https://commonground.ca/ Common Ground, June 2018
You need a gun to rob a bank, but you need a bank to rob a country!
Recommend: go to the link above. There are a number of good articles re – – What a joke! We bought a crappy pipeline with taxpayer’s money.
Related (just so you know who we’re bailing out, and why):
EXCERPT from one of the articles, How Trudeau’s lies differ from Trump’s lies
Big Bank Bails
HSBC is Europe’s biggest bank and one of the ten largest banks in the world. On April 21, 2018 it announced that it will no longer fund oil or gas projects in the Arctic, Alberta tar sands projects, and most coal projects.
This decision signals to Justin Trudeau that the era of fossil fuels is coming to a close.
Daniel Klier, global head of sustainable finance at HSBC, said that the bank recognizes “the need to reduce emissions rapidly to achieve the target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global temperatures rises to well below 2°C and our responsibility to support the communities in which we operate.”
Formerly, HSBC was one of the heaviest investors in fossil fuels. A report, entitled “Banking on Climate Change”, endorsed by dozens of environmental groups, ranked HSBC the seventh worst in the world for the financing of “extreme fossil fuels.” It also found that from 2016 to 2017, “Even as the impacts of climate change become increasingly apparent”, it made a $2.6 billion increase in such financing.
Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist at Greenpeace Canada, advised Trudeau, who is about to invest taxpayers’ dollars to make sure the Kinder Morgan pipeline gets built, to take warning in HSBC’s shift.
“Before deciding to write a cheque to Kinder Morgan, Justin Trudeau should ask himself if he wants to rush in where HSBC fears to tread,” said Stewart.
Myth vs Truth
Myth – If we could get the Alberta bitumen to Asia, it would fetch a much higher price than it currently does in the U.S.
Truth – Alberta bitumen is already getting the best possible price through existing pipelines to the US, which access the largest heavy oil refineries in the world. Few refineries in Asia currently can refine it. No tankers of Alberta bitumen went to Asia from Westridge terminal in 2017.
Myth – There is widespread support of First Nations along the route for the KM pipeline project.
Truth – Fewer than 1/3 of the First Nations along the pipeline and tanker route have signed Mutual Benefit Agreements (MBAs) or a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOUs) which basically state that a First Nation, Community, college or university will receive money from the pipeline corporation … but only if the pipeline gets built. This has been bragged about as an endorsement by the pipeline promoters. Support seems to be waning. The company boasts of having 43 agreements. A year ago it was reported there were 51. More significantly, the Tsleil-Waututh, in whose territory Kinder Morgan’s Westridge terminal is located, and the Secwepemc whose territories encompass more than half the pipeline’s length, are adamantly opposed.
Myth – Bitumen sinks in fresh water but not in salt water.
Truth – Bitumen sinks (and stinks) when toxic diluents evaporate in both fresh and salt waters. Sinking happens fast when bitumen comes in contact with sediments. Sediments are abundant in the Fraser River’s brown coloured outflow around Vancouver and into the Salilsh Sea.
Myth – A world-class spill response team can clean up most of the oil in an oil spill.
Truth – A recovery of 10 – 20% of the oil is considered a good clean up job by industry and government. 80% or more cannot be recovered. It disperses and pollutes the beaches, intertidal zones and ocean bottom for decades. Other difficulties make land based spills, except the smallest, impossible to completely clean up.
Myth – The Alberta oil patch drives the Canadian economy.
Truth – The Alberta oil patch generates only 2% of Canada’s GDP.
A Twisted “Carbon Tax”
If diluted bitumen starts flowing down the x-KM new pipeline, gas prices at the pumps in B.C. will go up. No lie.
They figured out a clever way to fund their new pipeline. Make British Columbians pay for it.
Here’s how it was supposed to work. Kinder Morgan got the National Energy Board (NEB) to approve an increase in toll rates of $5 a barrel on all refined products pumped down the old KM pipeline after the new pipeline is completed and in operation.
This little reported NEB decision will more than double the charge KM now levies to deliver a barrel of gasoline or diesel to B.C.
One economist has calculated that it would have delivered enough extra revenue to KM over the 35 year life of the pipeline to pay for the whole expansion project and would cost B.C. motorists 10 to 15 cents more per litre of gas.
Another little-known fact. The new pipeline will be exclusively dedicated to transporting unrefined bitumen for export. B.C. gets no benefits, except for 50 more long-term jobs (an estimate provided by Kinder Morgan to the NEB during the hearings) after it is built.
When a prominent pipeline supporter discovered this, nearly speechless, he muttered “Well, I’ve been duped!” and instantly became a pipeline opponent.