Canada

tanker-oil-spills-1973-2015

Are Oil Tanker Spills Getting Worse? Spill Statistics From 1970 to 2017

You can draw your own conclusions from the charts below but it is not debatable that Oil Tankers used to get into a lot of serious accidents and spill a huge amount of oil.  That is just not the case today.

As you can see in the chart below, the oil tanker business has become dramatically safer in the last 35 years since tanker traffic became popular in the early 1970’s:tanker-oil-spills-1973-2015

The 2017 the tanker oil spill numbers look very similar to the 2010/11 numbers with:

  • two large spills (>700 tonnes) both of which occurred out at sea
  • four small spills (<700 tonnes) with only one occurring near a harbor and was the result of an avoidable collision

If you do the math, this calculates to oil tanker accidents have been reduced 92% while there has been a 55% increase in their use.  That means late 2010’s oil tanker traffic is about 20 times less likely to have a spill than they were in the early 1970’s.

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By Ian Matthews, ago
trans-mountain-pipeline-logo

Does Alberta Have Both The Legal Authority & The Gumption To Block Oil Shipments To BC?

In a word, yes.

1 – Does Alberta Have the Legal Authority To Block Oil Shipments to British Columbia?

As explained in the video below,  ALL oil and gas products in Alberta used to be COMPLETELY controlled by the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission (APMC) which still exists today.  There has been no legal impediments to that process put in place since the APMC was formed in 1973, so yes the Province of Alberta can legally block petroleum shipments to BC.

2 – Would Albertans and Alberta Companies Support Blocking Oil Shipments to British Columbia?

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By Ian Matthews, ago
professional-protestors-against-free-speech

The National Infrastructure Act: How The Federal Government Can Get Infrastructure Projects Like The Trans Mountain Pipeline Done Fairly

The current Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline debacle agonizingly demonstrates that even medium scale infrastructure projects are easily stalemated in Canada.  This has scared away vast sums of foreign direct investment as investors look for easier, more reliable places to put their money. This is a crisis and it appears Read more…

By Ian Matthews, ago
rachel-notley-john-horgan

12 Things Alberta Can Do To Punish British Columbia For Blocking the Trans Mountain Pipeline

rachel-notley-john-horganMany people, and politicians (which are also people 🙂 ) have suggested that Alberta cut off the oil supply to British Colombia in an effort to punish the BC Premier, John Horgan.  While that is one possibility, there are other things that can be done.

Some options are reasonable, some are draconian and some of them are just not possible.

Here are most of the options available to Alberta:

  1. Block BC Workers – This is possible but not likely:
    • it would be very disruptive to business as the two provinces have a largely integrated work force
    • it would annoy BC workers, many of which are in the oil sector, and they are some of Alberta’s biggest boosters in BC so it would be counterproductive to send them home
      .
  2. bc-site-c-dam-mapNot Buy Electricity From BC – This is doable and in fact has already started
By Ian Matthews, ago
kinder-morgan-trans-mountain-pipeline-map

Twinning the Kinder-Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline Is Now Too Big To Fail

Should the Province of Alberta buy the Trans Mountain Pipeline from Kinder-Morgan if they want to walk away from the project?  That question was posed to Alberta Premier Rachel Notley today and she responded with an emphatic ‘Yes!’.

It has become abundantly clear, whether you are for or opposed to this particular pipeline or not, that having the relatively simple twinning of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline fail to be built would signify the end of even medium scale infrastructure projects in Canada.

kinder-morgan-trans-mountain-pipeline-mapThere will always be interest groups and affected people that have some legitimate claim against a large project.  The standard for projects should not be keeping everyone happy.  The standard for infrastructure projects MUST be if they are in the national interest.  That national interest contains a giant list important factors including:

  • environmental concerns
  • affected citizens needs and wants
  • global competitiveness concerns
  • financial concerns
  • public safety
  • …

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By Ian Matthews, ago
nigerian-dirty-oil

How Killing The Canadian Oil Industry Is a Formula For Environmental Disaster

Today Bloomberg’s Michael Bellusci wrote an article explaining that Canadian oil and gas companies are in deep trouble.  Here is an excerpt:

Canada’s Energy Industry Faces ‘Extinction’ Without M&A, BMO Says

Investors have bailed on the Canadian energy sector, although mergers & acquisitions north of the border could provide a much needed catalyst, barring pipeline and political developments…
Source: bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-05/forget-permian-canada-s-energy-needs-m-a-to-avoid-extinction

On the same day, Global News reported:

Feds to spend $280k to study why Canada’s oil and gas sector is falling behind

The federal government plans to spend up to $280,000 for a new study on Canada’s competitiveness in the oil and gas industry as investment lags and the United States offers new incentives for companies to move south…iea-world-energy-demand-change-2016-2040
Source: globalnews.ca/news/4123026/oil-and-gas-canada-falling-behind-study/

In general terms the issue is that with low oil prices, oil companies see better places in the world to put their money than Canada.  Oil & Gas “activists” will initially claim a victory here because they have had some impact on making it difficult to get Canadian Oil and Gas to both international and domestic markets.

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By Ian Matthews, ago
Alberta-Carbon-Tax-Wasted-Money-Cartoon

You Owe $60,000 – Welcome To Alberta’s Avoidable $100B Debt Crisis

Last week the NDP Alberta Government introduced yet another budget without any cuts in it.  Instead they are relying on growth to balance the budget by 2023 leaving us with colossal debt of about $96B.

Citizens, including me, do not seem to grasp numbers larger than about $10M so some context is key to understanding.  To put that debt in perspective, there are just over 4 million people in Alberta, which makes YOUR personal portion of the Provincial debt $24,000.  Statistics Canada shows that Alberta averages 2.5 people per household.  This means your household will owe $60,000.

The Canadian Tax Payers Federation calculates that the Alberta’s debt is currently increasing at a rate of $315.80 per second.

Let’s contrast that number of other Provinces.

How Much Debt Do BC Citizens Owe?

Both the previous Liberal and current NDP governments in British Columbia have been on similar spending sprees and while certainly not as deep, BC has had many similar economic problems to Alberta in recent years.  Think about BC’s primary industries (Oil collapse, softwood lumber disutes…).  However, in February 2018 their NDP Finance minister announced:

“Government’s direct operating debt is projected to be eliminated in 2018-19, one year earlier than forecast. This will be the first time government has been direct operating debt-free in over 40 years.”

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By Ian Matthews, ago

Should Disposable Single Use Plastic Bags Be Banned?

There has been much talk in the recent decade about banning disposable plastic bags.  The basic argument is that consumer grade disposable single use plastic bags are the root cause widespread environmental damage but have ready alternatives, so why are will still using them?

As is often the case with political issues, there is no simple answer to the question “Should single use plastic bags be banned?”.  Below are some of the facts and you can decide for yourself if this is a crisis or not:

ARGUMENTS AGAINST SINGLE USE PLASTIC BAGS

  • Australian scientists found that 90% of seabirds had plastic in their digestive tract
    • 85% of ‘ocean garbage’ is plastic
    • In March of 2018, Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna claimed that there is the equivalent of one full dump truck load of plastic materials being dumped in the ocean every minute of every day
  • Plastic bags are made from non-renewable material
  • Single use plastic bags account cost about $.04 each to buy new and it is estimated the clean up cost is about $.15 per bag, resulting in a total cost to the consumer of more than $80 per year (more…)
By Ian Matthews, ago
Alberta-residential-tax-rates

Facts About “A Tale of Two Cities” A Comparison Between Lacombes & Chestermeres Approach to Hiring a New CAO

Recently it was brought to our attention that a small site took issue with the facts supplied in our article “A Tale Of Two Cities: How Chestermere is Spending $100K More Than Lacombe To Find a New CAO“.   Given the outrageous claims in the article, we felt compelled to provide the facts.

Please note that www.PartisianIssues.com is trying to stay out of Municipal politics.  In Chestermere’s case specifically, we know that the new Council will make mistakes but that those mistakes will be well intentioned and not malicious.

Claim: Chestermere Is In Too Much of a Hurry To Handle Its Own CAO Search:

This is perhaps the strangest claim made in the article so we will deal with it first.  Our original article made three fundamental points;

  1. Lacombe will do their CAO search much faster than Chestermere
  2. Lacombe will do their CAO search for somewhere between $100K and $200K less than Chestermere
  3. Temporary staff, almost by their very definition, will not develop meaningful changes

The simple fact is that even though Lacombe started their CAO search after Chesteremere did, Lacombe has already hired a new CAO. Chestermere is still spending $27,000 on a person (who we are sure is a smart, qualified but temporary CAO) that has not made any notable changes to the city that any other CAO wouldn’t have done.

Beyond this we found it odd to imply that Lacombe isn’t in a hurry to get their CAO work done.  Clearly this is inaccurate; Lacombe is done and Chestermere isn’t.

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By Ian Matthews, ago

The Price of Carbon in Saskatchewan

Dr David Maenz is interviewed on CBC Regina radio. The discussion is on climate change, his new book The Price of Carbon, and how the Saskatchewan Provincial government is handling the Canadian Federal Governments demand for a price on carbon.

By Ian Matthews, ago

A Rational, Fact Based Review of Global Warming & Its Practical Solutions

Below is an 11 minute interview with Dr. David Maenz about his new book The Price of Carbon.  Unlike all climate change books we have reviewed in the past, The Price Of Carbon is the first one to pull together the serious science of Global Warming from Earths formation until today, explain the three likely outcomes of Global Warming, and then detail the PRACTICAL solutions to the issue.

This book is definitely not a casual read but for the educated person that is still open to thinking about this critical issue, it will be an eye opener:

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By Ian Matthews, ago