The fallout from the Teck Frontier decision reverberated yesterday, whether it was with disappointed local First Nations, or industry groups giving the usual lamentations about investor confidence. More blame was thrown around, most of it at Justin Trudeau’s direction which seems to be in direct contradiction to what the company’s CEO said in his withdrawal letter, which talked about partisan bickering between levels of government, while also talking about how they supported carbon pricing and the emissions caps – in other words, largely siding with the federal government as the provincial government tore up the comprehensive and reasonable plan that the former NDP government had put into place with a great deal of thought and consultation, which introduced all manner of uncertainty into the market and put them into direct conflict with the federal government unnecessarily – but they also made the gamble that Andrew Scheer would win the last federal election and they wouldn’t have to worry about carbon pricing or strict regulations any longer, and well, that didn’t happen. Of course, it didn’t stop Kenney, Scheer or others from making up things wholesale in order to keep the blame on Trudeau, after they already overly raised expectations for the project (in part by lying about what its promises actually were). In conversation yesterday, a fellow journalist made the supposition that Teck may have been afraid of federal approval at this point because the expectations for it had been built so high when they knew they couldn’t deliver on it, in large part because the price of oil is simply far too low for the project to be viable, not to mention that it’s hard to attract financing as global investors are looking for climate-friendly projects these days.
In pundit response, Heather Scoffield points to the lack of the next stages of the federal climate plans, combined with Alberta’s battling those plans, as factors making us unattractive to investors. Scoffield also blames a lack of leadership for why it’s taking so long to get those needed plans in place. Max Fawcett considers Teck Frontier a metaphor for an Alberta past that won’t come back, and that the withdrawal of the application should be a wake-up call for those who are trying to bring that past back. Kevin Carmichael calls out Teck’s CEO for playing martyr while sabotaging the kind of conversation over energy and the environment that the country needs to have, but now won’t because the deadline is off the table and we have degenerated into assigning blame.
And then, as if things couldn’t get any more interesting, the Alberta Court of Appeal released their 4-1 decision that said that the federal carbon price was unconstitutional, in direct opposition to the decisions from Ontario and Saskatchewan (both of which will head to the Supreme Court of Canada next month). But that being said, there is a curious amount of overtly political editorialising within said judgement, from one of the concurring judges in particular, which I am assured by a law professor will be a field day for the Supreme Court of Canada when this ruling makes it to them.
https://twitter.com/molszyns/status/1232059249158545408
https://twitter.com/molszyns/status/1232074971918168064
https://twitter.com/molszyns/status/1232161066898968576
https://twitter.com/molszyns/status/1232054682140340225
https://twitter.com/charlesrusnell/status/1232124886937550849
Good reads:
- At a Black History Month event, Justin Trudeau raised his blackface past as a means of confronting systemic racism in Canada.
- After arrests were made at the Tyendinaga blockade, Marc Miller insisted that government remained open to continued dialogue.
- Blocakdes remain in Quebec, Hamilton, and other solidarity protests continue.
- David Lametti tabled the bill to expand the medical assistance in dying regime, but further changes could come later in the year as part of the legislative review.
- Canada is making possible pandemic plans as COVID-19 cases continue to climb in more countries.
- Peter MacKay is grousing about cannabis legalisation, saying it was “forced” and “rushed,” and applies unrealistic metrics to the phasing out of the black market.
- Adorably, Marilyn Gladu says she would move to bring down Trudeau in her first act as Conservative leader.
- Surprising nobody a bunch of Maxime Bernier Fan Club™ riding associations have been de-registered because they haven’t met their reporting requirements.
- Jason Kenney is gearing up for a throne speech and provincial budget this week.
- Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column tries to map out the 20 sitting days between now and April when it comes to what the government needs to pass.
- Law professor Douglas Sanderson says the Wet’suwet’en need space to use their own legal system to settle their internal dispute (which is part of the issue).
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Keeping the Tory penchant for lying intact, Peter MacKay said that if he was PM he would eliminate the “gas tax” as it was a burden on Canadians in their daily lives by costing them too much of their hard earned money. As usual he never spoke about the tax breaks or the checks Canadians receive to keep this levy neutral, and again the press and tv news reporters never add to his rhetoric that this happens. Why the reticence by media to allow this lie to persist? Or have we become a society that that believes the enduring lie dished continuously?
Because “access journalism” and because the corporate media and their pet punditry are conservative and want Trudeau out so they can have tax cuts for the rich. Just like U.S. M$M elevated Trump over Hillary and are now pushing Sanders as a kamikaze candidate (while erasing Warren) to re-elect Trump. It’s all about $$$.
There won’t be a needed conversation about energy transition as long as the Unofficial Leader of the Opposition out in Edmonton and his fellow leftover Harperites direct their Pavlovian two-minute-hate obsession at Trudeau, Trudeau, Trudeau. No policy, no facts, just ad-hominem scapegoating and four decades of a grudge against a man who’s been dead for twenty years, alongside inchoate rage against his son. Although it appears Scheer has some peculiar dispute with Hadrien over “Paw Patrol” now too. Love seeing “we could be like Norway” from the western-alienation crowd — yes, you could, if you’d listened to Pierre. Saskaberta, Buffalostan, Wexitopia, Daesh al-Kudatah or whatever the manifesto writers call the perpetually aggrieved Reformacon country doesn’t just need a conversation about putting the “eco” in economics. It needs psychiatric triage to get over its Trudeau derangement syndrome.
On this day in 2015, Trump tweeted, “If the Dow Jones ever falls more than 1000 “points” in a single day, the sitting president should be loaded into a very big cannon and shot into the sun at tremendous speed!”
Anyone out there got a used cannon at wholesale?
He actually spelled it “Dow Joans” which makes it even worse.
That said, I would absolutely support a whole army of cannons to shoot Trump and the GOP/CPC on both sides of the 49th into the bigly yuge fireball at the center of the solar system. Sunny ways, my friends.