It’s up to Albertans to stand up for the resource sector
By Medicine Hat News Opinon on March 16, 2018.
I was running a tight schedule the other day when I received a text from my wife “window frozen, won’t open.” Not stopping, I immediately returned her text with “no problem, pour hot water around the edges and tap lightly with a hammer.”
My breath was knocked from me and I unconsciously put my hand on my wallet when her return text said “didn’t work, and now I have really messed up our computer.”
Internet jokes can be great, but what isn’t humorous is the damage Rachel Notley and the NDP government have done to our economy, families and communities with their misguided, unsuccessful carbon taxation policy to buy social license.
Similar to the text from my wife, a complete lack of understanding as to what the other party is looking for, in this case the B.C. NDP and Green parties, led to considerable damage.
Let me start with the big picture. Trudeau and B.C.’s refusal to grant the construction start for the Trans Mountain pipeline is the icing on the cake. The failed ingredients are the fact that only .002 per cent of the world has a carbon tax. When America and other provinces do not have a tax, they become much more economically competitive than Alberta, thus proving that you can, in fact, have your cake and eat it too.
Even more so, the ideological shift to renewables will cost tens of billions of hard earned dollars ($771 million in last week’s budget update) all the while real innovation to reduce pollution have taken a back seat to lining up for special carbon tax grants and handouts.
Additionally, especially as we have seen with our frigid winter here in Cypress-Medicine Hat, heating your home and driving considerable distances to get what you need are not optional. The carbon tax is therefore punishing ordinary Albertans who are just doing what they need to do to survive.
As a result of this socialist experimental wealth re-distribution tax grab, we have traded “free” light bulbs from the NDP for skyrocketing electric bills, food inflation as the transportation costs of the carbon tax get layered into the final costs of getting food to market, and more wage reductions as Alberta businesses have to find ways to control costs in order to stay in business.
Alas, many Cypress-Medicine Hatters have resigned themselves to this ineffective, unfair tax grab as inevitable because our ceremonial prime minister has threatened to impose one — but that’s when things began to change!
Because of the UCP and Jason Kenney’s leadership, effective ideas and opposition along with powerful support from our friends in Saskatchewan, we now see Maritime provinces rightfully declaring their opposition as well. They have decided that won’t have a carbon tax, instead just will just rename their existing gas tax. Thankfully, we have also seen opposition from other conservative leaders as all Ontario PC candidates also oppose a carbon tax.
Unquestionably the most effective way for common sense policy, with the focus on families and communities, is political change in Edmonton and Ottawa. In the meantime I cannot imagine how our prime minister could justify a federally imposed carbon tax when over half the provinces, their people and their voters have so decisively spoken against this cash grab.
It is up to us, as Albertans, as free-market people, as business-friendly policy creators and innovators, to find the courage to continue standing up for our resource sector and the people who depend upon it.
Drew Barnes is the MLA (UCP) for the Cypress-Medicine Hat constituency.
Trudeau and BC do not grant a start date for the Trans Mountain pipeline. That is up to the NEB and is occurring as the company completes pre-construction conditions and detailed route hearings on the project. To date just over half the route has been approved, but as of the NEB’s latest conditions compliance report (March 9) there remain pre-construction conditions to be filed and/or evaluated and approved.
Trudeau’s part in that was to approve or reject the NEB’s recommendation to proceed with the project. That approval was granted. There are also 7 places the company has applied to change the route since. One of those still awaits NEB decision and all seven will require approval by Governor in Council as well. No doubt those approvals will be granted.
For BC’s part, there are provincial permits through the Oil and Gas Commission. Those have been provided for route segments 3 and 4, and are pending for segments 5 to 7. Ian Anderson himself said there is no evidence of the province dragging its feet on those permits. Presently it makes no difference that those permits for segments 5 to 7 have not been issued yet since the detailed route hearings are on-going. In fact the hearing order for segment 6 was only just issued by the NEB March 13th, with the oral hearing portion for sub-segments 6.1 to 6.6 scheduled for October.
I realize your letter is more about carbon tax, but wanted to set the record straight on the pipeline processes as the political posturing from both sides on that issue is so over the top and removed from reality.