In an analysis for The Energy Mix, award-winning investigative journalist Paul McKay traces the parallels between the SNC-Lavalin scandal that has transfixed Canada’s capital and the Trudeau government’s decision to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline in spite of its avowed commitment to climate action. “As nature abhors a vacuum,” he writes, “democracy abhors a stacked legal deck.”
A study written for Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives by earth scientist J. David Hughes offered a conclusion on the success of neoliberal politics in Canada. Success, that is, for the corporate world.
A pull quote in the executive summary of the Hughes report provides the gist:
The main argument against expanding fossil fuel use is catastrophic global warming. If you accept that, then economic and employment counterarguments had better be solid.
As an Alberta-born-and-raised earth scientist who has made a career studying fossil fuels and energy issues, I am dismayed at the bombardment of ads from the Alberta government on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
Trans Mountain is on track to deliver Canadian oil producers a $2-billion taxpayer-funded toll subsidy for capacity on its existing pipeline and has asked the federal pipeline regulator, the National Energy Board (NEB) for permission.
If the NEB approves the toll application Trans Mountain has filed with it, it will shift the burden for the roughly $3 billion Ottawa paid to buy the regulated assets onto Canadians, rather than into tolls charged to shippers where the recovery of these costs belongs.
["A very good article analyzing union options in the struggle sparked by GM's decision to close its Oshawa plant (and others). Embedded in the article is also a very good short video by the Democratic Socialists of America on the green opportunities presented by the situation. " Gene McGuckin]
February 2, 2019
Two months after the GM Oshawa closure announcement, Unifor’s big idea is a campaign to boycott GM cars made in Mexico. The union is even spending huge money on a Super Bowl commercial that will reach about 5 million Canadians.
