BC Liberal Minister Dave Byng Claims British Columbia Will Require 700,000 Workers For LNG By 2016

Sometimes I just can`t help but laugh my face off, these BC Liberals are really going all in on both propaganda and lying on this LNG thingy..

According to British Columbia`s immigration minister, he stated at a Government arranged bafflegabfest in Vancouver yesterday that BC will need 1 million workers by 2020,, these 1 million jobs, according to the minister will be in the northern part of British Columbia, these (fictional) jobs will peak between 2016 and 2018 and most of the jobs, according to this BC Liberal spindocter will be related to LNG......

This minister also said these jobs would be temporary in nature...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

British Gas, one of the proponents contemplating building a B.C. LNG plant wrote last year..British Gas outlined their workforce requirements..

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"BG(British Gas) intends to build a facility on Ridley Island capable of producing 21 million tonnes of LNG a year. Called Prince Rupert LNG, it would be built overseas in modules and shipped to Prince Rupert for assembly.

 Even so, the plant would create 3,500 jobs during construction,

 250 permanent direct jobs and another 250 spinoff jobs.

 BG says it is planning to build it in two phases, beginning in 2016.
The first phase — two seven-million-tonne-a-year processing units, or trains — is to be completed by 2021" 
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The immigration minister eluded to 1 million jobs, he claimed the "majority of these 1 million jobs will be in the LNG industry", he claimed employment numbers would peak between 2016 and 2018...By majority, a majority of 1 million jobs must be at least 600,000 jobs,  600,000 LNG construction jobs between 2016 to 2018..

Yet we still haven`t got even one final investment decision, furthermore, as you can read above the large British Gas LNG plant proposal(if built) would have a peak construction workforce of 3,500 jobs..

Assuming we had 10 LNG plants all being constructed at the same time...Multiply British Gas`s peak employment numbers by 10 and you arrive at .....35,000 jobs....Yet this deputy minister is claiming at least 600,000 jobs...

Even the BC Liberal press release 2 weeks ago ..... In that press release the BC Liberal`s Job numbers totals for LNG were skewed way too high, but know where near as high as minister Dave Byng`s projections....Here is what the BC Liberals said two weeks ago on LNG job numbers..

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http://engage.gov.bc.ca/lnginbc/job-creation/

Job Creation

As the LNG industry develops, it will create jobs all over the Province.

 

 

In fact, corporate offices have already opened in the lower mainland and demand for labour is growing in northern B.C. The LNG industry will create thousands of jobs in the natural gas sector.

These jobs will include direct and indirect employment during the construction phase as well as long-term operations.

 

 

Based on a current forecast of 5 plants in operation by 2021:

 

 

• 21,600 jobs will be directly involved in the building of LNG export facilities and associated pipelines.—

• 41,900 jobs will be created in the industries that supply goods and services during the peak construction phase.—

• 2,400 permanent jobs are required to operate and maintain the plants and pipelines on an ongoing basis.

61,700 jobs are required to support LNG operations including workers required to drill, produce, process and transport the natural gas required to feed the export facilities.

In addition to these jobs, there will be thousands of spin-off opportunities created and supported as result of LNG. For example: When a welder earns income, the money spent on their cost of living is injected into the economy. By spending their wage on things like buying clothes, eating in restaurants or renovating a home, the welder supports the financial well-being of the community and indirect jobs for their neighbors.


Recently, the B.C. government released a Natural Gas Workforce Strategy and Action Plan in collaboration with industry and training authorities.
Our action plan outlines the employment demands expected from LNG as well as details on how government will prepare people for new jobs.


Skills and core industrial certification requirements, as well as new postsecondary programs, will be created to ensure British Columbians are trained for new, high paying jobs in the resource sector.

http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2014/03/bc-liberals-lng-bafflegab.html


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David Broadband at Focus Magazine is highly skeptical about those advertised job numbers.
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From David Broadband..at Focus Magazine

Did the BC government fake LNG numbers before last year's election?

 

 

http://focusonline.ca/?q=node/695

By David Broadland, March 2014

"Emails between top-level BC civil servants show Premier Clark’s 100,000 LNG jobs were based on dubious assumptions thrown together at the last minute for her 2013 throne speech. Were those civil servants working for the public interest or Clark’s election campaign?........

Were the Prosperity Fund and the job claims part of an elaborate election ploy? It wouldn’t be the first time a government made an election promise it didn’t intend to keep. A more troubling possibility, though, is that Provincial public service employees and public funds were used to create that election ploy,...... 

 . The initiative appears to have been overseen by Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance Doug Foster. Foster outsourced the work to three private firms and delivered the numbers for Clark’s speech only days before it was made. Foster appears to have been reporting to Neil Sweeney, Deputy Minister, Corporate Policy in the Premier’s Office........


The report that provided the numbers was authored by Grant Thornton LLP (download from link at end of story), a prestigious accountancy firm with world-wide operations. Grant Thornton’s report allowed the Premier to say in her February 2013 throne speech, “LNG development is poised to trigger approximately $1 trillion in cumulative GDP within British Columbia over the next 30 years and that means more than $100 billion will flow directly to the Prosperity Fund. Province wide, LNG is expected to create on average 39,000 annual direct, indirect and induced full-time jobs during a nine-year construction period. As well, there could be as many as 75,000 full-time jobs required once all LNG plants are in full operation.”........

 After we read the report, which had the deceptively simple title Employment Impact Review, Focus filed an FOI for the record of communications between the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Natural Gas and Grant Thornton as they developed the study. The report contained many warnings to the reader that it was based entirely on assumptions provided by “the Province and its advisors.” We wondered who those “advisors” were and whether the Province and its advisors had pushed the process toward some desired outcome......


Grant Thornton’s estimation of long-term employment is also puzzling. According to an extensive study by KPMG of the $35 billion Australia Pacific project, ongoing operations of the LNG plant would employ 325, the pipeline 20 and the gas fields 520. Extrapolating from that example, a $98 billion project in BC would create 910 long-term operational jobs at LNG plants, 56 pipeline jobs, and 1456 gas field extraction jobs. That’s direct, long-term employment.......

It’s difficult to see how Grant Thornton arrived at the conclusion $98 billion would bring 75,000 long-term full-time jobs to the province.
It seemed possible, then, after analyzing the Grant Thornton study last May, that the process of creating the report might have been pushed to create a 100,000-jobs election platform rather than function as a careful and reasoned analysis of the potential for LNG to produce jobs in BC. If it was the former, had taxpayers paid for a Liberal campaign expense? If it was the latter, why had the jobs report been kept in a drawer during the election?"
http://focusonline.ca/?q=node/695
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http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2014/02/breaking-news-christy-clarks-and-bc.html


Bernard Schulman too doubts the BC Liberal`s advertised LNG  job number totals and has been thoroughly stymied in his government FOI requests..Bernard is attempting to figure out how these BC Liberals derived these job number totals..

http://bciconcoclast.blogspot.ca/2014/02/an-attempted-projection-of-lng-jobs.html


Simple math, 600,000 LNG welders making 200,000.00 per year ....That totals $120 billion in wages, ..2 years of welders making $200,000.00 per year is.....$240 billion in wages alone, cut those welder wages in half($100,000.00 per year)...That is still $120 billion in just wages over 2 year....LNG plants take much longer than 2 years to build, on average these big multi-train LNG plants take at least 5 years to build.....$hundreds of billions in construction wages alone, how about adding in the cost of materials, pre-made modules from south Korea, shipping costs, executive and managerial costs....Add in financing costs, carrying costs, investor return costs..We are talking about over 1/2 $trillion dollars just building this industry....Oh, and what is the proposed taxation level these companies will be subject to....."1 1/2% taxation until capital costs are recouped

http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2014/03/bc-liberals-lng-bafflegab.html

It would take decades for these companies to break even if one was to believe the BC Liberals in how much employment is reqired to get this industry going...Furthermore, the BC Liberal proposed taxation and royalty scheme presented to these energy companies has been thoroughly rejected by industry as too onerous..

http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2014/03/christy-clark-versus-jack-mintzwho-made.html

Canadian politicians are clearly giving away everything for peanuts.

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/03/31/Canada-Lousy-Oil-Negotiator/


Below is what this BC Liberal spindocter said yesterday(Friday March 28th/2014)

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"BC will see a million job openings by 2020, most within the next three years..

There are 47 projects in the province on the books worth over half-a- billion each.

Dave Byng told a business audience on Friday that three quarters of the work associated with them are in northern BC and are associated with liquid natural gas.." snip

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/will+need+look+overseas+fill+some+expected+million+openings/9675474/story.html

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Boy oh boy, those job numbers associated with LNG just keep on growing and growing, now we are up to over 70,000 jobs for each LNG plant...????...I recommend you read the article posted directly above..

Dave Byng also said these LNG jobs are temporary in nature, the peak will be, most of these required workers will only be needed between 2016 and 2018..


I wonder where British Columbia`s 600,000...700,000 or more LNG workforce made up with skilled trades are going to go for work after these "temporary jobs" end?

Well, I guess we could build another few dozen LNG plants...!

Anyway, right now we are in the middle of a BC Liberal and corporate media propaganda campaign, The Vancouver Sun started yesterday with an...
An article titled "special" on their front page..

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/bc2035/energy/index.html

Obsessed Twitter follower counter Keith Balderdash Baldrey and Global BC started their propaganda yesterday too..

Retweeted by Keith Baldrey

Global BC ‏@GlobalBC 10h

WATCH: BC’s looming skills shortage crisis #bcpoli http://ow.ly/v9q9C 

And cknw starts on Monday with a month long series on putting BCers to work...Included sponsors are CAPP, Fortis, YVR and some of our looking for money universities..




Sorry to scare you with that Christy clucking Clark photo..

Oh, by the way, those not familiar with Dave Byng....He was one of the top BC Rail dudes, he knows how to spin for sure..

Dave Byng helped spin BC Rail out of our provincial hands right into David Mclean`s clutches..

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dave-byng/14/863/352

Dave Byng, I believe you just made Joeseph Goebbels blush...


http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERgoebbels.htm

The Straight Goods

Cheers Eyes Wide Open
 

Will The BC liberals and As Our Stomach Turns Media Stop Pulling Our Legs

Written by Grant G


Robin Mathews touched on how media personalities have morphed into political party spokepersons and he is correct, my problem isn`t their affiliation it`s the fact they pretend to be neutral or well reasoned when clearly they are neither..

News reporting, television news, newspaper news and in particularly radio commentary on current events has became staged, manufactured, fake, no more spontaneity, radio today is kin to television soap operas, actors, extras and phony plots, good guys coming to the rescue and tune in tomorrow for another episode of..

How my stomach turns..

Today, right now actually Bill Good on cknw is nauseating, sickening and so transparent, he is lavishing praise on how Christy Clark rode in on her white horse, slayed the demon, broke down the barriers and single-handily ended the crippling port/truckers strike...

Really Billy, you actually went there, so important to the BC Liberals was this strike that the legislature took a one week spring break while the trucker strike raged...

Funny, I said to families members sitting across from me at 7:00 am this morning...."you watch, Billy Good is going to put Christy Clark on a pedestal over ending the truckers strike"

And sure enough, exactly as predicted, Billy Good played his role, ....Global BC with Keith Balderdash Baldrey did the same thing on Global news last night, ...Christy photo-op Clark got her smiling mug in front of the camera, praised lavished on her for being a miracle worker..

Yet a month ago Christy Clark punted this labour dispute to the feds, only after hearing criticism from industry and an announcement from the feds that they were staying out, ...1 month later, with a week long legislature spring break in between while the strike escalated fake media actors and actresses place Christy Clark on a pedestal...

Yesterday Brian Yu from Central One credit was playing his part too, called in for favour to tell radio listeners that everything is looking roses for British Columbia, this was done to change channels on Linda Reid, on more job losses, more scandal and failed Government, all part of the script acted out by media...Bring on the channel changer to prop up the great money managing BC Liberals(insert sarcasm here)..
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Central 1 economist Brian Yu forecasts increasing strength in the province's trade sector, driven by a lower Canadian dollar and recovering U.S. economy.

He is calling for economic growth to average above four per cent from 2016 to 2018 as the LNG sector fires up across the northern half of B.C.

Central 1 is also predicting continued low interest rates, with a modest increase over the next five years, while Yu says the loonie will average 87 cents U.S. through 2018, but could go lower.

 

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A made to order channel changer out of the blue from Brian Yu, British Columbia is the promised land and we all know how accurate these economic forecasters are, almost always wrong yet still paraded out in front of the public over and over again to preach failed forecasts, our actors in media have perpetual amnesia when it comes to citing these economist`s seering track record of error..

All part of an elaborate stageplay...To make my case there was an article yesterday by Barbara Yaffe, she presented Jock Finlayson`s doom n gloom forecast for British Columbia, on the same day Brian Yu was saying everything is coming up roses Jock Finlayson was saying the exact opposite..

According to Jock Finlayson, British Columbia is going to be dead last in growth in Canada, Jock cited how little investment BC will have in new machinery, he whined about Tesako`s rejected mine, he cited how obstructive First Nations are, he suggested that BC`s taxes are too high for corporations, real estate for development too expensive and of course..

Jock Finlayson was laying the blame for British Columbia`s poor showing on....On the fact we don`t have an HST tax anymore, all our ills will be fixed if we just bring back the HST...Jock Finlayson also cited how great the growth will be in Alberta....yet Jock conveniently forgot to mention that Alberta has no HST...

Oh my, doom n gloom according to Finlayson because we rejected the HST, ...Really Jock, you gotta let it go, you lost that battle...For those who didn`t pay attention, Jock Finlayson was on cknw and cited in our daily newspaper on a daily basis during the run-up to our HST referendum, he pleaded, he begged, spun, fabricated and lied in an all out effort to save the consumer ball-busting tax grab aimed at joe public..you gotta let it go Jock...Sheesh.

(I recommend the read, compare what Jock Finlayson says compared to what Brian Yu said)

http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/Barbara+Yaffe+Business+council+sees+bleak+year+economy/9665217/story.html

The show must go on, a staged faked show...Christy Clark is bubbling today and has made a media statement, Christy Clark clucked that her LNG plan is real because Canada has approved 4 more export licenses bringing the total to 7 export licenses granted...Well, ...Christy forgot to mention that 3 of those export licenses were granted three years ago, these licenses for export mean nothing, big multi-national energy companies have yet to act on the first 3 granted LNG export licenses, there still is not one company that has decided to go forward, no final investment decisions..

Bill Good had on a guest this morning from Steelhead, that`s the hedge fund that appointed Geoff Plant to its board of directors, a hedge fund, no LNG expertise, no experience, they are a pension fund, a hedge fund, last week Global BC tried to propagate this LNG spin job by presenting this outfit as legitimate, yet they have no land site chosen, haven`t decided to be an on shore or offshore operation, they have no lease land in the gas fields, no feedstock gas, no drilling rigs, they have nothing yet they are, advertised by a political agenda oriented media as another one of the real deal LNG outfits...

(Read this article, when amateurs, hedge funds, pension funds are proposing building LNG export facilities it tells me that it really is a Ponzi scheme, if we as a province can`t build, don`t possess the skills to build a plant but hedge funds do, well)

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Many of the details of Steelhead’s plan have yet to be ironed out. They aren’t sure exactly where they would build – they’re considering five to six spots along the coast – or whether they would have on or off-coast facilities.
“It’s a process that will take time,” admits Kuzemko. “We have to get an export license, we have to make sure we have a sight that works from a technical perspective, we have to get arrangements around any site associated with first nations agreements.”
“[But] we are absolutely serious about this, and so are our Canadian investors.”
Samir Kayande, a energy research analyst at ITG Investment Research, says Steelhead’s dreams are just that unless they find actual buyers – something the company doesn’t have lined up yet.

http://globalnews.ca/news/1215877/first-b-c-company-joins-the-lng-fray/

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The BC Liberals are in trouble, internal polls are very bad for the Liberals, John Horgan has NDP numbers rising across the province, this in part has caused this Ponzi LNG fantasy to get really silly, and desperate on behalf of a corporate bought media...

I called out the BC Liberals on LNG, called them liars on their LNG job projections, both Bernard Schulman and David Schreck have been stymied with their FOI requests on where and how the BC Liberals arrived at their advertised job numbers...Rich Coleman and Christy Clark are lying..

I posted last month, I gave you a direct quote from Rich Coleman, a quote where he states that 3 LNG plants would be $100 billion in investment and 100,000 jobs...I laughed, busted his sorry ass on his statement..

Vaughn Palmer and Keith Balderdash Baldrey ignored Coleman`s statement..

Robin Mathews pointed out how Andrew Coyne is fake, didn/t cover his tracks...

Yesterday in the Burnaby Now Keith Baldrey indirectly called Rich Coleman a liar...

Baldrey talked about LNG jobs, Baldrey said how the BC Government stated that 5 LNG plants would create 39,000 construction jobs....Then Baldrey did his backflip...

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For example, B.C. Hydro estimates a staggering 33,000 jobs would be created in the construction and development phase of the Site C dam project, as it makes its case for the mega-project to go ahead.
 The B.C. government estimates that if five liquefied natural gas plants are built in the northwest (an admittedly ambitious and perhaps unrealistic plan) that 39,000 construction jobs would be created.
 Throw in those pipeline job estimates, and we could be looking at a whopping 80,000 construction jobs – new jobs – being created over the next decade.
  Now, let’s say those estimates are much too high. But even if half those jobs come to fruition, they will have a substantial impact on B.C.’s economy, not least because they will all be well-paying jobs that create a lot of economic activity.


 http://www.burnabynow.com/opinion/editorial/resources-debate-continues-in-b-c-1.920093

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You see, Keith Baldrey because of my work on LNG, because of David Broadband/s work knows Christy Clark`s and Rich Coleman`s job numbers are big-time bullshit, yet Keith Baldrey has no courage to call it what it is, a government lie, and more..

This is part of a slow climb-down on job numbers by the BC Liberals, by this time next year LNG job numbers will fall by a factor of 5....And Keith Baldrey will forget the lavish promises made by the BC Liberals on LNG...Keith, Billy and Vaughn will turn the argument on LNG to...They will create many high-paying jobs and that is good

That`s not what the BC Liberal`s promised us, they promised a debt free province, crown debt eliminated, a $100 billion dollar prosperity fund, tolls removed, school and hospital infrastructure money, sales tax eliminated, monies for northern communities and First Nations.

Keith Baldrey epitomizes slack, corrupt stageplay media, not a journalist, not a legislative reporter, a rug wearing soap opera actor is all he is, Baldrey is more concerned with counting Twitter followers than he is on reporting truth, reporting scandal..

          

 

     

                     

         

                 

9:30 PM - 26 Mar 2014

Keith BaldreyVerified account ‏@keithbaldrey 22h

Christy Clark rolled the dice on back to work law and it paid off big time. Gets to stand (again) with labor folks for photo op. #bcpoli

Expand Collapse                   

            

 

 

• Verified account @

 

  

     

1. Polly Ticks ‏@PTicks 22h

   @keithbaldrey was seeing unifor tweets saying ndp filibuster was scaring libs ;p for real, thought it was funny     
2. Greg Simpson ‏@hockeyrep 22h

   @keithbaldrey paid off for who?Container shipments will be cut in 1/2 with these insane increases,many drivers will not have jobs                                      
3. Tony Smolock ‏@smoboy 22h

   @keithbaldrey I'm mystified as to why labour doesn't just shun this grandstanding. Let CC know how you really feel                                      
4. J San ‏@RataganCan 21h

   @keithbaldrey The question is who will be fooled by it?                                      
5. Grant Go ‏@ricenicer 1m

   @keithbaldrey @MayorGregor I missed the part where keith baldrey polished Christy Clark`s shoes

____________________________

 

 

 

Keith Baldrey, lead actor in the made in BC soap opera..As Our Stomach Turns

Lastly, there was another article yesterday on LNG, the BC Government is asking for public comment on a proposed LNG plant,...The article had some very interesting items in it..

This one LNG plant, PETRONAS, this one plant would increase BC`s emissions, increase our greenhouse gas totals by 8.5%....It would increase Canada`s greenhouse gas totals by nearly 1%...

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Environmental+agency+seeks+public+comments+proposed+plant/9665711/story.html

Now, if we were to have 7, count-em, 7 LNG plants would mean British Columbia`s greenhouse gas emissions would  rise by...

Rise by nearly 70%...Canada`s emissions would rise by nearly 7%.....

We are also seeing the port of Vancouver pushing for increased thermal coal facilities, with the stated goal of increasing thermal coal exports to China..

So please, would you Christy cluck cluck Clark stop blathering about saving the world from dirty coal, blathering about reducing Asia`s greenhouse gas emissions by selling them LNG...Really Christy, while British Columbia gets blasted 24/7 365 days a year by giant emission spewing LNG plants, while simultaneously increasing coal exports too..

You Christy Clark, and you BC Liberals can shove the carbon tax up your ass, make joe public pay a carbon tax when your ambitious plan of being an LNG exporting super-power would almost double our provincial emission totals....


https://twitter.com/keithbaldrey/status/449594899373891585


Anyway, British Columbia`s media soap opera stageplay will continue, but all I`m asking, will you BC Liberals and your media actor friends stop pulling our legs..

The Straight Goods

Cheers Eyes Wide Open

 

The Crumbling Mainstream Press and Media in Canada

 

Part I  Looking at Andrew Coyne.

 

Written by Robin Mathews

Think of media journalists.  Think of the corner they have on communication.  Think how they are looked upon as celebrities. Think how a person like Andrew Coyne plays moderate, centrist commentator – and is given room to pontificate for the Right almost without limit. 

 

Think how many Canadians judge him to be sound and dependable.  Think what that does to the way those Canadians shape their ideas of politics and the community.  Andrew Coyne is just one example – used here because many “progressive” Canadians accept him as reasonable.  The list of people more or less like Andrew Coyne is very long.  All we really need to say is that he is a columnist for The National Post.

 

The role of journalists and journals in a free society is of utmost importance.  From them Canadians should receive the information they need in order to make real political choices that affect the country.  When journals and journalists fail … they betray every Canadian.

 

I would say Andrew Coyne is a Reactionary, a neo-liberal – and therefore a part of the threat to Canadian democracy.  As I suggest he is not alone.  Reactionaries come in a hundred costumes.  They get into every organization and movement.  They attach to power the way limpets attach to rocks on the seashore. In most Christian communities and in most Socialist parties, you will find reactionaries hard at work. (They have, some say, taken over the BCNDP, and run it.)

 

Reactionaries are the children of Greed and Fear – the two energies, experts say, that drive the Stock Markets of the world. 

 

When greed and fear are in the ascendancy – as they are in 2014 – more and more people show a reactionary character.  The reasons are simple.  Many feel it is now safe to show their true colours (Greed).  Others believe they have to go along with what is, in fact, neo-fascism - in order to survive (Fear).

 

At such a time people read and listen to reactionary propaganda and accept it as reality.  They read publications (and partake of other media) which were created to push the philosophy of greed and fear - as if the people presenting ideas and commentary are sage, sound, serious, caring, moderate voices.  That is how confused things can get!

 

The National Post is, and was created to be, a weapon of the Right.  Its founder just happens to be an ex-convict now who chose to abandon Canadian citizenship in order to gain “rank” in another country.  He was recently de-listed as a holder of the Order of Canada, apparently because of certain anti-social actions.

 

I would suggest that Andrew Coyne is one of the writers who is presented as moderate and sound, but who is a closet, hard-Right reactionary.  His columns leap from The National Post into other reactionary publications.  As there are “carriers” of small pox, I’d suggest he’s “a carrier of neo-liberalism” - to coyne a phrase.

 

On August 27, 2013 an Andrew Coyne piece “infected” The Vancouver Sun.  Two columns wide and the length of the page (B2), the Coyne column pushes hard for privatization – the War Cry of the globalist neo-liberal One Per Cent … everywhere.  In this case Coyne calls for the privatization of Canada Post services.

 

Strangely (?) much of what he says is almost opposite to what “facts” are claimed by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW).  I am suggesting that Andrew Coyne is neither careful with “interpretation” of the situation at the Post Office nor guilty of thorough research in his push to make a case AGAINST Canada Post and its unionized employees.  I am suggesting the column may appear to careful readers to be nothing more nor less than a piece of heavy political propaganda for the Right: shilling for Stephen Harper and his neo-liberal goons.

 

From observing Stephen Harper and almost any of his cabinet or spokespeople, some of us have come to believe they are conducting a full-scale war against democracy, equality, and justice in Canada. And – as we know – the first victim of war is truth.  Many members of the Stephen Harper team seem rarely to taint their public statements with truth.

 

In Andrew Coyne’s column, “Canadians must be delivered from failing monopoly”, Andrew Coyne seems to be, almost openly, a Harper spokesperson. To buttress his privatization case, Andrew Coyne tells readers that several European countries have privatized their post offices “because of a deadline for member states to open their postal services to competition”.

 

Pardon?

 

Reactionary Andrew Coyne is not going to say the European Union is controlled by reactionaries who want every public service to be in the hands of Private Greed.  Instead, he says, in effect, that because many Europeans are jumping from high buildings into the street Canadians should do so, too.  Quickly.

 

Our Post Office, Coyne says, “continues to sink under its own weight”.  That may be a falsehood.  CUPW reports Canada Post has been profitable for years and years with one ‘special case’ year of loss.  CUPW also claims that suggestions by employees for ways to make additional profit are ignored by management.  As well, CUPW suggests that Canada Post management is managing (as top people connected to BC Rail did in order to destroy it) in such a way as to fulfill the prophecy of doom made by outside reactionary think-tank people.

 

Indeed, the head of Canada Post is an active member of the Conference Board of Canada which has made lavish claims for the losses to be felt in the future by the Crown Corporation (which Andrew Coyne chooses to call “a monopoly”). It is the Conference Board of Canada that has said Canada Post will begin losing a billion dollars a year before very long.  The Conference Board of Canada is a champion of neo-liberal ideas… and privatization.

 

Did Andrew Coyne look into those matters? 

 

Having presented a hardly convincing case, Andrew Coyne then attempts to sink the sharp, poison-tipped, reactionary dagger.  Canada Post – which he calls a monopoly – is not only that.  It is a TWIN MONOPOLY, he says.  How could that possibly be?  Because, Andrew Coyne tells us, it has UNIONIZED EMPLOYEES! ! !   Aha! What could be more evil?

 

According to the drift of Andrew Coyne’s argument, a reader may fairly conclude that the supposed profit loss and service loss at Canada Post may be blamed on the fact that it has unionized employees.  Clearly, one is to conclude, unionized workers must go!

 

Turning the knife gently Andrew Coyne states the fact (the fact?) that the only reason Canada Post, the CBC, and Via Rail remain as publicly-owned operations is “because no one can think what to do with” them.  He claims – without giving evidence – that there is, at Canada Post, “rapid deterioration of its finances”.  CUPW contradicts him flat out – even though it hints management is doing what it can to run Canada Post into the red.

 

Taking a full-blown Reactionary position, Coyne argues that the national service – Canada Post – should not have a level price for services and delivery.  The rich can pay … the others can go without, in effect.  He doesn’t write that flatly, but it is what he suggests as he begins tripping over his own feet. That is to say, Canada isn’t a community but a gathering of individuals who may cut each other’s throats to gain personal advantage.

 

But – OOPs – that’s too transparently a neo-fascist argument.  So Andrew Coyne tries to change the argument in mid-stream, managing only to contradict himself embarrassingly. If you live in the boondocks by his beginning argument, we may theorize, you can pay $100.00 for a parcel delivery.  In Southern Canada you can pay $10.00.  The present equality of costs to provide fairness across the country, he argues, penalizes many.  And “… all urban mail users, rich or poor  [must] cross- subsidize all rural users, poor or rich.…” And so we need another system.

 

That system, it would seem, is a PRIVATIZED system. How would that solve anything?  It wouldn’t.  But the reactionaries would be happy.  The scalpers of Canadian taxpayers would be running post office services – and they would make money.  But how would they make money in what Andrew Coyne has called a system that “continues to sink under its own weight”?

 

Simple.  The privatized operators would be paid A SUBSIDY out of tax dollars! ! !  (And … Andrew Coyne doesn’t say it, but they would employ non-unionized workers at scavengers’ wages to end what Andrew Coyne calls the “twin monopoly, in the form of unionized employees”.) Just think how that would operate – think of the padded accounts of the private operators, the fiddled delivery reports, the false claims they would make. 

 

First you stone Canada Post to death.   Then you set up privatized operators (your neo-liberal friends).  And then you pay them with taxpayer’s money to even out delivery costs so they can be sure they will always benefit handsomely (especially using poverty-level, non-union workers).

 

Pretending the Crown Corporations are not government creations intended to provide equal and just public services to all, Andrew Coyne ties himself in Reactionary Knots.  “Social justice,” he argues at the end of his muddled discourse, is not the job of “the post office”. [Though it was built as it is to provide social justice!]  That, he writes, [meaning social justice] tripping over his own feet, “is the job of government”. 

 

Forget why Crown Corporations were created.  Destroy Canada Post.  And then “subsidize” the newly privatized deliverers of postal services.

 

As if to make a full-scale comedy of his column, Andrew Coyne then joins Jesus and the Prophet Mohammed by saying ”Social justice demands that we redistribute income from rich to poor….” That strikes me - in that insane, reactionary column - as nothing more than an insane reach for some kind of muddled credibility.

 

Is Andrew Coyne confused?  I’d say he is.  But forgive him.  How does a person act as a mouthpiece for the neo-liberals, the greed-driven reactionaries in Canada at the same time as that person tries to deliver the message of Jesus and the Prophet Mohammed?  It’s a tough challenge.  Almost anyone trying to do it would deliver a confused message. 

 

In his August 27, 2013 column Andrew Coyne shows, I believe, who he really is: a writer for The National Post which was created to be a weapon of the greed-driven Right. Except, in this column, Coyne also tries to wedge in a few notions of social responsibility … for, one might suppose, the sake of appearances.

 

It doesn’t work.

 

Written by Robin Mathews

 

 

_________________


http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2012/07/ndp-tidal-wave-cometh.html


http://northerninsights.blogspot.ca/2012/04/disappearing-punditry.html
 

 

 

 

 

The Straight Goods

 

Cheers Eyes Wide Open

Breaking News, Enbridge Goes Full Propaganda Mode In Kitimat

Breaking News...Enbridge are in full blown propaganda mode in Kitimat,...A $million dollar propaganda campaign underway, all in an attempt to affect a April 11th plebiscite taking place in Kitimat, a plebiscite on the northern gateway pipeline proposal...

That isn`t the shocking part, misinformation is being spread by Enbridge canvassers and officials, even worse, Kitimat city counsel is allowing temporary construction workers who are working on Rio Tinto`s aluminum smelter to vote on the plebiscite, these temporary construction workers will be gone within a year or leass, many have been in Kitimat for less than one month, these visitors are being permitted by counsel to vote on a controversial project that would affect Kitimat for decades to come..

____________________
Resident Manny Arruda spotted a pair of Enbridge canvassers walking up to his home on Friday.  But after feeling "inundated" with Enbridge ads and phone calls recently, the industrial safety supervisor decided to turn the tables.  Arruda had his friend ready a camera to take photos of the canvassers. 
Bothersome for Arruda, the canvassers already knew his name.  
"I was just kind of taken aback that they knew [who I was.]"
"They are infiltrating [my] life – they’re on the TV, radio, Internet, phoning you, and now just showing up at your door."
“I know they’ve been phoning everyone.  So to me, that tells me that the numbers are not there for them, and they’ve got to go and blitz it.”....

Terrace retiree Anne Hill described the corporate presentation as one-sided.
“I thought it was a snow job.  The three people from Enbridge said nothing negative could ever happen in Kitimat.  It was all positive spin.  An oil spill would never happen, that sort of thing.”
When someone also asked how many oil spills the company has had, Hill said Enbridge staff reported they “didn’t have that information.”
“So I quickly Googled it on my iPhone and told [the crowd] that it was 800 spills, as of 2010,” said Hill.
Enbridge did not respond to repeated requests for comment, made by phone, e-mail and in this Tweet:


Temporary workers to vote
Last night at a Kitimat council meeting, citizens complained about the District's burgeoning temporary workers being allowed to vote on a pipeline that would exist, long after they left the community.  Their huge numbers could determine the plebiscite's outcome.
“The construction camp for Rio Tinto Alcan is easily more than 1,000 workers.  It’s within the District of Kitimat.  Are there are going to be bus loads of people coming from a construction camp to influence what’s going to happen here for generations to come?" asked Minchin.
"It’s a scary prospect.” 
Kitimat Deputy Clerk, Shirley Boudreault, responded by saying, "This is a non-binding plebiscite, which is the reason why we relaxed the rules," according to a meeting attendee.
Enbridge is advertising two Public Open Houses at the Kitimat Rod & Gun Club on April 1 and 8 for citizens to learn more about the project.  
A spokesperson for the club said the meeting is a "private affair" and they have nothing to do with it

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/surreal-enbridge-political-campaign-underway-sway-kitimat-vote-yes-oil-pipeline?page=0,1
_________________________
And guess what the plebiscite question is...What a joke question..



"Do you support the final report recommendations of the Joint Review Panel of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Aurthority and the National Energy Board, that the Enbridge Northern Gateway project be approved subject to 209 conditions set out in Volume 2 of the JRP's Final Report?"

And to reiterate what a joke this plebiscite is, the Haisla First Nation community and the Haida First Nation Who Live on Haida Gwaii have been barred from voting in the plebiscite, what a sick joke, it`s their territory and islands that would be devastated by the inevitable tanker spill!


Please read the entire above linked article and pass it on to everyone, this is not Democracy, these are bully tactics from a corrupt environment destroying company.

http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2014/03/enbridge-and-stephen-harper-can-go-to.html


http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2014/03/enbridge-and-stephen-harper-can-shove.html



577,The Unluckiest Number,Ten years out. The Enbridge pipeline disaster

 Written by Grant G
                                    Number 577, The Unluckiest Number


The 10 year anniversary next month of the Bengal Lion Star tragedy and I had to come to ground zero to see for myself, perhaps it was a mistake to come here, from what I have seen i`m way too angry to cry and too sad for fury, in fact I almost have that peaceful easy feeling.

How I miss my dad`s analytical explanation and mom`s hope springs eternal talks, yet I fear that neither parent could explain away this tragedy, 10 years later, 10 years of black death extending it`s reach.


Looking around by boat off Banks island, one mile from ground zero the feeling is of the surreal, trees are still green but any ocean life or bird activity is eerily quiet, no salmon fry swimming , no squawking gulls just silence, for tens of miles in every direction the great kelp forests are gone, who gave us permission to gamble and lose what we didn`t own and what we could never replace, sacrificing little Fish lake was a horrid environmental mistake, imagine deliberately destroying a huge natural watershed for trinkets of gold, thousands of migrating birds executed for the mere sin of just landing, how many species of frogs or insects still get near or in the lake only to perish or leave half dead, what insanity compels man to convert clear clean water into a poisonous tailing lake devoid of life, but as horrible as the deliberate execution of little Fish lake, the scale of the Bengal Lion Star oil spill off Banks island in Hecate Strait is beyond compare, how is it that my only terms of reference in attempting to describe the aftermath is that of dead zones, in a way its very peaceful, no eternal battle for life here, those days are long gone.



Only if I could turn back the clock, why did it happen, the Bengal Lion Star should not have went out, a deep pacific low moving in, was the Captain pressured to leave, why why why, even with two large commercial tug boats assisting wasn`t going to stop the wreck, maybe if there were extra support tugs who knows but when lead tug boat Kitimat queen capsized in heavy seas nothing was going to stop the massive oil carrier from grounding on White jagged rocks that stormy (March 14, 2017) night, 30 to 40 foot high waves capped with fury pounded the Bengal Lion Star on unforgiving rocks, section after section burst like watermelons, spewing millions of gallons of tar sand oil, the 3rd largest oil spill in the world, maybe if the oil containment teams had gotten out here sooner but with storm force winds blowing for 2 days along with extreme high and low tides, my god, oil sprayed the shore line high on exposed rocks and layered thick into the lowest tidal zones, mountains of Alberta bitumen flowing in deep water, who could imagine the oil and heavy sheen would have spread 50 miles in different directions over 2 days, coves, bays, narrow channels coated in black death,  as far as I can look in any direction this paradise is dead, who knows what the bird count will ultimately be, millions of direct bird deaths with millions more that died in subsequent migrations, birds all along the coast found dead, birds with clear signs of contact with heavy oil, the natural engine in this migration route blasted with Alberta crude, indeed, the scale of the Bengal Lion Star oil spill can`t be measured in millions of oiled birds or the 40 distinct salmon runs that were decimated and or all of British Columbia`s wild salmon teetering on extinction, the sea lions, otters, coastal bears, eagles, ferrets, no salmon spawning led one extinction into another, we broke nature`s bond, too many dead for one`s heart to count, oil stained carcasses feed other animals that ultimately die too, black oil`s death-grip reaches on and on, only with time, generational time, perhaps millenia before this area recovers, can it recover, and for what, to spill another tanker of crude.

I don`t what is harder to take, the fragile existence of a few northern runs of salmon and southern Sockeye, it`s almost like the cycle of life has been thrown out, this large swath of nature, thousands of square miles destroyed forever, well at least for my lifetime, perhaps 6 or 7 generations before this area will become fertile again but with continued oil tanker traffic when will black death strike again, even if the shell fish recover, even if herring spawns again, the  Orca will never be seen again, the birthing females were first to die then the small adolescent Orca perished, 2 adult males are all that is left of the species, maybe mankind should have figured out how to start a new Orca pod before destroying the only one we had, unique species and west coast wildlife gone, in a blink, for all time, gone, why didn`t we learn from the Valdez disaster, there is no going back, First Nations have mourned, the northern and island tourism industries decimated, maybe I should have fought harder against the National review 15 years ago, 10 years out from this disaster and Hecate Strait still lay mortally wounded, you can still smell crude oil, I can only think of Charlton Heston`s Planet of the Apes movie when he sees New York`s Statue of Liberty and realizes that it was mankind itself that burned mother nature, this area is no longer worth fighting for, top scientists are mostly in agreement that outside of decades of time there is nothing on scale that can be done to remediate the damage.

It appears the only ones left fighting about the Bengal Lion Star are the litigants, where have we seen this picture before, the Exxon Valdez law suit still lingers unpaid(40 years later), the Liberian registered Bengal Lion Star oil tanker had but minimum insurance, $200 million dollars yet the insurance has been contested,  Bengal Lion Star hadn`t paid premiums in 2 years, Honshu commercial carrier insurance company have claimed bankruptcy, between the Province and Ottawa more than $14.9 billion has been spent on clean-up and species mitigation, First Nations, affected business`s and local town`s folk have law suits filed worth more than $15 billion dollars, everyone suing and litigating for compensation on something no one can return, Enbridge pipeline inc washes their hands of any responsibility, Shell, Exxon Mobile and the Chinese petroleum company are all pointing fingers at each other, owners of the Bengal Lion Star blame the escort tug company, tug company blames act of god and file for bankruptcy, how long will these trials go on and who will ultimately pay, what price, what price to return nature to the way it was, all this pain to secure dirty Alberta crude oil to China, oil use falls for the last 7 years, a dying product needing desperate tyrants, we sold out nature on British Columbia`s wild west coast for a handful of pesos, how can ancient dregs of plants take so much away from present and future life cycles, I can`t shed tears anymore, my life, my personal battles, millions of wasted words warning of potential harm or should I say risk management, I `m too old to repeat the warnings and too tired to muster passion, the battle for Haida Gwaii is over.

Even the First Nation`s blockade attempting to stop the very first oil tanker, 8 First Nations elders gave their life that day, not near enough pressure to stop that massive Vessel, oil tanker Shell diamond and its Canadian naval escort, dugout canoe versus high-speed frigate, symbolic but futile, the time to stop Enbridge was before it started, certainly native voices on opening day weren`t going to stop it, you can`t stop $5 billion dollars spent, never-the-less, January 13/2016 was the day the first super tanker left Kitimat, thousands of small protest vessels, nothing, not even Greenpeace and Suzuki foundation`s concentrated efforts could stop the Stephen Harper Federal Conservatives and the Gordon Campbell Christy Clark B.C. Liberal administration from rubber stamping this project from the git-go, proceeding at full speed behind closed doors, no matter how much evidence anti pipeline opponents, scientists, biologists and environmentalists put forward they were all but ignored, the NDP government vowed to stop the completion of Enbridge if they were elected in 2013, was the fix in, too much money invested to stop, too big to fail, needed economic growth, jobs jobs jobs, yes I heard everyone of those excuses justifying the completion of Enbridge, what jobs, imported foreign workers building the pipeline and 120 permanent after construction jobs, was it worth it.

Madness, I knew something really big would happen, not the 5000 barrels that spilt into the Skeena river, not the 50,000 barrels dumped at the port of Kitimat but something epic, mathematicians also knew it was coming, not if a big spill would happen but when a spill would happen, I can still hear Christy Clark talk about risk management, the best corporate spinners hired to say we can manage the risk, how come no one asked how do we manage armageddon, how do we clean up, how do we create more Orca, how do you bring back thousands of square miles from the dead, I wonder what Gordon Campbell would say today, Adrian Dix, the rejected NDP leader stated he regrets that the NDP didn`t do more to stop Enbridge, Gordon Campbell is long since dead, yes Stephen Harper and Gordon Muir Campbell I pass blame on to you and your complicit Cabinets, your legacy, Enbridge, bankrupt utilities, a dismal health care system, a dead central coast and slow dying life cycle, well, no one is listening to me, not the Governing federal Conservatives, not Premier Gordon Coons of the newly elected Refederation party, no, no one wants to listen to the left wing, after the BC Liberal led economic collapse, the seeds of P3s, IPPs and insider deals dominated, it didn`t matter who was Government in British Columbia, so many bad deals were signed, how many can the court overturn, the extent of the economic damage that came to fruition, what happened, like the Spanish flu in 1919 that killed millions, no one talks about the harm Gordon Campbell`s corporate Government inflicted upon us, the extent of one way contracts that ate up every Provincial dollar and more, I can`t help but think back to our 2010 Olympics, the pride, the I am Canadian attitude, Super Natural British Columbia but just a few short years after the closing ceremonies we have poisoned interior lakes, lost countless wild salmon runs to fish farms and now the third largest oil spill in the world, a death blow to our BC Coast, a massive spill in our migration engine.

Just picture heaven covered in oil, and what hurts even more, the people of BC don`t seem to care anymore, in the latest public opinion poll by Ipsos Reid job creation and big industry are more important than the environment, 67% for jobs and 16% say protect the environment, it`s times like this when I stare across at Mc Caully island or look into Norway inlet, smell the oil, I see the end of the world being played out, there is no shoulder of comfort to lean on, no soothing hugs that can squelch my silent anger, 576 successful departures from Kitimat, 576 loaded oil tankers that safely managed the inside passage, risk management, reward versus risk, despite 5 years of cruise ships not plying the inside passage, despite the loss to tourism, despite a sterile ocean desert, despite the tiniest of recoveries on the outer edges of the spill zone, despite of everything tanker traffic is predicted to triple over the next 3 years, an insatiable Asian appetite for oil and now that paradise is lost there is nothing left to fight for and no reason to stop, perhaps other Edens can be spared.

Number 577, no tears of anger no screams of silence, nothing but...

 

  "That peaceful easy feeling."

The Straight goods

Cheers Eyes Wide Open