Joint Review Panel Greeted by Protesters
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 @ 6:49 PM
protesters wave signs outside Ramada Hotel in Prince George.
Prince George, B.C. – Carrying signs that read “Harper bought and paid for”, “No Fossil Fuels” and “Fair and Informed Consent” about 100 protestors marched their way to the Ramada Hotel for the community hearing of the Joint Review Panel hearing on the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project. With drums being pounded, they chanted their opposition to the proposed twin pipeline.
Once inside, the protestors took their place in the audience, lining up against the wall, and sitting on the floor as there were not enough chairs set out to handle the 350 or so people who had come to witness the hearing.
There were only two presentations to be made:
Gary Ducommon, ( in photo at right) speaking on behalf of the Metis Nation of BC was the first to speak. Ducommmon has addressed each and every hearing so far, speaking on behalf of the Metis in those particular communities and expressing their concerns for their respective regions.He first spoke of the Metis historic connection to the region which was linked with the fur trade. He says one of the larger Metis populations in B.C. lives along the proposed pipeline route. “The Metis people have a long history of conservation” Ducommon told the panel “I felt it was important to say today the Metis are concerned about the environment, this is not something new. “
He pointed to some Metis laws of the 1800’s which banned burning grass in the Prairies and ordered Metis not to waste buffalo meat because the herds were dwindling.
He said the Metis have concerns over the possible threat to watersheds “They say this pipeline is unprecedented in many ways, I say it is unprecedented because of the many watersheds it will cross. It will cross rivers which flow to Hudson Bay through the Saskatchewan River; that flow to the Arctic, through the Peace River; The Fraser River which drains to southern B.C, and the Skeena, which drains to Northern B.C.”
He says there are concerns about the stress on fish stocks, and on Southern Mountain Caribou. “Mountain Caribou are extremely sensitive to disturbance” said Ducommon. He said the bottom line is food security, that when there is a threat to food security, the Metis lose the opportunity to teach their culture to their youth.
The second presentation, which involved two people, was from CJ Peter Associates Engineering.
Christopher Peter, told the panel there is an imbalance between what the proposed project will use in energy compared to the energy delivered at the end of the line. He says there is more energy to be used to get the bitumen to Asia than that bitumen will deliver after being refined.
Comments
Bring it on, turn it up, lets go crazy..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLbYL10c1zo
Harper will fall hard over his treasonous actions.
I think they should just run this oil to Eastern Canada via the Trans Canada Pipeline, sell it to Quebec, Ontario, and the EU Countries and say to hell with the West, and the US line to the South. Seems to me that would be the best solution.
Dont know why Harper gets the blame for this project. The Oil Sands were there long before Harper and the Conservatives got into power. Someone must have had an idea how it would get to market. Liberals maybe???? Certainly not the NDP because they have never been in a position (Federally) to do anything except bitch.
Im sure if Harper had his druthers he would like to run this oil South via the Keystone, however Obama just put the kibosh on that plan for the short term. After the election it will become viable.
You are so wrong Palopoa…Check this out, it will all come very clear.
Harper is an Albertan, his ties to big oil go back decades, this link will show the treachery of Harper.
Check it out, you will be shocked and horrified!
http://creekside1.blogspot.com/2012/01/six-degrees-of-separation.html
Is that right?
{url}http://creekside1.blogspot.com/2012/01/six-degrees-of-separation.html{/url}
I don’t think the words treason and treachery apply to Harper here! He is motivated by his conservative political ideology and he acts accordingly. Harper is not being blamed for the Oilsands Project, of course. The extraction has been going on for years. But he is in full support of the planned pipelines, the Keystone one and the Enbridge one. If he says NO they won’t be constructed.
To drag the Liberals into this is a joke. Although I doubt that they would do differently. It’s all big business and big profits for the oil conglomerates and darn the consequences.
C’mon mister! Make the little man talk.
C’mon!! He is just a puppet with strings.
Ooooooooh! Looka that little guy dance; but we want to hear him speak again!
Hey mister! What is your puppets name???
Welll little guy! His name is Harper.
King Harper to you!!!
Criminalmind. To make the links use the square brackets [ ] instead of the curly brackets { }
“Christopher Peter told the panel there is an imbalance between what the proposed project will use in energy compared to the energy delivered at the end of the line. He says there is more energy to be used to get the bitumen to Asia than that bitumen will deliver after being refined.”
——————————————–
That’s the provable ‘physical’ reality. But that’s NOT the way it is reflected ‘financially’. A sane financial system would change the ‘figures’ to reflect the ‘facts’. But we persist in using an insane system that distorts them.
One that insists it’s *cheaper* to ship resources half way around the world to be processed and manufactured ~ not for the majority of the products made from them to be sold THERE ~ but mostly to be shipped halfway around the world back again to be sold HERE.
How in the world can that ever be *cheaper* when you look at the amount of extra energy, both human and natural resource powered ~ both of which have very real costs attached to them ~ that that takes?
The BIGGEST issue over whether this pipeline should be built is NOT the possible effects on the environment ~ virtually ALL of which could be mitigated with existing technology, if the desire to do so is there. It’s not even really the additional costs involved in doing that. It’s the whole idea that we somehow are getting ‘richer’ by having a so-called “favourable Balance of Trade” internationally. This is a ‘physical’ impossibility. And a complete ‘financial’ delusion.
http://creekside1.blogspot.com/2012/01/six-degrees-of-separation.html
Hey, I got it….
Wow, I told you I was a internet dummy!
Thanks a ton mr. Charles
Prince George:- “It’s all big business and big profits for the oil conglomerates and darn the consequences.”
——————————————–
Prince George, this is a common and highly popular observation. But that doesn’t make it totally true. And it isn’t.
We have a tendency to make a number of mistakes whenever we view ‘profits’ and ‘big business’ in the commonly popular derisive version of both.
The first is that these ‘big profits’ that are *reported* in dollars, (or any other currency, as the case may be), are completely analogous to “cash”. Revenues minus Expenditures. They are NOT.
In fact, only a PART of them MAY actually be an increase in “cash” held by the business, or paid out as dividends to its shareholders.
This is because in business accounting “profit” is NOT Revenue minus Expenditure, but rather, (operationally), Sales minus Expense (which may ‘sound’ like the same thing, but is NOT).
And “profits” under that form of accounting are really meaningless ‘figures’ outside the gamut of the Firm’s complete set of books. They are always finalised on the Balance sheet as an increase in Assets over Liabilities.
Much of that increase will be in the form of “fixed” Assets with a ‘price’ on them in ‘money’, (and, in theory, representing a DEMAND for ‘money’ from the community as a whole to that amount ~ but in NO WAY an assurance that the community as a whole actually HAS the ‘money’ capable of satiating that demand, if called upon to do so).
The second is that the ‘value’ of the dollar, or other currency a profit is reported in, is ‘fixed’ relative to what it will BUY. We know that this is not the case. A US dollar put away in a jar in 1950 would only buy 13 cents worth of what it would have bought then if taken out and spent some thirty or so years later.
The third is that those multi-billion dollar profits that are reported by “big oil”, or “big anything else”, just because they are increasing in ‘dollars’, means that the actual Return on Investment must also be increasing correspondingly.
I believe that if anyone studies the matter they will find this is not generally the case. Anything but. That generally the Returns on Investment are actually ‘falling’, and have been for a very long time.
Firms try to mask this by getting bigger. so they can report a bigger ‘dollar’ figure in ‘profits’. But it’s not really ‘bigger’ in proportion to what they have invested, nor the volume they are selling. They swallow their smaller competitors, (who are often anxious to sell out to them, in preference to an inevitable slide towards bankruptcy that they are really on, once they realise where they’re really heading). In part to eliminate the competition, but likely more so to continue to have an access to Bank credit. Without which they could not continue to survive.
History is replete with Firms which swallowed one another to become more highly profitable (in theory) in combination than they seemed they would ever be separately ~ only (in practice) it didn’t happen.
I’m sure this is as much the case with some of the combinations that have developed in “big oil”, as ones that have come (and gone) in other fields. The former coastal forest giant MacMillan Bloedel is one shining example whose history has been well documented. I’m sure we’ll see an exact repeat of that history with some of the forest industry giants that dominate the field today.
The REAL problem our world has is NOT with “profits”. It IS caused by a delusive financial system which can no longer be fully ‘self-liquidating’ as the ‘production’ it initiates becomes the ‘consumption’ we all need and/or desire.
They should refine it in Canada and sell it to Canadians.
Better get used to Harper. He’s well on his way to being around longer as PM than any previous one, including Mackenzie King. Not that he’s so ‘good’, but the alternatives are all still worse. And the fundamental ‘policy’ of ALL of them is exactly the same ~ “full employment”. It’s a flawed ‘policy’, especially the way that it’s being attempted. But Harper can make that attempt seem more credible than the others can, and he’ll play it for all it’s worth. Since we won’t wake up and face reality, it’ll be worth quite a bit.
“They should refine it in Canada and sell it to Canadians.”
That means we could eventually have the last oil left in the world, depending on how much more they may find. It will then be either very expensive or almost totally worthless since we will be using other types of energy.
Pathetic.
Everyone seems to hate Harper, but he got a majority. Sure liberals had to go but Harper still got a majority, amazing.
Everyone seems to hate corporations, but everything you own is made by a corporation, amazing.
People bitch about big oil and their profits. Lets see Exxon had a profit of 9 billion, that is just wrong, right. But wait the operating cost was 100 billion, is that a big profit, Amazing.
What about big green?
The US has enough oil, gas and coal to be energy sufficient but will not go after it until they use up everyone else’s, amazing.
China and India especially China are building coal generating plants and nuclear plants as fast as they can while burning out oil in the meantime. Here in North America we are shutting down coal and nukes and chasing industry away. Where are we going to get our power? Amazing.
Forgot to add Russia to the mix.
Harper has a majority. Yup – 39% of the vote. So that means 61% of Canadians do not believe he has the right to railroad Canada.
I bet if Enbridge wanted to buy an insurance policy on this pipeline insuring against a spill… say a $50 billion dollar policy to cover a serious coastal spill… then the project would never go ahead, because the rates to ensure against a spill would be so astronomically huge dwarfing anything the government of BC will see in royalties.
Does Alberta want to underwrite the costs of a spill? Does China want to underwrite the cost? Can BC even afford the financial costs of a spill? Why should the corporations involved in this project be subsidized for their risk? What would an insurance policy look like for the risk involved and what would the ‘market’ charge for that?
Huge unanswered questions IMO.
Harper has the support of 25% of eligible voters last election… its far from a majority. That said its irrelevant because this should be a decision for BC to make with the huge implications it has for BC, and in BC the majority oppose this pipeline.
you know, driving to work freezing my @ss, I think we need to get serious about this global warming. We all talk about it, but nothing is happening. We let the green people have a shot at global warming but like everything else they do its all talk. I think we need the Rednecks to deal with this Global Warming and get it done.
The First nation and the Greenies are getting money from foundation out of the States, Ironically most of it comes from the States. Ironically substantial amount of money is coming from big industry and oil families. Money talks, Bull$hit walks. Thus each contribution has a stipulation. Meaning the greedy ugly americans just dont want us Canadians to take our oil to the open market.
Aren’t we Canadians wanting to be a free and independent country. Are we letting the Americans from the south to dictate how our country should be run.
If oil is so dirty, stop driving. If using fossil fuel is so bad, stop using a gas fired furnace, stop lying to yourself, start the change by example.
Any other Party that was elected to power would usually represent less than 50% of the electorate, too. So lets lay that argument to rest unless we’re prepared to go back and revisit all the past decisions foisted on us by the Liberals when they were in the exact same spot Harper is in now.
In all the years that Social Credit governed BC they only once had over 50% of the popular vote. But none of the others running for office would have had even that either.
People think that there should be a ‘rule of the majority’. But such would be the ultimate tyranny. An election should express the ‘policy’ of the majority, but it currently doesn’t because the voters are not ever given alternate ‘policies’ to vote on, but rather only a choice of ‘methods’ towards the SAME ‘policy’.
For instance, does any politician ever ask whether we’d sooner have an economy that provides us all with the goods and services we all need and/or desire, and in the most efficient manner possible; or whether we’d rather have one that provides ‘full employment’?
We do NOT. We are TOLD that the latter is what we want, even though it counters every ‘labour saving’ advancement in efficiency, and is completely contrary to the way business has to be conducted with the financial set-up the way it currently is.
“the voters are not ever given alternate ‘policies’ to vote on, but rather only a choice of ‘methods’ towards the SAME ‘policy'”.
I do not recall ever having either one of those choices when voting at any level of government. The only choice I ever had is voting for a person. In the case of the federal and provincial electtions, that person was always attached to a party. I recall in a few cases having to make a choice whether to vote for a person I trusted more or the party the person was associated with.
And, of course, over a 2, 3, 4 year period, the social and financial environment can change, as it did over the last 4 years, so short term policies may change to accommodate the unanticipated conditions.
Big money for big green & foreign interests.
http://www.ourdecision.ca
“The First nation and the Greenies are getting money from foundation out of the States, Ironically most of it comes from the States. Ironically substantial amount of money is coming from big industry and oil families. Money talks, Bull$hit walks. Thus each contribution has a stipulation. Meaning the greedy ugly americans just dont want us Canadians to take our oil to the open market” – thats certainly what Harper would like you to think. There are groups worldwide who are supporting the opposition of this, this doesn’t mean they are all trying to sabotage Canadas economic soveriegnty.
I see you failed to mention the millions of dollars of support big oil and the chinese have put towards getting this pipeline a reality. They must just be out to help us poor Canadians stand on our own two feet. Ya right.
“The First nation and the Greenies are getting money from foundation out of the States, Ironically most of it comes from the States. Ironically substantial amount of money is coming from big industry and oil families. Money talks, Bull$hit walks. Thus each contribution has a stipulation. Meaning the greedy ugly americans just dont want us Canadians to take our oil to the open market” – thats certainly what Harper would like you to think. There are groups worldwide who are supporting the opposition of this, this doesn’t mean they are all trying to sabotage Canadas economic soveriegnty.
I see you failed to mention the millions of dollars of support big oil and the chinese have put towards getting this pipeline a reality. They must just be out to help us poor Canadians stand on our own two feet. Ya right.
I don’t oppose the pipeline. I oppose what’s being transported. We have to retain and develop our own resources if Canada has any hpoe of economic recovery. By economic recovery, I mean for EVERONE–not just corporations or business. Without jobs, everyone does not benefit; only a chosen few. That is why it is wrong to export raw materials. We should be exporting “finished product” only. I have to oppose the pipeline if I’m concerned about Canadains lifestyle and jobs. If you don’t oppose the pipeline you are either very naive or very rich.
Two interesting comments – it will take more energy to get it there, than it contains, and, there is a big accounting shell game going on – both go hand in hand and explain how this makes sense.
Convince people with cash, to lend money to build the pipeline – say 10 billion – I’m just making these numbers up for illustration.
Say all in cash cost to deliver oil to China – not including building the pipeline – is $90.00 a barrel – and sale price is say $110.00, leaving $20.00 to pay for the pipeline. But say you decide the “amortization” cost of the pipeline is $10.00 a barrel – leaving $10.00 a barrel to pay out as dividends to shareholders.
But say after 30 years, when sale price exceeds cash cost, and you stop shipping oil, you’ve only paid back 5 billion of the 10 billion because your amortization rate was wrong – guess what, you, through accounting, just managed to steal 5 billion dollars from the bondholders, and pay it out in legal dividends – I’m buying TCC shares today !!!!!
No one cares about where big enviro groups get their money..That is the argument of the weak and spineless, those aren`t the issues, either is the other weak drool about Enbridge stock in pension plans, no one cares, that isn`t the issue, this is..
http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.com/2012/01/stephen-harper-will-not-be-permitted-to.html
socred,
I gotta ask, whats up with all the quotation marks?
It will take more energy to get it there than it contains, now that has to be one of the stupidest pieces of information I have seen yet about the pipeline. I don’t think that is an engineering firm I would want to do business with. It is a commodity same as the lumber that is shipped. So in other words our oil based economy is just a sham, amazing, those stupid stupid capitalists.
“No one cares about where big enviro groups get their money.”
Really? And we’re supposed to care about your favorite blogger?
Tell us more, king of slacktivism.
Why don’t you just call yourself SeaMuttJohnnhyBelt because I think you are the same person. And you condemn the protestors for stacking thier list of opponents with fictictous people? Shame shame.
“Christopher Peter, told the panel there is an imbalance between what the proposed project will use in energy compared to the energy delivered at the end of the line. He says there is more energy to be used to get the bitumen to Asia than that bitumen will deliver after being refined.”
I heard the interview on CBC One and the gentleman explained that while there is no energy total loss, there is only a total energy gain of 1:2.41 overall.
There is a negative imbalance. The energy surplus is positive and the gain is a multiplier of 2.41, counting all losses.
Should any of the associated costs go up beyond a certain point it will not be a money maker but a money loser. The world price for crude better not go down to pre-GWB levels, ever.
Correction: There is NO negative imbalance. Finger trouble, as usual.
But: “Why don’t you just call yourself SeaMuttJohnnhyBelt because I think you are the same person. And you condemn the protestors for stacking thier list of opponents with fictictous people? Shame shame.”
Oh I get it. Because you don’t agree with certain posters, you don’t feel they should say anything at all. Many anti-pipeline people feel the same way. They are intolerant of any view that contradicts their own. This thread is yet another prime example.
But on january, I am just tired of hyped miss information. When people have a strong belief they will go with any information that supports that belief without giving it any thought and ignore information that does not support their belief. How did the Arabs make so much money? Would the Alaska pipeline be in service if it was not profitable?
What concerns me in this dog pile is selling off our resources, oil gas and coal, not the pipeline. Is there a plan to keep oil and gas in reserve for our future needs? Look at the US of A, they have enough oil, gas and coal to be energy self sufficient but using the greenies as a convenient excuse, will not go after it big time, while using up resources from other countries keeping theirs for the future.
“It’s the whole idea that we somehow are getting ‘richer’ by having a so-called “favourable Balance of Trade” internationally.”
Greece is a country which lived as if it had a favourable balance of trade (a trade surplus) for decades, large corporations with big profits (paying taxes to the government) and so forth. It didn’t have any of that. It has some tourism and it exports olive oil, feta cheese and Metaxa.
I think it’s better to have profitable industries with well paid employees and taxes on the profits going to the government.
Corporations should be held environmentally responsible by government regulations and to re-invest in the country where they conduct their business.
The environment belongs to all of us. It’s not owned by politicians representing industry to do with it as they please.
Johnny Belt…not to get into a tit for tat scenario here, but you are calling the kettle black? You are one of the first to come into any Enbridge discussion and shoot down some posters on here whenever they have an opposing view.
People can post whatever they want. I do not run the site.
That being said, I don’t often subscribe to the lynch mob mentality that seems to be so prevalent on here, which is why my posts stand out quite often.
Socredible, thanks for the info, stacks up well with what I’ve learned. Don’t mind this pipeline idea at all, it will go through eventually, and I imagine those keystone lobbyists in Washington are mad as all get out, that’s a chuckle. I’d like to see it done right with all the safegaurds in place and I think there were a lot of people in the states trying to push that other pipeline down people’s throats without the safegaurds.
Criminalmind, don’t really care for blogs, but I see you’re trying. Keep truck’in, you may get it right someday, LOL.
“Albertaâs embattled oil sands face well known risks from foreign radicals, movie stars, environmentalists and stalled pipelines projects. But there may be an even scarier threat: plain old economics.
The lure of the oil sands is that they hold some of the worldâs biggest petroleum reserves. The bad news is that getting this resource out of the ground and ready for refining is expensive, by some estimates the planetâs most costly major oil source. Oil prices (CL-FT100.500.110.11%) have to stay lofty to make investments in the sector pay. Any faltering in prices could cause profits to be elusive, or evaporate.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/economics-biggest-threat-to-embattled-oil-sands/article2307229/
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