Justin Trudeau's Christmas Gift to Canadians, Lumps of Coal and Diluted Bitumen

 Chasing distant billboards and dumbing down the electorate....

Sandy Garossino recently wrote an op-ed piece for the National Observer...and I must say, what a load of gibberish it was..

Sandy opined that ....The Kinder Morgan pipeline battle is not "the hill to die on" and that environmentalists should be happy to surrender..

Her reasons were, to say the least, not thought out, at all.....in fact Garossino said in her article that Justin Trudeau had appeased environmentalists by bringing forth a national carbon strategy and a 100 megaton cap on tar sands emissions....

Sandy espoused even more reasons to surrender the Kinder Morgan battle...she claimed that right now it is "hell in Alberta" and we should take one for the team to save Alberta...

Where to even begin....If Alberta is doomed without Kinder Morgan then doomed they be, a couple of thousand temporary pipeline jobs and maybe another 500 tar-sand workers(maybe)..

So, according to Sandy Garossino Alberta is hell...Well Sandy...So is Canada's east coast, so is Canada's north, so is the debt issues of both Quebec and Ontario and British Columbia...

Alberta could end its budgetary woes by simply bringing in a provincial sales tax..

Let me first say this....Sandy Garossino's last article wasn't about logic, or facts, or anything, Sandy Garrosino's last article was about political patronage, patronage to Justin Trudeau....if Stephen Harper had approved Kinder Morgan Sandy Garossino would be against it...and that my friends is the reason her article stunk, that and zero content, devoid of anything tangible, and as a lawyer, Sandy Garrosino knows full well what it means to have substance, knows better than to write empty rhetoric..

Garossino failed to mention(on purpose) that there is no proven method to clean up diluted bitumen spilled in water.....my condolences for the latest dead Orca whale, struck dead, killed by an impact with a large vessel....Bitumen can't be cleaned up...

Garossino also erred in not mentioning that Alberta will not receive a higher dollar for their bitumen at tidewater, in fact Alberta will receive less....Sandy Garossino knows that, she avoided that, deliberately left that fact out..


 If one reads this article....

http://in.reuters.com/article/canada-ports-crude-repeat-analysis-pix-g-idINL1N1DL0GW

Alberta will have to take an even bigger discount on their oil at tidewater, and the fact that Vancouver won't allow the biggest oil transport ships(Harbour needs dredging and a second narrows bridge replacement to allow supermax ships) the price Alberta receives for diluted bitumen lowers even more...in fact oil shipped out of Vancouver will most likely go to California, that's right, the same country Alberta is selling oil to now ..

Even more disturbing than Garossino bending for her party affiliation is....

Garrosino dives the deepest depths of derangement....her reasoning is so bad, ...so bad in fact that Linda Steele on CKNW promoted Garossino's article as something so special, so great an article all must read...Linda Steele(an Alberta based celeb) let Sandy ramble on unchallenged, in fact Linda Steele even lied on air, by saying that according to recent polls 75% of Canadians are in favour of Kinder Morgan expansion.....that was a lie by Linda Steele....it was an Ipsos Canada poll...sponsored by CAPP....it was a push poll...The number was 37% agree, not 75%....plus, these push-polls, when they ask you do you agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree strongly, disagree agree somewhat or neutral...

Here is the Straight Goods on that poll's findings......

• Four in ten (39%) Canadians ‘agree’ (20% strongly/19% somewhat) with the decision to approve the Enbridge Line 3 project from Alberta to Wisconsin, compared to two in ten (18%) who ‘disagree’ (9% strongly/9% somewhat), and 43% who are neutral. In Alberta, two in three (66%) agree with the decision.
• Nearly four in ten (37%) Canadians ‘agree’ (19% strongly/17% somewhat) with the decision to approve Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion in British Columbia, while two in ten (20%) ‘disagree’ (10% strongly/11% somewhat) and 43% are neutral. In both Alberta (61%) and British Columbia (54%), a majority agrees with the government’s decision.
• On the moratorium on crude oil tanker traffic on B.C.’s north coast, fully one half (50%) of Canadians are neutral on the decision, while 34% agree with the decision (18% strongly/16% somewhat), and 16% disagree with it (8% strongly/8% somewhat). In British Columbia itself, significantly more agree (43%) than disagree (19%) with the moratorium.  
• Regarding the rejection of the Northern Gateway Pipeline project in British Columbia, the margin of those who approve of the decision (33% -- 17% strongly/16% somewhat) narrows over those who disapprove (21% -- 11% strongly/10% somewhat), while nearly half (45%) neither agree nor disagree with the decision. However, in both British Columbia (38% agree vs. 37% disagree) and Alberta (29% agree vs. 28% disagree), residents are even split.

Do you see that.....The disapproval numbers...


on Enbridge line 3 decision..

(18%) who ‘disagree’ (9% strongly/9% somewhat)

on Kinder Morgan expansion...

(20%) ‘disagree’ (10% strongly/11% somewhat) and 43% 

On the Tanker moratorium

(16% disagree with it (8% strongly/8% somewhat

On the rejection of Northern Gateway

those who disapprove 21% -- 11% strongly/10% somewhat

notice how the disapprove numbers are almost identical?(20% in all categories) shouldn't the Enbridge northern gateway rejection numbers reversed?...yes they should, except the way they asked for the answer....excuse me, if a person somewhat agrees..??? what does that mean?..nothing, it was a push-poll.

http://ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=7507

if one looks behind the scenes, behind the polls....one will see how they arrived where they did...

They always asked for the answer in the same order..

http://ipsos-na.com/download/pr.aspx?id=16229

here it is

Do you strongly agree, somewhat agree, neither agree or disagree, somewhat disagree or strongly disagree with the Trudeau Government's decision for each of the projects?-Approving Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion in British Columbia

Do you see what they did...they put against/anti answers at the back end of each question every time----That's why the rejection of Enbridge northern gateway numbers are virtually identical to the other questions....The poll was also Canada wide...out of 1000 polled, a mere 124 were in BC...

Back to Justin Trudeau groupie Sandy Garossino......Her screed was so bad...Sandy also stated that we must support Rachel Notley because the next premier(in 2 years, next Alberta election) in Alberta could be worse...My goodness, short term thinking, help the politically doomed Rachel Notley because the next Alberta premier is gonna be a conservative...and push for pipelines? oh really Sandy, is that lawyer logic or spin?

Garossino also stated that...  Justin Trudeau ratified Canada's Paris climate commitments because he brought in a carbon tax "framework" and a 100 megaton emissions cap for the tarsands..

Here are the low-lights of Garrosino's article..

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The Trudeau government ratified last year’s Paris Agreement, and committed $2.65 billion to helping developing countries fight global climate change.

Justin Trudeau hosted a first ministers meeting devoted to the climate (his predecessor had held none on any subject in the previous 6 years), and announced a pan-Canadian framework agreement on climate change. On Tuesday, he joined with Barack Obama in announcing a freeze on off-shore Arctic drilling.

Alberta premier Rachel Notley will impose a carbon tax and hard cap on emissions from the tar sands, and almost all other provinces are on board.

The two hold-out provinces, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, have a combined population smaller than that of Metro Vancouver.

While many remain disappointed by the fine print and our ability to meet targets, 2016 has been a spectacular year for Canadian environmentalists. Two years ago, few would have predicted any of it.

Is it really so unreasonable for this community, having enjoyed such remarkable success, to give some ground on Kinder Morgan’s twinning of an existing pipeline?

It’s the right thing to do, and it’s the smart thing to do.......

Right now Alberta is in hell. Oil's price collapse has thrown countless Albertans out of work, with no end in sight. Last summer thousands had to literally drive little kids through blazing fire, an act of unfathomable collective courage.

Here are some plain truths. Rachel Notley staked her political future on a serious carbon tax and hard cap on tar sands emissions. After she sacrificed political capital to support the environment, do B.C. environmentalists have her back?

Nope.

And if Notley isn’t re-elected, who’ll replace her? Someone a helluva lot worse for the environment, and an avowed foe of Trudeau, that’s who. And they’ll have money, loads of it, behind them......

We’re entering a two or three-decade period of transition away from fossil fuels. That's not going to happen overnight, because we don’t yet have the mass-scale renewable energy that is going to get us out of this mess.

In the interim we need pipelines and oil shipping.

Know what else we need? Activists and politicians who can see the big picture enough to know a good deal when they see one. This is a good deal.

If there’s political pressure to exert here in B.C., it’s on Christy Clark to live up to the provincial commitments we’ve made. And on Justin Trudeau to deliver.

Progress doesn’t move in just one direction, the way time does. Look at the shambles of America today.

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/12/21/opinion/garossino-why-kinder-morgan-isnt-hill-fight-and-die

That whole article was gibberish....Trudeau has done nothing for the environment...Rachel Notley has done nothing for the environment either..nor have the BC Liberals or Christy Clark...

Here are a few commenters below Garossino's article..

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Eric Neilson | 3 days ago

So much wrong with this article, not sure even where to start.

Diana Daunheimer | 3 days ago

"Alberta premier Rachel Notley will impose a carbon tax and hard cap on emissions from the tar sands, and almost all other provinces are on board."

Bill 20 is a fuel tax. Fuel is being taxed, not carbon. The Act is full of exemptions for the oil and gas industry. Have you read Bill 20 Ms. Garrosino? Or Bill 25: The Oilsands Emissions Limit Act? Because if you did, you could not possibly publish the wording "hard cap." Bill 25 includes exemptions and allowances for upgrading, co-generation, primary production, synthetic crude and experimental schemes, along with the ability of the LG in Council to change, perform, direct, define or otherwise alter the act, at any given time, for any purpose. Hardly a hard cap, soft, fuzzy ear muffs at best.

"Here are some plain truths. Rachel Notley staked her political future on a serious carbon tax and hard cap on tar sands emissions. After she sacrificed political capital to support the environment..."

Here are the real plain truths. Rachel Notley's campaign and subsequent governance has been full of shit. She lied over and over again about her environmental commitments. The Climate Leadership Plan is a fraud. She did not campaign on a carbon levy.

The NDP promised fair share of royalties. They actually lowered royalty rates and implemented billions in incentives for unconventional resource extraction.

The NDP committed to increased environmental monitoring. All increased environmental monitoring was deferred in Budget 2016. AMERA was gutted, CEMA disbanded. So far, Alberta's environmental monitoring is dead in the water. Like ducks in a tailings pond.

The NDP promised a review of the AER mandate. Instead, they quietly endorsed the AER, which operates with no public interest or public health mandate and is not beholden to the Public Service Act, despite being a government corporation.

The NDP promised a review of hydraulic fracturing and urban drilling. Instead at the recent AGM, NDP back benchers ensured the rural caucus motion on fracking was pushed off the agenda and no further words have been spoken on urban drilling. In fact, in the CLP, the NDP refer to fracced gas as "clean" with "limited adverse impacts."

Notley has been a spectacular industrial colluder. Environment be damned. Ethics too.

Maybe when your home is ground zero for the disrespect and fouling of the industry, you can say you've taken one for the team. Until then, at least try to be factual.

"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions." Leonardo da Vinci

Eric Neilson | 3 days ago

thank you for writing what you wrote...

Garrosino's article is pure Clintonian-Democratic-Liberal opinion and devoid of any critical analysis.

Diana Daunheimer | 2 days ago

Mr. Neilson, you are welcome.

I find this particularly concerning since Mike de Souza mentioned to me on the phone, that Garrosino's articles were generally the most popular on the site, based on the real time monitoring that nearly every media outlet employs. Why was the most favoured writer here, tasked with a pro-pipeline opinion piece, that was absent of relevant and accurate information?

This is indignity to journalism and public interest.

Star | 3 days ago

I never would have thought I'd see the National Observer stumping for pipelines and tar sands expansion.

Yes Northern Gateway is dead, for various reasons, primary among them being the failure to consult adequately with First Nations. That the former government failed in that duty is not an environmental win, though that it mattered is a welcome win for justice in Canada.

Yes the Trudeau government ratified the Paris Agreement. Canada ratified Kyoto too. How'd that go for us?

Yes they committed $2.65 billion to helping developing countries fight global climate change. That is a bit of a win for justice too since we bear greater responsibility than many developing countries for the emissions that will hurt them more than they're going to hurt us. But there's a cruel irony in giving them money now to combat our emissions that continue to rise.

Yes Justin Trudeau hosted a first ministers meeting devoted to the climate. Politicians talk. They're good at that.

Yes they announced a pan-Canadian framework agreement on climate change. In it is a chart showing our 2030 emissions about 200 Megatonnes above our 2030 target, and this plan to fail has as a large component carbon tax, a tool that has a track record of not being effective for emissions reduction.

Yes they announced a freeze in the Arctic. Nice to have something still freeze up there. But it is actually a freeze on new offshore leases and with review every five years. Exploration takes time and as the ice melts work in the Arctic will grow more attractive. This is no impediment to Arctic oil exploitation.

Yes Alberta premier Rachel Notley imposed a carbon tax and hard cap on emissions from the tar sands. A cap that means other sectors, other provinces would need to cut emissions disproportionately if we did actually intend to achieve national targets. Not a problem since as a nation we have no such intent.

Yes Albertans are out of work. A shame the corporations and the former government didn't plan for a rainy day. A shame too that they had big fires. Just how are big fires a reason to make climate change worse?

And then the almost obligatory tar sands apologist's line "not going to happen overnight". You're right. The UNFCCC was drafted a generation ago. That we're not going to do anything over night is abundantly clear. But we need action not talk on climate and that is not what we're getting. In fact quite the opposite.

We are getting action at the highest levels to increase tar sands production and fossil fuel consumption, with all the toxicity and harm that entails. Meanwhile we get talk on climate. Talk not so different from what we've heard for a generation.

It's time to call bull shit on all this talk. It's time for action. Preferably by government, but failing that, by the people.

Vivian | 2 days ago

You're awesome, Star!

Cathy Gulkin | 2 days ago

Unfortunately, we no longer have "two to three decades" to move away from fossil fuels if we have a faint hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change. Had the Liberal governments of the 1990's begun the process, we'd be right where we need to be. But they didn't, because the Liberals have always been and still are in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry. U.N. Climate change scientists have said we have until 2020 to drastically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. That's 3 years. That's science. In the current battle of politics vs physics, guess who will win 100% of the time?

Yes, we need to care about Albertans and their jobs and not throw them under the bus as we move as quickly as possible away from fossil fuels. Why aren't the federal and provincial governments funding massive renewable energy infrastructure projects in that province and retraining the tar sands workers to do those jobs? Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced the infrastructure investment bank as a way to inject economic growth. This would be the perfect project for it. Much as I distrust P3's (private public partnerships) this is a good use for private capital--it can move from the tar sands to solar and wind and geothermal and not be embroiled in what needs to remain public in this country: all social services and transit.

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Where were we....You see folks...What exactly has Justin Trudeau done, or not done..

• Trudeau approved a not needed Site C dam...He ignored all First Nation protests, even though he campaigned on a new relationship.
• Trudeau approved Woodfibre LNG
• Trudeau approved Petronas...A carbon bomb, a project that would increase BC's emissions by 20% alone, a project situated on top of the Skeena River estuary, the worst possible location..
• Trudeau approved Enbridge line 3
• Trudeau approved Kinder Morgan Trans mountain pipeline tripling

Now Sandy Garossino.....just exactly what did Trudeau give environmentalists? Petronas?..a carbon bomb GHG emitter on the Skeena River Estuary...thousands of miles of coastline available and Trudeau permits a foreign state-owned multi-national energy company to potentially destroy Canada's most productive wild salmon river ..

Trudeau could have said YES to LNG project but NO for location...There are many available locations mere kilometers away from Lelu Island....Trudeau rammed it down our throat without a moment's hesitation.

At present, the Alberta Tar Sands emit 63 megatons of emissions...they can rise to 100 megatons or..or until with a stroke of a pen someone decides that Alberta is still hell and emissions must increase...

Tar Sand emissions can near double from where they are now(63 megatons) to 100 megatons in the future...Trudeau gave the tar-sand resource extractors 15 years of time to beat down that target....my, what a hardship that... and not to mention that small cap extractors have mile-wide exemptions where reporting isn't required at all....industry can cheat the number up as simply as a political pay for play donation..

The old carbon tax framework....Well, B.C. has a carbon tax and emissions haven't gone down because of it, the only GHG reductions have come from all the shuttered saw mills and mines

BC Liberals brought in a carbon tax in 2009...BC Liberals brought in a law....a legislated GHG emissions reduction law...

That law stated, and I quote..

British Columbia by 2020 must reduce emissions by 33% over 2007 levels.

And in the summer of 2016..during a short one week summer legislative/legislature opening the BC Liberals ripped up that law....

New targets were presented...BC Liberals are now talking about a 2050 TARGET...a target that is already in serious doubt, decades away..

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British Columbia’s carbon tax, for example, is pretty well useless at reducing actual emissions. Concocted comparisons to what the province might be spewing out in the absence of a carbon tax do not constitute proof. The only substantial reduction in emissions to show up under the carbon tax probably had more to do with the Great Recession than with provincial government policy.

Economic data do seem to show that B.C.’s revenue-neutral carbon tax did not affect economic growth. Still, Premier Christy Clark recently refused to raise the tax. That’s how committed she is to climate change action — she won’t even raise an ineffective tax that has no negative economic impact, despite the public’s perception that it’s a good thing.

A revenue-neutral carbon tax can only substantially reduce emissions if the alternatives to fossil fuels become economic due to that tax. And that would require a huge tax increase; the International Energy Agency suggests $130/tonne to drive that kind of change. B.C.’s tax is set at $30/tonne.

And because B.C.’s tax is revenue-neutral, it doesn’t generate a dime for levelling the playing field between low-carbon electric and gasoline vehicles. It provides no funding to subsidize homeowners in switching from natural gas to electric heat pumps. The money goes to income tax cuts — two-thirds to corporations. It’s really more of an income redistribution plan than a climate change action program.

Ontario is using the revenue from carbon pricing to make the alternatives to fossil fuels more economic. That’s the approach the laws of economics say will work.

And Premier Clark’s grandiose plans for liquid natural gas would have inflated B.C.’s emissions by up to 60 per cent — though the market appears to have taken care of that little problem for us. In the latest iteration of Premier Clark’s climate strategy, we don’t see a reduction target until 2050. The intermediate ones have all disappeared — which can only mean bad news.

And then there’s Alberta. Almost 40 per cent of this country’s emissions comes from that province. The Alberta government’s plan to fight climate change would see it stop the emissions level from growing — to hold at almost 60 per cent above the Kyoto benchmark. Which is … something better than nothing, I suppose, but hardly in the spirit of Paris.

Do the math. Western Canada collectively represents 60 per cent our emissions; if we’re lucky, they’re going to hold at the 2005 level. That means that the rest of the country will have to reduce emissions by 75 per cent to hit the 30 per cent national reduction target by 2030.

http://ipolitics.ca/2016/09/08/post-paris-were-still-blowing-smoke-on-climate-change/

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Need more on this GHG reduction target bullshit...The only ones getting played here is joe-public, yea Sandy...let us applaud a carbon tax ghost..

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Province to miss 2050 targets on emissions by 400 per cent, forecaster says

VANCOUVER — British Columbia is on track to miss targets set for greenhouse-gas emissions in its Climate Leadership Plan by more than four times by 2050, according to a new analysis, due to a projected doubling of emissions from the province’s natural gas sector and development of a liquefied-natural-gas export industry.

The estimate, released on Monday by the Vancouver forecasting firm Navius Research, projects B.C.’s greenhouse-gas emissions will hit 66 megatonnes by 2050, which is eight megatonnes higher than 2016 emissions and soars above the province’s stated goal of reducing emissions to just 12.6 megatonnes — 80 per cent below 2007 emissions — by 2050.

That is largely the result of increased emissions from an LNG industry expected to produce 48-million-tonnes of the fuel for export by 2030 onward, on the assumption that all three of the Petronas-led Pacific NorthWest LNG, Shell-Canada-Led LNG Canada and Woodfibre LNG projects proceed to the full capacity of their proposals.

- See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/b-c/province-to-miss-2050-targets-on-emissions-by-400-per-cent-forecaster-says-1.3832523#sthash.CL0gJaVp.dpuf

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Frameworks....distant targets...commitments...moving goalposts..

Despite what Sandy Garossino blathered, ...Justin Trudeau has done nothing for the environment, Rachel Notley has done nothing for the environment...Distant targets that won't be met because there is no political will...

First Nations are still getting the stick, the Trudeau Shaft up their ass to be more precise..

We don't make decisions as a province to keep a neighboring premier employed, in power. ..@Sandy...asserting that type of logic into your article proves but one thing, your argument is weak, you are literally saying to me, saying to BCers is....

You better make sure Rachel Notley stays in power in Alberta because a Conservative government elected will surely push for more pipelines and succeed in doing so..

Is that what you meant Garossino? a soft blackmail?...bend over and take one for the team cuz the next prime minister or premier won't use lube?

Alberta is hell...because they are reliant on one industry, ..and Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion will mean nothing to Alberta's economy...bring in a sales tax, stabilize your budget and diversify, not double down on a dirty oil export..

Alberta is hell...hmm..and when Saskatchewan turns hell? pipelines?...Should Quebec sell asbestos? more cigarettes...how about buggywhips?

@garossino      You know as well as I do..capitalism,...corporations must grow every year, when they stop growing their value declines, it's the nature of our economic system...energy people are already claiming a 2020 oil moving gridlock despite the two heavy oil pipeline approvals..it won't stop with big oil until we stop it...and right after the 2019 federal election 4 more pipelines get approved?

What does Alberta say to BC after a catastrophic tanker spill in the Salish Sea, or Vancouver Harbour,? oops, ....we'll try not to do that again...Orca are over-rated....seabirds are a plenty.

@garossino ...Since you are so learned, could you provide your readers information on cleaning up diluted bitumen, anything? 

Justin Trudeau only delivered presents to the oil n gas industry....Trudeau gave environmentalists nothing but vague frameworks and distant targets...

Here is a newsflash....Rachel Notley will be gone from power in 2 years, replaced by the Alberta Conservate party..the push for pipelines will continue, the well-being of Alberta excuse will be thrown in our faces again and again..

Is Kinder Morgan's Trans Moutain pipeline expansion the hill to die..

You bet it is..

Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing...or to be more precise..

Beware of Justin Trudeau supporter and super-fan Sandy Garossino choosing political friendship and partisan spin over substance and facts..

Justin Trudeau .....my gift to you is a Christmas Special.....

Fractured Country - An Unconventional Invasion

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Merry Christmas everyone

The Straight Goods

Cheers Eyes Wide Open