CAGC

By: Rod Garland Things are Looking UP It was somewhere between as much as 2 million years ago and maybe as little as 350,000 years ago that your ancestor and mine may have warmed themselves as they sat around a fire enjoying the delights of a barbequed mammoth steak and possibly staring in hypnotic, wonderment towards the star-filled heavens. The night sky must have been impressive back then with no pollution from any light source, other than the camp fire, and it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to believe that the spectacle was ample replacement for the high definition, wide screen, colour TV that most humans enjoy watching today. Many anthropologists attribute the ability to cook meals as a major landmark in the acceleration in the growth of the human brain that likely contributed to the unprecedented evolution of our species. Fire and heat were the critical components in our ability to cook the meals, although in recent times I’m thankful for the self-cleaning oven a...

30 AUGUST 2018 Key messages: Federal Court of Appeal ruling on the Trans Mountain Expansion Project OVERVIEW Today the Federal Court of Appeal released its decision on a case involving a series of lawsuits aimed at stopping the Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMEP). The nearly two-dozen groups involved in the suit, which included First Nations, environmental groups, and the cities of Vancouver and Burnaby, asked for the court to overturn the Order in Council approving the project. Alberta and British Columbia were granted intervenor status on the project, with B.C. supporting the challenge and Alberta not in support. The Federal Court of Appeal decision can be found here. KEY MESSAGES These are preliminary, the decision itself is 265 pages and we have not fully studied all implications. • While it is up to Trans Mountain’s owner to determine what the decision means for the future of TMEP, CEPA is concerned that this decision by the court, combined with ongo...

The writing is on the wall and the numbers are distressing to say the least. Foreign investment is fleeing from Canada and we are becoming an international investment pariah. Sadly, this trend should not surprise anybody as our national regulatory environment for large projects in the energy industry went from onerous to outright obscene. The Trudeau government is obsessed with adding unreasonable requirements for new business ventures and they have pushed things to the tipping point. Private enterprise can no longer do large projects. We are losing billions though lost development and price markdowns due to lack of infrastructure. I spent four years working in the Arctic back in the early 2000s. The area was booming as people trained and looked forward to development of a local industry. There is a massive oil and gas deposit in the Mackenzie Delta that would bring billions if not trillions into Canadian coffers over generations if we could only get the product to market. We ...

Today I’d like to introduce you to a new natural resource advocacy program designed for grassroots resource people like us. It’s called  ResourcEd Grassroots . It’s brought to us by Steve Simons, Canada's leading authority on the ‘ environment versus economy ’ division, politicization and positioning that continues to impact natural resource industries. We’ve all been watching as professional activists dominate the public dialogue on Canadian natural resource development. I know this has been a point of frustration for many of you. Activists paint a dark picture of our industries that in turn influence public opinion and political decisions. It’s been going on far too long. Our association continues to look for ways to change the story and provide new ways to advocate for ourselves. Our goal is to change the public dialo...

By Gwyn Morgan Contributor: Troy Media Published: Fort Nelson News           The political discourse surrounding Canada's oil industry has morphed into a combination of schizophrenia, hypocrisy and fantasy.        This debilitating countrywide phenomenon is clearly exemplified at both the federal and provincial levels. But it's the recent actions of B.C. Premier John Horgan and his puppet master, Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver, that earn my nomination for special recognition.        Horgan wins the political schizophrenia award for filing a court case that would allow the province to stop the export of oil from the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, while simultaneously filing a separate court case aimed at preventing Alberta from reducing the amount of oil shipped through the existing line.       Alberta Premier Rachel Notley summarized his behaviour succinctly by stating, "They want our oil, but ...

By: Gwyn Morgan Published: Fort Nelson Newspaper             Canada is endowed with the third largest oil reserves in the world but lack of access to world markets means our oil is sold far below world prices. Each day, this captive market discount hands a $40-million gift to Americans. Adding insult to injury, the discount also drives tens of billions of dollars in Canadian investments to American oilfields.         Now, after seven years and billions of dollars spent by proponents of three oil export pipelines, hope for revival of Canada's oil industry has come down to one extremely troubled project. How could this have happened?         The answer lies in politically-motivated decisions that progressively narrowed those three proposals to what was always the most fraught project. Here is a precis of what I'll call The Saga of the Three Pipelines.          Enbridge filed regulatory a...

Published: Fort Nelson Newspaper Streeper gets his message out across the national airwaves and tells Canada what lobby groups are doing to this community       The Premier of Saskatchewan, Scott Moe, when asked if he would turn off the spigot to stop its fuel reaching British Columbia said: "If Alberta is going to turn the taps off the next logical place to come for product is Saskatchewan. This pipeline should be built, it's a federal government decision. Our Nation was built on similar projects, which have strengthened and built Canada. If the province of BC can stop this project the question is: Do we still have a nation?'             Roy Green, the popular radio host with his own show on Corus Radio Network and syndicated by Global News and described by The Hill newspaper as 'required listening for federal politicians', interviewed Mayor Bill Streeper and Vivian Krause, a researcher who has been exploring the distribution o...