[whelan costen]

<strong>Written By:</strong> whelan costen
<strong>Date:</strong> 2005-09-05 22:52:00
<a href="/article/225207222-canadians-favour-nationalizing-gas-resources">Article Link</a>

In the Leger poll, which was provided to The Canadian Press, 49 per cent of respondents wanted petroleum resources nationalized while 43 per cent said they would like to see the same fate for oil companies.

Quebecers were the strongest supporters of resource nationalization at 67 per cent, followed by residents of the Atlantic provinces at 53 per cent, Ontarians at 45 per cent and British Columbia at 42 per cent.

Forty per cent of respondents on the Prairies and 36 per cent of Albertans were in favour. Among those opposed, Albertans led the way at 49 per cent followed by British Columbians at 39 per cent.

Quebec led in support for nationalization of oil companies, with 61 per cent in favour, followed by the Atlantic provinces (46 per cent). Alberta was most opposed at 59 per cent, followed by the Prairies (49 per cent), B.C. 46 per cent and Ontario, 41 per cent.

Most of the respondents - 79 per cent - suggested they would like to see taxes on gasoline cut, although federal and provincial governments have made it clear that is unlikely.

Seventy-six per cent of respondents indicated they would like the government to intervene after recent gas hikes preceeding Katrina. Fifty-four per cent suggested they would like the government to fix the pump price.

Twenty-six per cent of respondents blamed the oil companies for pre-Katrina price spikes followed by 18 per cent pointing the finger at oil-producing countries.

<a href="http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=ab_home&articleID=2022143">http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=ab_home&articleID=2022143</a>

Submitters note: Perhaps we should consider nationalizing all energy not just oil/gas? We have to Abrogate NAFTA first!

[Guest]

My first thoughts were that it'll never happen but if prices keep rising I think more people will get on this train, especially if they find out oil exporting contries give their own people a big price break on gas. Would ownership of extraction and production mean more jobs for Canadians? When I worked in Calgary many years ago there were a large number of foreign workers in the oil industry. I suppose thats all changed now that the industry has matured. This is interesting though, I didn't think the numbers would be that high, perhaps people have lost hope in the promise of upward mobility and are grasping at ideas to stave off the drift into the new domestic service economy... or perhaps it's something else.

[Guest]

Nationalize the energy industry! Canada first, then export!

We are number two in the world in proven oil reserves, behind only Saudia Arabia... are they paying the same pump price in Saudia Arabia as we are in Canada? Darn right they're not!

Living in Nova Scotia, all the gas, diesel, furnace oil etc consumed in this province is pumped from Sabel Island, and is processed locally here in Dartmouth. What has changed in the last two weeks in Nova Scotia to result in a 40% ($1.389 yesterday EVERYWHERE) increase in the pump price? Nothing has changed. It is simply because Canada is part of the world oil pricing scheme.

There is something very wrong when a less than 3% reduction in daily WORLD oil production (the Gulf Cost production) results in a 40% increase in price to the CANADIAN consumer.

It is time to take profit and profiteering out of the oil equation and for the Canadian Government to nationalize all our energy industries.

We are one of the richest nations in the world, it is time we start to realize our collective national wealth, and begin to look after our own citizens rather than standby and watch as the wealth of our nation is transferred out of the country and into the pockets of non-Canadian corporations!

Nationalize ALL energy industries NOW!

[paul jonassen]

If stupidly insane prices for refined petroleum products is what it takes for people to see a rationale for nationalizing the resources that should belong to us, then the pain will be worth it. Before neoconjobbism intervened we had a wonderful publicly owned energy company called Petrocan, now pieced off to the private sector, the last 19% in recent months. Our "deep-integrationist" government is still running in the same direction as the falling tree, but we're the ones getting crushed. Why? Well for one thing we're exporting raw material and then importing something like 70% of the vastly more valuable refined products, the price of which is determined elsewhere, namely the United States. How did this happen? Duh! It's the North American Free Takeover Agreement. And you know it's not Mexico or Canada who are doing the taking-over. We are the ones being taken over, just in case you didn't notice. The list is a very long one folks.

We've got more oil and gas than we can use and we should be happy to become the richest country in the world, and for Mexico to become prosperous too, by selling lots of it. But ladies and gentlemen, we don't call the shots. Gringos do. They don't only decide what they will pay, they also decide what we will pay, at the more profitable end of the supply chain they designed, and mostly control.

I do not oppose trade and indeed I welcome it. But NAFTA is neither fair nor beneficial to Canada. It is more like a vortex that sucks us and our wealth into its centre(The USA and its insatiable corporations). And the average American isn't benefiting any more than the average Canadian or Mexican. Au contraire. This isn't about spreading the wealth, it's about siphoning it very efficiently into coffers already overflowing with obscene excess. All of this can be easily substantiated statistically, for those of you who may still doubt it.

These same corporations who love to tell the American government, ours, and Mexico's, how things should be, contribute ever less in taxes to these same governments as they hide their money in off-shore tax-dodging holding companies to avoid paying taxes to the very countries they manipulate, to facilitate their unethical, even immoral modi operandi. These are the ones John Kerry called the "Benedict Arnold" companies; influential traitors.

Of course none of this could happen without help. The kind of help provided by the Bushwackers in the USA who are running that country into the ground. To a lesser but meaningful extent, our Liberal government and Mexican fellow travellers too, are following these false prophets to our collective doom. Politicians who seem intent on staying the course, until the cancer is in our bones.

Stop the insanity! Let us begin as Canadians, by taking back our own country, abrogating NAFTA, trading as we see fit without strings attached, putting our once decent and socially progressive country back together, while we still have it. The alternative is unthinkable.

Unless our current politicians have an epiphany that cures their blindness, so they can see what is as obvious as an elephant in a telephone booth, they must be replaced. However, Martin senses the mounting anger and therefore wants to seize another undeserved mandate to govern asap, before we can shut him, and fellow continentalist butt-busser Harper, down. Let's hope Canada survives another five years of Quisling government without being reduced to a Protectorate of the Paranoid States.

Obviously what we really need is to organize to forge an entirely new patriotic party responsive to our people and not operating for the benefit of non-contributing, non-democratic mega-corps that current decide our fate. Since the neocons control our oligopolistic media, we must rely on this network, the only one they don't control...yet. Let's network.

[notacolony.ca]

This poll is terrific news, and proves that the sky is the
limit for those who want a more progressive and
independent Canada.
Imagine a nationalized gas and oil sector that puts the
needs of Canadians first, funneling the royalties and
taxes toward urban train infrastructure and
development of Canada's first entirely homemade
super efficient green car.

[F Smith]

This all sounds great but oil will not be nationalized unless Albertans want it to be nationalized, and it will have to be done on their terms. Previous comments from Albertans to this site suggest that Alberta will demand all resources across the country must be shared if oil is. Seems fair to me what do others think?. It certainly would be a huge step forward in re-uniting this country.

Frank

[Wayne Coady]

Gas in Saudi is $.92 American pennies a GALLON, not a Liter but a GALLON. So where are we in Canada paying the same as the Saudi's at the pump?

No we are getting screwed, we are paying $5.50 a GALLON, at the pumps in some places in NOva Scotia. I want a riot!!!!

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Good government is not a party government

[Perturbed]

It is fair IMO.<br />
<br />
I love how this is getting mainstream. If there is one thing that we shoudl nationalize it is a strategic like oil. Not only do we get no royalties now, but we have no control and it is mostly foreign owned.<br />
<br />
It doesn't make us pinkos, just a mixed economy. Anyway, we had better beef up our military if we want to pull off a coup like that or Bush will throw a hissy fit. <br />
<br />
All, remember, our debt based money system is not where oil revenue shoudl be going--we must solve that some day as well:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.comer.org">www.comer.org</a><p>---<br>The midget, Bush, and that Rumsfield deserve only to be beaten with shoes by freedom loving people everywhere.<br />
<br />
- Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, The Iraqi Informat

[anarcho]

An excellent idea. Why should we pay so much when we produce it in the first place? Venezuela, for example, nationalized its oil 40 years ago. What wimps we are... But in order not to give government too much power - and more money to squander on nonsense and bureaucracy - the nationally owned oil company ought not be state owned but in the form of a stake holder coop. For example, every Canadian citizen who wants to be a member could be for a small fee. To be run by a board composed of labour, community, users and consumser groups, elected by those different stake holders themselves.

[Armageddon]

Must we really resort to nationalizing our oil industry? Could this just be a plot to control Alberta's oil patches? Last I checked, the last time that happened was with the NEP. I even may be ignorant of that event, but from what I can tell, many Albertans here view it as that. You can't unite a country very well when you try to piss of citizens of one of the richest provinces(arguably the richest). I didn't exist during the time, but when Petro-Canada, a mere crown corporation, was established in Calgary, it also angered many of the citizens there, not to mention the oil companies. Think of the political damage caused if you were to just suck up all of those oil companies in nationalization.
Now, I'd oppose nationalization of any oil company, but I do think government can try to solve the situation by creating another Petro-Canada like company. Even reform Investment Canada.
Just think of fixing the machine, before you even think of buying a new one. Otherwise the thinking around here will have the smell of privatizing health care.

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Freedom is the right of all sentient beings

[Dino]

Armageddon nationalizing oil will let all Canadians benefit from the oil. People in Alberta who are most opposed are simply greedy. What nation on earth allows one of it's provinces to hog all the wealth and screw the rest of the country. You don't see people in Texas saying that oil simply belongs to them. They recognize that it belongs to all americans. If in Canada we as citizens especially those in Alberta could start thinking outside of there provincial borders Canada would be a stronger country.

What makes a country strong is when it has a strong state were it is able to take care of all it's citizens and create equality by sharing the wealth.

It amazes me that there actually people in Alberta who would prefer Americans taking oil out of Canada and CREATING THERE OWN NATIONAL ENERGY PROGRAM WITH OUR OIL!!!!!!!!!

It's just greed that makes Albertans want to constantly fight the rest of the country when the rest of the country wouldn't mind living in a country were natural resources benefit everyone.

[paul jonassen]

Dear concerned Albertans:

Who said anything about taking the oil away from Alberta? It's in the ground in Alberta and Alberta is entitled to royalties from all mineral deposits in its territory as in the case in several provinces. That won't change. The real issue here is what happens once oil is extracted from the ground.

At present we have no meaningful energy policy that I'm aware of. The petroleum industry in Canada overall is increasingly controlled by US interests and provides a far more substantial benefit to them than to us. We're hardly more than sharecroppers on on our own land. Recently what used to be BC Gas fell to a Texas company. Our pipelines also are ever more in American control. I could go on, but what's the point. What we need to do is regain control not only over our resources, but of our country too.

There is no need for our citizens to be victimized by "Free" trade, which incidentally is not just about flow of goods, but also flow of investment. We have ceded under NAFTA, the same rights to American investors as to our own, to be treated as though they were Canadian nationals. On the surface this doesn't seem too evil, unless you consider that they have at least ten times more money than we do and 100 times more litigious. That this look like a "level playing field" to anyone out there.

Some might say we need foreign investmentand I'd say why not, if it's wasn't also attached to a mad cap political agenda, involving national security, defence etc. Furthermore we all learned in elementary school that it was unwise to put all our eggs in one basket. Yet to-day we do 85% of our trade with the US. This is not a healthy situation.

The idea of nationalizing our energy sector doesn't need to mean big government, soviet style. As someone pointed out we could form a citizen's cooperative, an investment company if you will, to buy back what we should never have sold in the first palce. Thus we can decide our own policy over our energy resources, and indeed all our resources, and hopefully our future too.

[Armageddon]

Benefit Canadians by what, selling it at dirt cheap prices, meanwhile they could have been selling litres of it to the Americans at expensive prices?
Strong state doesn't equate a strong country. It merely equals more power to the heads of the country, while taking away rights from the individual provinces. Mineral resource rights belong to all provinces. B.C. sells its lumber rights to logging companies, Alberta sells its mineral rights to oil companies to receive a royalty, and other places like Newfoundland and N.S. also possess their own oil rigs off the shores.
Alberta, through royalties, gains a surplus. That's our reward. Do we keep all of it? No, billions of dollars goes directly to equalization. Alberta still retains a huge surplus. It is going to need it also, since you do realize that oil isn't going to last forever, especially with all this alternative fuel craze. Which leads to Alberta needing to diversifying its economy, and guess what, that's going to take money.
True, if provinces would think outside the box, then the nation would be stronger. However, taking away what is theirs is no solution, and does more harm than good.
Now, before going to the extreme and proposing massive government involvement, perhaps solutions requiring only minimal government involvement should be reviewed.
For example, the federal tax on gasoline is 40 cents. Take that away, and what do you get? Lower gas prices, at say 80 cents (70 cents here in Airdrie). Also, Alberta sends more oil to the U.S. than gasoline, meaning that if you want cheaper gas, provide incentives for more refining companies to come invest. With 10% of the U.S. refining capacity down due to the Katrina event, get the deal while it is hot. Rationally, I can see gas being so expensive because we send the oil to the U.S., they refine it, and since they aren't going to sell it cheap to us, when they have millions of SUV's and trucks in their homeland willing to pay big bucks for gas, they'll sell it to us just as expensive. Provide more refineries here, and you produce more gas, thus supplying the demand for gas more effectively.
There you go. The feds don't get any more powerful, Alberta keeps its royalties, and people get lower taxes. Isn't that so much better than being greedy and thinking someone's income is your income?

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Freedom is the right of all sentient beings

[Armageddon]

Also, I say once more. Rather than risk putting the reins of a company in the hands of the government, allow the government to just steer where the horse of the economy will go, via foreign investment and tax incentives. Reform Investment Canada to once more put caps on the amount of shares that can be owned by foreigners. Also have the government set up deals with other nations that require oil, such as India, the European states, and even say Japan. If you can get oil to be sold to them at the same rates Alberta charges America, you're set. Aye, even China, but then again, I'd suggest something more of a humanitarian deal with them first.

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Freedom is the right of all sentient beings