Well Baird’s green plan appears to be wonderful news for the Alberta….soon to be Saskatchewan…..oilsand’s industry. The Globe and Mail reports,
The energy industry’s sanctimonious “it’s a good balance” when the Con non-plan first came out is just disgusting. CanWest reports,
The Harper government is going to shut down and scatter from this session of parliament as quickly as possible. People don’t have a lot of good things to say about our wrong-way government right now and a break will give them a chance to regroup. Scott over at DiaTribes appears to agree a summer break is the best and only Con game plan they have right now. If they get another summer to do absolutely nothing on the environment; we allow this escape at our own peril. (h/t to Adrian MacNair).
I think its going to be a long hot summer. I wouldn’t count on people forgetting about Con idiocy on the environment file.
This is the Second Summer now of Conservative rule, and we’re still waiting for any NEW “Made In Canada” action on climate change. I know the speed of government is slow, but it didn’t take TWO SUMMERS to stop funding women’s programs, court challenges, the Community Access Program, or send more money to Quebec in lieu of the ~$800M promised to Saskatchewan on equalization. It’s obvious where the priorities of this New government are, and they are not focused on ensuring you can breathe, or have a livable home with reliable food supply in the coming years.
Umm…if you don’t permit growth in the industry for the next few years, you would need to shut down several billion dollars of design and construction currently underway. Yes government moves slowly, but when you have multiple oilsands operations going on in the province, major projects are scheduled a decade in advance.
Adding CO2 sequestration (or some other technology) to a project that is just moving out of the design phase, and into the construction phase, is simply not feasible. Unlike when you build a house, an oilsands project can easily take three years, just for the construction.
The only option is to impose penalties on the producers, which will simply be passed on to the consumers, or halt further development as the return on investment becomes less attractive.
And if you have a source for designers/construction workers that could handle the additional work to bring the oil sands companies in line immediately, you should start a staffing industry and get rich.
Then I guess the step might be to cease any futher expansion until things are first brought under control (e.g technology is in place).