It wasn’t that long ago that Encana, one of Canada’s largest oil and gas companies, was breaking ground on an ambitious new head office tower that would redefine the Calgary skyline and serve as a testament to its own global aspirations. But like many of Calgary’s oil and gas companies, those aspirations have been dashed over the last decade by a crash in global oil and gas prices and an inability to get their product to international markets. Those dashed hopes have provided much of the fuel for the burgeoning Western separation movement, and today’s announcement that Encana is moving its head office out of that building and down to the United States certainly isn’t going to do anything to cool it down.
If anything, it gives Alberta’s provincial government, which just cut taxes for corporations like Encana, even more of an incentive to shift the blame for the decision in Ottawa’s direction. But as far as threats go, the one that Jason Kenney has made about holding a referendum on removing equalization from the Constitution if Justin Trudeau doesn’t make major progress on the Trans Mountain pipeline by 2021 is a head scratcher.
Justin Trudeau has, after all, already reaffirmed that his government intends to get TMX built, and trying to rush energy infrastructure projects through the regulatory and legal process has already blown up in Jason Kenney’s face when he was a federal minister. It’s also curious because Alberta cannot, on its own, compel the rest of the country to remove equalization from the Constitution any more than it can compel the Toronto Maple Leafs to give all their best players to the Calgary Flames.
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The Quebec Pension Plan (to cover about 8M Quebecers) has many billions more in the bank than does the Canada Pension Plan (to cover about 24 or so million other Canadians). Quebec parents pay about $7.00 per day for daycare while the rest of Canadians pay multiples of that amount. That’s just 2 examples. Quebecers are getting fat off of the backs of an ever lean, belt tightening ROC. Where does all or almost all of that cash come from? The ROC but mainly the Alberta energy industry. The industry that feeds Quebec’s ravenous never satisfied appetite for money. So what does Quebec do, it does its utmost to kill the paymaster. It bites the hand that feeds it without fear of repercussion.
Quebec loyalist admitted anti-Alberta soldier Trudeau and the west coast oil tanker ban to strangle Alberta oil and gas . Quebec pipeline ban to keep out Alberta oil. East coast tanker ban? Doesn’t exist. Oil tankers are free to ply the east coast at will to supply the Irving Oil refinery in New Brunswick. To sail up the St. Lawrence to a welcoming Quebec to disgorge their cargoes of dirty oil (dirtier than Alberta oil) supplied by dirty/corrupt anti-environmental regimes that also by and large hate us.
Radical Canadian environment anti-oil/gas groups funded by foreign interests who do so to look after their own fossil fuel best interests. Tides Foundation, George Soros etc. It’s time for parliament to pass laws making it illegal for foreign entities government or private to fund groups whose specific goal is to undermine our nation’s economy. If necessary invoke the Notwithstanding Clause. Yes, the one Quebec waves around like the checkered flag at the end of the Indy 500 at every opportunity yet the ROC treats it like it has leprosy.
Again, when it comes to the central Canada tail wagging the ROC dog behold the brilliance and foresight of America’s Founding Fathers when they designed the Electoral College. Designed specifically and solely to prevent what happens in Canada every federal election. If only the Father’s of Confederation….
On Thursday, something gave. Big time. Encana Corp. announced plans to exit Canada and establish its base in the United States early next year. Once the country’s largest company, the energy sector giant no longer has confidence in the future of Canada’s oil and gas sector.
Jobs will be lost. Revenues to government coffers will decline. The broader economy will suffer a hit.
The only people cheering will be the radical fringe – those activists who are the privileged children determined to tear down the breadwinners in their broader world.
Here’s the worst part of all this: This state of affairs could have easily been avoided. Canada could have simply chosen to not let our industry decisions be driven by the demands of the radicals.
As Lorne Gunter wrote upon learning of Encana’s decision: “The federal Liberals are the most anti-development, anti-oil government of any major oil-producing country on earth – and that’s not an exaggeration.”
https://winnipegsun.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-the-encana-mess-is-at-trudeaus-feet/wcm/f38b7f4b-6816-4f5c-ba9d-f651c47db2d1