Paul, with all due respect my friend, the Liberals are infamous for changing horses mid-stream. They (not unlike most politicians, to be fair), will say anything to get elected, and will say anything to stay elected. I remember the Dalton McGuinty years well in Ontario.
Just a reminder: Canadians own Trans Mountain, not Northern Gateway. Whether Ottawa bought it reluctantly or not is beside the point. We own it, we’re on the hook for over $30 billion, and it added 600,000 barrels a day to our export capacity.
Was it a good investment? Given the U.S. stance these days, I’d say yes. Others might disagree—and that’s fair. But the precedent matters: Lougheed invested public money in the oil sands when few others would. That paid off for Alberta. Was he reluctant?
Annette, in any "traditional" pipeline, the pipeline is financed by a sliver of equity and then massive amounts of debt. That debt is secured by the asset of the pipeline which, in turn, has value because oil companies have committed in writing to utilize the pipeline.
The oil companies that utilize the pipeline agree in writing to pay what are called "tolls", i.e. a fee to use the pipeline. Those tolls are, in turn, approved by a government regulator that looks at the construction cost of the pipeline, the operating costs on a day to day basis and a "reasonable" rate of return to the pipeline owner.
The end result is that the oil company pays for the use of that pipeline and that cost to the oil company ends up being paid by consumers when they fill up their tank.
So, that is how "we," the public, end up paying for it. The fact that the government guaranteed or didn't the bonds issued is not relevant; we, the public will be paying the cost. Or, as Jim Toews says, our grandchildren will be paying.
I get all that. However, we did pay $4.5 b upfront, plus the construction costs. The payment for utilization - aka tools - will come in time. The government of Alberta was not willing to take this on….
Great interview PW. I appreciate your nuance and wisdom. You helped cool me down on the subject of Ms. Smith using national unity ultimatums for her own personal political project.
If our politics got nicer, less adversarial with superficial differences manufactured and amplified to win petty competitions there would be less attention, less reporting on petty politics on petty differences. And we would then be better able to see how much Carney and Poilievre share in common. We would see that they share the same values and they even prioritize them substantially the same. Then we would have to look at their shared values which are OUR common shared values. Then we would be able to get out of the ill-productive destructive mess we are in as a society by looking at our poorly prioritized shared values. The NDP share the same values as the Liberals and the Conservatives. But they prioritize them differently. Not substantially differently enough because they fear questioning our commonly shared values beyond what our petty political debates will tolerate and will find them unelectable.
The problem we really have is society's lack of being able to discern what are small differences and substantial differences so we would demand that our politics focuses on substantial debates on values-the prioritization of values. Substantial reporting would stay away from entertaining descriptions of petty politics but focus seriously on values. Especially focus on the values implicit in what the politicians and policies they are promoting say.
A careful read of Carney's book Values tells you he values private equity higher than environmental care. So do most Canadians including of course Conservatives. The NDP is far from being able to communicate effectively a less materialistic regenerative sustainable economy of fairer sharing of what wealth we have rather than being stuck in the disease of more that is killing our life support system and while making our society toxic.
We see little minority groups getting the attention because frankly that served the media with a push FOR the liberals and attention getting news. Until we get media that is giving us news based on FACTS instead of their own feelings - we will never have a true picture of what is really going on. It was very telling to me that Mr. Carney's first act was to pay the CBC more money!!! We do not have a DEMOCRACY until that is taken care of.
Nicer? And ... what do we do about a journalist who made a mistake? The Darcy Allan mistake is a hard one for me to overlook. But I will listen to Amanda Lang's podcast and try to be more fair to her than she was to Darcy Allan's memory ...
As Ottawa kept changing the rules and moving the goal post it became clear to any private company that this was no longer viable and they were going to walk away from the investment they had already made. Had this not happened the cost to build it would have been less than half of the final cost
Paul, with all due respect my friend, the Liberals are infamous for changing horses mid-stream. They (not unlike most politicians, to be fair), will say anything to get elected, and will say anything to stay elected. I remember the Dalton McGuinty years well in Ontario.
Just a reminder: Canadians own Trans Mountain, not Northern Gateway. Whether Ottawa bought it reluctantly or not is beside the point. We own it, we’re on the hook for over $30 billion, and it added 600,000 barrels a day to our export capacity.
Was it a good investment? Given the U.S. stance these days, I’d say yes. Others might disagree—and that’s fair. But the precedent matters: Lougheed invested public money in the oil sands when few others would. That paid off for Alberta. Was he reluctant?
Whether Ottawa bought it or not is the point. All the private financing was in place.
My grandchildren will end up paying for this. Not one cent of our money was needed.
Can you please tell me your source? According to my research: The feds paid $4.5B upfront for the asset.
Construction required tens of billions more, financed through loans guaranteed by the government.
Private capital came in only with Ottawa’s guarantees—not before the purchase.
The financing came through the Canada investment development corporation.
Do I have the right information?
Annette, in any "traditional" pipeline, the pipeline is financed by a sliver of equity and then massive amounts of debt. That debt is secured by the asset of the pipeline which, in turn, has value because oil companies have committed in writing to utilize the pipeline.
The oil companies that utilize the pipeline agree in writing to pay what are called "tolls", i.e. a fee to use the pipeline. Those tolls are, in turn, approved by a government regulator that looks at the construction cost of the pipeline, the operating costs on a day to day basis and a "reasonable" rate of return to the pipeline owner.
The end result is that the oil company pays for the use of that pipeline and that cost to the oil company ends up being paid by consumers when they fill up their tank.
So, that is how "we," the public, end up paying for it. The fact that the government guaranteed or didn't the bonds issued is not relevant; we, the public will be paying the cost. Or, as Jim Toews says, our grandchildren will be paying.
I get all that. However, we did pay $4.5 b upfront, plus the construction costs. The payment for utilization - aka tools - will come in time. The government of Alberta was not willing to take this on….
Why is it so hard to give credit when credit is merited?
If doubling the cost of a project because of ideology deserves credit than we are going in the wrong direction.
Great interview PW. I appreciate your nuance and wisdom. You helped cool me down on the subject of Ms. Smith using national unity ultimatums for her own personal political project.
Great job Paul!
If our politics got nicer, less adversarial with superficial differences manufactured and amplified to win petty competitions there would be less attention, less reporting on petty politics on petty differences. And we would then be better able to see how much Carney and Poilievre share in common. We would see that they share the same values and they even prioritize them substantially the same. Then we would have to look at their shared values which are OUR common shared values. Then we would be able to get out of the ill-productive destructive mess we are in as a society by looking at our poorly prioritized shared values. The NDP share the same values as the Liberals and the Conservatives. But they prioritize them differently. Not substantially differently enough because they fear questioning our commonly shared values beyond what our petty political debates will tolerate and will find them unelectable.
The problem we really have is society's lack of being able to discern what are small differences and substantial differences so we would demand that our politics focuses on substantial debates on values-the prioritization of values. Substantial reporting would stay away from entertaining descriptions of petty politics but focus seriously on values. Especially focus on the values implicit in what the politicians and policies they are promoting say.
A careful read of Carney's book Values tells you he values private equity higher than environmental care. So do most Canadians including of course Conservatives. The NDP is far from being able to communicate effectively a less materialistic regenerative sustainable economy of fairer sharing of what wealth we have rather than being stuck in the disease of more that is killing our life support system and while making our society toxic.
We see little minority groups getting the attention because frankly that served the media with a push FOR the liberals and attention getting news. Until we get media that is giving us news based on FACTS instead of their own feelings - we will never have a true picture of what is really going on. It was very telling to me that Mr. Carney's first act was to pay the CBC more money!!! We do not have a DEMOCRACY until that is taken care of.
Nicer? And ... what do we do about a journalist who made a mistake? The Darcy Allan mistake is a hard one for me to overlook. But I will listen to Amanda Lang's podcast and try to be more fair to her than she was to Darcy Allan's memory ...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/bryant-memoir-comments-spark-police-backlash-1.1255007
Always enjoy listening to other people's opinions........especially when I agree! lol
As Ottawa kept changing the rules and moving the goal post it became clear to any private company that this was no longer viable and they were going to walk away from the investment they had already made. Had this not happened the cost to build it would have been less than half of the final cost