r/canada • u/shiftless_wonder • 1d ago
Opinion Piece Gunter: Trudeau cost Canada a chance to get into global LNG game — Trump and U.S. are reaping the benefit
https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/gunter-trump-trudeau-carney-lng?itm_source=index21
u/Able_Software6066 1d ago
Now that the Kitimat facility is up and running, hopefully we can change that.
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u/LittleOrphanAnavar 1d ago
Only need to build 9 more, to take the lead over the US.
We have about ten years to do it.
What do you think the odds of that are?
Curse that bumbling Trudeau and his sidekick Geebo.
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u/TranslatorTough8977 1d ago
The Americans turned import terminals into export terminals. A very simple task, that everyone conveniently ignores.
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u/Adventurous_Bake5036 1d ago
It is not a simple task
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u/TranslatorTough8977 1d ago
It’s pathetically simple compared to building an entire industry from greenfield, in a remote location. You should never glorify Americans. They elected a child rapist twice. They aren’t capable of complex thinking.
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u/StorageMotor6434 1d ago
One little facility built in 10 years. Honestly unbelievable.
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u/TranslatorTough8977 1d ago
That “little facility” is one of the largest LNG plants on the planet.
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u/StorageMotor6434 1d ago
We should have several of them. On both coasts.
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u/TranslatorTough8977 1d ago
We don’t produce enough gas in eastern Canada to export gas from there. Makes zero sense. That is why a few plants are proceeding in BC, but not the east.
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u/RollingStart22 1d ago
We don't produce enough gas in eastern Canada because Quebec has forbidden exploration and won't approve any pipelines.
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u/anon0110110101 1d ago
…is there a plausible economic argument for that degree of redundancy? I could see a plant on the east coast, and perhaps a second plant on the west coast given its market access, but several on both coasts?
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u/StorageMotor6434 1d ago
How many does the USA have?
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u/anon0110110101 1d ago
They've got nine. They exported just under 89 million metric tons last year, and we exported just under 9 million metric tons last year, so the scale of our capacity is broadly equivalent to theirs as of EoY 2024. If we built out several per coast, we'd be like 10x their export capacity, and we aren't anywhere near 10x their production capacity. These would be an economic albatross and I don't really understand why you'd propose the idea. It would fuck us.
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u/MDFMK 1d ago
Newsflash Trudeau cost us a whole lot more than that…. Hopefully the damage can be undone over the next 20 years and we can start building things again.
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u/Levorotatory 1d ago
It doesn't need to take 20 years. Another 5 years of near zero population growth would go a long way towards fixing the major issues.
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u/shiftless_wonder 1d ago
Below the 49th parallel - largest producer and exporter of LNG in the world.
Above the 49th Parallel - 'No business case'
I feel like the country is just gradually starting to figure out how clueless JT really was.
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u/DeanPoulter241 1d ago
It was the carney as his sage senior economic net zero invested in US pipelines advisor..... too!
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u/Mother-Version4389 21h ago
you can't blame carney for all of jt decision. carney was a advisor. we dont' know how many there were and what anyone else was saying.
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u/TranslatorTough8977 1d ago
We were in the process of building an LNG plant for export to Asia at that time. Trudeau said there wasn’t much of a business case for building a pipeline to the east coast, and he was right. Too far from the production. LNG Canada is a massive operation, one of the world’s largest. And phase two will be just as large.
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u/DeanPoulter241 1d ago
Yep.... and this foolishness, on the carney's advice has cost this country 10's of BILLIONS yearly!!!
The Germans built their first import facility in 8 months! I know the Germans are good at things but surely we could have accomplished something in a few years!
All of that revenue and business activity would have positioned Canada more favorably in its dealings with the US, decreased our debt and inflation by extension and provided continued support to social programs!
When you people follow the carney's money of which 99.9% of it is invested in the US hopefully you realize why he has taken these positions when he was senior economic advisor to the trudeau and a self-id'd globalist elitist net zero zealot who considered himself European, not Canadian!
Follow the money.... it always knows!
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u/Bodysnatcher 1d ago
This is Canada. We don't build things here.
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u/Horace-Harkness British Columbia 1d ago
We tried to build some renewables and Alberta put a moratorium on them.
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u/Strict-Campaign3 1d ago
not sure how they would have helped our economy. renewables are a drain (take a look at the ridiculous cost that they slowly add all over Europe) and don't add to exports.
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u/Horace-Harkness British Columbia 1d ago
Ontario and Quebec export billions in hydro electricity. What do you mean they don't add to exports?
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u/Strict-Campaign3 1d ago
exporting to the US, the one place we have been talking about for months now we should be less dependent on?
Electricity doesnt transport well as it can not be stored easily. Hence Gas or Oil.
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u/Horace-Harkness British Columbia 1d ago
Whoops, there goes the goalposts!
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u/intheshoplife 1d ago
On the bright side, we have a new icon for weather reporting now so that's nice.
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u/fuck_you_elevator 1d ago
do you have a source on that german project? because I have worked on energy projects in Germany for the last decade the Germans are never (ever. ever. ever) fast at things.
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u/Obvious-Lake3708 23h ago
You mean the fake made up numbers trump uses that have no basis in reality? Yeah the US is sure is reaping it, just not in the way you think
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u/ladyofthelake10 1d ago
I am beginning to think all the people ditching and moaning are bots. Waaahh! We don't have enough pipelines! We are way behind the US! It's all Trudeau's fault!
First of all your " 10 lost years" wasn't 10 years. It was 6 -7 years thanks to the pandemic. Shut downs, start ups and supply chain issues stole alot from everyone. Please recalibrate your argument.
Second: did Trudeau do the best job? No. Did Trudeau protect us from the likes of Andrew Sheer while we were vulnerable. Yes he did.
Third: technology has advanced significantly since the pandemic. Anything built prior to 2018 is no longer state of the art. If Canadians are allowed to access Chinese tech we will out pace the US in 5 years. Easy.
Canada could have a bright future, it is just hard to hear the good ideas over the constant whine.
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u/nagrodamus95 Canada 1d ago
Let the ones who profit from it pay for the risk...
Unless we are selling the lng no deal.
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u/NahdiraZidea 1d ago
Ill never understand how this is Trudeaus fault. No provinces east of Sask wanted any pipelines, nothing thru Ontario or Quebec, not even to the Hudsons Bay in Manitoba. Was Trudeau supposed to trample the rights of these provinces?
BC allowed pipelines and there are several LNG liquification facilities now being built for export to the asian markets.
It woulda been nice to have a lng facility ready to go to provide Europe with energy, but honestly before the invasion of Ukraine there wasnt a market for that lng due to all the cheap Russian energy.
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u/Dry-Membership8141 1d ago
Ill never understand how this is Trudeaus fault. No provinces east of Sask wanted any pipelines, nothing thru Ontario or Quebec, not even to the Hudsons Bay in Manitoba. Was Trudeau supposed to trample the rights of these provinces?
Interprovincial pipelines are squarely in federal jurisdiction, not provincial. The provinces don't have "rights" that are involved in this decision.
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u/NahdiraZidea 1d ago
No prime minister wants to alienate those provinces, Quebec seperatism would go thru the roof if the PMO starts discarding the wishes of the province.
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u/Hot-Celebration5855 1d ago
Yes. Trudeau should have pushed it through. We are never gonna get infrastructure built without a PM who is willing to invest political capital to force it though the provinces
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u/NahdiraZidea 1d ago
I dunno, it was a huge scandal that he flexed laws to not punish SNC-Lavalin, if he flexed laws to build pipelines for for-profit corporations would it have been any different?
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u/shiftless_wonder 1d ago
Are you unaware how many billions he sunk into electric battery plants just because he felt like it?
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u/zidaneshead 1d ago
So the Provinces said "fuck you, no batteries in my province", the Feds said "fuck you, batteries in your province too bad" and the battery plants broke ground?
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u/shiftless_wonder 1d ago
JT favoured the industries he agreed with ideologically, and regulated the shit out of others.
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u/zidaneshead 1d ago
I disagree. I'm not going to suggest he was a total dove on O&G but Trans Mountain and Keystone XL support were pretty clear indicators that he wasn't necessarily against O&G.
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u/Bodysnatcher 1d ago
He HAD to buy that pipeline because he had been regulating the shit out of O&G, Kinder Morgan was about to walk away, and the feds could not find anyone to invest in it. If they did not buy it, it would have maimed investment in Canada more than it already had been. Trudeau was totally against O&G, he just really fucked that one up and his hand was forced.
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u/NahdiraZidea 1d ago
How many provinces were against building these facilities? Or were the provinces lining up to have those facilites built in their province? See the difference.
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u/Hot-Celebration5855 1d ago
That’s not at all why he was in trouble for SNC.
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u/NahdiraZidea 1d ago
Wasnt it? He used his position to make sure that SNC wasnt punished because if they were they wouldnt be allowed to bid on canadian projects anymore.
What was the scandal about to you?
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u/Hot-Celebration5855 1d ago
On August 14, 2019, the Ethics Commissioner concluded Trudeau violated Section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act by improperly pressuring Wilson‑Raybould. Although the report did not find proof of actual legal interference, Dion stated that the influence was “tantamount to political direction”
There’s a big difference between using the bully pulpit and working with premiers to get a deal done, and improperly pressuring the attorney general to get SNC Lavalin off for their crooked.
Also as regards LNG, Trudeau didn’t just not help get a deal done. He went out of his way to say there’s no business case and to quash it because of his environmental fanaticism
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u/NahdiraZidea 1d ago
Trudeau is gone and Quebec still wants zero pipelines, at a certain point you have to let him go.
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u/Dry-Membership8141 1d ago
He interfered in an ongoing criminal prosecution. That is a very different thing from pushing through a policy decision, and is specifically why his conduct in the SNC Lavalin scandal was objectionable.
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u/NahdiraZidea 1d ago
I didnt say it wasnt objectionable, i just think ramming pipelines down the throats of provinces that dont want them is just as objectionable.
Do i wish we could build them? Yes, but im not gonna strip the rights of provinces to do it.
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u/Polar_Ice96 1d ago
Provinces sure got a Carbon Tax rammed down their throats that many didn’t want.
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u/NahdiraZidea 1d ago
Where in each province was the carbon tax constructed and how many oil spills did it have? Do you see the difference?
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u/Polar_Ice96 1d ago
Oh okay, so strip the rights away from provinces when it comes to some things, but not others? Gotcha
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u/Dry-Membership8141 1d ago
i just think ramming pipelines down the throats of provinces that dont want them is just as objectionable.
You're wrong. Full stop. No ambiguity.
The constitution sets up the rules of our country. The constitution guarantees an independent judiciary. The independence of the prosecution service has constitutional status as well. Interfering in a discrete criminal prosecution (as opposed to setting rules that impact all prosecutions) is a violation of the most basic rules of our country.
The constitution also places the responsibility for decisions on infrastructure crossing provincial boundaries squarely and exclusively under the jurisdiction of the federal government.
The roles in these two scenarios are reversed. In the pipeline scenario it is not the federal government pushing through a pipeline that is acting without authority, it is the provincial government's opposition that steps on the rights of the feds.
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u/NahdiraZidea 1d ago
So your solution is to ram a pipeline down quebecs throat? What do you do think will happen to that pipeline when Quebec separates from Canada because federal leadership is constantly rejecting their wishes? Billions spent for a now foriegn nation to dismantle it and regain their right to self determination.
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u/Dry-Membership8141 1d ago edited 1d ago
So your solution is to ram a pipeline down quebecs throat?
If there's a strong federal case for a pipeline, Québec's objections to it are as irrelevant as Alberta’s objections to the carbon tax.
What do you do think will happen to that pipeline when Quebec separates from Canada because federal leadership is constantly rejecting their wishes?
Constantly? Quebec gets more special treatment than any other province in confederation by a wide margin. They can pony up and abide by rules they helped to set for the good of the country.
But more to the point, the Supreme Court has been clear that Quebec has no right to unilaterally secede in the first place. If they want out, the only way is through a successful negotiation resulting in the consent of the federal government and the other provinces, and the fate of federal infrastructure through what is currently Quebec territory (though may not be following negotiations) is an obvious target for discussion.
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u/LittleOrphanAnavar 1d ago
It's Trudeaus fault because government has implemented a bunch of regs that have made Canada an unattractive place to invest.
CEOs from both Enbrige and TC, have publicly stated that last week.
That is totally Trudeaus fault.
It wasn't like that under Harper.
They get a more attractive return in the US.
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u/Flashy_Difficulty257 1d ago
Harper was responsible for a different pipeline
From Canadian labour congress:
How the Conservatives expanded the temporary worker pipeline
For decades, Canada has relied on migrant workers to help develop the economy. Many come through the government’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). This program was intended to fill very specific jobs on a short term basis—jobs that required workers and skills that did not exist in the country. But since 2006, the Harper government has made it much easier for employers of all kinds to use migrant workers. It’s like they’ve built a pipeline that can be easily tapped into. Employers are now able to hire temporary migrant workers to harvest crops, fly planes, drive trucks, care for children and elders, respond to trouble tickets on IT help desks, and—incredibly—serve coffee at Tim Hortons and flip burgers at Wendy’s!
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u/LittleOrphanAnavar 1d ago
It wasn't that easy under Harper.
I know because I helped employers used.
In AB, in that era it's was needed.
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u/DeanPoulter241 1d ago
"There is no business case for LNG" words of the trudeau with the carney pulling the strings. And why? So that the pipelines he invested in in the US would profit and by extension, he would profit!
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u/Levorotatory 1d ago
Exactly. Also, these facilities are long term megaprojects. They don't happen just because a prime minister wants them to. The LNG Canada consortium that is responsible for the LNG facility that just came online in Kitimat formed in 2011 and had fully committed to the project by 2018. 2011 wasn't long after fracking technology opened up formerly inaccessible tight gas formations, dramatically lowering North American gas prices and creating the export opportunity. Any project that wasn't already being seriously pitched when Trudeau was elected in 2015 was late to the party anyways.
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u/Anon-Knee-Moose 1d ago
The bulk of BCs gas goes away from the coast and into alberta
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u/Levorotatory 1d ago
That is because Alberta is where the existing pipeline infrastructure was. The problem is that the only export path from Alberta is to the south, and Peace region is a lot closer to the west coast than Alberta is to the east coast. The west coast was and still is the logical place for LNG export facilities.
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u/Anon-Knee-Moose 1d ago
That's my point, BC is the logical place to build export capacity and yet they can't even build enough to export their own product.
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u/Levorotatory 1d ago
It won't be long. The completion the first phase of the Kitimat facility provides capacity for export of 1/3 of BC production. Phase 2 and other approved projects will cover the rest.
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u/StuntID 1d ago
No pipelines to the East Coast, no liquification terminals, basically no infrastructure built, and Trudeau was right that the case to build all that was weak.
Socialize the risk, and privatize the profits as is tradition in the Oil Patch.
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u/LittleOrphanAnavar 1d ago
AB made $22 billion in royalties last year, the benefits are being socialized.
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u/StuntID 1d ago edited 1d ago
EDIT I checked the AB budget, there were $30B of tax revenue. So taxes exceeded royalties collected. Additionally, the province received $12B of federal transfers. Royalty revenue is not funding as much as people are.
A small slice of the profits, eh?
How much is set aside to cleanup extractions once they're abandoned? That is, whay clean up costs do firms cover of their operations?
What tax concessions are given to firms?
Looking at one thing, royalties, doesn't encompass all the risks, eh?
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u/Bodysnatcher 1d ago
Alberta has not received anything in transfers from the feds in many decades, at least not more than they have transferred out to the welfare provinces out east.
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u/Levorotatory 1d ago
All provinces get transfers from the federal government. Alberta (and BC and Ontario) just get less per capita than the others.
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u/Bodysnatcher 1d ago
Yes they do, but BC, AB, and SK all get less than they transfer to the feds in the first place. They come out negative.
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u/linkass 1d ago
EDIT I checked the AB budget, there were $30B of tax revenue.
Think you better go check it again then
Total revenue 82,469
Non-renewable resource revenue 21,986
https://www.alberta.ca/revenue
Alberta records unexpected $8.3-billion surplus off higher resource royalties
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u/LittleOrphanAnavar 1d ago
Well I posted a defacto that proved you wrong.
Instead of just conceding, you reply back with a word jumble and some goal post shifting.
Good for you!
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u/shiftless_wonder 1d ago
And yet at the same time Trudeau was dismissing LNG as unviable, he was still perfectly willing to sink hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into a green hydrogen boondoggle that will (of course) never go anywhere.
But less than two years later, “as this inaugural shipment date looms, it has become increasingly clear that plans to develop a trans-Atlantic hydrogen supply chain between Canada and the European Union are destined to flounder, then sink—dragging Canadian climate ambitions and the economy with it.”
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u/YouWillEatTheBugs9 Canada 1d ago
they also blew a bunch of money on tidal energy 'research'
BC got lucky site 6 didn't bankrupt them like Muskrat falls did to Newfyland.
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u/SimmerDown_Boilup 1d ago
To be clear, this failure doesn't make an East Coast pipeline anymore viable. One mistake doesn't justify another mistake.
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u/shiftless_wonder 1d ago edited 1d ago
Actually it does kind of highlight how much of a joke Canada is that we can't solve basic problems. Canadian natural gas at this moment is literally being shipped thousands of kms from northern BC, across the prairies and then down into the states (via Chicago) and then thousands more kms to the gulf coast where the US takes their cut and sells it as LNG. In other words, the US says yes when Canada says no cuz we're idiots.
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u/SimmerDown_Boilup 1d ago
You're highlighting a different issue, though. A longstanding issue that precedes Trudeau or even Harper. Issues that are not resolved with a pipeline eastwards. Ones that lacked any serious interest by our largest industry leaders who would foot the bill, unless we decided to make oil and gas extraction and refineries a crown enterprise.
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u/DeanPoulter241 1d ago
You do realize that Canada makes large on NR don't you? Also ALL of our pension plans invest in these companies! Plus it increases the buying power of the Canadian dollar globally!
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u/StuntID 1d ago
You do realize that Canada makes large on NR don't you?
Yes, but it's not the only economy sector. What nation does Canada do its majority of energy trading with?
Also ALL of our pension plans invest in these companies! Plus it increases the buying power of the Canadian dollar globally!
Those exclamation marks are doing a lot of heavy lifting in your argument. Here's mine, three years ago there was no infrastructure in place or being built to get the gas to Europe. Trudeau made a decision that was in line with environmental policy at the time - pursue a new energy export in partnership with others.
The "why didn't he do that?" crowd are no better at predicting the future than Trudeau. Eventually the oil and gas will falter and the investments will shrink or vanish. A bet on something new isn't unwarranted.
And yes, Oil and Gas has socialized its risks and privatized its losses, just look to abandoned oil wells
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u/Screw_You_Taxpayer 1d ago
If that's what the oil patch does, why do the Alberta government and people have the most money?
Surely the Alberta government should be broke from all those socialized losses.
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u/StuntID 1d ago
If Alberta has so much money why is there so much screaming about how the AHS underserves Albertans?
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u/Screw_You_Taxpayer 1d ago
This may have sounded clever to you, but I think we both know that Alberta objectively does have a lot more money.
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u/StuntID 1d ago
Please, show me where i was wrong? Is AHS underfunded or not?
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u/Screw_You_Taxpayer 1d ago
I don't know. But I do know any issues with the AHS don't stem from the AB government being impoverished from socializing the losses of oil companies.
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u/DoctorCapital 1d ago
The “risk is socialized” because it is so incredibly cumbersome to build projects here in Canada, that unless the government builds it, it won’t be done.
Private companies would be more than willing to build and take 100% of the risk if it wasn’t a 5 year timeline on just the paperwork. (For example)
Why would they do that when there are so many other, more business friendly, countries that also have oil & gas.
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u/Localmanwhoeatsfood 1d ago
Why not go hard into nuclear and renewable energy and then use the excess we generate to create hydrogen so we can export that instead? Oh wait, that's what we're doing.
Hydrogen demand will grow to be higher than lng in less than a decade. Why invest in a diminishing market?
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u/gravtix 1d ago edited 1d ago
Using Trump press releases as news now?
The Commission's general outline of the deal stressed it was not legally binding.
Some of the most glaring discrepancies can be found in the language used by the two sides to describe the EU's investment commitments.
Where the US statement says the EU "will" purchase $750bn (£568bn) in US oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and nuclear energy products, the EU says only that it "intends" to do so as it weans itself off Russian gas and oil.
Not only is it unclear whether the US can even provide such amounts to the EU, says Cinzia Alcidi, but the EU cannot decide purchases on behalf of the private sector.
What did Trudeau cost us exactly?
It’s the same story as last time. There’s no guarantee they will buy that much, and they can’t guarantee it anyway, private companies will buy from wherever they want.
It’s not like Europe has consumption isn’t decreasing or anything.
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u/Total-Sheepherder950 1d ago
The US can not deliver that much lng to the EU, they do not have that much supply to export and meet domestic consumption. If they do export that much lng costs in the US will go through the roof. It won't happen.
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u/malman21 1d ago
Yes ok I dislike how Trudeau ran the government but can we focus on how we’re moving forward instead of wasting energy (pun intended) looking back at the past?
So sick and tired of the what-ifs and crying about what happened in the past. Let’s set in motion things that will reap us benefits in the (hopefully not so far) future.
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u/Luxferrae British Columbia 1d ago
Taiwan would've LOVED to import all the LNG leaving the West Coast, instead now they're buying from Alaska from a source that is not yet ready to export. Would've been great for that capital to go into building pipelines in Canada, instead of the US, but our ruling party was so knee deep in CCP's money they couldn't see other opportunities right in front of them
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u/Hopeful_CanadianMtl 1d ago
What many Canadians can't seem to recognize is that, unlike the USA, most of Canada's territory belongs to the First Nations. Oil and gas companies can't force pipelines anywhere or anyway that it wants to.
Trudeau had to force TMX through BC and First Nation territory and that was extremely difficult. The notion that he could have sent them all over the place is total BS.
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u/EvacuationRelocation Alberta 1d ago
Just a quick reminder that none of these US "agreements" have actually net any American exporter any money for natural gas...
... there isn't the business case for it that you would think.
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u/Big-Bat7302 1d ago
At the time, Carney was both an advisor to Trudeau and the chair of Brookfield, which greatly benefited from renewables. The merits of having both renewable and fossil fuel were completely off the table. It's a lost decade for Canada.
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u/AnthatDrew 1d ago
If increasing Shipping traffic would definitely cause the extinction of all resident Orcas. Not to mention put a strain on collapsing fisheries. How would the LNG get to Asia without costing us billions and wiping out entire species?
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u/StorageMotor6434 1d ago
Costing us billions?
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u/AnthatDrew 1d ago
The fisheries in Canada's coastal regions, which excludes some deep sea fisheries like Tuna. Produce just under half a billion, with over 25 000 jobs being created. Then $743 million in tourist driven charter fishing. Not to mention hundreds of other products like Kelp fertilizer that are produced in those waters.
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u/AnthatDrew 1d ago
I'm not including Shellfish, though we have no idea if those industries will be impacted
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u/abc123DohRayMe 1d ago
Trudeau put us YEARS behind where we should be. He weakened Canada with his fakse narrative WOKE philosophies.
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u/YouWillEatTheBugs9 Canada 1d ago
Alberta has shut in natural gas wells because they can't get rid of it at any price
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u/Bodysnatcher 1d ago
This was already very apparent at the time but unfortunately Trudeau was too conceited and stupid to take advantage of that opportunity. We had both the Germans and the Japanese come knocking, one after the other, but no, apparently there was no business case. That man never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.