ECA Review 2020-03-04

6 March 5'20 HANNA/CORONATION/STETTLER, AB. Eca REVIEW
OPINION
The opinions expressed are not necessarily
the opinions of this newspaper.
EDITORIAL
Kenney’s got bigger
problems than
Trudeau or Greta
B. Schimke
ECA Review
Alberta is in trouble economically
not because Tech Resources pulled
their application on the Frontier mine
project, but because Premier Kenney
and the Conservative Party of Canada
choose to ignore the reasons given by
the company for pulling their
application.
Tech’s Chief Executive Officer, Don
Lindsay, placed the blame on governments
(federal and provincial), saying,
“Canada doesn’t yet have a clear
framework to
reconcile
“
resource development
and
climate change.”
Businesses do
understand
Canada’s federation
and the
risks of investing
when energy
provinces, the
official opposition
and the
federal government
are at loggerheads over an issue
(climate warming) that has been settled
in the minds of the majority of the
world.
Tech Resources has always been
clear, they needed a partner to share
the financial burden of such a large
project. Whether it’s fair or not, the
huge liability around tailings ponds
and the higher carbon emissions from
oil sands production, dispute the
industry’s continuing reduction of perbarrel
greenhouse gas (GHG), are still
viewed as a risk that global investors
aren’t prepared to take.
The world’s biggest multilateral
lender, the European Investment
Bank, will not invest in fossil energy
projects after 2021, and Norway’s US$1
trillion sovereign wealth fund has
stopped all investments in fossil fuel
industries.
Sweden’s central bank sold off
Government of Alberta bonds because
of our large carbon footprint.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset
manager, has started a fund that
excludes all companies that generate
any revenue from coal or oil sands.
American capital is chasing cheap,
home-grown shale gas plays.
This is today’s reality and it’s not a
left-wing plot or a Greta coup. There
actually are 20 oil sands projects in
Alberta that have received regulatory
approvals. If all went ahead, it would
have the same employment and
An alarm should
be sounding when we
put even more of our
eggs in one economic
basket.
revenue impact on Alberta as the
Frontier mine but much quicker.
It’s a foreign investment issue.
Kenney’s solution, take control of pension
assets and all available capital
dollars in AIMCo, Alberta’s
Investment Management Company,
and invest in fossil fuel projects that
international monies won’t touch.
An alarm should be sounding when
we put even more of our eggs in one
economic basket.
For our own good, Alberta must
turn a corner and stop the hate-on for
former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau
and the National
Energy Program.
“
The 1980s argument
was about
policy jurisdiction
between the
provincial and
federal levels and
who got the lion’s
share of the nonrenewable
revenues.
Alberta won that
debate and we
prospered
greatly.
Today the global debate is about
saving the planet from catastrophic
warming.
Mark Carney, former Governor of
the Banks of England and Canada
said, “firms that align their business
models to the transition to a net zero
(carbon) world will be rewarded handsomely.
Those that fail to adapt will
cease to exist.”
This reality doesn’t discount the
necessity for increased pipeline
capacity. Alberta’s economy and revenues
from traditional fossil fuel
industries are critical to transition
our province into a diversified
economy.
Ironically, it was a Liberal federal
government and a provincial NDP government
that understood this reality
and pulled out all the stops to ensure
the construction of the Trans
Mountain pipeline, even to the point of
investing taxpayer dollars.
We must understand that aggressively
pursuing a transformative
energy and high-tech economy is not
contrary to the current goals (or
actions) of our large oil sands and
energy corporations.
It continues to be Kenney’s inability
to understand the message delivered
by Tech’s CEO Don Lindsay and other
Alberta oil sands CEOs that will eventually
strangle Alberta’s future
prosperity.
PRAIRIEVIEW
Media manipulation
by Herman Schwenk
On Sun. Feb. 9 I was watching CTV’s
Question Period with host Evan
Solomon.
The last interview on the program
was about the Trans Mountain pipeline
and the Teck Resources Frontier
oil sands mine.
He was interviewing Bob Fife and
Pam Palmater an indigenous woman.
It didn’t take long and I was so upset
that I shut the program
off.
This woman stated
that they would conduct
whatever
protests and civil disobedience
that they
felt was necessary to
prevent the completion
of these
pipelines, of course
Schwenk that was no surprise.
Bob Fife was a
CTV reporter and now works for the
Globe and Mail. His first comment was
that he could not see how the government
could approve this mine with all
the environmental issues that it poses.
This mine is a project proposed to
last 40 years just south of Wood
Buffalo Park that would cover an area
about twice the size of Vancouver.
He said that the mining would
destroy wetlands, old growth forest
and would create a problem for the
government to reach its 2050 target of
net zero emissions.
When work is commenced on a
project like that, just a small area is
opened up and mined. When that area
is mined out they move to the next
area and reclamation work is started
on the first area.
In this way, by the time the entire
area is mined out, most of the area will
have already been reclaimed including
the wetlands.
Turn to Dangerous, Pg 7
MAIL BAG
Always look
forward to
reading your
editorial
section
Dear Editor,
I feel compelled to send a brief message
on the interesting, topical and
perhaps sometimes controversial comments
made by Herman Schwenk in
his column, PrairieView.
Herman expresses so well the opinions
that many of us have and I truly
look forward to the next issue and
Herman’s thoughts.
I know many people ask “Did you
read Herman Schwenk”?
I always look forward to reading
your editorial section.
Keep up the good work!
David Wesley
Killam, Alta.
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