Why in hell do we not take care of ourselves for a change????
Are we not obligated to do just that???
There are times when charity begins at home.
We should be encouraged to "fight back" and take care of ourselves and our families this time round.
And where are all those oil and gas wells Pat Bell promised us????
Remember folks, when your ear is to the ground, your butt is in the air-so the kickin' you get is the kickin' you probably have coming.
Take heed.

Tell the energy minister and prime minister to stick it were the sun does not shine.

No problem Mr. Dithers, I'll be cutting back on gasoline because I can't afford it. Here's a spin for you: Let the oil companies charge $2 a litre and it will serve 2 purposes, people won't be able to buy as much fuel and you could be a real hero before the next election when you generously give us back a small percentage of the gas tax you're collecting. Sounds like a plan or if you are having trouble finding places to put the fuel tax windfall, I hear there is still a few ad companies in the east who haven't managed to sidle up to the taxpayers trough.

Does everyone remember the postings that claimed tourism would be the bg money maker on the horizon.
Seems all is quiet on that front in the last while.
Everyone still on the same page with that wonderful prediction???
Who will be waiting for all those motorhomes to roll through???
In your dreams maybe!!!!!

IMO its a form of corporate communism and it is highly hypocritical of the petro multinationals when these are the same people that oppose taxes for public health care and social programs.

Why is it that prices in PG go up from an event in Louisianna when the energy companys are completely independent and seperate from one another. I call it price gouging. Same goes for this global spot market pile of crap manipulation of the tax for the rich system we have in place.

A barrel of oil in Canada should not cost the same as a barral of oil in America much less China based on their societies demands.

Are we an independent sovereign nation or has that already been signed away?

Are we in Canada to subsidize the infrastrucutre losses in the States? And yet would they subsidize the cost differential in heating our homes due to a clolder climate here in Canada, which last I checked is a separate country from the United States?

If Americian utility companies need some corporate welfare to remain competitive in those parts of the world then lets at least call it that so it can be properly addressed. If its disaster aid then lets make it through the proper channels and not through back doors.

It seams this current generation of politicians has lost their perspective and sold out the people they represent for what amounts to shiny beads.

IMO its a form of corporate communism and it is highly hypocritical of the petro multinationals when these are the same people that oppose taxes for public health care and social programs.

Why is it that prices in PG go up from an event in Louisianna when the energy companys are completely independent and seperate from one another. I call it price gouging. Same goes for this global spot market pile of crap manipulation of the tax for the rich system we have in place.

A barrel of oil in Canada should not cost the same as a barral of oil in America much less China based on their societies demands.

Are we an independent sovereign nation or has that already been signed away?

Are we in Canada to subsidize the infrastrucutre losses in the States? And yet would they subsidize the cost differential in heating our homes due to a clolder climate here in Canada, which last I checked is a separate country from the United States?

If Americian utility companies need some corporate welfare to remain competitive in those parts of the world then lets at least call it that so it can be properly addressed. If its disaster aid then lets make it through the proper channels and not through back doors.

It seams this current generation of politicians has lost their perspective and sold out the people they represent for what amounts to shiny beads.

"A barrel of oil in Canada should not cost the same as a barrel of oil in America"

Interesting .... that is similar to Trudeau's position, a position Alberta has soundly rejected ...

You speak of oil multinationals .... why are you avoiding the Alberta government?

The people of Alberta are reaping the benefits and are not paying sales tax as a result, have the lowest provincial income taxes, have no government debt and are running a budget surplus in the billions.

http://www.alberta-canada.com/economy/positiveBusinessClimate/lowPersonalTaxes.cfm

Why? Simple! The market will pay the money being asked. Would you sell something rare, which you happen to possess and know will go up in price rather than down the longer you hang on to it, at a price below that of your neighbour who has some of the same rare commodity?

No one, other than Venezuela for the poor in the USA, is willing to accept less for their oil than the market value set by OPEC, even though OPEC members provide less than 50% of the world's oil.

If you want to nationalize the oil in Canada just to get 50 cent gasoline, then lets do it. It will not help the oil crisis. It will get us past our own lives, but we will leave the next generation to their own devices, just as the USA has left the poor of New Orleans to their own devices with respect to hurricanes.

I say instead of blaming others, try to figure out the real problem.

Owl you got it wrong IMO.

Trudeau could not be trusted and was only interested in raping Alberta. Albertians had a right to be mad, as it was their resources.

The facts are that Trudeau set a price that Canadians would not pay more than for a barral of oil ($16). This was a good thing in an industry that is monopolized and in no way is a federal tax on a provincial responsibility as no tax revenue was generated. Where he went wrong was when he insisted Canadians also pay the market value when it went well below the cost of production because Saudi Arabia can produce for only a couple of dollars a barral and was selling for $10 a barral. Alberta costs $26 a barral to produce. This was a recipie to bankrupt the Alberta oil companies and did not respect the original intent of Trudeaus plan to put a ceiling on the price of crude in Canada.

The mistake in Trudeau's plan was that he never allowed for a floor to accompany the ceiling to thereby protect the industry that drives Alberta. This failure in no way excusses todays politicians for not protecting Canadians from being gouged by petro taxation of foreign multinationals for use of Canadian resources.

Petroleum distribution is a national security issue, as well as an interprovincial issue. Martins claim that petro taxation by the multinationals will deminish consumption in Canada and therfore allow for more aid to the Americans is bordering on treason to the Canadian people for the benefit of fascist oil cartels.

I would propose a Canadian ceiling on Canadian oil of at least $50 dollars a barrel and a floor of $26 a barrel. We may not see $0.50 a liter gasoline, but we shouldn't see anything over $85 cents a liter.

Also I would legislate that exports of energy in Canada can nly take place once Canadian needs have been met.

Its about building a country by and for the Canadian people and not by the Canadian people for the multinational fascists who have designs to control the world.

We as the Canadian people have more power to stop the multinational fascists than any other democratic people in the world, and we should not take this role lightly IMO.

In the mean time we should embrace our public hydro infrastructure and expand on this as a solution to give us alternate means of energy production that can led BC to becoming a world leader in alternate fuels derived from this cheep energy such as the proposed worlds first hydrogen hiway in the Lower Mainland.

Time Will Tell

I should add that we don't need Mr East Martin to come up with a solution for BC.

Gordon Cambell and his liberal government have the power to act on their own for BC's benefit. All BC oil and gas comes from BC anyways accept for a small area of the Kootenies.

A reasonable floor and ceiling on resale within BC is not unreasonable and is something that would protect our province from explotation by our resources, while ensuring we are still open for business probably in a more sustainable fashion.

Companies like Kinder Morgan see us open for exploitation and that is wrong. Alcan sets a good example of what Kinder Morgan and Bush's friends down south have in store for us here in BC.

In addition to that take a look at Iraq where they only pay $0.02 a liter for their gasoline at the pumps. What are they doing right that we here in Canada are not. We could learn something from them Iraqi's as odd as that sounds.

even Russia sells their petro cheeper in Russa than they do on the global markets. That what the definition of a country is when it comes to energy needs. We Canadians could learn something from Russia.

Of course the international markets tend to support the highest bidder, but it is not alwasy the norm even though it should be for Canadian production.

An example of it not being the norm is the recent sale of Venezuelian oil (Owls prefered example) to China for below market rates as a show of solidarity agains America.

Another example is the loss of over a thousand jobs in Northern BC this week as a result of Argentina selling gas below market rates to Methonex on 25 year deals thereby undercutting what Methonex could expect to pay for gas from Kinder Morgan when they take over our resources here in BC and sell for the 'market' rates.

Chadermando

It is quite dimple from my point of view. When a market is based on pure supply and demand, the cost of production does not rule. If you wish an industry to charge based on cost, that meansd state takeover of the goods and production.

Cut to the chase. Is that what you want to do in the case of Canadian oil?

simple dimple .... :-)

BTW, I think that no country can show more solidarity with China than the USA which has a record trade deficit with the country. Apparently it is up over 30% over last year at this time.

Hillary's point of view ....

Clinton sparred with one constituent who called for a rollback of state and federal gasoline taxes to ease the pain of increases that have pushed prices well above $3 a gallon in many places since the hurricane hit Monday morning. Clinton said that will not solve the problem.

"We can get some temporary relief, but that's not the answer, and we don't have the leadership we need to stand up and fight for what should be the answer and the sacrifices people should be willing to make," she said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/02/AR2005090202079.html?nav=rss_politics

from that same report linked above....

"We've had 30 years to do some things we haven't done," she said. "In fact we've gotten, we've gone backwards in many respects.

Beginning to sound like New Orleans .....

"we'll face the crisis when it hits, because it may never hit"

Well... it is beginning to hit, and if people do not recognize it, wait a few more years, maybe it will become clearer with time......

Owl,

I have never said anything like a government take-over of goods and production in the petroleum industry. I did advocate regulating the profit margin of private industry with caps on profits from a public resource and it seams reasonable to me. I guess if you disagree then you would try to twist that into sounding like a government take over or something along those lines in order to confuse everybody and allow the petroleum taxation to continue.

I think if I have to deal with traffic cops, then why shouldn’t the petroleum industry?
IMO if you’re going to advocate anarchy, then I think you should just say so and come clean.

If you say that the market is based purely on supply and demand, then surely the outside foreign demand for Canadian oil will ensure they pay top dollar for the resource from the companies operating in Canada. I think a 20% profit margin above the real inflation rate on the supply to the domestic market would be a reasonable return on investment. Basically you export tax every barrel of export oil at a rate that ensures the foreign overall market rate is maintained, and yet the cost of Canadian oil is brought down to the required level through a rebate of 100% of the export tax collected to Canadian refineries governed by the domestic profit margin on production ceiling for this vital industry.

The end effect is a copy-cat of the Bird Amendment the Americans are using on Canada collecting a import tariff and handing the money over to our industry competitors across the boarder, but in this case it’s the foreign consumer of energy who is subsidizing our Canadian domestic consumer of energy. If them Chinese and Americans want our oil then let them by it at market rates.

The thing about this crisis is that it is the Americans crisis and not ours. Clearly they don’t respect the NAFTA rules mechanisms in softwood lumber, which are essential to NAFTA’s relevance. Therefore their energy crisis should not be imported onto our shoulders simply, because they have a supply and demand problem. Ultimately we should use our advantage to eliminate our dependency in the long term through alternative energy sources.

So you are for price control ...

and have two systems, one for Canada and one for the rest of the world, including the USA, which is, of course, not allowed under NAFTA since tht would be considered subsidizing the tranportation industry, etc.

Thus, in effect, you are saying scrap NAFTA, tie softwood to NAFTA, or whatever ...

I have no problem with what you are proposing from the theoretical point of view since we are a sovereign country and can do as we wish. But there will obviously be consequences.

Just tell me how you are proposing to do it, over what time period, in order to find other markets for our manufacturing capacity and lessen the negtative consequences which may end up creating a depression in Canada and send the C$ tumbling ...

Owl, I see it a little differently.

The export tax on oil and gas would not affect the price paid for Americans. It’s a built in cost that would have to be absorbed by the price gouging petroleum taxers. A barrel of oil on the world markets will cost what a barrel of oil costs.

I do however see your point that they would raise hackles over Chapter 11 of NAFTA, that is, if they still feel NAFTA is relevant, which by all indications they do not. If they do however then we have a position to start negotiations. If negotiations do not go well then we can call the export tax a cultural consideration that is exempt under NAFTA and therefore legal. Culturally Canadians need to consume higher amounts of energy to heat our homes and subsidize the lack of public infrastructure in rural Canada? It’s a stretch, but so are the reasons for softwood lumber tariffs. If an export tax is recommended by the Americans for softwood lumber, than by all means it must be OK for energy as well by the same argument. Can we get their argument in writing….

Another way to look at is to bring in a large tax on the raw crude that offsets a lowering of taxes on refined products that we buy at the pump and is fully legal under NAFTA. Thereby Canadians pay the same as Americans for the raw product, and yet we become more competitive on the refining and delivery end of the process. As crude prices go up on the world market so do the Canadian crude tax always offsetting the impacts of global markets on Canadian industry. If the Americans wish to lower their taxes on refined crude then they are more then welcome to do that to stay competitive, but they will have to find their own source of revenue to make it happen. World demand should ensure the world spot price is sufficiently high enough above cost plus profit of production that we always see a benefit to Canadians in any petroleum exports.

I don’t see this creating a falling dollar, but rather the opposite. I see it lowering the Canadian cost of energy and thereby enhancing the competitiveness of Canadian industry increasing the value of our dollar through the value created with a dollar. This in effect helps to balance the softwood lumber competitive advantage and allows for market forces to aid the American forest companies in staying competitive with the lower relation in value of their dollar. It means Canadians become buyers in the equity markets and not beggars.

When it comes to manufacturing, the forest industry is Canada’s largest employer in the manufacturing sector with over 500,000 direct employees. Surely this should be the highest concern in protecting Canadian industry. That and the fact that as much as we like to think differently we are a resource based economy and the Americans have no other source to replace the resources we supply to keep their economy running and out of a recession for lack of resources. They have no choice but to play ball our way if our arguments are up front and ethical. In a trade war it would be mutually assured destruction of each others economy and Americans know that. If it doesn’t increase their cost of energy over the world spot market I think they would have little room to complain.

That said Canada and especially BC should be negotiating a Pacific Rim free trade deal if we are worried about to much American influence in our economy. In 1990 Japan bought 27% of BC exports and today it is less than 12%.

Chadermando ...

I think before we continue with any "discussion" on such matters we must agree on some factual matters, otherwise the whole discussion is based on unfounded "facts" and really make no sense.

You said: "When it comes to manufacturing, the forest industry is Canada’s largest employer in the manufacturing sector with over 500,000 direct employees."

I do not know which decade or century you are living in, but that is simply not true and far from it.

From Stats Canada, based on the North American Industry Classification System, this is the Canadian employment level for June 2005 for the goods producing sector:

Manufacturing - 2.225 million

Construction - 1.024 million

Agriculture - 348 thousand

Forestry, fishing, mining, oil + gas - 310 thousand

When looking at the manufacturing component of forestry, they are included under the manufacturing sector and contribute less than 10% of that component. In 2001 there were about 100,000 workers in the pulp and paper industry and 80,000 in the sawmill industry.

The drop in exports to Japan was eclipsed by the drop in exports to Britain - in 1990 16.4% of Canuck lumber exports went to GB, in 2001 it was 3.4%. On top of that it is a structural drop since the EU countries are close to self sufficient now.

http://www.statcan.ca/english/Subjects/Labour/LFS/lfs-en.htm

http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/31F0027MIE/31F0027MIE2002001.pdf

http://zone.artizans.com/images/previews/MAY1341.pvw.jpg

Let's just say we agree to disagree. I think your approach would be a pie in the sky approach and would lead to very difficult times in the short term and would not assist with the key problem of facing the fact that oil reserves are finite and reaching a peak, while demand is continuing to climb.

Owl I guess we are using different facts from different sources.

My source was the BC Ministry of Forests 'BC Forestry Revitalization Plan' that claims there are over 600 mills in BC supporting 150 communities averaging $67,000 in benefits and wages per worker generating directly and indirectly 260,000 jobs, and $14.2 Billion in exports in 2001.

Using 1999 figures for market share BC had 11 Billion of Canada's 29 Billion board feet of production and therefore although a crude method I came up with 685,000 direct and indirect jobs associated with the forest industry across Canada rounded down to 500,000 jobs for good measure.

I guess we will agree to disagree. I wonder how the auto industry stacks up to that. IMO it does not.

It should be noted that forestry is a primary industry that is the source of many of the so-called manufacturing and service jobs that supply the primary industry of forestry and yet are not directly recorded as forestry related jobs.

Forestry is responsible for more jobs across Canada than any other industry and I stand by that claim.

Chadermando ....

you badly need to do some homework ....
read page 3 ......

http://www.monkey-boy.com/cmusic/cmusad.shtml

Forestry ranks second to automotive ....

read page 1 .... forestry employs 285,000 nation wide ..... that is manufacturing plus woodlands sectors .....

as far as the multiplier effect ... it is sort of like native land claims .... when all the land claims in BC are assembled, you get an area larger than the province ....

do not trust multiplier effects ... if you were to segregate industries and add mulitplier effects to each you would get a much larger number of employed than there are people in BC, let alone employable people ....

Even though I have been in BC for over 30 years, I find many really know little about the rest of the country ... very parochial ....

you are listening to too much western hype .....

oops .... that was a canadian music site ...:-)

hold on to your hat ..... LOL...

okay ... here it is ... found it again ..... the danger of having more than 17 "windows" open at the same time ..

http://www.cep.ca/campaigns/forestchange/forestchange_e.pdf

hope everyone is enjoying the canuck music ..... *s*

Owl, your own link says forestry employ's nearly twice what I had originally said. I think were now going in circles....

---------------------
“This is an industry which directly employs 285,000 workers and indirectly supports another 600,000 jobs. It is Canada’s most important resource industry, but it is bleeding jobs. We need government and community leaders to pay attention now, and to take action on a national forest
strategy.”

Canada’s forests -- an economic engine
Forest based industries are the largest natural resource based sector in the Canadian economy.
Overall, the forests rank second only to the automotive industry in terms of national economic impact.

Below is some basic data on what the industry means to the country (based on a 2004
report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers):

Total sales $50.7 billion
Export sales $39.5 billion
Net earnings $1.4 billion
Percentage of total Canadian exports 10.4%
Contribution to Canada’s balance of trade $32.8 billion
Net contribution to trade surplus $29.7 billion
Share of Canada’s Gross Domestic Production 3%
Payments to governments $7.2 billion
Capital spending $2.2 billion
Employment (direct and indirect) 895,000

were should have been we are...

Also if there was no forestry we would need no cars, but if there was no cars we would still need forestry.

Forestry is a primary industry more important than the automotive industry on those grounds alone. I don't care what opinions you have to back up the facts you lack.

I just took a roadtrip down to old yankie doodle dandie land. Premium there is $3.19 per gallon. I drive fast to burn as much of that yankie gas as possible and it is still cheaper than here. Topped up the tank before the border and let some spill on the ground. I will not be conserving for ol George W. any time soon.


later.....

Chadermando ...

Yous said in your post of Monday, September 05, 2005 4:50 AM
:

"When it comes to manufacturing, the forest industry is Canada’s largest employer in the manufacturing sector with over 500,000 direct employees."

The figures cited in the report I linked said:

"This is an industry which directly employs 285,000 workers"

So, how can you possibly say that forestry employs nearly twice as many as you originally said?

I sam sorry ... this is getting ridiculous. Keep on thinking what you want to think despite the numbers.

If there would be no doctors we would not be alive; if there were no teachers we would not know how to read; if there were no farmers we would not eat .......

Do you have any idea how many countries in the world have virtually no forestry industry and are more prosperous than Canada?

I am not disputingthat forestry does not play a major part in Canada's econmy. However, it is time to move on from being the hewers of wood and drawers of water and diversify. As we do, forestry will take a lesser role in our economy.

Wow... the economy of "yankee doodle dandie land" must be lying in ruin after Spanky's privately funded jihad.