# How’s Carney doing, Canada? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 4, 2025, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850 "2025-05-04T03:54:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2025, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/201 "2025-08-16T00:28:37Z")
I forget, how much did kinder Morgan finally pay to build the pipeline? ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2025, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/202 "2025-08-16T00:38:51Z")
I find it amusing that you believe Kinder Morgan’s original estimate is what it would have cost them to complete the project. Also, KM had so much indigenous support that indigenous protests of the project nearly shut down rail traffic in Canada. Obviously they’d done all the required work in that regard. Edit: Also, the point isn’t that the TM pipeline build wasn’t a grotesque overrun, but that it actually is a pipeline that is actually delivering bitumen from the oil sands to the coast. Just what the oil patch was screaming it wanted. Just the sort of thing the lack of which is what @Uzi himself cites as one of the key sources of Albertan anger towards the rest of the country. But it _doesn’t count_. Because reasons. Just like Bill C-5 doesn’t count. It’s exactly what Alberta and the Conservatives wanted, but it doesn’t count. Because reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2025, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/203 "2025-08-16T14:04:10Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Because reasons. $34B reasons is good enough as reasons go. As to how much it would have cost Kinder Morgan to build it I’d bet you $34B that it would be \<$34B. And it wouldn’t have come directly out of taxpayer pockets. Btw, from what I can find, 20% of product carried is Heavy (Dilbit), 80% Conventional/Synthetic. There are various other products shipped, but I can’t find the breakdown other than it is included in the 80%. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2025, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/204 "2025-08-16T14:10:18Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Also, KM had so much indigenous support that indigenous protests of the project nearly shut down rail traffic in Canada. Obviously they’d done all the required work in that regard. As I understand it they had 43 MBA’s signed with various indigenous groups. Many/most were not signed with all the groups with their hands up. All it takes is one guy to stand on the rail road to shut it down, so I’m not sure what your comment about protestors protesting means. They could have signed ever group in the country and still had protestors and likely would. Someone is always upset they didn’t get their palms greased. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2025, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/205 "2025-08-16T14:28:01Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > $34B reasons is good enough as reasons go. It’s enough, lots more than enough, to criticize the handling. But that’s not my point. My point is that you don’t take the completion of TM as a positive at all, or a sign that the rest of Canada is committed to assisting Alberta sell its oil. Instead you continue to view that as one of the chief grievances. It’s just bizarre. “You spent way more money on this gift for me than you ought to of, which shows that you don’t actually care about me or my needs.” It’s a take, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2025, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/206 "2025-08-16T22:37:15Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > Someone is always upset they didn’t get their palms greased. If your concept of society in general and politics in specific is it consists simply of a Battle Royale by everyone against everyone else in pursuit of palm-greasing, well … A) You’re wrong. B) That explains a lot of the rest of the nonsense you spout. “It’s all graft all the time” is a terrible way to organize a society. Canada is far better than most in this regard. The RW faction in the USA you evidently admire so much is presently in freefall aiming to emulate such paragons of graft-centric freedom and prosperity as Hungary, Venezuela, and Russia. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2025, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/207 "2025-08-16T23:01:02Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > It’s just bizarre. “You spent way more money on this gift for me than you ought to of, which shows that you don’t actually care about me or my needs.” It’s a take, I guess. The issue is the laws that make it difficult/impossible to grow our industries (not just oil). The pipeline is just an example of what it would take to build large infrastructure projects. Smith isn’t saying for the Feds to build more pipelines, she is saying they must remove the blocks that prevent them from being built. But isn’t this better for the Alberta thread and just a distraction from Carney’s lack of action? ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2025, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/208 "2025-08-16T23:23:45Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > A) You’re wrong. The Liberals have a long history of this. SNC Lavalin for one, Sponsorgate for another. Most agreements have a financial component. If you think money isn’t a prime motivator then I’m not sure that fantasy world you live. People want their cut especially if you open the door to them with some form of veto. Frankly, if you can’t argue my points without the continued labelling and insinuations used to marginalize me, and thus my position. My worry is that we end up like Hungary, Venezuela, and Russia with government calling the shots and determining who the winners will be! ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2025, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/209 "2025-08-16T23:39:54Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > It’s just bizarre. “You spent way more money on this gift for me than you ought to of, which shows that you don’t actually care about me or my needs.” It’s a take, I guess. Sorry, I need to address this again. Calling the Trans Mountain pipeline a “gift” misses the reality entirely. A gift is something freely given, without cost to the recipient. The pipeline isn’t that—it’s an investment that Albertans and Canadians are ultimately paying for, both through taxes and through the opportunity cost of money that could have gone elsewhere. The point is, industry was prepared to build and finance this project on its own. What drove private investors away wasn’t a lack of profitability, but the layers of legislation and regulation—made by Ottawa and BC that turned it into an untenable risk. Once those laws and political interference blocked industry from doing it themselves, the federal government stepped in, not out of generosity, but because it had no choice. So no, this wasn’t a “gift.” It was the federal government spending billions on a project it had effectively prevented others from building, because it still wanted the tax revenues Alberta generates. You want the money from Alberta, but you won’t support Alberta, or industry in general, in the process. That doesn’t mean that the environment or the indigenous suffer and are not heard. Rational rules must be in place. Emphasis on ‘rational’ based on actual risk. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2025, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/210 "2025-08-16T23:53:22Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > They’re talking about different _Canadian_ governments, like the Harper Government, or the Chretien Government, which change over time. This is a perfectly normal usage of the term, and their point is, they report the news the same way, no matter who is Prime Minister in the moment. Right, and the CBC will also criticize the mistakes of any government, whether Liberal or Conservative. It causes right-wing nutjobs considerable cognitive dissonance when the CBC criticizes the policies of a Liberal government, but they do. The independence of the CBC from its federal funding is no mere theory, it’s a fundamental part of its legal charter. And it’s a major strength of the Canadian public broadcasting system. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2025, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/211 "2025-08-17T00:06:30Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > The issue is the laws that make it difficult/impossible to grow our industries (not just oil). The point is that C-5 is intended to address exactly this, but you’re not willing to admit that it’s a step forward that Carney has taken, just like you’re not willing to admit that pushing TM through in spite of the regulatory difficulties was a major effort to improve the market position of the Alberta oil patch by Trudeau. In both cases, rather than admitting that a Liberal PM has done something positive you find reasons to criticize the very thing you had previously wanted to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2025, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/212 "2025-08-17T01:50:12Z")
You’re not willing to admit that C5 makes the PM the decider of the validity of a project rather than the market. It’s a bandaid at best. Many projects will not even be started due to the regulatory quagmire with C5 just adding another layer. It is also a tool that is just open to graft. ‘Hey, PM. If you okay my project, I’ll slip the party some extra money next election’. And if you think that hasn’t happened before, you are naive. Sponsorgate being a prime example. So, rather than adding more laws and roadblocks if you want the PM to get credit for actually fixing something tell him to remove the mess and create a logical regulatory framework that if followed guarantees that the company can put shovels in the ground. If it takes longer than a year or two, then it is still broken. And if the bloody conservatives can’t sort that out I’d criticize them as well, although, likely not as much as there are more than enough people on the SD who can take up that role. Building business, and Canada is a resource economy, is the mark of success. Not adding more laws. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2025, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/213 "2025-08-17T02:51:36Z")
No reason a capable PM can’t do both, if the new laws are necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2025, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/214 "2025-08-17T03:04:51Z")
That’s the question, isn’t it? Are laws written in such a way that gives confidence to investors that if they follow the process, they will achieve their goal? If random monkey wrenches are allowed in the works, then it defeats the purpose. Allowing the butcher to put his finger on the scale or remove it at their whim, isn’t a fix. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2025, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/215 "2025-08-17T03:15:15Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > You’re not willing to admit that C5 makes the PM the decider of the validity of a project rather than the market. Ah, okay, this clarifies to me why you don’t like C-5 and I now understand why, and agree that your objection is reasonable, at least from your point of view. I retract my criticism of your not wanting to give Carney points for it. Still disagree with you on Trans Mountain, but we shouldn’t further relitigate that in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2025, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/216 "2025-08-17T03:23:52Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Ah, okay, this clarifies to me why you don’t like C-5 and I now understand why, and agree that your objection is reasonable, at least from your point of view. I appreciate the understanding, but how did my point of view matter? Would you like a conservative pm passing his pet projects through using this law? Why give any politician more power? You see what is happening in the US with congress giving up their power to control tariffs. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2025, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/217 "2025-08-17T03:32:40Z")
Sorry, I was unclear. I also dislike the aspect of C-5 which gives cabinet/PMO the power to ignore their own laws, but I’d never phrase the basis of my objection to that as “making the PM the decider of the validity of a project rather than the market.” I dislike that from the far more general principal that the PMO is vastly too powerful already after concentrating power in itself for the past several decades. Your primary basis is that it doesn’t remove the regulatory uncertainty, it just changes where that uncertainty comes from. What I was trying to emphasize that I was finally appreciating that the nature of _your_ objection is consistent with your primary goal of streamlining energy infrastructure projects. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2025, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/218 "2025-08-17T04:18:50Z")
Hey, should we change this thread title to the “Uzi Argues With Everyone Thread?” ---
**Author:** ![FloatyGimpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/floatygimpy/32/7750_2.png) [@FloatyGimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FloatyGimpy)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/219 "2025-08-18T14:48:56Z")
Yes. I was following along at first because I wanted to hear other’s thoughts and opinions but Uzi has totally hijacked the thread, making it way too unpleasant to follow along. I saw the thread this morning and wondered why I hadn’t checked it out in ages so I clicked on it. Then I remembered why. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2025, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850/220 "2025-08-19T05:36:47Z")
Sorry for being in the way of congratulating yourselves on your brilliant choice for PM. Next time maybe state in the OP that you’re only interested in opinions on how good the Emperor’s new clothes look. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-s-carney-doing-canada/1017850.md?page=12)