Professor Leach’s polite way of telling Albertans that Conservatives are Gaslighting them: “They’re selling you a bill of goods.”
What’s really holding back the oilsands? It’s not the bill of goods you’re being sold
EXCERPTS: “The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers is quick to tell you: “Pipeline constraints, a lack of market diversity, and inefficient regulations are largely responsible for holding back Canada’s oil sector.”
Ask Premier Jason Kenney, and it’s the failed policies of Prime Minister Trudeau or former premier Rachel Notley. You’re to believe that domestic policies have caused production growth rates to be lower by half than what was foretold in 2014, and that this slowdown can be solved by changing those policies.”
There are four major issues affecting the oilsands.
First, and by a long shot the most important, is the sustained decline in global crude oil price outlooks. Even if we had seamless market access, the long term expected market value of oilsands production has dropped significantly from 2014 levels.
Market access is the second big factor. In a low price environment, additional uncertainty and/or increased transportation costs matter a lot.
The third factor is a global reduction in oil investment and a shift toward short-cycle investments. Oilsands are as long-cycle as investments get.
Finally, climate change pressures on global supermajors like Shell, Exxon-Mobil and Total mean that investments in the oilsands are hard to sell to shareholders and lenders alike.
In a world with cheap oil, challenging pipeline construction, a shift toward short-cycle investment, and the combined forces of alternative energy innovation and action on climate change, the oilsands are in for a rough ride.
Our politicians and industry lobby groups, which influence both policies and the public’s understanding of these issues, would be well-served to make sure people are clued-in to this reality, rather than blaming everything on Trudeau and Notley.
They should think about these factors carefully and prepare for them, rather than promising a return to the boom times that they’ll likely be unable to deliver.”
Right-wing actors are often gaslighting Albertans & Postmedia is a willing accomplice. One of the worst actors is Ted Morton.
Martin Olszynski: Appeasement, not sabotage, best describes federal policies towards Alberta
EXCERPT: “To be sure, it is not Ottawa’s fault that Alberta’s oil and gas sector’s emissions have recently stagnated and are still among the highest per barrel in a world increasingly and rather predictably concerned about climate change. It is not Ottawa’s fault that oilsands companies have accrued roughly 1.4 trillion litres of tailings with no proven technologies for remediation and reclamation. It is not Ottawa’s fault that the Orphan Well Association’s inventory of inactive wells has skyrocketed in the past five years and now requires federal and provincial assistance. And it is not Ottawa’s fault that Alberta’s Heritage Fund has little to show for it. Rather, all of these are the readily foreseeable consequences of Alberta’s preferences and policies, to which Ottawa has consistently deferred.
Mr. Morton concludes his column by observing that the political strategies of his generation of Albertans have not worked and that it’s time for Plan B. I suppose I agree with that too. The first step would be to take some responsibility for Alberta’s current state of affairs.”
Financial institutions like Moody’s ‘buying into’ European political agenda: Kenney
EXCERPTS – Jason Kenney Gaslighting 101:
““The bigger challenge we have is, increasingly, financial institutions — and this apparently includes Moody’s — are buying into the political agenda emanating from Europe, which is trying to stigmatize development of hydrocarbon energy. And I just think they are completely factually wrong.”
“Kenney said insurance companies like Switzerland’s Zurich Insurance Group are making decisions to no longer offer insurance products to Alberta oilsands operations because of “distorted, torqued data provided by green left pressure groups.””
Investigative journalism at its finest:
A data-based dismantling of Jason Kenney’s foreign-funding conspiracy theory
EXCERPTS: “The direct or indirect claim of conspiracy, at its heart, is an accusation of fraud and breach of trust, based entirely on circumstantial evidence. It’s the suggestion that charitable dollars are diverted for a covert purpose and that multiple organizations are colluding in that deception.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but every core tenet of Kenney’s conspiracy theory is flatly and demonstrably false.”
A rebuke of CAPP/Kenney talking points, this time by Big Oil.
EXCERPTS: “An open letter from oil sands CEOs to Canadians, published Thursday in newspapers across the country, finally exposes the political fault lines in the Calgary-based oil and gas sector. The CEOs are now aggressively selling their decarbonizing strategy in a bid for greater public support, a strategy the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) and the Jason Kenney government have rejected.
CAPP supported also Kenney’s ridiculous $30 million “energy war room” and the $2.5 million public inquiry into “foreign-funded activism,” despite Energi Media thoroughly debunking the conspiracy narrative of Vancouver blogger Vivian Krause that served as the rationale for those initiatives.
[See our blog article on debunking Krause]
Under McMillan’s leadership, CAPP has morphed from a policy advocacy trade group to a partisan political organization, a de facto arm of the UCP provincially and Andrew Scheer’s CPC federally.”
Inquiry Into Foreign-Funded Un-Albertan Activities Launches New Website, Snitch-Line
Is your neighbor or relative surreptitiously conducting barbaric foreign practices against Alberta? Is he/she an Agent of the dangerous foreign-funded campaign to land-lock AB’s oil & gas? There’s now a snitch line to report them.
“Authoritarian governments moving in lockstep to discredit environmentalists
Everything you think you know about the foreign funding conspiracy is false”
The world is facing the most pressing moral imperative in the history of human civilization, and Jason Kenney’s inquiry has all but criminalized opposition to fossil fuel expansion, before a single witness is called.”
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/09/13/opinion/global-assault-environmental-rights-behind-jason-kenneys-war
See also Conspiracy theory: Alberta oil blockaded by U.S. interests
Not to be outdone, Federal Conservatives and political pundits also gaslight Canada on pipelines
Related Alberta posts to Gaslighting an entire Province
- Jason Kenney: Pants on Fire
- Gaslighting continues: Gut and Cut is the ideology of Deficit-Haters but stealth is a factor
- Alberta: Help Canadians Understand
- Jason Kenney: Male Work Camps
- Conspiracy theory: Alberta oil blockaded by U.S. interests
- Equalization and Alberta
- Prelude to Northern Gateway
- Northern Gateway Pipeline
- Alberta Oil and Gas Historical
- BC Tanker Ban, Bill C-48
- Alberta’s Carbon tax working Exactly as designed
- Part 3 UCP Economics Alberta
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