PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne at yesterday’s press conference in Toronto. Below: Ms. Notley, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, British Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn and U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

You may have missed it, but something truly remarkable happened in Alberta politics yesterday.

Premier Rachel Notley, after less than nine months in office, secured the tentative approval of the premier of Ontario and the enthusiastic endorsement of the prime minister of Canada, both members of a different political party than hers, for a pipeline to carry diluted bitumen from Alberta to New Brunswick for refining.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne praised Alberta’s climate change plan at a news conference in Toronto yesterday as the key to the progress, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau practically swooned over the potential benefits of the pipeline while attending an international meeting of powerful political and business leaders in Switzerland.

This, of course, is not all that is needed for the so-called Energy East Pipeline to succeed. The biggest hurdle is likely to be the province of Quebec, which, like Alberta, has a history of aggressively promoting its own interests on many issues.

Still, as far as Energy East is concerned, four of the five provinces through which it must pass now appear to be on side, more or less. Some were already there, but this has nevertheless come about largely because of Ms. Notley’s environmental policies and her mature approach to Canada’s national conversation about pipelines.

The Notley Formula involves both finding ways to lower the province’s carbon footprint and building consensus through respectful collaboration with other provinces for the infrastructure we need to market this resource.

As for Quebec, where the prime minister’s party dominates in Parliament, provincial politicians are negotiating, aren’t they? Exactly as we would expect our provincial government to try to do if a major project with significant environmental risks was passing through our territory.

All this has come about in very short order. There’s only been progress on this file since Ms. Notley’s NDP Government was elected on May 5, despite economic circumstances that might seem less than propitious for energy megaprojects.

It is important to note that since the Energy East project was announced on Aug. 1, 2013, the Conservative governments of Alberta and Canada made no progress under premiers Alison Redford, Dave Hancock and Jim Prentice. As for Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, whose government was voted out of office on Oct. 19, his only plan seemed to be to shove it up the noses of reluctant Canadians, which undoubtedly contributed to his loss.

The two Conservative governments’ efforts pretty well killed off the attempt to force the Northern Gateway Pipeline to tidewater through British Columbia, not to mention pushing the Keystone XL Pipeline through the continental U.S. to the Gulf Coast, for which readers will recall Mr. Harper wasn’t going to take No for an answer.

Yet, if you listen to mainstream media or the Opposition in Alberta, you’d think Ms. Notley’s strategy was an utter failure. “Her NDP government’s embattled pipeline strategy,” as the Calgary Herald put it in a report yesterday that should have extolled her success.

Indeed, things being said by Opposition Wildrose Leader Brian Jean seem intentionally designed to outrage Quebeckers and sabotage the NDP Government’s chances of getting Energy East!

Mr. Jean insulted the mayor of Montreal and demanded Ms. Notley do the same in one shrill press release, and all but accused the NDP of intentionally trying to wreck the energy industry in another.

The Wildrose Perpetual Outrage Machine, of course, has no such limits. Its social media operatives accuse the NDP of declaring war on Alberta, calling anyone who fails to support the Wildrose a Communist, as in the crazed screeds published by agitator Ezra Levant’s acolytes, and muttering darkly about coups d’état.

It’s only a matter of time before one of these nuts suggests that landlocked Alberta go it alone as an independent country, because that would be sure to force our recalcitrant neighbours to accommodate our pipelines!

The Opposition campaign “may damage the prospects of ever getting approval for the very pipeline projects Jean says he supports,” observed Canadian writer Markham Hislop in American Energy News, an online publication. Mr. Hislop assumes Mr. Jean doesn’t intend to do just that, and one can only hope he’s right.

Here in Alberta we seem to have reached the seventh stage of establishment backlash, as described earlier this week by author and lawyer Glenn Greenwald in The Intercept: “Full-scale and unrestrained meltdown, panic, lashing out, threats, recriminations, self-important foot-stomping, overt union with the Right, complete fury (I can no longer in good conscience support this party of terrorist-lovers, communists, and heathens).”

Mr. Greenwald was describing the hysterical campaigns against U.S. Democratic Party presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and British Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, but he could as well have been talking about the parallel campaigns by the Canadian right against Ms. Notley and now Mr. Trudeau, both before and after their elections.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media reports Ms. Notley’s success as if it were a complete failure, and excoriates her government for not adopting the tactics of the Harper and Redford-Hancock-Prentice governments that have been proven not to work.

Calgary Herald political columnist Don Braid and Calgary Sun political columnist Rick Bell took exactly this line yesterday and the day before. Both also bleated about the NDP’s refusal to insult Montreal politicians in their identically reasoned columns.

Well, perhaps a certain amount of intellectual cross-pollination is inevitable now that Herald and Sun columnists are sharing digs in the Sun’s low-rent offices down the Deerfoot Trail from the Herald’s palatial former bunker – now, alas, abandoned.

As Mr. Hislop pointed out, progress to date is fragile. Between them, the Opposition and the media probably have a decent chance of derailing it.

But Ms. Notley has made headway, and that’s something that never happened under any species of conservative, the screeches of all the Usual Suspects on the right notwithstanding.

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

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39 Comments

  1. The current refining infrastructure in eastern Canada is more geared towards crude oil (synthetic or conventional) rather than bitumen. Also a dilbit pipeline usually has a diluent return pipeline associated with it (enbridge clipper and southern lights pipeline)

    More likely Energy East will be a crude oil pipeline rather than dilbit. Unless you have heard of a proposed upgraded out east.

    1. I actually haven’t heard about the return pipeline that would be required either. Thanks for mentioning that, in all the caustic fighting I completely forgot about this.

  2. Its hard to believe all of the people I see on Facebook actually attended some kind of school when they were younger. Know this is a fact because we are so blessed to live in the greatest nation at the best possible time, Education being free and pretty good from what I recall. That being said I read everyday how both levels of OUR current ELECTED government are to blame for the problems now happening. The economic system we so easily kill to defend, carry on for the last 30-40 years. The deregulation, privatization, capitalist, American level of stupidity! A kind of arrogant incompetence simultaneously being integrated with a genius level of corruption is something to almost admire……almost. The scam or financial meltdown has taken its toll on a country so rich in natural resources that it must have been really hard work to fuck something so good up! Just think if we are having this hard a time how do you think the rest of the world is doing? The stupidity I’m see on face book does give some hints to why things are so bad. The NDP and Prime Minister have been elected for less then a year…..are you that fucking stupid to think they caused this and not the EVIL FUCKS everyone seems excited to put back were they have had YEARS to make things this bad! I really hope we are not this stupid and its just a case of only noticing the idiots shouting the loudest but really there is only a hand full. Please Remember not one person in government is there for the good of the people, just to push there own agenda while making sure there friends and family come first just like anybody in that position is supposed to cause that is the way the system was designed! Wake the fuck up!!! Bad people are winning and I sure hope they don’t WIN! My name is Ron Fucking Lowther and I’m sick of hearing on the news the bravest man wants to be a fucking woman and Not any of the millions dying with dignity but needlessly or how ISIS is going to come to Alberta and kill my family because Justin Trudeau has nice hair…its fucking stupid!

    1. Hi Ron,
      It is true that a great many citizens like myself were asleep for 44 years in Alberta but some of the problem can be attributed to the lack of information about a great many issues that I had no idea about.

      I mean I did not know until recently that there had been two spills per day in Alberta. I had no information about burning water in Rosebud, Alberta until Jessica Ernst went through almost a decade of struggle to get this message out to us. Diana Daunheimer’s case would not be on my radar but for the presence of bloggers.

      We don’t get the information and we can’t see the whole picture; also the myth making machinery of government funded by our own public dollars does a great job of not publishing the facts of many issues.

      In continuing care for example we aren’t given the public audits that are done on facilities; these audits aren’t random and we have no information on the folks who do these audits or how they do these audits. Some information on accommodation audits are temporarily available to citizens but then removed unlike in Ontario where the full history of compliance or non-compliance is provided. We aren’t given the abuse cases associated with facilities–just the Protection for Persons in Care total cases (founded). The Patient Relations Offices at AHS and Covenant Health publish no information that I could find on the yearly totals of complaints, their nature, or their resolution. There is no information on adverse events in either the health care or the continuing care system. It is easy to publish this information without any sort of privacy invasion but the government does not do this sort of reporting.

      As a consequence of this lack of reporting, coupled with the myth making machinery that churns out good news stories for everything, we have no sort of information on issues that we can depend on other than perhaps the reports of the Health Quality Council of Alberta that is also not completely independent in my opinion.

      Newspapers are being starved for investigative journalists and money. The current cutting of staff at Postmedia means the public interest is going to be even less of a priority.

      All this lack of information results in citizens who are not knowledgeable about important issues and can’t speak productively of important issues and so churn out chatter on junk issues. The citizens are only as smart as the information they get and process. If we are getting spin, we can’t be writing erudite statements can we about issues?

      Sure the PC government has messed up big time and citizens like myself were asleep but the PCs are gone and won’t be back. The NDP are in power now. The bust does not prevent them from doing their jobs which is in the legislative arena.

      The NDP need to do what the PCs never did which is representing the people. They should be doing their jobs –without any excuses about the economy or the privatization mania of the Tories that has resulted in a poor oversight of continuing care which has been handed over with the grant money to the private sector resulting in choppy performance.

      The NDP need to do the evolution of health, seniors and continuing care without hesitation; if they can’t do it-they can’t blame the PCs. They only can blame themselves. We have woken up to what you speak about here and we’re not going to put up with it any more: A kind of arrogant incompetence simultaneously being integrated with a genius level of corruption is something to almost admire……almost.

      1. Julie Ali, while you make some very good arguments here, your arguments fall apart when you imply that the NDP government of Rachel Notley are not doing their job; are not representing Albertans. It is disingenuous to claim some responsibility for the mess left behind after 44 years of PC solitary idealism, then express poorly conceived assumptions that the government is sitting on their collective “ideological” hands. Just how much magic and sorcery is included in the right wing vilification of social democratic theory? Just to get the facts straight, in my entire 25 year involvement at the centre of the NDP structure and from my perspective working outside that circle, I have never met one espoused witch or warlock. They don’t exist, therefore the power to pull results out of thin, very thin air also doesn’t exist. 8.5 months in office is not going to bear the immediate results that seem to be the expectation of Alberta’s impatient class.

        1. Hi Robert,

          I don’t expect magic.
          Magic isn’t something government does.
          It does slow change.
          Usually this slow change only happens when there is media attention and we all wake up and yap to the government as a group.

          Most of the families who voted NDP changed their voting pattern from Tory to NDP for specific reasons.
          I changed my voting pattern because the Tories were not good managers of our resources, did not represent citizens and have been ignoring social issues for most of their tenure. For example, the problems in continuing care have been going on far too long and the Tory response has always been to create shell offices like the Health Advocates Office, the Protection for Persons in Care Office, the Ombudsman Office and so on just to provide the veneer of some sort of recourse for citizens. In reality all of these offices have no power.
          You can also do the Patient Relations complaint business at AHS and Covenant Health but don’t expect help there either; the main purpose of these offices that are ostensibly there to support patients and their families is to move the families forward and hide the issues.

          It’s all very troubling.
          I voted NDP to get this sort of junk dumped.
          I expect some movement.
          I have yapped with the MLAs who have yapped to the Health Minister and nothing has been done.
          Why is this the case?
          I’m not sure.
          Legislation has been created in areas that benefit the NDP party such as ending the major donations of companies to political parties but interestingly no change has been made with continuing care legislation.

          I am not the only citizen who is waiting for the government to work on required legislative changes in continuing care. The problems in continuing care are well known to the NDP. You don’t need months to draft legislation on resident rights. You don’t need to even work on the details of the legislation as we already have templates for the way to evolve the system in Ontario.

          Ms. Notley isn’t getting the job done in this particular area that is of interest to me. I think she is a nice lady but she needs to get Alberta Health to first answer our questions and then provide us with deliverables.

          The political party we elected isn’t expected to do the work all by their lonesome. They have staff to do most of the work for them. They have the folks of a fixed mindset–who are experienced bureaucrats in government —to help them with all this change work.

          Although the NDP are dealing with a politicized group of folks who do not appear to understand what we require –these folks do know how to make new legislation/ policy and improve oversight of the continuing care area.

          There is enough information, review, study of the issues in continuing care. We don’t have to make more data. We need to use the data, the experience in place and do the changes that are required.

          By the way, I am not vilifying the NDP. I like most of them. But they aren’t performing well and I see no reason to pretend that they are.

          1. I work for the Primary Care Network in Alberta. Lack of movement on healthcare issues isn’t because they don’t care or aren’t listening. There is no money. Budgets were frozen last April and there has been no word yet on where we stand for the next three year budget. The people running various care facilities are trying to do as much as they can with what they have but even for us, many programs had to be put on the back burner temporarily, expansion of programs set aside. But only for now. I know this will improve, we have to give both of the new governments time to get the changes and the “fixes” in place. I know they’re working hard now to do just that. It’s wonderful how much you care about this topic, we do as well.

    2. Yeah for you!!! Thank you for your totally comprehensive reply to the current state of stupidly that has been running around. You have covered everything I wanted to say. Congratulations. Don’t know what we can do about the political columnists of the Calgary newspapers. Thanks again. Rose Marie Beauvais.

    3. Education is free? Since when? Obviously, you do not have children in the public school system. We are hit with user fees one after the other. As for post-secondary, well that surely isn’t free.

      Judging from your post and your liberal use of the F-word to express yourself, I deduce that perhaps your education was free. Personally, I want my kids to be better educated than you.

  3. Infuriating, to be sure. But then I remind myself of the recent survey data that shows that Alberta is chock-full of people with progressive values. If all we do is read the Alberta mainstream media, or listen to the political opposition, we miss this.

  4. Ron, Ignorance is Bliss!
    Lazy CONserver Rednecks don’t have the ability to learn anything beyond the limited reality that they cultivate. Thank God their Children have a more Intelligence based political view. Thanks for your Post.

  5. The opposition at both the provincial and federal levels see their role in very narrow terms: to oppose anything the government proposes. They don’t seem to understand that a better way to make their mark is to provide intelligent and ‘doable’ alternatives to the policies they don’t agree with. Well, this is hard when your party was the one that created the mess in the first place, but it’s time to move on. The longer the loud mouths of the Wildrose and the likes of Michelle Rempel at the federal level keep talking, an increasing number of voters will ensure that such people never get to power again.

    1. Hi Maria,
      I have met one of the Wildrose folks and he was a nice guy. He wasn’t scary at all.
      I think the Wildrosies will become more strategic, get some younger folks who know how to do the social media stuff and then steam ahead.
      The NDP only have this time to get the ship floating.
      I’m pretty sure they need to do the changes we voted them in to do.
      The Wildrosies seem to be funded by big oil as were the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta so I don’t know how that will work out in terms of representation but they are becoming experienced and might broaden their scope to include social issues which they seem to think will be taken care of by the free market.

      The opposition parties don’t seem to have the temperature of Conservative voters in Alberta. My family voted NDP and Liberal this time around; we had been long term Tory supporters. The future is not friendly for the Tories based on their record but if they can get an intelligent man like the Alberta Party leader to show them the way, all hope is not lost.

      The PCs did not create the messes in Alberta all by themselves. We voted for them and did not work as good citizens to get them to represent us (if this was at all possible to achieve). Well at least we booted them out before they emptied the Heritage Trust Fund. Citizens are also responsible for the messes. We need to activate ourselves. We need to speak. We need to act. We need to have skin in the game.

  6. Ms. Notley’s success in pipeline salesmanship is indeed something that could be celebrated – say, in 1975 or 1985. But we know now that any further expansion of fossil fuel production and consumption is not what the world needs. I give her government full marks for promising to phase out coal-fired electrical generation, but however progressive her government’s energy policy package may appear within the Alberta political universe, it’s too little, too late.

    And I say that with great regret. I genuinely like and respect Ms. Notley – I remember her father from my years in AB in the ’70s and I’m sure that he would be immensely proud of her accomplishments. But she has the misfortune to be in charge when all the neglect and stalling of past decades are catching up with us. So, however great an improvement her brand of careful social democratic gradualism is on past regimes, it ends up missing the mark just as much when dealing with the unblinking realities of atmospheric physics and chemistry.

    And that’s where liberals and social democrats find themselves on the same wrong side of history as Ezra Levant et al., alas. The atmosphere is completely indifferent as to whether the next incremental tonnes of CO2 come from Exxon, Statoil, Syncrude, or some poor bugger in the tropics slashing and burning a hectare of forest to grow corn. At the end of the day, the atmosphere isn’t a constituency that can be placated by niceness, symbolism, and half-measures, however great an improvement they may be on past practices.

    1. well said Boreal
      It seems that this is one subject area that even the ‘progressives’ don’t want to talk about. I cannot stop thinking about the final days of the wagon-wheel business when the good ol boys out here start up on their petro-dreams.

      Notley et al have just signed up with a pretty big and comprehensive deal in Paris, the COP21. Just to attempt to reach the targets this deal envisions over the next 15 years means less oil production – in Alberta – not more!

      Achieving those goals has to mean less oil production world-wide and the only way to reduce petro-production world wide is to provide a substitute, just like rubber tires and automobiles did for the horse and buggy. I’m sure there were some very good producers supporting many very deserving families in the wagon-wheel business, but, if I can mix my metaphors, that ship has sailed.

      Why are we wasting time and energy on pipelines? They’re done for! Pull yer hear outta yer arse! Reallocate your investments.
      We have a PROGRESSIVE (perhaps?) gov’t in the province and the country! Let’s get on with some progress!

      Extolling the virtues of a dirty, toxic and polluting commodity in a corrupt, wasteful and morally bankrupt economic system must not be an acceptable alternative to articulating the way forward in a 21st Century world defined by the “realities of atmospheric physics and chemistry.” Some honest discussion might be a good start.

      1. You will notice that Denis Coderre (or any so-called environmentalist) says nothing about the oil pipeline that runs from the harbour in Portland, Maine to refineries in Montreal. He doesn’t care about the emissions coming from Nigeria’s oil industry, or Saudi Arabia’s, or Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Sands (the sources for that oil Montrealers consume.) He doesn’t care about the emissions from the millions of trucks, cars, planes and trains in central Canada. He has no plans to stop importing coffee, or bananas, or cotton, or plastic, or fresh vegetables, or Chinese electronics. He doesn’t care that there is no viable non-carbon method to transport these goods. He only wants to stick it to Alberta.

        Climate change reduction is easy to support when someone else is paying the price. Once Alberta’s oil patch is gone Canadians are going to realize that they will personally have to suffer to eliminate the other 85% of the nation’s carbon emissions that will still be occurring.

  7. The mainstream media has not treated the NDP government in Alberta well at all but at this point I’m starting to wonder if it’s fair to lay all the blame on their step. I get emails from the NDP but those emails never highlight what the NDP is doing. The only thing I get from the emails is that the NDP wants more money – yet again. I never hear from them on what they’re actually doing.

    1. Hi Gail, At least you get e-mails. My questions to Alberta Connects is forwarded to Sarah Hoffman; from that point on it vanishes. When I call the premier’s office I am transferred to Health.

      When I call Hannah Morton (the health minister’s assistant who deals with mummies), she is always in a meeting.

      When I call my MLA Dr. Bob, he sends my information to Health. There is a problem here. It reminds me of the same failures of transparency with the PCs but at least with the Tories I got answers from Alberta Connects.
      Now the lack of response is astonishing. And troubling.
      I hope the open government business will start soon.
      How many political parties do we have to change to get democratic representation or are all the political parties just representing themselves?

      1. Hi Julie,

        Don’t feel bad. I’ve had the same experience when it comes to contacting MLAs and ministers. When the conservatives were in power I’d get a nice boiler plate response of the “we got your email and will think about it” and that was about it. From the NDP I don’t even get that.

        I am hopeful that the NDP will get things together and be transparent like they promised when they were campaigning.

      1. Hi Mr. Climenhaga,

        I think James is insulting your blog by calling it a rag.
        He should not do this as it is a good place to read and learn politics.
        It isn’t a rag but it is full of interesting stuff that I read when I have time.

        But your online newspaper does feel to me as a naive stay at home mummy as if it has a sweetness for the NDP.
        So I have to agree with James (if this is what he is implying) that the slant of some of the articles on Alberta Politics is geared towards positive slanting of NDP performance.

        I don’t mind this sort of positive bias as I like the NDP and really any party is better than the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta.

        Also you publish my comments which aren’t always positive so you are a fair person.
        You also seem like you know all the backroom stuff and can thereby tell us what we can’t figure out. This is useful.
        Thanks for your articles.

      2. Yas, Rebel Media. Here’s an excerpt by someone named Faith Goldy.
        “Canada was also left out of a high-level meeting of “significant contributors” to the U.S. led coalition. I call on Trudeau to leave our men and women in uniform to join this worthy fight against ISIS.”

        Yup, let’s join the Yanks in another civil war half way around the world and get our asses handed to us on a plate just like Afghanistan. More Canadians killed, wounded, victimized by PTSD and for what?

        Faith Goldy does not claim membership in a Canadian Forces combat unit.

    1. Ooh, do tell. Where can I read such a rag. It would be a refreshing change from the right-wing MSM propaganda we are inundated with on a daily basis. Can I get a subscription?

    2. Remember, this is a blog: a free, technically amateur (in the sense of unpaid, not of quality) opinion forum in which the blogger makes no claims of lack of bias, nor should he. Any blogger is free to say anything he or she wants, and can be as slanted as he or she chooses, within the bounds of Criminal Code hate speech laws and of defamation law.

      The mainstream media, on the other hand, are supposed to provide objective journalism and to clearly label opinion articles (as opposed to straight news stories) as such. There is a qualitative difference between the MSM and blogging.

      As for David’s blog being a “rag”, I beg to differ. I find the quality of his writing to be both enlightening and entertaining, and his articles are well-researched and sourced. Even when I disagree with him, which is seldom, I appreciate his perspective.

      If you don’t also appreciate it, you are free to stop reading it.

  8. And then there’s also that other guy, that AB conservatives wish they had instead of Notley, the always helpful, Brad Wall… never missing a chance to be a thoughtful constructive win-win leader for the West’s agenda. 😉

    http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/01/23/energy-east-pipeline-far-from-a-nation-building-project-hbert.html

    excerpt: ‘…the crossfire of an interprovincial war of words that has already escalated at a precipitous pace, in no small part thanks to the social media.

    Within hours of the Coderre news conference, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall tweeted that Montreal should hand back the equalization money it has been receiving, part of which comes from wealth generated by Western Canada’s oil and gas industries.

    Never one to shy from a fight — especially at a safe social media distance — Coderre replied that he and his colleagues speak for four times more people than the premier of Saskatchewan, and that their taxes contribute to fund the federal infrastructures of the Prairie province.’

    1. In the years I’ve even cared about politics, ( the other years working to feed my family) I’ve seen nothing that makes me think that any province can get along with any other all the time. I have seen the provinces protect their own resource, I.E. Alberta oil, BC tourism, Quebec frenchism, Ontario manufacturing. The other thing that Quebec and Ontario protect is the vote that effects all Canada with their vote numbers, with the attitude of we don’t care what what the other provinces care about. The only way that a voter can possibly vote is by what we can understand though media, because our candidate will amend any thing He or She may have promised prior to vote day. It may have been better if we had provincial rights as the last resort in that way we wouldn’t have to keep up appearances of being a whole country. Those in politics are in it for the money or the power so ask your candidate to keep the bullshit and tell the truth. It’s to bad only us lowly workers have the pride in ourselves to work every day for family and country.

  9. “Not only does Alberta get another No to another pipeline, another credit rating agency says the provincial government needs to get its act together and do what they do not want to do — control their spending.” – Rick Bell

    Should anyone pay attention to the credit rating agencies who were complicit in the largest (so far) financial crime of the 21st century? Maybe Rick should check out ‘The Big Short’, and take Don Braid along with him. They could even share popcorn – you know, to keep expenses down.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgqG3ITMv1Q

    1. Note the non-sequitur in Bell commentary … it’s not about the pipeline, it’s about austerity, the better to redistribute whatever wealth remains in this dreary province to the wealthy. Personally, I think both Rick Bell and Don Braid should quit journalism, which neither of them is very good at, and go into another life of work. They could open a pub together: The Braid and Bell, although, come to think of it, neither of them has the personality for retail trade. Even if the beer was free, customers would tend to avoid The Dinger (frightening) and The Knitter (distasteful).

    1. Perhaps worth noting, however, that the article is October 2013 and ends by stating “Enbridge spokesman Graham White said a decision is expected in the next three months”, so possibly the retrospective congratulations are premature.

      Meanwhile, the incessant clamour that the Alberta NDP are hell-bent on destroying the energy sector, can we agree that this is hysterical nonsense?

    1. Oh Graham….assuming you are the same one who had a written gossip column or the Sun for years!!!!! You really need to get that yellow print off your fingers and have the thick cloud removed from your eyes, as you apparently have no concept of how ugly that rag (called the Sun) is for the masses!!!

      David, keep up the good work of pointing out what decades of conservatism has done to this province and the deficits they left in their wake.

  10. I also wonder if the right wing parties and their supporters in the media are trying to intentionally sabotage the pipeline to eastern Canada. Their comments seem unnecessarily provocative, hysterical and antagonistic.

    Perhaps that bullying and barking mentality is also why they never got the pipelines built that they clamoured for in the last ten years. They talk a lot about property rights, but they seem to have trouble understanding when you build a pipeline across someone else’s territory you have to deal with them and satisfy their concerns.

  11. The way I see it is to cut Quebec off of there equalization payments. They have been milking the system for as long as I can remember and I am 72years old

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