According to the Council of Europe, “de-risking” means “the phenomenon of financial institutions terminating or restricting business relationships with clients or categories of clients to avoid, rather than manage, risk.”
But when Alberta Premier Danielle Smith uses the term, as she has been doing frequently lately, she obviously has something quite different in mind.
We’re going to have to wait a little longer to discover exactly what she’s planning, but it’s pretty clear that “de-risking,” Alberta style, is likely to involve providing public subsidies to either the electricity generation industry or the natural-gas extraction industry, or both, to overcome reluctance by bankers to invest in fossil fuels.
For example, just yesterday, on the free 45-minute advertisement that Global News provides Premier Smith in the guise of a radio program called Your Province, Your Premier, she delivered a windy lecture on how you can’t develop wind and solar power without having an identical amount of natural-gas-powered electricity generation to back it up.
Now, some experts might tell you the premier’s version of the facts is not precisely factual, but it’s the version she is peddling with her trademark mix of confidence, anecdotes that may or may not have actually happened, and claims about technology that may or may not be true, with the blame for any problems always placed squarely on the Trudeau Government.
To give Ms. Smith her due, she is very good at this. This is especially so on radio, where she long worked as a right-wing talk show host. She sounds very convincing if you don’t carefully parse the tales she tells.
So, yesterday, she described someone she talked to (unidentified, naturally) bringing forward “a perfect project” for a natural-gas electricity plant.
She continued, in tones implying she was letting her listeners in on a secret, that her contact “went to three different banks, and the banks said, ‘No, because of the federal uncertainty that you might shut this in, it might be stranded. We’re not prepared to fund that. But if it was a solar or a wind project, we would.’”
Did this really happen? Did it happen just as Ms. Smith described? It’s impossible to say.
“So that’s the problem that we’re facing,” she continued. “If I have to step in and de-risk those kinds of projects, so that they get built, so that we do have reliable power, we’re going to have to do that.” (Emphasis added.)
“I don’t wanna do it! I’d rather solve this dispute that we have with the federal government so that they understand natural gas is an important transition fuel,” she went on.
After all, as she’d said in the lead-up to this yarn, which she also cited as a reason she “had to invoke” the Sovereignty Act last fall, “we believe in the market. We do!”
Indeed, it is true. The UCP does believe in the market. Except, of course, when it doesn’t.
Ms. Smith said much the same thing on Feb. 15 at that now-notorious black-tie dinner at the Ranchmen’s Club in Calgary where she bragged about homeless encampment rousts in Edmonton and boasted that the “left has their head explode almost every other day” as a result, to the cheers and chuckles of her well-heeled hosts.
In the recording of the upscale shindig obtained by The Progress Report, Ms. Smith complained that “nobody wants to invest in natural gas. … The banks won’t fund those kinds of projects.”
She blamed Ottawa, of course. “It’s because the policies are such that on Jan. 1, 2035, if you’re not 95-percent abated … you’re outta compliance with the law,” she claimed. “So no company is going to let their CEO go to prison, or their directors go to prison.”
Federal Environment Minister Steven Gilbeault has described Premier Smith’s claims as misinformation. “I keep seeing critics falsely claim that we are banning all gas generation by 2035, upon threat of jail time,” he said in Ottawa last fall. “This fabrication is not designed to inform, it is designed to inflame. But while fact-checkers play whack-a-mole with misinformation and insults around climate change, the cost of inaction keeps rising.”
Needless to say, this hasn’t stopped Ms. Smith. “They’re just not going to be investing in those projects,” she told the sympathetic Ranchmen’s crowd. “So don’t be surprised if we have to step in to de-risk this market. I don’t want to do it, I’m a free enterpriser.”
So you’ve heard it from the lips of the premier: Don’t be surprised if she steps in, Jason Kenney style, to “de-risk” natural gas development, by tying it to approval of any future development of renewable power sources such as wind and solar.
One way or another, though, you can be pretty confident us Alberta taxpayers are going to end up having to pay the freight while the UCP tries to pick economic winners and losers.
Maybe it’ll cost as much as it did when Mr. Kenney, her UCP predecessor, gave away $1.5 billion for that pipeline to nowhere the last time Donald Trump was running for president. Maybe it won’t.
Meantime, though, as Ms. Smith explained on the radio yesterday, the rest of us are just going to have to live with “a little bit of belt tightening.”
“I just didn’t want to run a deficit,” she explained.
Smith is so full of lies she doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about. Typical alberta conservative.
Maureen Heon: Danielle Smith lies so much, that she believes anything that comes out of her mouth. If there is no script, or teleprompter to read off of, she would be lost. The Legislature sittings in Alberta are so infrequent, and are the lowest of any provincial or territorial government in Canada, because Danielle Smith wouldn’t want to get caught saying something imprecise.
Yes I agree.
“De-risking” can be called nationalization by another name. In other words, it will be public finances that will finance and support the O&G industry, and all other government obligations will be forsaken. How will all these these crazy liabilities that Queen Danielle is so eager to take on be financed? That APP is still high on their list, because a sales tax will get the entire UCP caucus in the doghouse with TBA. Smith has laid claim to 53% of the CPP fund, and Skippy Pollivere will have to become PM to make that claim work. But this is where Pollivere will find himself in considerably difficulty, because to serve Smith’s interests he will have to betray the interests of CPP stakeholders in the rest of Canada. It maybe that PJMT could make Pollivere’s intentions, seeking to pillage the rest of Canada for Alberta, that one powerful weapon he can use to smash the CPC’s electoral ambitions. Now, this would be a very, very interesting attack on the CPC by Trudeau that, could, knock down the big tent that Pollivere wants to build for his coalition. If Ontario Red Tories, who are hated by the psychotic Alberta CONs, get a whiff of the massive electoral backlash because of Alberta’s intention to rob the rest of Canada, the GTA will be scorched earth for the CONs. Given Doug Ford’s tendency to side with Trudeau in most instances, Pollivere may want to sideline Ford, as Andrew Sheer did during his electoral bid. Ford may decide that the CPP and Alberta may not be the hill he wants to die on.
If this is Trudeau’s intention, driving a wedge into Pollivere’s fragile coalition, and it works in his favour, it will be Danielle Smith who pulled defeat from the jaws of victory for the CPC.
People will die because of Smith’s “little bit of belt tightening.” But what do people matter when former lobbyist Smith is serving her true masters in the oil and gas industry?
Smith’s notion is not to simply subsidize fossil gas generation, but to actually enter the market as a crown corporation:
“Alberta invokes sovereignty act, sets groundwork for Crown corporation to be ‘generator of last resort'” (EJ, Nov 27, 2023)
“‘These measures are not something that we want to do,’ Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Monday.
“Alberta Premier Danielle Smith invoked her signature sovereignty act legislation on Monday in a move that takes aim at Ottawa’s electricity regulations while also laying the groundwork for the creation of a new provincial Crown corporation that would become the province’s power ‘generator of last resort.’
“… Smith said the potential creation of a new provincial Alberta Crown corporation would give the province better energy security against the federal regulations.
“‘There’s simply not enough natural gas projects coming on stream in Alberta,’ she said.
“The new agency would not recognize the CER as being constitutionally sound, Smith claimed, and would act as a backstop if the private sector is unable or unwilling to provide the needed level of baseload power throughout the province.
“‘If they don’t, then we will step in,’ she said.
“She denied such an agency would lead to the nationalization of the province’s power grid, citing ATB Financial as an example of a provincial Crown corporation that exists within an otherwise private marketplace.”
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/alberta-invokes-sovereignty-act-sets-groundwork-for-crown-corporation-to-be-generator-of-last-resort
Smith: “I’d rather solve this dispute that we have with the federal government so that they understand natural gas is an important TRANSITION fuel.”
Smith misspoke. Clearly, she does not view fossil gas as a transition fuel. Nor does the fossil gas industry. Neither the O&G industry nor the O&G lobbyist now occupying the Premier’s Office has any intention of transitioning out of fossil gas.
—
Smith: “I don’t want to do it, I’m a free enterpriser.”
The crock of the century. Think RStar. Think renewables moratorium. More than once she has floated the idea of using Alberta Pension Plan funds to invest in her favorite industry.
O&G lobbyist Danielle Smith will do whatever it takes to prop up the O&G industry and stifle the competition.
Smith’s pet project RStar is a $20 B giveaway to O&G companies to clean up old wells, as they are already legally obligated to do. Corporate welfare, blatant subsidies, taxpayer-funded cleanup, and propping up industries and markets when they fail — that’s neoliberalism, not libertarianism.
Smith’s consistent interventionism on behalf of the O&G industry and repression of renewables is the opposite of free-market libertarianism. Smith is a rank neoliberal and corporate welfare queen.
The list of fossil subsidies in Canada runs decades long and billions of dollars deep. Consecutive Alberta governments have thrown billions of dollars in subsidies at the industry. The giveaway party that never ends.
Is any government more interventionist? Is any industry less free market?
—
Smith: “a little bit of belt tightening”
There will be no belt tightening for the O&G industry. On the contrary, Smith intends to loosen the public purse strings. While the homeless are left to their own devices.
Compassionate conservatism.
Well Geoffrey, you worked hard to get the UCP re-elected so why don’t you just STFU? They’re now in for another four years or so and whining at us isn’t going to do one damned bit of good…
Smith: “It’s because the policies are such that on Jan. 1, 2035, if you’re not 95-percent abated … you’re outta compliance with the law.”
“Conservatives” like Smith tout technology — carbon capture (CCS), in particular — as the solution to climate change. But they do not actually believe it will work as advertised.
As the Alberta Government admits, CCS cannot be counted on to reduce O&G industry emissions:
“Alberta’s formal response to Ottawa’s proposal says … oilsands production has already risen above the forecasts that were used to establish the proposed 100-megatonne limit and that the technology needed to bring emissions down enough doesn’t yet exist.”
“‘Not be tolerated’: Alberta files formal response to proposed oilsands emissions cap” (Calgary Herald, 05-Feb-24)
The Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) does not put much stock in CCS either:
“… Guilbeault also said all new gas-fired electricity generation after 2035 would require carbon capture technologies with a few exceptions. During his press conference Thursday, AESO president and CEO Mike Law expressed scepticism around the viability of such technology in the short-term.
“‘Uncertainty with developing low-carbon technologies — whether carbon capture, hydrogen, small modular reactors — means Alberta is at a greater reliability and cost risk if cost and performance do not materialize as currently anticipated.’
“Premier Smith says Alberta preparing Sovereignty Act motion over federal emissions plans” (CBC, Sep 28, 2023)
Yes, Danielle Smith does like to go on about the scenario where there is no wind in the middle of winter, when solar production is similarly at a low point. (Ms. Smith likes to use the phrase ‘when the sun isn’t shining’, but since solar panels still produce power on cloudy days, I prefer to use the term ‘night’.) I have no doubt she was delighted when the AESO put out the call a few weeks ago asking people to reduce their power use as much as possible.
As a shareholder in TC Energy, (formerly TransCanada Pipeline) I try to read whatever analyst reports I can about the company. In reviewing TC Energy last November, Morningstar analyst Stephen Ellis criticized the company for its lagging behind Enbridge for its slow pace of transitioning to renewables, and also argued that when the carbon tax hits $170/tonne, hydrogen will be a threat to natural gas generation.
Unfortunately Mr. Ellis did not specify whether he was thinking blue or green hydrogen, but his comments did cause me to envision renewable power producers using excess power produced on windy, sunny days to generate hydrogen from water, then storing the hydrogen to be used to generate power during Ms. Smith’s worst case scenario.
It hardly needs pointing out that Stephen Ellis and his Morningstar employer are hired and paid as business analysts; they are hardly radical greenies that Ms. Smith et al refer to dismissively.
Unfortunately, Morningstar’s reports are behind a paywall, so I am unable to provide a link.
Well, it’s not like this is unprecedented. After all, the Trudeau government “de-risked” a pipeline project to “tidewater” — by buying it, lock, stock & barrel, from the private corporation that was about to walk away from it.
Smith’s handing over our money to the oil and gas industry, or de-risking as she calls it, would explain why she wants to get her hands on our pension money. How much of our money will Smith have to give them in order to garner one those coveted Board positions for when she is done with politics?
While David is certainly correct about Ms. Smith’s ‘creative truth’ habits, in this case I think even the situation she described is scary enough. If banks are indeed unwilling to provide financing for new natural gas projects, it is because the business case simply isn’t there, and they are not prepared to risk their shareholders’ investment to take on the project.
What Ms. Smith describes as an ‘investment’, then, really sounds more like a subsidy, or even a bailout. We really have to ask, then, if this is the kind of ‘investment’ she intends to make if she is able to implement her made in Alberta pension plan?
Well hello Alberta Pension Plan!
After the electrical grid on much of the Prairies across North America nearly collapsed this winter under the demand through -40c weather, one would think people would realize how dangerous a situation we are in in Canada.
Rapidly growing population with a Saskatchewan worth of immigration every year, rapid electrification switching to EVs & heat pumps in BC, (we like our heat pump, but live in the warmer sunshine coast) the downside to heat pumps is every home is now consuming more in summer due to the added air conditioning that few homes had before the push to this technology.
BC and Quebec droughts with the la Nina to El Nino system swing led to 20% reduced power output from hydro in those provinces this past year.
So acute, that BC had to IMPORT 20% of its power last year.
16 billion to build a single hydro project that will barely match a single natural gas plant, and flood trends of thousands of trees, which all root under water and release methane, 10-20x co2 as a warming gas. For reference natural gas equivalent would have cost about 1.5 billion. Tying into carbon capture for the place would roughly double the cost. Or even building carbon free nuclear which would have run 3-5 billion. Tax payer money and the local environment would have been better served with not going hydro. The local first Nations were devastated.
Alberta has built an insane amount of renewables in recent years, over 6000 Mw capacity, but the huge problem that has shown up the past 3 years in a row now is when the temperature drops into the -30 and cooler range, nearly always, the wind stops and clouds become dense. Also, when it gets that cold, they need to stop the turbines. The frigid cold will damage the blades and destroy the turbines.
Result: of that 6000 Mw of power generation that Alberta desperately needs, under 200 was available for weeks on end.
2022 winter for months, winds was under 3% of its rating, solar under 1%.
Masse wind and solar is unreliable on the frigid Prairies, and is a great lie when claiming renewables alone are the answer. They can be part of the solution of implementing properly and with great planning.
Where these technologies shine is at the home level.
If every new home built has 5-10 panels and a micro wind turbine(the 18 – 24″ blades) to supplement local demand, much load would be reduced from the grid, fewer power lines required. Especially true with businesses, most of which run during the daylight hours.
Adding to the problem for renewables is current battery tech is horrible for the environment, difficult to recycle, and whether strip mining, or bringing up heavy metals and salt contaminated brine up, contaminating hundreds of acres of land to dry to extract the lithium, usually in poor countries with no safety Standards, these workers will have short lives.
The impact is devastating.
There are some promising battery technologies getting close, like salt based, and even some of the solid state research.
But for batteries to become grid scale viable options, we require a tech that lasts thousands of cycles, not hundreds, that doesn’t use large volumes of rare toxic metals gained from unethical means like cobalt from congo, or technology built under slave labour from the Uyghur provinces of China.
If we actually stop virtue signaling for just a moment, and start to make smart, informed choices instead of simply headline grabbing “picking a winner technology”, and embrace every research option towards carbon and pollution lowering technologies while ensuring that where we get our resources and the tech we buy is made equitably and with the human condition firmly in mind. We CAN get to a better place with a healthy mix of power generation that is actually reliable, clean and safe.
The wind does not stop blowing when it is cold, nor does the sun stop shining. That is ridiculous nonsense. Batteries present particular challenges in cold weather (EVs cough) but the wind is never frozen in it’s tracks as anyone from the North will tell you. Has alberta dragged its feet building out an appropriate level of energy transmission for a growing population ? Yes ! that almost always happens in alberta, see; healthcare.
During the most recent energy crisis in the province it actually was the additional load from RENEWABLES that got us through the pinch, because famously, the wind still blows when it’s cold, and the sun still shines, because winter temperatures are more complicated than whether or not the sun is shining.
The sun and the wind are a free, naturally replenishing energy source, I wonder if the inability to own it has something to do with capitalist aversion to it.
Kevin P wrote: “Mass wind and solar is unreliable on the frigid Prairies, and is a great lie when claiming renewables alone are the answer. They can be part of the solution of implementing properly and with great planning.”
Solar is intermittent (“unreliable” in UCP-speak) and wind is variable everywhere.
All generation systems are vulnerable to extreme weather (hot and cold, droughts). All generation systems are liable to outages, planned and unplanned. I.e., unreliable. All power systems require backup.
Both fossil-fuel and nuclear power systems have suffered recent high-profile weather-related outages.
Intermittency of renewable generators is largely predictable — it is up to the grid operator to manage for it. Many solutions exist.
Kevin P’s analysis omits the most important piece of the puzzle: transmission and grid interconnection.
A diverse portfolio of cheap intermittent renewables is part of a package deal. Transmission lines, grid interconnections, and storage are all required to make it work. Renewables must be supported by storage and intergrid connections. A renewables system does not work otherwise. You need all the parts in place.
No number of solar panels or wind turbines will be enough without expanded transmission and storage. A renewables system is predicated on national and continental interties.
Other solutions include natural gas with carbon capture (CCS). Syngas with or without CCS. Low-carbon hydrogen. Nuclear. Demand response (load-shifting).
Power-to-X (P2X) solutions convert renewable power into other energy carriers for storage and later use; for use in distant locations; and for non-electric applications that require high-density fuels, heat, chemicals, etc.
Supported by storage, grid inter-connections, demand response, and energy conservation, renewables can increasingly provide flexible, reliable power.
“The variable nature of wind means there are times when turbines are not turning. Wind energy, like other sources of energy, is part of a system. Investment in 24-7 renewables such as geothermal, energy storage, transmission infrastructure, and distributed generation is essential to its growth.” (Project Drawdown)
Few if any regions can hope to be self-sufficient in renewables, even supported by storage. (Likewise for fossil fuels, by the way.) The idea is to generate a surplus when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Store the surplus and/or export power to your neighbours who need it.
No number of solar panels or wind turbines will be enough without storage and transmission. An energy system based on an overbuild of cheap renewables depends on storage and grid interties to move surplus electricity from where it’s produced to where it’s needed.
Alberta’s grid is reliable even in case of unexpected outages and planned downtime for maintenance because other generators are available and there is excess capacity in the system. Alberta both exports and imports power to and from its neighbours.
Same idea for renewables. Make sure other generators are available and build excess capacity. Store and export power when you have a surplus and import when necessary.
In North America, solar farms in the American Southwest could supply Western Canada in winter. Spring through fall, prairie provinces supply their neighbours with solar and wind. Wyoming supplies wind power to California. California sends solar power to Wyoming. Quebec supplies the NE U.S. with hydro.
If we can move dilbit to the Gulf of Mexico and Asia, we can move electrons from sunny New Mexico. If we can do it for fossil fuels, we can do it for electrons. Moving electrons around is standard practice today. Now we need to expand the grid.
“The Price of Power: How to cut Canada’s Net Zero electricity bill” (RBC)
“Option #1: Transmission: “Leveraging Canada’s large geography, power can move from where it can be most efficiently produced to where it’s needed. That would require swapping power between provinces that have good wind and solar resources and those with a lot of hydro. During periods with high solar and wind generation, we’d send renewable power to the hydro provinces, and at night or on calmer days, dispatchable hydro would return the favour. In most studies, this helps Alberta, Saskatchewan, BC, Quebec and the Maritimes decarbonize.”
A broadly distributed network of diverse renewables plus storage increases their reliability and the reliability of the grid overall. In some regions, nuclear may be required for support. But nuclear should be the last 10 or 20%, not the first 80%.
Good sensible and informative post Geoffrey. Distribution and storage systems are not cheap but they are what really make an energy system work well.
Actually Bloomberg disagrees with your assessment. Warning: long read with arithmetic and many interesting stats:
https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-net-zero-will-be-harder-than-you-think-and-easier-part-ii-easier/
I would also remind you that around 40% of Alberta’s existing gas generators are actually co-generation units tied to petrochemical and other operations that are not going away anytime soon. So we already have lots of low-carbon intensity base-load generation. Your assertion gas turbines cannot operate in cold weather is simply absurd. Were it true, every passenger jet in the sky would fall to earth when they reached cruising altitude. Gas turbines usually fail because their gas supply is not de-watered and freezes up. Texans have no idea about such things, but they have been business as usual in Alberta since the 1920s.
I should note I was responding to Kevin P’s FUD infested post. Pessimism about shifting to renewables is not based in technology, just a realistic assessment that the oil and gas sector are willing to sabotage the transition and a stable climate to make some short term profits. Their actions make other crimes against humanity seem trivial by comparison.
Alberta has the government it deserves. What a shithole the TBA has made of this province.
Cool Xenu: I just wonder how much regret Albertans have for giving the UCP a second term? When will reality sink in?
Yes, de-risk is probably the new political euphemism for giving gobs of money to some big companies.
Federally, I thought this word was used in connection with the Transmountain pipeline. Of course, the risk isn’t eliminated but just shifted, usually to citizens and taxpayers. So we all now have risk to the tune of over 30 billion. Although in their defence, the Federal Liberals are at least somewhat balanced, they have also de-risked large international auto companies by a similar amount to build battery plants for auto production. I suspect Smith will not be so balanced in her de-risking.
Unfortunately, for the small businesses that got CEBA loans, their de-risking ended just about the same time the international auto companies got their huge tax free grants. Only so much money to go around I guess, and I am sure the large companies have more paid lobbyists to pressure politicians.
Well at least the Federal Liberals didn’t claim to be populist like Smith does, but it is usually a windfall for some large corporation when a government wants to de-risk something and a bad day for the citizens who have to foot the often bigger than expected bill.
I think you hit the nail on the head, DJC. The ultimate irony of course is that Fraulein Schmidt is addressing a room full of millionaires (and at least one supposed billionaire) about a lack of investment for their favourite industries. Why wouldn’t she just use those excellent communication skills to get those rich snobs to, you know, stir up some investments? Great protectors of the public purse the UCP certainly are not.
All of her shenanigans and lies are quite distressing to me. As you noted, she sounds so reasonable and convincing and seemingly knowledgeable that she is able to fool a lot of people with her lies.
Hana Razga: It’s unfortunate that there are people who aren’t smart enough to see through Danielle Smith’s lies. Another 4 years of this will be too much to take. The UCP and TBA will do a lot more damage by then.
Marlaina’s sheer delight in deliberate cruelty to unhoused people is appalling. Maybe she was just showing off for the tycoons.
You know that Marlaina is being deliberately cruel when you hear that deep little, mannish, chuckle, like the one she emitted that time she explained why the Russian invasion of Ukraine was completely reasonable.
I understand they gave her an honorary membership in the Ranchman’s club. That’s just the kind of flattery that will prompt Smith to work even harder to make the rich guys happy. Marlaina loves the spotlight.
Actually, that pipeline to nowhere is $7.5 billion, because of the missing loan guarantees. I’ve heard of this power generation scheme by Danielle Smith, and if this were to transpire, we will end up footing the bill for this. There is no water that we won’t. The stupidest things we had happen to our power system in Alberta was having Ralph Klein deregulate it, which has cost us a very large sum of money, and is way beyond the $30 billion range. Economic witholding is another culprit, and TransAlta was doing that in the Alberta PC days, and the UCP also let it happen again, three and a half years ago. That has been at least $2.5 billion a month. Danielle Smith will just do what she is best at, which includes blaming Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, and blaming Rachel Notley and the NDP. That gets us nowhere.
*There is no way that we won’t.*
Why is this called Alberta Politics ? I see nothing constructive being suggested by the writer.
Perhaps this site should renamed to: NothapplywithDanielSmith.com
Rob Korchinski: We wouldn’t be in this big mess if these phony Conservatives and Reformers weren’t given a second chance. It was a big mistake to give them a first term.
On that one cold night one gas plant was off for maintenance, another with problems due to the cold; others may have partially shut down. When asked, Albertans shut down stuff which helped. I believe we also got power from BC and Sask and while we got coal power from Sask they were getting hydro power from Manitoba.
I think connecting to other provinces and maybe US states is a better way to ensure we have enough power on cold nights. Plus more home solar, batteries and other power storage, etc.
Smith is a fool and will not listen to experts.
Yes commenter Dave, this isn’t de-risking – it’s shifting risk from the banks and big corporations onto the residents of Alberta. The questions then are do Albertans understand that, and can they do anything about it? I suggest the answers are maybe and no.
But this may be all BS or something similar. I’m not in Alberta but I’d be tempted to call her bluff and say “Go ahead and lose a billion or two like Mr. Kenney did betting on Keystone XL and see how that works out for ya.” Then hold her feet to the fire over her coming “belt tightening” cuts and by the time the next election rolls around the answer to the second question might be yes…
“…Alberta taxpayers are going to end up having to pay the freight while the UCP tries to pick economic winners and losers.” Almost correct, DJC. I fear it’s more likely us Alberta taxpayers will have to pay up when the UCP fails to pick any winners and bails out all the losers.
You and your readers know how it is . . . i.e. the constant retelling and selling of the big lies that are supportive of those noble lies that define certain collective mythologies such as, “capitalism”, the “market”, “free enterprise”, etc., conducted as a highly disciplined and deliberate campaign of misinformation. For example,
1. “Adding Value in Alberta: On June 30, 2021 Albertans gained a 50% ownership stake in Alberta’s Sturgeon Refinery. The APMC works to maximize returns to Alberta taxpayers via its stake in the refinery through its North West Redwater Partnership (NWRP) with Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL).”
2. “During the province’s mid-year update in November, the government forecasted its net loss from the refinery at $283 million this fiscal year, instead of $31 million of net income initially estimated in last February’s budget. In the middle of December, the government signed an order-in-council, giving APMC the authority to borrow up to $2.9 billion for the financing and operation of the Sturgeon Refinery. The previous borrowing limit was $1.8 billion. As of last March, APMC had borrowed $1.3 billion to fund contractual obligations.”
“Alberta decided to get involved in this business,” Masson added. “It took on a lot of risk in doing it, and it will have to live with the consequences for many, many years.”
https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/varcoe-danielle-smith-alberta-options-sturgeon-refinery-stake
3. “The Sturgeon refinery is owned and operated by the Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and the Alberta government.”
4. The lesson(s)? “Private initiative independent of the Government does not exist. In actual fact, it is the State, i.e. the taxpayer, who has become responsible to private enterprise. (Because) the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise. As long as business was good, profit remained to private initiative. When the depression came, the Government added the loss to the taxpayer’s burden. Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social.”
5. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Being taken to the cleaners was never easier.
It literally makes me sick to listen to that smug buffoon saying that she will prop up o and g with our money, a trillions plus industry, in the same dragon breath as she talks about rousting the homeless just for laughs at lefties and let the citizens of Alberta forego healthcare, education, housing and social programs, just so she can fund o and g because after all, there’s nothing worse than a deficit in Smugville. Giggling and guzzling wine while Albertans scrape pennies to feed families. She makes me puke.
Smith grew up in social housing and, like Ayn Rand who became the protocapitalist philosopher after her parents were killed in the holocaust, Smith will deny and repress her feelings of worthlessness that the class system scarred her with as a child by identifying with the rich and powerful as an adult and literally spit on average Albertans with nothing but contempt. She is behaving like a loser wallflower,who through some miracle makeover gets asked to the dance, not a leader and certainly not a premier.
Newspeak was 35 years-old in 1984 and it’s over 85 years-old now, so when Danielle Smith says “de-risk,” she really means ‘re-risk.’ When she says “natural gas is a transition fuel,” she really means ‘transition fools with nonfactual gas.’ And when she says, “a little bit of belt-tightening” she means, ‘I’m not a free entertainer.’
When she paraphrases Orwell, she means: ‘Or else…’
Later this week we will find out what rules the ucp/TBA will apply to new Renewable Energy projects in Alberta. I’ve worried since the moritorium went in that it was just buying time until they could find a way to stop the boom in building these projects, and I think this article has pointed out the way. I fear that every Renwable Energy project planned will have to build (or provide equivalent funding) to building the same amount of a Natural Gas plant. And every house, business or farm will be required to fund Natural Gas power to their location equal to the solar panels they hoped to install.
Doubling the costs, and tying cheap and point-source Renewable energy to fossil gas projects should kill the boom in Alberta, and make Smith’s backers happy.
As for Albertans, well, they can “freeze in the dark”, ironically. And that will give her more punch lines at the next dinner with her O&G supporters.