as the risks inherent in the fur trade - were beyond the resources of even the wealthiest individual families. Thus, the Hudson’s Bay Company, like the British East India Company and the Dutch East Indies Company, was among the first joint stock companies formed.

In 1779, British and Loyalist merchants in Montréal established the
Northwest Company to compete with the Hudson’s Bay Company for the fur trade, contesting the legitimacy of the latter’s monopoly. The original founders of the Northwest Company included Simon McTavish, Todd and McGill, Charles Grant, Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher, the firm of McGill and Patterson and five other merchants and firms.15 The resulting wealth gave the same names prominence in
banking, shipping, and railroad promotion decades later. Since the Hudson’s Bay Company had its own militia, the Northwest Company needed one too.
Their battle for market share is best described in military terms.

During this period, the most entrepreneurial regions of British North America were the Maritime Colonies – Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Abraham Cunard, a master carpenter, arrived in Halifax in 1783 and rapidly established stores, mills, lumbering, sawmills, shipbuilding, an accounting firm, and other businesses. Despite strong competition from other “timber barons” like Gilmour, Rankin, & Co.,
Philemon Wright & Sons, William Price, and John Egan, A. Cunard & Son prospered. Many timber barons, including Christopher Scott, John and Charles Wood, and the Cunards, expanded into shipbuilding and shipping. Bliss (1986, p. 135) remarks that all of these fortunes were technically founded on theft, for the timber was almost all harvested from Crown land. The Cunard Line prospered,
especially after it obtained a monopoly on delivering the Royal Mail between Britain and the Americas.

The biggest enterprises in Upper Canada in the early 19th century were canals. The government built the Rideau Canal from the Ottawa River to Lake Ontario. William Hamilton Merritt organized the Welland Canal, linking Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, as a joint stock company controlled by the Family Compact. After providing generous state subsidies and loans, the Upper Canada government finally
bought out the owners of the failing venture in 1841. The newspaperman William Lyon Mackenzie charged that the whole project was a scam to enrich the Family Compact. Upper Canada’s public finances never recovered.

The creation of both the CPR and CN rail companies was facilitated by the Canadian State, including early on in the last century when immigration was promoted to help develop Rail lands.

Economic expansion paralleled an immigration boom. Under Laurier, Canada’s population rose 44%. Western Canada was rapidly populated along the proliferating transcontinental CPR system. All sectors of the economy grew rapidly and simultaneously to accommodate this infrastructure investment,
and the millions of new consumers flooding in. The situation thus closely resembles what Murphy et al. (1989) call a big push – rapid development sustained by the simultaneous expansion of many interdependent sectors, so demand for intermediate and final goods grows apace with their supply.
The railway, and the immigrant settler farms springing up around it created an economic low pressure zone. Every sort of new business was needed to supply the railroad, the settlers, and all the othernew businesses opening to serve them.

Canada's corporate structure was always mercantile state capitalism. In fact the origin of the Canadian State coincides with the development of the Railways.

The colony’s political leaders felt hamstrung by their inability to subsidize such new ventures. Francis Hincks, an entrepreneur and Member of Parliament, partially solved this problem with a new Municipalities Act, which let towns float debt. A more complete solution appeared in 1849, when Canada began guaranteeing railroad debt, but only if prominent politicians, such as Hincks and Galt, were
on the board to “guarantee good management.” After a brief financial crisis in 1849, a boom and bust in railroad stocks ensued, and railroad construction resumed on a grand scale. Although railroads built honest fortunes, like that of the engineer Casimir Gzoski, corruption was endemic. Sir Allan Napier
MacNab, president of the Great Western Railway, served Canada as chair of the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Railways and Telegraphs. The grandest project, the Grand Truck Railroad, run by Prime Minister Hincks, was ineptly built and almost unusable. A British lobbyist hired by Hincks to lobby
members of parliament wrote:I do not think there is much to be said for Canadians over Turks when contracts, places, free tickets on railways, or even cash was in question.
A Barings investigation exposed rampant fraud, kickbacks, and deceit; and Barings blocked further Canadian listings in London to obtain a veto over additional debt financing and guarantees in 1851. This merely tested the ingenuity of the colonial political elite in circumventing such checks. Railway subsidies became a top government priority. According to Naylor (1975), railroad construction and
financing in colonial Canada were “appalling even by the standards of the day.” Virtually every important politician now moonlighted as a railway officer or director, and railway subsidies both enriched political insiders and drained government coffers. Current, past, and future Prime Ministers Francis
Hincks, Alexander T. Galt, and John A. MacDonald, respectively, and most of their cabinet ministers all had railway financial ties. In 1858, Alexander Galt, now Finance Minister, subordinated Canada’s sovereign debt to railroad common stock and raised the tariff to obtain funds for larger railway subsidies. By the 1860s, Canada had both a shoddily built, poorly run railroad system and a near bankrupt
government.
Now, only union with the solvent Maritime colonies of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick promised fiscal rescue. When the United States abrogated the Reciprocity Treaty in 1866, Galt lowered the tariff slightly on manufactured goods to match those of the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick colonies,
in preparation for their union with Canada. In 1867, British investors blocked New Brunswick and Nova Scotia financing in London to force such a union. The resulting confederation was the Dominion of Canada, a self-governing entity within the British Empire. Canadian independence is usually dated to 1867, though Responsible Government came earlier and Canada remained within the Empire long after. Since the Canadian parliament assumed almost all of the powers of the parliament in London in 1867, this date is probably more appropriate than any other.

When it comes to politics those who complain that China is a one party state overlook the fact that Alberta is a One Party State as well. The longest running one party state in North America! And of course Alberta as a resource based economy, is looking to China to sell to.

Alta.'s economic future lies in Far East

Asia’s state-owned companies have taken significant positions in Alberta’s resources over the past year-and-a-half. Encana, the second-largest natural gas company in North America, announced a $5.4-billion joint venture deal with PetroChina Co. Ltd. last Wednesday, adding to its Canadian projects. Sinopec Corp., Korea National Oil Corp., and Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production Public Co. Ltd. all made recent investments in Alberta. China Investment Corp. also struck a deal last year.

Like Albertans the Chinese people believe they have a peoples government. Like those on the right who mythologize Alberta's history as a perpetual enclave of right wing individualism, those in China believe that their way of life is good and it is thanks to the government. Even if like in Alberta, it is a minority that elects the government.

ZACHARY KARABELL: Right now, the Chinese government is a good government in that it's providing more affluence to more people in a way that, from anything you can glean, many people in that particular society find minimally acceptable. But I don't know if we would say that's good governance.


IAN BREMMER:You don't get to vote in China. Yet many of them seem reasonably happy with the government they have had for the last 30, 40-plus years. We're going to have to address that.

One interesting point that I want to throw out. I was with Tony Blair a few months ago. He was talking about the fact that we needed to step up and really show our leadership in the G20 and all the rest. My response was, as I raised at the beginning of this question, "The Chinese are much happier with their government today than a lot of us sitting around the table are with our own. How do you address that? How do you respond to that?"

Tony Blair said, "When you look around the world, you see that people want democracy. It's a very tough question, but ultimately, the Chinese will come around; when they get richer, they're going to understand that we have the right system."

Yep just like Alberta, we might eventually have a real democracy here to.


Without an industrial policy in Canada, we will continue to be hewers of wood, and drawers of water and oil. And despite the hang wringing from the right wing about human rights in China, capitalism has no such qualms about making deals, after all the only thing that matters is the bottom line. Without developing secondary and tertiary industries and new industries, we will remain a resource economy with all the flaws that brings.

SEE:

His Masters Voice

Stiglitz On Market Fundamentalism

The New Imperial Age

China Fuels US Inflation

China Burps Greenspan Farts Dow Hiccups

Neo-Liberal State Capitalism In Asia
China: The Triumph of State Capitalism
US vs China for Global Hegemony
China No Longer Red Nor In The Red

China Needs Free Unions

Japanese State Capitalism

China's Trickle Down Economy

New Asian Dragon

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When will BP be Charged In Workers Deaths

I have been face book posting a number of stories about BP. Since the Supreme Court of the United States not only reconfirmed that Corporations were Persons, which was first recognized in the late 1890's, but extended their rights within the political arena, then as persons, they should face the consequences of their actions.

Which is to be charged with murder since they were criminally negligent when it came to safety.The result 26 deaths over five years. But because they were 'workplace incidents' the resulting deaths of real persons, because they are workers, is not considered equivalent to murder.

“It’s an unfortunate fact that monetary penalties just aren’t enough. We believe that nothing focuses the mind like the threat of doing time in prison, which is why we need criminal penalties for employers who are determined to gamble with their workers’ lives and consider it merely a cost of doing business when a worker dies on the job.”

- Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor (OSHA)

The facts as shown in this Fortune article say otherwise, this was no accident it was an accident waiting to happen.

In the decade before the Deepwater Horizon, BP (BP) had a history of serious accidents. Each time its CEO vowed to avoid a future disaster. In 2000, after a string of fires and equipment failures, CEO John Browne announced plans to "renew our commitment to safety." In 2005, after a horrific explosion killed 15 people at BP's Texas City refinery, he swore there'd be "no stone left unturned" to investigate what happened and correct any safety issues. In 2007, after being named Browne's successor in the aftermath of more problems, Tony Hayward promised to focus "like a laser" on safety -- only to oversee the worst oil spill in history.

Fortune's investigation shows how Hayward, a fast-rising geologist once known as "Teflon Tony," fell tragically short of his goal. Despite efforts to change, BP never corrected the underlying weakness in its safety approach, which allowed earlier calamities, such as the Texas City refinery explosion. Perhaps the most crucial culprit: an emphasis on personal safety (such as reducing slips and falls) rather than process safety (avoiding a deadly explosion). That might seem like a semantic distinction at first glance, but it had profound consequences.

Consider this: BP had strict guidelines barring employees from carrying a cup of coffee without a lid -- but no standard procedure for how to conduct a "negative-pressure test," a critical last step in avoiding a well blowout. If done properly, that test might have saved the Deepwater Horizon.

Indeed, BP executives warned of serious process-safety "gaps" in the Gulf of Mexico, Fortune has learned, in a never-before-reported strategy document dated December 2008. "It's become apparent," the BP document stated, "that process-safety major hazards and risks are not fully understood by engineering or line operating personnel. Insufficient awareness is leading to missed signals that precede incidents and response after incidents, both of which increases the potential for and severity of process-safety related incidents." The document called for stronger "major hazard awareness."

But BP failed. "They just did safety wrong," says Nancy Leveson, an industrial safety expert at MIT who served on a panel that investigated BP's safety practices after its refinery explosion; she has since taught safety classes to BP executives and also advised the presidential panel that investigated the Deepwater Horizon disaster. "They were producing a lot of standards," she says, "but many were not very good, and many were irrelevant." Leveson says that she was so troubled by BP's approach that in January 2010 she told colleagues, "They are an accident waiting to happen."

Caanda's Economic Engine Runs Out Of Oil

The overheated Alberta economy has screeched to a halt. And it does not look like the 'engine of Canada's economy' will be saving the country from recession anytime soon. So while manufacturing declines in Ontario, especially auto manufacturing, the result will mean even further decline in the need for gas and oil.
Opp's didn't plan for that did we. Of course not Alberta politicians provincially and federally oppose any concept of 'economic planning'.
And its not like we haven't been through all this before! Alberta Oil Jobs Evaporating
Despite the provincial governments head in the sand approach to oil development Albertans are speaking out, even as the oil economy bottoms out. Petro-Canada's planned pipeline bad for Alberta
And once again Alberta comes calling to Ottawa to bail it out!!! And of course the Alberta based Harpocrites are only to willing to oblige. But don't worry this is typical Conservative hype, they are simpy reannouncing previous commitments to capital investment.

Crisis forces Alberta to consider red ink
Opposition parties have been warning for years that the Tory government's spending was out of control, and that it was not doing enough to save the eye-popping surpluses it was reaping from soaring oil and natural-gas royalties. This year's surplus is expected to be $2-billion, down from the record of $8.6-billion in 2005-06.In 2007, the finance minister of the day, Lyle Oberg, speculated a deficit was possible if the province could not rein in its runaway spending. Since 2005-06, total government spending has jumped at least 32 per cent and per capita spending has been higher than that of any other provincial government.

Energy prices blamed as Alberta faces first deficit in 15 years

Alberta's decelerating energy sector can no longer be relied on to be the sole engine driving the province's economy, says a report issued yesterday by the Royal Bank of Canada. "While our new forecast for the provincial economy still reflects some degree of vigour, it does show a fair amount of steam seeping out of Alberta's engine," said Provincial Outlook, penned by economists Robert Hogue and Paul Ferley. The most visible example of the fading vigour is the delay or outright cancellation of several upgrader projects worth approximately $45 billion, as well as plans to scale back drilling because of low natural gas prices, the reports says. RBC has revised its GDP forecast to 2.1% for next year, down from a previous estimate of 3%.

Alberta inflation takes breather at 2.1 per cent
ATB Financial senior economist Todd Hirsch attributed the price jump in fruits and veggies in part to a weaker Canadian dollar."Alberta's inflation figures are being swept lower by falling commodity prices, especially crude oil and gasoline, but also by softer consumer demand," he said. Still, Canada's inflation was two per cent in November, the first time in two months that Alberta's inflation edged higher than the nation's.

Nearly across the board, oil companies have begun cutting spending. A survey by Barclays Capital found 2009 capital budgets were 12% lower than 2008 spending plans, and some believe they might head lower. Budgets in the U.S. and Canada are being cut the most, as projects in the high-cost oil-sands and unconventional natural-gas fields now make less economic sense. Companies such as Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips have delayed announcing budgets to spend more time assessing the market.

Alberta projects get$1B boost
PM commits gas tax funds to rebuilding infrastructure
A day after announcing it would sink deep into the red, the Harper government waved around a lot of green Friday in Conservative Alberta.On the heels of declaring it would run deficits totalling tens of billions of dollars over the next few years, Ottawa announced about $1 billion worth of previously committed infrastructure funding for projects in Wild Rose Country.The capital dollars come from earlier federal funding pledges, including $100 million to twin the Trans-Canada Highway near Lake Louise--with construction officially commencing today --and a promise by the Harper government to permanently allocate gas tax dollars to infrastructure.

Ottawa to give Alberta nearly $800-million
Calgary -- In a bid to keep Albertans working and help municipalities keep up with growing infrastructure demands, Ottawa announced yesterday it will pump more than $798-million into the province between 2010 and 2014.The extension to the federal gas-tax funding agreement could see cash earmarked for projects involving public transit, roads, water and waste disposal. Federal Labour Minister Rona Ambrose said the money will provide a "strong stimulus for the economy."

SEE:
Alberta Loses Billions
Recession Hits Alberta
Capitalism Caps Tarsands Expansion


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Recession Hits Alberta

I love it when folks who are in charge of the eonomy claim that they didn't see the recession coming, or they didn't expect it or they are shocked by it.

There is little doubt this week's developments signalled a change in the economic conditions affecting the province -- and in the messages coming from the Stelmach government, said political scientist Peter McCormick of the University of Lethbridge.
"I do think Alberta thought it was flying pretty high -- 'Recessions might hit lesser economies but they can't hurt us because we're oil, and oil never hurts,' " he said Friday."This is completely new territory for the government."

Oh please Peter gimme a break. There was the recession and oil crash of the seventies when the Tired Old Tories first took power. Then there was the oil boom and crash of the late seventies and early eighties which occured while the rest of Canada went into recession, by 1982 the oil market collapsed and Alberta followed the rest of the country into a downward spiral. Then there was the recession and debt/deficit crisis of the ninties. And through out it all the Tired Old Tories were in charge. So this ain't new territory.

Indeed the rose coloured blinders of the oil boom that the Tired Old Tories wear are the same ones they wore in the seventies and eighties. And now the recession has hit Alberta, we still have a budget surplus, just as we did in the ninties. But like the ninties, watch for the Tired Old Tories to start belt tightening and attacking the public sector while giving royalty holidays to their pals in Big Oil.

Indeed, the economic woes have hit on a number of fronts: the stock market slide has hammered Calgary-based petroleum producers; Alberta's housing market is slowing; retail sales are down; a handful of jobs have been cut.
While Ontario's manufacturing sector has been feeling the pain for months, the downturn in commodity markets -- particularly for crude oil -- is squeezing Alberta.
"We have been living in a bit of a dream world for the last little while. Things have not been well in other parts of the country," noted University of Calgary economist Ken McKenzie. "Until recently, we've been relatively removed from that because of high oil prices."
Much of the concern stems from just how quickly economic conditions, including commodity markets, have changed.
Resource revenue is still on pace this year for a record $14.6 billion, but it's about $4.3 billion less than what was predicted only three months ago.
Banks predict the Alberta economy will grow 1.9 per cent this year, gearing down to 0.3 per cent in 2009 -- the slowest since 1986.
"A $2-billion surplus is not a catastrophe compared to other provinces," Bernard said Friday. "There are a lot of positives, I think, for the Alberta economy, but for sure the drop in commodity prices is going to hurt."
McCormick agrees the province is faring better than other parts of the country where deficits are now being calculated. However, the government is trying to manage expectations by talking about tough times ahead.
"It's directed at universities, hospitals, school boards and government employees who are thinking about salary negotiations coming up -- that's who they are talking to," he said. "They are trying to get rid of boom-talk and boom-mentality now."

Alberta veers on royalties
Financial crisis forces energy-rich province to back down on its demands for a "fair share" from the development of its resources; New transitional rate for oil and gas wells will cost government $1.8-billion over the next five years.

It's the second time this year Alberta backtracks on the new policy, launched when energy prices were thought to rise forever. Last April, it backed off royalty increases affecting gas wells deeper than 2,500 metres and oil wells deeper than 2,000 metres.
The changes won't be the last.

SEE:
Black Gold
Steady Eddie Runs Away
Lougheed Spanks Klein
Don Getty's Legacy
You Won't Have Me To Kick Around
Lack of Planning Created Skills Shortage in Alberta
Laundry Workers Fight Privatization


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Steady Eddie Runs Away

Alberta's farmer CEO Ed Stelmach has no plan to deal with economic meltdown so what does he do instead skips the first ministers meeting for an all expenses paid junket to Europe. Guess he missed the news that this is a global crisis and that Europe ain't open for business its businesses are collapsing. And typically the Tired Old Tories have no plan. Instead they put their heads in the sand and hope no-one notices their arses are in the air.


Alta. premier to skip first ministers' meeting
Trish Audette , Canwest News ServicePublished: Monday, November 03, 2008
EDMONTON - Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is skipping national economic discussions in Ottawa next week in favour of going to Europe on a trade mission.
Stelmach explained Monday that his presence at the first ministers' meeting, hosted by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is unnecessary. The premier said organizers rejected having him connect to the Ottawa meeting by phone, so Alberta is sending a senior cabinet minister.
"We'll clearly identify the areas that we're concerned about," said Stelmach. "One of them is income trusts and another is where they cancelled all of the accelerated capital cost allowances for the oil and gas industry."

Premier needs to deliver plan that will restore hope
The premier has been disappointingly mum on his plans to restore confidence . . .
Danielle Smith, For The Calgary HeraldPublished: Tuesday, November 04, 2008
On Monday, the finance ministers met to talk about the next steps the federal government will take to address the pending economic crisis. What Premier Ed Stelmach now needs to do is set a date to provide an economic update of his own, so Albertans know what he intends to do about it.
The premier has been disappointingly mum on his plans to restore confidence among consumers and business owners. Meanwhile, Alberta is not likely to avoid the effects of what appears to be the beginning of a global economic slowdown.
Business confidence is at the lowest levels we've seen in nearly two decades.
For the last four weeks, starting on Oct. 6, CFIB has surveyed members on a weekly basis to get their views on how they expect the economy to perform over the next 12 months. The results are sobering.
Each week the small business outlook has looked a little dimmer, as massive shifts in commodity prices and the shrinking availability of credit disrupt investment plans. For the first time, the index is now virtually equivalent to its previous record low -- found in mid-1990 -- a time that coincided with a protracted recession.
For the last four weeks, starting on Oct. 6, CFIB has surveyed members on a weekly basis to get their views on how they expect the economy to perform over the next 12 months. The results are sobering.
Each week the small business outlook has looked a little dimmer, as massive shifts in commodity prices and the shrinking availability of credit disrupt investment plans. For the first time, the index is now virtually equivalent to its previous record low -- found in mid-1990 -- a time that coincided with a protracted recession.
But the most important question Taft levelled, which still appears to have no clear answer, is: "As the world economy staggers to a halt, what is this government's plan to protect the wealth and jobs of Albertans?"
Stelmach responded that he would dip into the $7.7 billion stability fund if he needed to, but that doesn't address the core problem. The core problem is the Alberta government spends too much.
This year, the province increased operating spending by 9.7 per cent and capital spending by 22 per cent.
Not long after the budget was delivered, the province threw out its surplus management strategy (which was supposed to dedicate one-third of surpluses to infrastructure, one-third to infrastructure maintenance, and one-third to savings) and announced it would spend an additional $4 billion, on carbon sequestration and public transit.


Tories 'handing' U.S. oilsands upgrading jobs
Premier blames federal government
Renata D'Aliesio, Calgary HeraldPublished: Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Opposition leaders accused Alberta's premier on Monday of standing idly by as the United States siphons oilsands upgrading jobs from the province.
In question period, Liberal boss Kevin Taft seized on new industry warnings that Alberta is on track to upgrade only half of its bitumen production, far short of Premier Ed Stelmach's goal of 75 per cent.
Taft listed a litany of American upgrader projects designed to process the province's tar-like bitumen, including plans slated for Indiana, Minnesota and Montana.
He said the Alberta government should be worried that $30 billion worth of oilsands projects, including upgraders and processing plants, has been shelved due to the global financial turmoil.
"This government is on the brink of handing control of Alberta's wealth to the United States," Taft charged.


Unintended consequences: discounted Alberta land
Crescent Point says royalties deflated prices
Dan Healing, Calgary HeraldPublished: Saturday, October 25, 2008
It's a bold investment strategy tinged with more than a little irony -- Calgary oil executive Scott Saxberg, a vocal opponent of higher Alberta oil royalties unveiled a year ago this week, says his Saskatchewan-focused company is going to aggressively bid for land rights in this province.
"We are now looking at lands in Alberta because we believe, based on the way royalty rules are, Alberta is basically giving away their land for free," the president and chief executive of Crescent Point Energy Trust told the Herald in an interview this week.



SEE

The Economist On Alberta's Fair Share
Still not getting our due
Ed's Politics Of Fear
Nationalize The Oil Patch
Royalties Pay For Jobs

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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