Kenney erred at the federal level on Trans Mountain pipeline expansion
By Letter to the Editor on April 13, 2019.
Mr. Kenney told his supporters in Fort McMurray this week that Ms. Notley ought to have done more to have the Trans-Mountain pipeline expansion move forward. Ms. Notley was not an Alberta member of Stephen Harper’s federal cabinet which initially approved this pipeline expansion. Mr. Kenney was a member of that cabinet. The Harperites’ approval of that pipeline expansion was faulty and flawed. That approval gave the Federal Court of Appeal reasons to halt the building of the pipeline expansion in August 2018, pending a revising of the approval to include things which Mr. Kenney and his Conservative cabinet colleagues deliberately ignored on the initial approval. That revision is underway, and has been since August, 2018. If Mr. Kenney and his colleagues had done their job properly, the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion would likely be under construction now. The facts, and Mr. Kenney’s prior failure in this matter show as false his claim that Ms. Notley is somehow to blame for the stalling of this pipeline expansion. I believe there are many in the oil industry who think that Kenney will stand up for their industry. They should ask themselves why they think that anything Jason Kenney and the UCP can possibly do will either advance or accelerate the revision of the federal approval, now underway. They should ask themselves why the NDP has contracted to buy 4,400 rail tank cars and 70 locomotives, and why Kenney and the UCP threaten to cancel that contract. No province can approve a pipeline. That is a federal matter. But a province can buy rail tank cars and put them in service without any kind of approval process – all that is needed is a contract with the railway companies. The efforts of Notley and the NDP will move more Alberta oil to market than anything Kenney has ever done, and those efforts will move more Alberta oil than the UCP will ever do. Gregory R. Côté Irvine, Alta. 8-7
The retired oilmen I talk to have nothing but praise for how Notley is trying to save the industry, but apparently there are active oilmen who are blaming this disaster that happened in 2008 on Notley which shows how smart they are. it occurred seven years before Notley was elected and of course the recent production cut backs were the result of the Conservatives not being smart enough to ensure there was a proper system in place to get our oil to foreign markets after they deliberately slashed taxes and royalties that created this massive additional surplus. Don’t forget Jason Kenney, Rachel Notley and many oil executives were involved in the decision to cut production that they felt was necessary.
Having worked for the railway, I can say that putting more oil tankers on the lines is just plain ridiculous and short-sighted. You will be inviting an environmental disaster to happen, no matter how careful. You would be amazed how those steel rails get in 35C temps. Notley, like most left-wing politicians, is all talk, but has no real-life or practical experience. Using the “I am a lawyer” line doesn’t mean she is an expert in the oil and gas field, in fact, she is the opposite. Another waste of tax-payers money, that is what these tanker cars and units would be.
Impala, agreed that oil-by-rails is a hail Mary pass from a desperate Alberta trying to get its product to market.Your point is valid (I too worked at CPR).
But then you go off the rails, throwing around terms such as “left-wing”, thinking it actually means something. My friend, left-wing, right-wing are simply black-and-white labels for those too lazy to look for the shades of grey in party policies.
Unfortunately you then double-down on stupid, saying Rachel Notley lacks ‘real-life experience’. Seriously? You need to wake up.
Your hero Jason (who, apparently, still lives in his mum’s basement) is completely devoid of real-life experience; he’s been a professional politician his entire career, starting out as a Liberal, then a Reformer, then a Tory; he’s ridden the winds of opportunism to a nice, fat, gold-plated federal pension.
If you worked on the railway chances are you’ve had dirt under your fingernails, grease on your hands, grain-dust in your hair. Your boy Jason has avoided such real work. In fact, he couldn’t even finish his private American university divinity degree.
At least Ms Notley finished law school.
Those of us from the world of finance are getting sick and tired of watching our fellow seniors use any excuse they can to bad mouth the NDP government we helped to elect, knowing we had to put a stop to what these Reformers were doing to us.
It’s no secret that the Klein, Stelmach and Redford governments literally gave away $400 billion in royalties and tax breaks to their rich friends and Jason Kenney is promising to make it even worse by cutting corporate taxes from 12 percent to 8 percent. To make up for this revenue cutting stupidity he wants us to accept an American style health care system that could end up costing average senior couples $1,200. per month, like my American relatives are paying, and these ignorant seniors who are hell-bent on getting him elected apparently aren’t smart enough to understand it, why?
Former MLA from the Lougheed government Allan A. Warrack had a wonderful article in the Edmonton Journal yesterday praising Notley for being like Peter Lougheed called “Notley Channelled the Lougheed era”. Too bad it’s not on the internet for all to read.
He feels the same way we do she is a lot like Lougheed she cares about the well being of all the people and not just her rich friends like Kenney does.
Fedup Conservative, I think this may be the article you are referring to.
https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-rachel-notley-has-led-like-lougheed
Thanks Les that’s the one under a different heading. Notley busts her butt trying to fix the 25 year mess Klein, Stelmach and Redford created and these people who helped create the mess by blindly supporting them want it all fixed up in four years, without spending any money to do so. I wonder why American Oilmen , that i was involved with, working in Alberta have called Albertans the dumbest people on the planet over the years, for allowing this horrific mess to have taken place., while Alaska and Norway have built up huge savings accounts for their children’s future. These Reformers aren’t anything like Lougheed who treated everyone with dignity and respect , collected proper royalties and taxes, along with health care premiums and ran this province properly. Kenney has made it clear he has no intention of being like him and we know his policies will only make our situation a lot worse.