Canada's coup d'etat: Opposition parties join to overthrow gov't (Part 2)

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by Asher

They are, but barely. That's why "little" things like this are massively important.

You'd be better off waiting until you could make a lot of money there, no?

[snoopy369]

Isn't around $50/bbl the break-even price for the oil sands?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Victor Galis


You'd be better off waiting until you could make a lot of money there, no?

These projects take many, many years to get running.

Isn't around $50/bbl the break-even price for the oil sands?

It depends on many things, but the cost is coming down as scale and technology improve.

It's usually between 30-40, according to my dad -- this was a couple years ago.

Note that most of the projects running now started development with $20 oil.

One of the first casualties of the situation is Shell's 100,000-barrel a day Carmon Creek oil sands project. The other day they withdrew it from the regulatory approvals process due to cost uncertainty. It was a cool project too -- instead of using mining, it would pump steam into the ground to liquefy the bitumen so that it can be pumped to the surface.

[Victor Galis]

Yeah, but I seem to remember the rush to develop all the oil projects was making them all more expensive and triggering shortages in various things.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Victor Galis
Yeah, but I seem to remember the rush to develop all the oil projects was making them all more expensive and triggering shortages in various things.

Yes, things like labour costs went through the roof also. They're better now.

The other thing I'm certain that Layton and Dion don't calculate is just how much business the oil sands mean for Ontario's manufacturing industry. Last I heard over 400 companies in Ontario are involved in the design and manufacturing of Oilsands equipment.

It's kind of doublespeak to pretend to care about the manufacturing sector, giving a few token billion to failing automakers to stay open a few more months while simultaneously trying to kill the genuine demand for their work out west...

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by Asher

Yes, things like labour costs went through the roof also. They're better now.

The other thing I'm certain that Layton and Dion don't calculate is just how much business the oil sands mean for Ontario's manufacturing industry. Last I heard over 400 companies in Ontario are involved in the design and manufacturing of Oilsands equipment.

It's kind of doublespeak to pretend to care about the manufacturing sector, giving a few token billion to failing automakers to stay open a few more months while simultaneously trying to kill the genuine demand for their work out west...

Fair enough. This thing would have been more workable had we already replaced Dion.

I'd personally like a leader that at least attempts to win some support in the West even if it leads to very few actual seats. If nothing else, it would be good for national unity.

[Asher]

Colby Cosh has a particularly good rant on this. I normally don't like him (I got into an intense flamewar with him on a hockey blog ), but it's a gooder:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/12/01/colby-cosh-harper-s-suicide-scenario.aspx

Colby Cosh: Harper's suicide scenario
Posted: December 01, 2008, 5:34 AM by Colby Cosh
Colby Cosh

Seems to me there's one rather important question that's been left out of all the talk over the Progressive Union Government of 2008: just how sure are we that Stephen Harper isn't going to call their bluff?

I understand that the first rule of politics is to never give an inch that might be fought for, but there can't be much that is attractive about leading a minority government into a recession, is there? It would be one thing if it were a recession of our own making, but the problem is with trading partners who drank too deeply from a poisoned well of incomprehensibly complex financial instruments. What we're faced with is a wait of uncertain length for the guilty parties to quarantine bad assets and re-establish confidence in credit.

Nonetheless, several economists and columnists have bolted from the government and denounced the lack of macroeconomic stimulation in its fiscal update, even though unemployment is sitting two points below the old 8% estimate of Canada's NAIRU. Let's hear these geniuses explain why it is a totally awesome idea to let a dozen New Democrats into cabinet, with Jack Layton presumably running the show at Finance or the Treasury Board and new national daycare and pharmacare programs timed to launch in the middle of deficit-wracked 2009. These are, I'm guessing, some of the same green-eyeshade types who glowered at Harper's GST cuts because consumption-taxes-are-better-than-income-taxes, beep-boop. Political considerations? Say, those don't fit into my Hewlett-Packard calculator!

Let's hear—actually hear, with our physical ears—Michael Ignatieff explain why he's accepting executive power, with strings attached, in a country in which he's hardly lived and hasn't won jack squat yet. Let's hear Bob Rae explain why he got into bed with the Bloc Quebecois and tell us exactly what the BQ charged for the privilege—or are we to believe their participation is strictly gratis? Or maybe Stéphane Dion is going to run the whole show? Right: because Stephen Harper has lost all credibility, we're going to replace him with a man who defines the very word. Unfortunately, he defines it as "A small, ornately decorated wooden chest without legs" and you have to restart the interview three times before you realize he's talking about a credenza.

A hockey journalist I know is practically foaming at the mouth for Harper to go to Rideau Hall, hand over the keys, and hold the door wide open for the forces of Progressivity. "The Canadian economy will almost certainly go south and the government will have to run deficits," he says. "Can you imagine running against a Liberal party that just got out of bed with the NDP and the traitors? Who have run the first deficit in years? Who have led us into a recession? What are the Liberals going to say, that the recession was beyond their control?" The Liberal coalitionists are claiming to be able to smooth out the coming economic bumps while sharing power with the New Democrats, a party that never met a recession it couldn't prolong. Hell, let's see them try it! What have we got to lose but our jobs?

He adds cynically that "two-thirds of the country" doesn't understand how our government works and are thus likely to see the whole progressive "coup" as somehow procedurally illegitimate—above and beyond, that is, the genuinely disreputable bits involving secret concessions to, and a big public-relations triumph for, the BQ. I'd certainly like to know what personal values various progressive coalitionists ascribe to X in the proposition "It's worth increasing the chances of Canada breaking up sometime in the future by X percent if we can get Harper out now." Let's face it: there have always been plenty of leftists who not-so-secretly think Gilles Duceppe is a truer, finer Canadian than Stephen Harper.

[notyoueither]

I keep pondering... if the fiscal update was the answer, what was the question?

[Sharpe]

Andrew Steele of the Globe had an interesting list of Harper's options:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081202.WBSteele20081202134134/WBStory/WBSteele/

[Asher]

The idea of dismissing Jean tickles my fancy, if only because it's precisely the kinds of "within the rules, ethically questionable" **** the Liberals pulled in the first place.

Would love to see Ralph Klein get named GG (I know it would never happen, but it'd be hilarious...you must admit)

This whole fiasco reminds me just how ****ed up our system is. No way, no how should the "Queen" be any part of our government, nor should we need to ask her for anything. Additionally, the governor general -- with as much power as they have when needed -- should not be politically appointed by one of the parties, for obvious reasons...

[Wezil]

GG Ralph

I just listened to part of Question Period. It was a bare knuckle match.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Asher
The idea of dismissing Jean tickles my fancy, if only because it's precisely the kinds of "within the rules, ethically questionable" **** the Liberals pulled in the first place.

Dismissing Jean?

I don't think the PM has that power.

[KrazyHorse]

At least, AFAIK it has never been done.

[Asher]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Dismissing Jean?

I don't think the PM has that power.

He can ask the Queen to dismiss her, apparently. Click the link.

[Asher]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
AFAIK it has never been done, by the way.

This is unprecedented also, so why should that stop them?