Oil Riches Threaten Canada's Unity

Ontarians and others can come whining to Albertans when they start refusing the transfer payments that are sent every year.

And Quebecers can come whining when they actually run a balanced budget, like the rest of us.


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"If you must kill a man, it costs you nothing to be polite about it." Winston Churchill

It blows my mind that people actually blame Albertans for problems with national unity. Let's forget the fact that forty years of incompetent Ontarian voters and politicians behave like sycophants towards Quebec!

The mayor of North Bay's comments are indicitive of the way in which Ontarians view Albertans, a sharp contrast to how they view Quebecers. Very pathetic. Perhaps after three more years of Liberal rule at Queen's Park after Ontario has actually become a 'have-not' province, maybe then their opinions will change? It also blows my mind that Quebecers (in the article's poll) blame Alberta's riches as a threat to national unity. Can someone please explain to me why we continue to entertain these people? Why have they not been shown the door yet? Beggars can't be choosers Gilles, and it's about time we cut some dead weight.

Just because the rest of the country can't get their act together econmically and especially politically at both the federal and provincial level, doesn't mean that Alberta should foot the bill yet again as they've always done. Let's have Alberta continue to pay for our provinces utter stupidity and small mindedness. You'll notice that support for political reform, particularlly senate reform is perhaps strongest in Alberta while Ontarians are content to have appointed geriatrics do the thinking for them.

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"All great truths begin as blasphemies" - George Bernard Shaw

Hopefully Alberta will be better at saving some of the new found wealth. They have had lows before and the "Heritage fund" disappeared. All it would take, is some other country discovering an abundance of the liquid gold. The tar sands is also the most expensive to extract. Alberta is soliciting the entire world for professional tradesmen. Those people have to be accomodated when they arrive. So far that has become a problem. Fort McMurray has rents exceeding the benefits of high wages and finding accomodations is becoming difficult.
Nothing seems to be said about the inviromental impact. The hole is getting bigger and no plans are being made to refill it when the time comes. No plans for the future.

I'm with you. Quebec really won't begin to behave until it gets the message that the rest of us would prefer that they leave rather the continuing with little game they have been playing, to wit:

Quebec: "We're unhappy about (fill in anything you want) and we're going to leave; what are you going to do about it?"
The rest of us: "Anything, a n y t h i n g, to make you happy."
Quebec: "Oh, all right, we'll stay..." (followed by a stage whisper aside to the BQ/PQ "...for a while.")

Repeat this sequence until we finally say "Go ahead and leave, we don't give a good g*d d*mn." As soon as that's in the open, Quebec will acknowledge the fact that they need Canada for their language and culture to survive. They wouldn't get away with this behaviour in any other circumstance.

First of all, Alberta had some really tough times in the olden days. I
think they have a bit of catch-up coming to them now. But it might
be nice if, after a while, they do remember that the Rest Of Canada
did lend them a helping hand, now and then, in the past. And to
return the favour, when necessary.

2): Can anyone fill in the blanks on this intriguing story pasted
below? It is an excerpt from a friend's e.mail, when we were talking
about the role of "futurists", who get their minds wrapped around a
subject such as the environment, then try to project their views into
the future to help guide our decisions ...

"Oil supplies is one example of where I think top level futurists
might be able to give pretty accurate projections.

"There is this new theory making the rounds about oil not being
the result of huge amounts of organic material but rather being
produced deep within the mantle of the earth by some other
ongoing process that is not as yet understood. This theory
resulted from countries, including Saudi Arabia and the U.S.,
discovering oil wells they thought were all tapped out but are now
full to the brim once again. Saudi Arabia made a recent
announcement about a huge amount of additional oil they had just
discovered from wells they thought were empty.

"I went through all my files and I did not save this information. I
cannot remember what this supposedly natural process is called.
Interestingly when I went into google to search the pages all this
material is no longer available and there used to be lots. I wonder
why?"

Clues, anyone? This could mean that Alberta will always be
100 x wealthier than the R.O.C. and that we really need to think
this through more.

Us against “Them”/”Them’ against Us!
For the most part articles such as the one submitted by anonymous are bait.
And the first response is a strike that sets off a feeding frenzy of the current ‘human nature’
These pages and all venues like them, from letters to the editor to ‘Talk-Radio”
are not much more than a bone for the dog(s) to worry away at.

Like most worrying all that gets accomplished is time is occupied and few if any results can be shown is this on-going petty hectoring.

Notice Catherine Whelan Costen’s article following this one. A call has been put forth to join forces and participate in the change you want to see, but this article is far better bait, a tasty morsel to gnaw on. It must be far more satisfying to bitch whine and moan judging by how quickly the feeding frenzy starts.

While countless man-hours, (or should I be ‘po-lit-ic-lee core-ect and use the current meme “people-hours”?) are wasted running our mouths on pettiness the ‘news-editors’ and their ‘writers’ know their audience and plant ‘stories’ guaranteed to appeal to petty ego while behind the scenes agenda continue non stop.






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Your mantra has been your opinions are stifled due to their contrary nature, when they are actually stifled for being without perceivable foundation

>>First of all, Alberta had some really tough times in the olden days<<

Not so olden. The MAD cow disease has put many Alberta farmers in dire staights. Even those with oil wells on their property got no aid from Albertas oil wealth. The few that got aid was fom Federal (taxpayer) coffers.
Even today there are no Alberta owned slaughter houses and that, seeming to be a solution to end a major problem. Drought & bank interest rates have ended many a Alberta family farm. Unless a previous contract was signed, many Albertans are being gouged by the higher home heating costs. The average Albertan is not the benefactor fron oil sales.

>>There is this new theory making the rounds about oil not being
the result of huge amounts of organic material but rather being
produced deep within the mantle of the earth by some other
ongoing process that is not as yet understood.<<

I have heard this for the first time. However, more money is being spent to extract the oil. Shell oil got a forgiven loan by the federal government a few years back. This was due to the unexpected costs of extracting oil from the tar sands. Better equipment and more technology enable that precious fluid to be squeezed from a stone.

Don't be so damn silly, Diogenes.

exactly how do you deem my post as silly
and who lit your tampax string on fire this morning?
You find it "silly" to note the type of threads that that recieve the most action here?

further If you have anything of a personal nature to whine and snivel, about contact me directly
check your mail

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Your mantra has been your opinions are stifled due to their contrary nature, when they are actually stifled for being without perceivable foundation

'Alberta's oil riches, and what to do about them, have become a campaign issue in Canada's January 23 national election.'
says who?

A campaign issue to divide and conquer? A news item which isn't really newsy, but rather a point to fuel the fires of 'us against them'(internal domestic fighting to keep us preoccupied) when the reality is we the people are fighting for our survival against 'them' the corporations who threaten to rule! That's the issue which would unite us if ever a newspaper printed the reality on the horizon.


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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

>>>You find it "silly" to note the type of threads that that recieve the most action here?

further If you have anything of a personal nature to whine and snivel, about contact me directly
check your mail
<<<<

You are such a megalomaniac… You just can’t take it when someone indicates that you are behaving like a rotten little child that has to be the center of attention at all times. Dr Caleb should have thrown your blow hard ass off this site the last time you pulled this kind of crap. News flash: the world doesn’t find you as compelling as mommy and daddy did and you can't force it to hang on your every last word.

It sounds like you are referring to the theory that oil is <i>abiotic</i> or <i>abiogenic</i> in origin, ie. in simple terms oil did not originate from the breakdwon of ancient, organic matter.<br><br> The following article is by a University of Florence (Italy) Chemistry Professor, Ugo Bardi, who does not accept the theory that oil is abiotic in origin and who promotes in the more traditional understanding of oil's origins and who also believes, in accordance with the theories of geophyicist M. King Hubbert and the scientists and oil industry veterans of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (See <a href="http://www.peakoil.net">www.peakoil.net</a> ) ,that, barring some unlikely discoveries of large amounts of new crude oil, the world oil production is about to peak and then start a permanent decline within the next few years. (And no, according to ASPO, Alberta's tar sands oil will not be enough to offset the declining production of more traditional sources of oil).<br><br> <i>Abiotic Oil: Politics or Science?<br> by Ugo Bardi<br><br> For the past century or so, the biologic origin of oil seemed to be the accepted norm. However, there remained a small group of critics who pushed the idea that, instead, oil is generated from inorganic matter within the earth’s mantle.<br><br> The question might have remained within the limits of a specialized debate among geologists, as it has been until not long ago. However, the recent supply problems have pushed crude oil to the center stage of international news. This interest has sparked a heated debate on the concept of the “production peak” of crude oil. According to the calculations of several experts, oil production may reach a maximum within a few years and start a gradual decline afterwards.<br><br> The concept of “oil peak” is strictly linked to a view that sees oil as a finite resource. Several economists never accepted this view, arguing that resource availability is determined by price and not by physical factors. Recently, others have been arguing a more extreme view; that is that oil is not even physically limited. According to some versions of the abiotic oil idea, oil is continuously created in the mantle in such amounts that the very concept of “depletion” is to be abandoned and, by consequence, that there will never be an “oil peak”.<br><br> The debate has become highly politicized and has spilled over from geology journals to the mainstream press and to the forums and mailing lists in the internet. The proponents of the abiotic oil hypothesis are often very aggressive in their arguments. Some of them go as far as to accuse those who claim that oil production is going to peak to be pursuing a hidden political agenda designed to provide Bush with a convenient excuse for invading Iraq and the whole Middle East.<br><br> Normally, the discussion on abiotic oil oscillates between the scientifically arcane and the politically nasty. Even supposing that the political nastiness can be detected and removed, there remains the problem that the non specialist in petroleum geology has no hope to wade trough the arcane scientific details of the theory (isotopic ratios, biomarkers, sedimentary layers and all that) without getting lost.<br><br> Here, I will try to discuss the origin of oil without going into these details taking a more general approach. Suppose that the abiogenic theory is right, then what are the consequences for us and for the whole biosphere? If we find that the consequences do not correspond to what we see, then we can safely drop the abiotic theory without the need of worrying about having to take a course in advanced geology. We may also find that the consequences are so small to be irrelevant; also in this case we don’t need to worry about arcane geological details.</i><br><br> <a href="http://www.aspoitalia.net/aspoenglish/documents/bardi/abioticoil1oct04.html">Abiotic oil: Politics or Science</a><br><br> The following article is a more technical rebutal of the abiotic oil theory by geologist Jean Laherrere:<br><br> <a href="http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102104_no_free_pt1.shtml">No Free Lunch</a><Br><br> You can find out lots more views on abiotic oil, both pro and con simply by googling the term "abiotic oil" or "abiogenic oil." When considering all the issues around oil and its role in our economies today, it's also good to consider the role that increasing economic growth plays in increasing demand for oil and how seemingly almost insignificant annual increases in consumption translate into very large increases in consumption over longer time periods (i.e. the effects of exponential growth).<br><br> University of Colorado Physics Professor, Albert Bartlett, frequently presents lectures on the effects of exponential growth on resource consumption. The lecture is geared at a lay audience, you don't have to be a mathematician, or a PhD physicist to understand the slides Professor Bartlett discusses in his lectures on exponential growth. The video is in Real Player format (ram file), so you have to have Real Player installed (or something that plays .ram files). Not sure if it works on dial up.<br><br> <a href="http://edison.ncssm.edu/programs/colloquia/bartlett.ram">Bartlett Lecture - Exponential Growth</a>

Sonow the ante is upfrom"silly" to a plethora of personal attacks?
Well done anonymous!
What i 'can't "take" nor should any, are ad homimem attacks.

stay on topic and show the readers you dohave manners

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Your mantra has been your opinions are stifled due to their contrary nature, when they are actually stifled for being without perceivable foundation