The BC NDP, backed by the Green Party, will form a government that will devastate several segments of Western Canada's oil and gas industry - at a time when the industry is still in bad shape. Mission number one for the anti-industry parties is to take all measures possible to stop the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion. Ultimately, this will add another layer to a situation where several jurisdictions (including the City of Vancouver) have already vowed to fight, to the point of [Read more]
How Alberta’s economy performed in 2016 under the NDP in charts
Premier Notley and her government walked into a very difficult situation when they assumed government. Oil had dropped to a near decade low and unemployment was rising substantially. The drop in the international price of oil has been the primary talking point for Alberta's NDP. 2015 saw a poor performance for the price of oil, but fortunately, the price rose substantially in 2016 - from as low as $26/bbl in January to $53/bbl in December. Furthermore, natural gas pricing also rose - nearly [Read more]
Canada can either get its act together or get left in the dust by President Trump
Not even one week. That is how long Donald Trump has thus far served as President of the United States. Already he has managed to greenlight two major pipeline projects, pull out of a trade deal that he viewed as unfair, and begin the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). By all accounts that is productive, and to the many wondering if Trump would follow through on the many promises he made during the presidential campaign, it appears he is planning to...at quite the [Read more]
What NDP MLAs said about the oil industry before and after being elected
Reality hit ideology very hard after the NDP assumed governance in Alberta. The band of (former) anti-industry politicians sure seemed to change their tune after being elected 1.5 years ago. The BOE Report team assembled some troubling tweets from NDP MLAs prior to their being elected. Their tone was severely anti oil and gas development. Environment Minister Shannon Phillip's had some particularly troubling statements about the oil business. Among her tweets include: comparing Enbridge's [Read more]
When it comes to pipelines, why is Canada the only bad guy?
Here’s a little fact that should send Hollywood eco-warriors and climate justice activists into a righteous rage: Over the last five years, the United States has added the equivalent of nearly 14 Keystone XL pipelines to its pipeline network. You read that right. Fourteen. According to the Association of Oil Pipe Lines (AOPL), the US has built roughly 19,200 kilometres of new pipelines since 2010, or almost 14 times the length of TransCanada’s 1,400-km Keystone XL project. The additional [Read more]
The Liberal tax plan upon closer inspection
Before Canadians went home for the Thanksgiving long weekend, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party gained significant momentum in the polls. If going to work with yet another leftover turkey sandwich for lunch wasn't enough to cause an upset stomach, it is beginning to look like the Liberal lead is here to stay. Ground zero of the outbreak in Liberal popularity is the most recent TV commercial released by the party. In this country, the campaign trail is an equal playing field when it comes [Read more]
Arctic promises
Roughly seven years ago, Royal Dutch Shell vastly outbid competitors to obtain drilling rights in the Chukchi Sea. This news flew somewhat under the radar until Shell's recent announcement that they were calling it quits in the Arctic region. Results from a key test well have lead to what some are calling a victory for the environment, others a disappointing day for an energy dependent world. The biggest loser is Shell itself, spending 7 billion dollars and only completing the single well [Read more]
A tortoise named Harper, a hare named opposition
The last time Canadians saw an election this long was in 1872 when Sir John A. Macdonald was re-elected, defeating then Liberal leader Edward Blake and maintaining a Conservative government. Though compared to what we consider an election in this country today, the elections around 1872 were more like a carnival. They consisted of groups going from town to town shouting the candidates’ names, and to cast your vote you would simply raise your hand when the candidate they favoured had his name [Read more]
Hillary goes green!
Over six years ago, TransCanada applied for a permit to construct the Keystone XL pipeline with a proposal to build a “1,179 mile (1,897 kilometer), 36-inch-diameter crude oil pipeline beginning in Hardisty, Alta”. Beginning in the early 2000's Mexican and Venezuelan oil output dwindled, making room for Canada to become the main provider of foreign oil to the United States. Unfortunately for both the exporter and importer alike, all pipelines currently running “north-south” have been [Read more]
Harper’s unlikely best friend
In 2011, the NDP's “orange tide” whisked votes away from the Liberal Party, resulting in the opposite of what said voters were aiming for. The leader of the Conservative Party claimed 5,832,491 votes, 39.62% of the people who wanted their opinion to count. But it was Jack Layton's surge in popularity that won Stephen Harper more power than he had ever experienced as a politician, a majority government. This is explained by looking at where the votes came from, and as a zero-sum-game, the [Read more]