I feel sorry for the Peace Region. Oil wells and oil production that is ruining the farming in the area and then if that doesn't do it in the government wants to build site "C" that will flood the majority of this land. Someone should think this out correctly and choose a direction.

Oil & gas exploration in Alberta is taking a nose dive as rigs depart for more friendly locations. The provincial government has decided that Albertans are not getting a big enough percentage of the oil revenue.

The justification is based on the assumption that the oil that these companies find belongs to "the people". Therefore instead of the oil companies spending the money, the government wants to do it.

Fast track to 2107. The provincial government has decided to raise the taxes on the bio-energy farmers because the land they grow the crops on belongs to "the people". And "the people" feel the farmers are price gouging a vital commodity and therefore should get a smaller percentage.

History repeats itself.

Site C will flood very little of the land since it is a valley. The rigs will be back, it's just the oil companies pouting. The oil/gas is going nowhere and will be worth more in the future. We are better off leaving it in the ground until the American economy turns around and then they can afford to pay even more for it.

On the money Yama!!

The world population is growing exponentially and here we are going to use our food source to feed our gas guzzlers. We have contriubuted to the destruction of our pine forests. So long mother earth we dont need you we are a bunch of morons.

Cheers

"The world population is growing exponentially and here we are going to use our food source to feed our gas guzzlers. "

Now THAT'S telling it like it is.
No more need be said.

Actually it will flood about 80 km's of valley. Valley that is the most productive land in all of BC. You don't find much productive land on top of a mountain, it is all in the valley.

And for those who think that our politicians of any politcal party can solve our woahs let me remind you AGAIN of what of Plato said, " unless you take an interest in those who govern us we shall be governed by those worse then ourselves". It means that we all need to become involved not just 40 or 50% of our voters or just those with a vested interest.

Cheers

Interesting post, Yama. Reminds me of Joseph's 'corn racket' in ancient Egypt. Tax the farmer for a portion of HIS crop in the seven years of plenty. And then SELL it back to him in the seven years of famine. When he's got nothing to pay for it with. Except everything HE owned, including HIS 'land'. Just goes to show you where 'socialism' came from, and that it's really 'monopoly state capitalism with control by finance'.

Yama is out to lunch. Oil in the ground is a public resource and the public should be compensated for access to this resource at market rates. Right now the market for crude oil is very high.

Crude oil has no relation what so ever to the farmer and the crops a farmer cultivates. Nor does the farmer and the crops he grows have any relation to a socialism-fascism axis of society control.

IMO when a society is poor then the society requires a greater subsidization from those that exploit its resources. That is why it is so important to focus on having a strong middle class, so as to reduce the need for society to be subsidized by government resources, and thus increase the ability of business to operate unhindered by those kinds of external (to its business model) liabilities.

Every business benefits from society and so should have to pay for that subsidization. In Canada they benefit with an educated work force, and a public health care system to name only two subsidizations to business by society that allow a business to operate efficiently with their capital. All the crap about your a socialist, or your a capitalist depending on your shade of black or white is only an us verse them argument for people with no real understanding of reality. Reality is that both taken to their extreme lead to the same result of enslavement.

Policy should always be for justice based on the law first, but then followed by what is the best policy to increase the middle class and the wealth of the middle class. Everything else about the corporate and public beggars is irrelevant if it conflicts with the two main priorities.

I support this project in so much as its ability to create opportunities for future free enterprise. If Canada requires more farmers, which I feel it does, then that is another issue at this point in time IMO.

"Yama is out to lunch. Oil in the ground is a public resource and the public should be compensated for access to this resource at market rates. Right now the market for crude oil is very high." ~ Chadermando

But are you and I and everyone else as members of that 'public' DIRECTLY "compensated for access to this resource at market rates", Chadermando?

Or does that "compensation" go to "OUR" government? Which then decides what IT will do with it?

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that all down through what might be broadly called "British" history, from 1215 and the Magna Carta onwards, right through the American Revolution, and afterwards, the idea was that there should be "no taxation without representation."

That the ONLY 'sanction' we have over "our" governments is the right to deny them FINANCE. That any 'democratic' government HAS TO GO TO THE PEOPLE for the 'money' it needs to operate.

When we subvert this process, by giving the government the power to by-pass getting their funding 'directly' from the people, what WE collectively 'directly' decide to give it, we are setting ourselves up for the imposition on us of policies with which we may neither agree nor want.

The increase in 'royalties' is a chimera, since those 'royalties'will be added into the 'price' we pay for access to the petroleum products we ourselves need. How does this benefit us?

We could, in the abscense of a better policy, put an 'export tax' on every drop of oil sent out of this Province, or any other Province that exports oil and natural gas. And the full amount of that tax, less administration costs, could be paid out to each of us, as 'common owners' of that resource as a dividend on our share of it.

From that 'dividend' we may, if we want "our" government to do the things WE think IT can best do for us, and there are many, allow them back some of it in 'tax' to pay for them. But will we? In a pig's eye we will! We'll be just like those ancient Egyptians ~ we'll pay the cost of our own slavery!

Well then Chadermando, why doesn't the public go get oil? It's right there in the ground? Why doesn't the government do the same to miners? It is the same problem.

The farmers get their land the same way the oil workers do, they bought crown land rights. The government can do the same thing to the miners and the farmers.

Chadermando needs to get head out of his class. There is no justice when it comes to people wanting to enjoy the fruits of their labour. The middle class will only exist as long as the wealthy are allowed to keep what they died to make.

You're absolutely right, Yama. Any system that promises to rob Peter to pay Paul is bound to always be popular with Paul. Until, that is, Paul realizes what he's being paid isn't really making him any 'richer', even though it's made Peter an awful lot 'poorer'.

You are quite right Bridge!
The government can't solve our woes,but they CAN help provide the tools for the rest of us to get it done!
And the only way they will do that is if people keep the pressure on!
They are not going to offer to do a damn thing unless we make a lot of noise and keep the heat on!
The squeaky wheel gets the grease!

Yama I think you read into my comments too much. I did not say I don't think people should be allowed to enjoy the fuits of their labour, nor did I advocate estate taxation. Quite the opposite I must say.

I fully support not taxing farmers who work the land. Actually I fully suport eliminating all income taxes unlike socuncredible who would like to see government get all its taxes from the working man. But that is not the same as multinational corportations owned in some cases by hostile governments harvesting a limited resource that is publically owned. The province has a right to collect fair compensation for the profits earned developing a public resource.

Why should multinational (in some cases foreign) corporate shareholders be subsidized by my tax dollars is the real question you are trying to avoid? Are we a country where the people work for the corporations, or the corporations work for the people?

'Taxes' can always be paid by the 'working man' if you first GIVE that 'working man', or even one who isn't working, the 'money' to pay those taxes with. And that's what could be done with the proceeds of an 'export tax', Chad.

Give it to us, the 'beneficial' owners of the resource in common. WE will decide how much of it we want to give back to the 'government' to have that government do the things that government can best do for us.

The 'government', those we elect to be our representatives, have to then find out what it is we want done. And propose to us exactly what that will cost. We have then, the collective right to say yes or no, based on how much we want to pay in tax.

Contrast that with what we have now. Campbell sells BC Rail, a Crown corporation held in trust for its owners, the people of BC. Does he send each of us a cheque for an equal share of the proceeds? Does he ask us if we would like to be taxed to fund a new container terminal in Prince Rupert? And spend all, or some, of those proceeds on that? He does NOT!

He sells OUR railway, and spends OUR money from it, without so much as a by your leave! How do we know he spent it 'wisely'? How do we know some of his Party contributors won't be the contractors who build the terminal, and aren't adding the cost of their 'contribution' onto the cost of it?

We don't. We have no 'sanction' over our government and the way it spends what is rightfully OUR money.

I can agree with that last sentence. Anyone that shares that sentiment would find it interesting to look into a British nominee company called the Bank of England Nominee. Its a Rothschild venture that includes the Queens business ventures and holdings. The idea behind it is that it officially was to protect the Queen and her investments from public scrutiny that could shed light on possible conflicts of interest. Its why no one really knows what the Queens net worth really is. The problem with this is that it was opened up to politicians of all strips in recent decades and not just limited to the Queen.

The Bank of England Nominee investment portfolio has been available for decades to the entire World's current heads of state to allow them anonymity when buying shares. Therefore, when a company publishes a share register and the Bank of England Nominees is listed, it is not possible to gauge whether the Queen, President Bush, Premier Campbell, or even Saddam Hussein is the true shareholder. This is a mechanism that facilitates conflict of interest by politicians for personal gain out of light of the democracies they sometimes represent.

I have no problem with taxing profits of corporations for the benefits they receive from society, but that only works as intended if the politicians are all playing by the same rules as the rest of us... unfortunately we live in a corpocracy disguised as a democracy.

Very interesting, Chad. And I've no doubt at all about the veracity of what you've said re the BoE Nominee.

But as to your last sentence, when you tax a profit of a 'corporation', who really pays the tax?

Corporations make 'goods' and provide 'services', but they're not paying their taxes in 'goods' or 'services', they're paying them in'money'.

The only place they can get that money is from me and thee, and everyone else who 'buys' their production. So whatever is charged them in 'tax' has to be 'costed' into the price of whatever they're providing. And collected from us, their customers. Or they go broke. Banksters love high taxation and balanced budgets because both concentrate the control of money ever more into their hands under the current 'conventions of accounting'.

There is a correctable 'flaw' in that accounting, that if it were rectified would effectively end their stranglehold over all of us.