Dave Clarke

I am a jelly donut

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

Oh Peter

Production records do not cancel tanker bans, dead pipelines, C-69, TMX nationalization after private exit, or telling Germany there was no LNG business case.

Alberta grew output in spite of that stack, not because of it. Calling the province that pays in and still gets the climate sermon a “spoiled brat” is the argument for western alienation, not a rebuttal of it.

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

Production rising is real.

Treating it as proof Ottawa enabled energy strength is the weak part of the argument.

The stronger case is that output grew from projects already financed and permitted in the previous cycle, while new investment, market access, and private-sector pipelines were constrained.

Greenfield oil-sands construction largely ended after the mid-2010s boom. Capex in Canadian oil and gas fell from a peak near $80 billion around 2014 to roughly $30–40 billion in recent years.

Companies shifted toward returning cash to shareholders instead of building new mega-projects. That is why barrels kept rising even as the investment pipeline shrank

The only major new export line completed was TMX, and it was not a private-sector success. Kinder Morgan walked after regulatory and political risk rose. Ottawa bought the assets for about $4.5 billion; construction costs then ballooned from early estimates around $5–7 billion to about $34 billion. Analyses of tolls versus full capital costs treat a large share of that as a public subsidy.

Energy East (~1.1 million b/d to the Atlantic) was cancelled in 2017 after the review scope expanded to include upstream GHGs.

Northern Gateway was approved under Harper, then cancelled by the Trudeau government in 2016.

Bill C-48 added a tanker ban on B.C.’s north coast.

Those were lost routes to non-U.S. markets.

Bill C-69 (Impact Assessment Act) added climate, social, and ministerial-discretion tests that industry called unpredictable.

Combined with the tanker ban and later oil-and-gas emissions-cap talk, that raised the cost of capital and the chance a project dies after years of spend. Canada still sends the large majority of crude to the United States.

TMX helped diversify a slice of volumes, but it did not replace the cancelled east- and north-coast options.

Canada is a high-cost, landlocked resource producer competing with U.S. shale, which grew much faster over the same period.

When you raise the price of building pipes and plants at home, you do not stop oil from being used worldwide—you just capture less of the rent, pay more for the one line that does get built, and stay more dependent on a single customer.

That is the part the production chart does not show.

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

TMX is not proof the federal government was Alberta’s partner on energy. It is proof the private sector concluded it could no longer finish the job under the political and regulatory conditions the Federal and Provincial governments created.

Kinder Morgan already owned the line and the expansion. They spent years and more than a billion dollars on it. They paused and threatened to walk in 2018 because of court delays, B.C. obstruction, and rising political risk. Ottawa bought the assets for $4.5 billion so the project would not die. Then construction costs went from a roughly $7.4 billion estimate to about $34 billion which can only happen when governments are involved. Taxpayers absorbed most of the overrun.

That is a nationalized rescue of a self created disaster, not a vote of confidence in Canadian energy.

The same government cancelled Northern Gateway, passed the north-coast tanker ban, and watched Energy East collapse under a rewritten federal process. One completed pipeline after that record does not rewrite the rest of the file.

TMX is useful. It added west-coast capacity, narrowed the differential, and opened more Asian barrels. Alberta wanted that access years earlier, built by private capital, at a commercial cost. Getting one major line finished should not have been an extraordinary political event.

My concern is larger than that pipeline. I am an Albertan and an energy realist. Modern economies run on enormous quantities of reliable, affordable, energy-dense power. Oil and natural gas still provide that at a scale wind and solar do not replace on their own. The only technology capable of displacing a major share of fossil energy while keeping reliability and industrial scale is nuclear.

Canada has oil, gas, uranium, hydro, and the engineering capacity to build nuclear. We should use all of it, cut emissions where it is practical, and stop constraining the sources that actually keep the lights on and the factories running before replacements exist at scale.

Energy security, affordability, and industrial competitiveness are not slogans. The Western world moves away from oil, gas, and nuclear at its peril. Production, jobs, and geopolitical leverage simply shift to countries with weaker standards and different interests.

TMX running does not change that. It confirms it. Even a government that spent years talking about winding down the oil sands still needed more Canadian crude to reach tidewater. The molecules still matter. So does the power that comes from them.

Our economy will continue to falter as long as the mindset of politics believes it can outsmart the reality of global economics and energy.

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

@jkenney What pipelines?

Do you honestly believe a single pipeline will be built?

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

Yes, you need to involve the other provinces... oh wait..

Under the Constitution Act, 1867, section 92(10)(a), “works and undertakings connecting the Province with any other or others of the Provinces, or extending beyond the Limits of the Province” (which courts have long held includes interprovincial pipelines) fall under exclusive federal jurisdiction.

The federal Parliament (and by delegation the federal government/Cabinet, acting on recommendations from the Canada Energy Regulator / CER) has the power to approve, regulate, and condition them.

It would never get past Manitoba's western border with the current political landscape unless the Federal Government just pushed it through (they wont)

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

Who cares.

Honestly, in 30 minutes I could see dozens of country's flags, or political flags, sexual /gender flags, or sports flags within a few blocks of this home.

To each their own, how this is news, is mind blowing

I have better things to focus on and believe in freedom of thought and expression

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

@JayStrickler @ronmortgageguy They aren't.....

You just misunderstand budgets.

Condos are no more expensive than a home, condo fees are forward facing where the average person doesn't track their own finances to the same level of precision

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

Where do you live Pam?

I am sure nearby residents are willing to share the pain, allow me to drop a Cowboys like structure off near your home, same volumes.

If its "only 10 days out of 365" you should be fine

Also, ever tried to wear earplugs with Bass, not very effective.

Cowboys also doesn't bring "millions" into the City. Stampede (you know the actual event that does bring in the revenue to the City) closes at midnight.

I believe communities are about balance, no one is "shutting down Stampede music"

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

@peteremcc If only a city with thousands of employees could focus on many things at once.

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

@JJNHLNFLetc @SnafuAB Guy Weadick liked EDM and Flava Flav I have heard.

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

@CofRedCentral @bill_neely I am still confused why it is less seating than a 42 year old arena it is replacing.

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

@DD214warriors @bennyjohnson Now, challenge yourself to go read what I posted

It is commonplace to use the wrong pronunciation.

Not "misspoke"

Common sense and Gen-X are indeed intimate partners, perhaps the last generation with the same.

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

@AlexxxCoal @Raindropsmedia1 I am fine to prosecute anyone, but i believe in evidentiary rule of law.

It is a very interesting world if claim = guilt.

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

@AlexxxCoal @Raindropsmedia1 How about an evidence and trial?

Or just public executions now based on a whim?

Asking for society.

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

@GadSaad You go girl!!

Qweeenn!

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

@jjansik24 @AdamMacVicar This isnt an option, of course they "have" the money

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

@stoolpresidente We lost

Better team won

Don't like it, put pucks in the net and its not a debate.

[Dave Clarke @zwanzigdc]

The economy, stupid (James Carville)

All of the above main remain true, however the economic reality Canadians are living is day to day is the issue, and it isn't going to improve any time soon.

Longevity, FOTP, QOL, etc. doesn't go far when you live the economics of Canada and the drastic change in the last 20 years.