There are strange things happening politically these days. Everything old is becoming new again. In Canada we have Prime Minister Harper promoting asymmetrical open federalism and musing about transferring some international and foreign relations powers to the provinces.
This approach is the same as Joe Clark proposed many years ago in his view of Canada being a “Community of Communities.” Pierre Trudeau, a strong centralist, called Clark the “Head Waiter for the Provinces.” Paul Martin was also becoming very adept in this Head Waiter role too. I wonder if Harper will wear this tag too. Elizabeth May is likely to be the source of such a “reprimand.”
Quebec and Alberta will love the new Harper approach to redefining a decentralized Canada. Many others, primarily those who are Ottawa-dependent and Ontario, who is in economic decline, will see it as weakening Confederation. It will mean that Alberta will become more aggressive in setting up more foreign offices to advance its trade beyond the US and help recruit for labour shortages. This is an idea that is already in the works and bound to happen.
Obama is reviving some old ideas of Ronald Reagan and revising his energy position too. Obama’s suggestion that the Americans release their Strategic Petroleum Reserves to reduce oil prices was a tactic effectively implemented by President Ronald Reagan. In Reagan’s day this policy decision had a dramatic and immediate downward impact on oil prices. Releasing these oil reserves put Alberta’s economy immediately into the dumpster.
This happened just before the NEP took hold, which would have devastated the Alberta economy if it was given the chance. The NEP’s disastrous impact on Alberta’s economy is an urban myth because Reagan’s release of the Strategic Oil Reserves actually beat the federal Liberals to the punch in destroying the Alberta economy back then. But we Albertan’s have never “forgotten” the NEP - nor have we ever forgiven the Federal Liberals for it.
Obama is now “nuancing” his off shore drilling opposition and his anti-NAFTA stance now too.
All this Obama shifting has significant implications for Alberta and especially the oil sands development. One of the reasons Obama want to release the Strategic Oil Reserves now is to put light crude on the market to reduce gasoline prices. He also wants to replace the reserves with heavy oil that is lower priced but requires refining. I expect the Americans are going to be looking to Alberta’s oil sands as a long term source of that heavier oil, and why wouldn’t they?
If Obama becomes President with a Democratic Congress and all this happens, the States will soon start seeing the oil sands as their best source for reliable continental energy supply. Then Alberta will need to respond. Alberta's response will be to take advantage of Harper’s new decentralized Canada approach of more provincial powers on international matters.
Alberta will have to establish its own provincial foreign policy to deal directly with the United States. It will start being about energy and environmental matters around processing and exporting of oil sands - a provincially owned natural resource with serious international and geo-political implications. Who knows where it will lead but, one thing for sure, it will be interesting times.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Monday, August 04, 2008
Suncor CEO Rick George Joins the Blogosphere.
Last summer I was encouraging Suncor to have their CEO, Rick George, become the new human face of the Alberta’s oil sands industry. The prior face of the oil sands industry was Syncrude’s CEO Eric Newell. He is a person of influence, integrity, wisdom and character who spoke for the oil sands from the mid-90’s until his retirement a few years back.
Ever since Eric retired this enormously important energy undertaking has lost its sense of identity and the growing and accelerating investment with erupting environment concerns has taken a toll on its credibility. It needs a person who is identified with the industry and who is the trusted industry talisman that we can rely on to tell us what is going on in oil sands development, from the industry perspective.
Suncor is a quality company in all aspects and intricacies of the triple bottom line approach to enterprise. It made sense to me then, and it still does today, that Suncor ought to be taking a significant leadership role around the future of the oil sands. Some one needs to be engaging, responding and explaining the challenges and potential for this industry to develop in ways that are profitable and ecologically responsible and socially sustainable.
That meant to me that Rick George needed to take up the torch from Eric Newell and it looks like he has done so. Check out his first Blog post and let me know what you think. It is worth a read and I am told he wrote it himself. I believe that. This is no cynical PR based messaging and positioning piece. It is in the first person – personal from a CEO of a very significant oil sands player - and with something to say.
I hope he writes many more blog posts and his efforts encourage other oil sands CEOs to write blog posts on this site too. Again, be careful and please tell us your thoughts in the first person – personal. Don’t insult your readers and Alberta citizen’s who own the resources you are exploiting, by having your comments ghosted by some anonymous PR specialist. That would do more harm than good.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) has set up a website called “Canada’s Oil Sands – A Different Conversation.” Some hard line environmental groups and activists will write this off as green wash. I don’t think so. At least I am willing to give it a chance and the benefit of the doubt for now. I intend to visit it often and comment when the spirit moves me, and evaluate its integrity cautiously.
It is a site that will have challenges and it will have to work hard prove its authenticity. Since it is an industry sponsored site there is a default position in Web culture that it is merely green wash. There are lots of green wash examples and some of the Alberta energy industry players engaged in green wash PR based efforts last year around the royalty review. So a healthy skepticism is not unfounded.
This CAPP effort will have to earn our trust and gain respect over time by showing us its candor and that it will be open, honest, comprehensive and factual on a wide range of key and controversial issues relating to the development of the oil sands. This effort is a big step in the right direction for CAPP and Albert’s oil sands developers. Let’s hope they do it right and for the right reasons.
For the record, I have been a Suncor shareholder for years. I have worked for Suncor but not presently. I also enjoyed working with Suncor people on a few other projects including the 2005 updating of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo Business Case.
Ever since Eric retired this enormously important energy undertaking has lost its sense of identity and the growing and accelerating investment with erupting environment concerns has taken a toll on its credibility. It needs a person who is identified with the industry and who is the trusted industry talisman that we can rely on to tell us what is going on in oil sands development, from the industry perspective.
Suncor is a quality company in all aspects and intricacies of the triple bottom line approach to enterprise. It made sense to me then, and it still does today, that Suncor ought to be taking a significant leadership role around the future of the oil sands. Some one needs to be engaging, responding and explaining the challenges and potential for this industry to develop in ways that are profitable and ecologically responsible and socially sustainable.
That meant to me that Rick George needed to take up the torch from Eric Newell and it looks like he has done so. Check out his first Blog post and let me know what you think. It is worth a read and I am told he wrote it himself. I believe that. This is no cynical PR based messaging and positioning piece. It is in the first person – personal from a CEO of a very significant oil sands player - and with something to say.
I hope he writes many more blog posts and his efforts encourage other oil sands CEOs to write blog posts on this site too. Again, be careful and please tell us your thoughts in the first person – personal. Don’t insult your readers and Alberta citizen’s who own the resources you are exploiting, by having your comments ghosted by some anonymous PR specialist. That would do more harm than good.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) has set up a website called “Canada’s Oil Sands – A Different Conversation.” Some hard line environmental groups and activists will write this off as green wash. I don’t think so. At least I am willing to give it a chance and the benefit of the doubt for now. I intend to visit it often and comment when the spirit moves me, and evaluate its integrity cautiously.
It is a site that will have challenges and it will have to work hard prove its authenticity. Since it is an industry sponsored site there is a default position in Web culture that it is merely green wash. There are lots of green wash examples and some of the Alberta energy industry players engaged in green wash PR based efforts last year around the royalty review. So a healthy skepticism is not unfounded.
This CAPP effort will have to earn our trust and gain respect over time by showing us its candor and that it will be open, honest, comprehensive and factual on a wide range of key and controversial issues relating to the development of the oil sands. This effort is a big step in the right direction for CAPP and Albert’s oil sands developers. Let’s hope they do it right and for the right reasons.
For the record, I have been a Suncor shareholder for years. I have worked for Suncor but not presently. I also enjoyed working with Suncor people on a few other projects including the 2005 updating of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo Business Case.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
The Ugly Face of Radical Conservatism
UPDATE AUGUST 5
I have been called to task on this post and I have reflected on some of what is said in this post. I do think some of it is potentiall unfair. The Harper affinity to follow George Bush's economic, security, social policy and political tactics is a fact. That said, nothing Harper or Bush does or says should have them implicated in any way with the radical right-wing Conservative violence in Tennessee noted in this post. I think I may have left that erroneous impression with some of the content of this post. It was not my intent. Rather than edit the post, I think this explanation is a more reasonable way to clarify matters. If the Anonymous commenter who made this observation would comment again using his or her real name, and in a civil manner, I would be glad to post the comment.
There is a worrisome group of extreme social conservatives in America who are, all too often, running amok with violence, often causing death, due to their rigid and raging ideology. They used to murder doctors around the abortion issue. Now they seem to have moved on to targeting liberals because they can’t tolerate then because they are different. This radical right-wing anger against difference recently played itself out in a killing spree in a Tennessee Unitarian church.
I often wonder about these people and how they justify their beliefs and behaviours, especially when many of them espouse a fundamentalist religious belief as well. I see the Harper government aggressively aligning itself in word and deed with the political and governing philosophy of the George Bush White House . This is not healthy for so many reasons and at so many levels...and it is especially problematical for any hope Harper has of forming a majority government.
It gets very complicated to see how this value set advances the best principles of American society and for how it influences Canadian society too, especially with Mr. Harper's affinity for such political values. Mr. Harper’s personal relationship with George Bush and his embracing of the deceitful neo-Republican political techniques, coupled with a fear based foreign policy, does not serve Canada well at all. There are some insightful bloggers commenting on this event and its implications too. I particularly like what The Red Tory as to say.
The Canadian orienting value set is very much more classic liberal than the social conservative orientation of some scary people in the States. That Canadian difference is a good thing from my perspective, especially when we see events like what happened in Tennessee recently.
I think it is time the Harper Cons created and articulated a specific Canadian conservative vision. We don’t need a conservative Canada that is just variation on the American Republican social conservative model that we see happening now under Harper.
Otherwise the default decision by Canadian voters will be to see all conservatives as the same – just like the neo-Republicans of America, or worse yet, to presume conservatives are mostly like the radical conservatives who are killing liberals based on intolerance for differences.
As the sign on the wall in the Chapter’s bookstores says; “The World Needs More Canada.” The time has come for Canadian conservatives to start speaking up about what it means to be conservative in Canada, socially, ecologically and economically. If it means the same thing as being a American Republican then who needs the Conservative Party of Canada?
I have been called to task on this post and I have reflected on some of what is said in this post. I do think some of it is potentiall unfair. The Harper affinity to follow George Bush's economic, security, social policy and political tactics is a fact. That said, nothing Harper or Bush does or says should have them implicated in any way with the radical right-wing Conservative violence in Tennessee noted in this post. I think I may have left that erroneous impression with some of the content of this post. It was not my intent. Rather than edit the post, I think this explanation is a more reasonable way to clarify matters. If the Anonymous commenter who made this observation would comment again using his or her real name, and in a civil manner, I would be glad to post the comment.
There is a worrisome group of extreme social conservatives in America who are, all too often, running amok with violence, often causing death, due to their rigid and raging ideology. They used to murder doctors around the abortion issue. Now they seem to have moved on to targeting liberals because they can’t tolerate then because they are different. This radical right-wing anger against difference recently played itself out in a killing spree in a Tennessee Unitarian church.
I often wonder about these people and how they justify their beliefs and behaviours, especially when many of them espouse a fundamentalist religious belief as well. I see the Harper government aggressively aligning itself in word and deed with the political and governing philosophy of the George Bush White House . This is not healthy for so many reasons and at so many levels...and it is especially problematical for any hope Harper has of forming a majority government.
It gets very complicated to see how this value set advances the best principles of American society and for how it influences Canadian society too, especially with Mr. Harper's affinity for such political values. Mr. Harper’s personal relationship with George Bush and his embracing of the deceitful neo-Republican political techniques, coupled with a fear based foreign policy, does not serve Canada well at all. There are some insightful bloggers commenting on this event and its implications too. I particularly like what The Red Tory as to say.
The Canadian orienting value set is very much more classic liberal than the social conservative orientation of some scary people in the States. That Canadian difference is a good thing from my perspective, especially when we see events like what happened in Tennessee recently.
I think it is time the Harper Cons created and articulated a specific Canadian conservative vision. We don’t need a conservative Canada that is just variation on the American Republican social conservative model that we see happening now under Harper.
Otherwise the default decision by Canadian voters will be to see all conservatives as the same – just like the neo-Republicans of America, or worse yet, to presume conservatives are mostly like the radical conservatives who are killing liberals based on intolerance for differences.
As the sign on the wall in the Chapter’s bookstores says; “The World Needs More Canada.” The time has come for Canadian conservatives to start speaking up about what it means to be conservative in Canada, socially, ecologically and economically. If it means the same thing as being a American Republican then who needs the Conservative Party of Canada?
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Alberta's Senior Civil Servant - Ron Hicks - Calls it Quits
Ron Hick's, Deputy Minister of Executive Council for the Government of Alberta is resigning effective September 5, 2008. One of the finest and most effective public servants I have ever worked with is calling it quits. This is a sad and unnerving day for good government in Alberta.
My mother used to say the graveyard is full of indispensable people. While that is true, this senior administrative retirement is one of a number of key losses to the Stelmach government as of late.
Speculation over the reasons will be rampant but pointless. Stelmach's government is losing another good one in the senior ranks of the civil service.
I say another good one because Ron is one of four senior people to leave in the past week or two. Paddy Meade, a long serving Deputy Minister of Health and Wellness just moved to the new health superboard. Gerry Bourdeau, Deputy Minister of International and Intergovernmental Affairs retired yesterday as did Deputy Minister of Justice Terry Machett, who was appointed to serve on the Provincial Court yesterday.
This is worrisome for the new Stelmach government. Lots of good people left but the wisdom and experience of this level of talent is a serious loss to any Premier trying to reinvigorate what as been a lethargic governance model in the last years of Klein's regime.
My mother used to say the graveyard is full of indispensable people. While that is true, this senior administrative retirement is one of a number of key losses to the Stelmach government as of late.
Speculation over the reasons will be rampant but pointless. Stelmach's government is losing another good one in the senior ranks of the civil service.
I say another good one because Ron is one of four senior people to leave in the past week or two. Paddy Meade, a long serving Deputy Minister of Health and Wellness just moved to the new health superboard. Gerry Bourdeau, Deputy Minister of International and Intergovernmental Affairs retired yesterday as did Deputy Minister of Justice Terry Machett, who was appointed to serve on the Provincial Court yesterday.
This is worrisome for the new Stelmach government. Lots of good people left but the wisdom and experience of this level of talent is a serious loss to any Premier trying to reinvigorate what as been a lethargic governance model in the last years of Klein's regime.
Big Tobacco Fined $1.5 Billion for Smuggling
Big Tobacco has just been fined for cigarette smuggling activities between 1989 and 1994. This was a guilty plea and was about a complex cigarette smuggling scheme. What about pursuing them for the same activities from 1994 to the present?
The Big Tobacco culprits are Imperial Tobacco who is liable to pay a fine of $200,000,000.00 now and $400,000,000.00 more over the next 15 years. Rothmans Benson & Hedges is on the hook for $100,000,000.00 in fines now and $450,000,000.00 more in civil payments over the next 10 years. Classy operators these guys!
It is easy and appropriate to blame the companies for this illegal activity. I want more. I want to know the names of the individuals in those companies who perpetrated these illegal activities. Companies don’t make decisions by themselves or in isolation. It is the leadership and management who are the active agents of corporate decisions and such misdeeds.
There is a personal obligation here as well. Who was it exactly that aided, abetted, enabled and executed this illegal activity within these organizations? If there is not personal liability as well for this stuff the corporate cultures that drive these behaviours may never change. I am not a big fan of more government regulation but I do like personal accountability and liability for illegal corporate activities, be they civil or criminal.
Release the names of the individuals involved in this illegal activity please. We may need more legislation that will enable personal actions to be brought against corporate management and individual directors who enable this crap to happen. Then things will really change for the better. Sarbanes Oxley was a start but personal accountability for corporate actions must obviously be expanded.
For the record, I worked with a consortium of Alberta based health based organizations to get legislation passed in Alberta to get smoking banned in public and workplaces in Alberta last year. I have seen the tactics Big Tobacco used in lobbying and PR based misdeeds too.
The Big Tobacco culprits are Imperial Tobacco who is liable to pay a fine of $200,000,000.00 now and $400,000,000.00 more over the next 15 years. Rothmans Benson & Hedges is on the hook for $100,000,000.00 in fines now and $450,000,000.00 more in civil payments over the next 10 years. Classy operators these guys!
It is easy and appropriate to blame the companies for this illegal activity. I want more. I want to know the names of the individuals in those companies who perpetrated these illegal activities. Companies don’t make decisions by themselves or in isolation. It is the leadership and management who are the active agents of corporate decisions and such misdeeds.
There is a personal obligation here as well. Who was it exactly that aided, abetted, enabled and executed this illegal activity within these organizations? If there is not personal liability as well for this stuff the corporate cultures that drive these behaviours may never change. I am not a big fan of more government regulation but I do like personal accountability and liability for illegal corporate activities, be they civil or criminal.
Release the names of the individuals involved in this illegal activity please. We may need more legislation that will enable personal actions to be brought against corporate management and individual directors who enable this crap to happen. Then things will really change for the better. Sarbanes Oxley was a start but personal accountability for corporate actions must obviously be expanded.
For the record, I worked with a consortium of Alberta based health based organizations to get legislation passed in Alberta to get smoking banned in public and workplaces in Alberta last year. I have seen the tactics Big Tobacco used in lobbying and PR based misdeeds too.
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