Daily Archive

Getting elected is one thing, being effective in government is quite another. Thanks for the info ipolitics:

 

 

“Trouble is, while Kenney’s frothy campaign bluster successfully fanned Alberta’s collective outrage, very little of it bore any resemblance to reality. Notley, far from being “complacent on pipelines” as Kenney accused a few weeks ago, has tried harder than most of her conservative brethren, Saint Ralph Klein included, to get one into the ground.

Proof positive of her bona fides: she defied the anti-oil types within both the national NDP and British Columbia’s NDP government next door. She earned the ire of her former ally and oil patch critic Kevin Taft. Greenpeace even labelled Notley “pro-pipeline” — something she probably should have put on a campaign sign, come to think of it.

The reason why an oil pipeline has been so elusive has nothing to do with partisan politics but an enduring political reality: it is manifestly more difficult to get pipelines into the ground today than when Ralph Klein roamed the earth.”

[…]

 “Another conceit peddled by Jason Kenney over the last two years: that the dampening demand for Alberta-born bitumen, and the resulting deep discount at which it is sold, is strictly an infrastructure problem. This has allowed him to fashion a very passable boogeyman out of various anti-pipeline organizations, which served him well throughout the election campaign.

There more than a kernel of truth to Kenney’s assertions. Alberta’s oil sands production increased by nearly 50 per cent since 2014; its ability to transport all this bounty by rail and pipeline has remained virtually unchanged.

Yet there is an inconvenient a truth behind Alberta’s deeply discounted oil: exploding U.S. oil production. Virtually all of Canada’s crude — 99 per cent — goes to the U.S. Yet America has become increasingly adept at slaking its own demand. A fracking boom has prompted an increase of nearly 90 per cent in the U.S. between 2007 and 2018.

U.S.-fracked oil is cheaper to produce and requires less refining than the stuff north of the border. By virtue of spouting from American soil, it is by nature a Trump-approved nationalist bulwark against all things foreign-owned. It’s another fact of life, one utterly divorced from Kenney’s scorched earth politics: the U.S., Alberta’s biggest client, has increasingly become a competitor.

A few days ago, Kenney blamed all of Alberta’s woes on the allegedly socialist overindulgences of Rachel Notley. But reality, pain that it is, will quickly reveal the obvious: Kenney, having demonized Notley for the last two years, has only inherited her problems.”