Cannon Speaks About Dealing Aberta's Oil - Does Harper Know?

Is Stephen Harper turning into a progressive? He tells the CPC delegates to get pragmatic and not ideological about the economic crisis. Sounds like a prelude to government intervention into the marketplace by the Progressive Reformer leader. How unlike the free enterprise base of the Reform/Alliance base that “brung Harper to the dance” as former Prime Minister Mulroney would say.



The Cons through Foreign affairs Minister Cannon are now saying “…there is no ideological right or ideological left” as they try an distance themselves from the sycophantic relationship they had with the Bush/Cheney White House. Bush is gone. McCain lost. Harper is dancing as fast as he can to shape shift his ideological stripes. Disingenuous is the kindest characterization of this continuing political shiftiness of "Steve" Harper.

On the other hand he has his Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon making front page news in Alberta saying ever so unsubtly to the Obama administration-in-waiting that “Canada might sell it oil elsewhere” if the new American administration under Obama decides to renegotiate NAFTA. What about the fact NAFTA is due for a renegotiation under its own terms anyway? Maybe a review is a good thing - like to get a redo of the disastrous deal the Cons did to the Canadian forest industry on softwood lumber.

Hey Jack! Yah you…Jack Layton! Are you supporting Harper on this no renegotiation of NAFTA stuff? Does Maude Barlow have you r direct line? I expect she is on your case. The Liberals are not going to bolster the Conservative minority anymore. Are you going to stand for this or are you going to force another early election because your ideological position is that NAFTA is plain bad-bad-bad.

This new Harper government rhetoric is flying in the face of the election position of Harper saying he would control the sale of oil sands bitumen based on environmental standards…a shot at restricting Chinese participation and favouring the American market. Stelmach clearly told Harper to back off Alberta’s oil marketing rights during the recent federal election.

Has Cannon gone Palin rogue and is off message as well as his rocker? What is he doing talking about this to the media on anything anyway? That is exclusively Harper’s job – or his Presidential-like official spokesperson at the very least Is Cannon the Quebecer playing the regional environment card and focusing on the so-called “dirty oil” framing that is so harmful to Alberta’s interests and benefiting Quebec?

What about the niggling little legal and constitutional points that none of this is “Canada’s oil”? It belongs to Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland-Labrador. Alberta has asked to be at the table with the Feds in all such discussion around the international implications involving its resources. Harper has been busy and has not replied yet…or listing to canon – has he?

Add in the other central themes on climate change, market meltdown, government bailouts and a world- wide recession and the tendency to take the Alberta conservative support for granted and I’m betting the backrooms between Edmonton and Ottawa are going to get very interesting and very loud and extremely intense.

On The Map with Avi Lewis: Alberta Oil Sands

Here is Avi Lewis and the Parkland Institute's take on oil sands as a source of continental energy supply.

The framing of the visuals and pull quotes are pretty onesided. That is to be expected from these sources. That said the dialogue with Diane Gibson is very factual and balanced and a good discussion on a range of important contenental energy issues.

Speaking of big issues oil snads issues. It is a big mistake for the Alberta government to be reducing openness and accountability for disclosing oil sands revenues and royalty information. The Privcy Commissioner is on it and the Auditor General has be critical of past lapses in acountability for royalty payments and collections. FOIP laws already protect industry from disclosure of proprietary information.

This is not good policy nor good governance and a bad step in the wrong direction.

Sen. Barack Obama discusses net neutrality on MTV

Net Neutrality is a big deal for anyone who values free speech. Obama is on side and gets it.

Access fees and messing around with bandwidth and quality are not to be allowed in a free and democratic society.

Big service providers who want to make the Internet more like television are shaping or throttling. That is selling you a certain bandwidth service but they provide different download and upload speed. This is breach of contract and private sector infringements on my free speech rights. They have no business doing that at all.

CRTC is dealing with the shaping and throttling issues in a complaint against Bell but they are all doing it. A decision was expected in October but it is delayed "due to the complexity of the issues." What complexity? Give me the bandwidth I contracted for total and get out of the way of an open access Internet.

It is not television and it is not the telephone business regardless of how much the old-style thinking of the service providers try and convince themselves of those delusions. The Internet is about connectivity and content and freedom of speech and assembly.

Is Harper Hapless to Deal With the Economic Crisis?

Looks like most of the ideas to deal with the economic crisis will be coming from the Premier's at tomorrows First Minister's meeting. Stephen "the Fundamentals are Strong" Harper is becoming more like a deer in the market meltdown headlights. I hope he takes good notes at the G20 meetings in Washington next week. He clearly needs some ideas about what to do in response. Let's home he listens to others then George Bush for a change.

Alberta's Environment Minister Renner Visits Fort Chipewyan

UPDATE: FORT McMURRAY TODAY is reporting on November 12th that as a result of his trip to Ft Chip, Minister Renner is promising air and water studies in the area to relieve concerns about contamination.

Wow! Here is a step in the right direction. Alberta's Minister of the Environment is going up to Fort Chipewyan on Monday to listen to health concerns of the community related to oil sands development.


It is important that the Minister of the Environment engage in health issues relating from environmental issues, policy and practices. Clean water, air and land is an environmental responsibility but also a health issue for humans and the biota as a whole.


I was at the Keepers of the Water conference in Ft Chip earlier this fall as part of my work with the Canadian Boreal Initiative on biodiversity offsets for oil sands projects. I spent four days in Ft Chip and met a lot of great people and had time to talk to many of them extensively.


I learned more about the issues of health and environment linkages at the conference meetings and from those locals who picked me up as I hitch hiked from place to place. I became acutely aware of the clean water issues and concerns in the community. I saw first hand the now famous two-mouthed fish caught in the Athabasca river near the community.


Many years ago the Athabasca river was a sewage dump for the pulp mills along its shores. When ALPAC was approved in the late 80's it was the largest single line pulp mill on the planet. The water quality and related health issues became front and centre as a public policy concern. The net result was the environmental conditions on the ALPAC approval, suggested by ALPAC itself, BTW, actually enhanced the overall water quality of the Athabasca river. This is because they and all the other mills on the river also changed their corporate cultures and their ecological approaches to doing business in a more sustainable way. Full disclosure - I was advising ALPAC on issues management concerns over the mill approval process at the time


Environment and health are integrated and related concerns and the folks at Ft Chip are acutely aware of this reality. Nice to see someone taking the political lead on this public policy issue and not just shuffling it off to a report process.


Good for Rob Renner! I am looking forward to hearing what the Minister picks up and what resonates with him from this visit.