Gah! Think of all the Eco freaks who’d show up to protest! But I agree. Why not do the value add in Canada rather than send it south.
Eh, the eco-freaks are already here protesting the oil sands and whatever else they want to protest. It seems to me there is something else at play in the United States’ decision to re-evaluate this pipeline - they want our oil, no doubt about it, so what’s going on? Is this a political play? I feel like I’m missing something.
And why aren’t we building an oil refinery somewhere on the Alberta/Saskatchewan border? I know they’re expensive - so’s the pipeline.
The decision has conveniently been pushed back to after the next presidential election. Obama knows what is the right thing, but won’t do it because he knows most of his supporters won’t like it. So, he might as well wait until he is re-elected.
I hate to say it, but for the first time Obama has proven to me to put his re-election ahead of the country’s best interest.
What a disappointment !
Ah, so it is politics. It really would serve them right for us to build a refinery instead.
No it wouldn’t.
This is a mutually beneficial project.
Obama is an ass.
That’s kind of my point - if they’re going to cost us a million bucks a day by sitting on their hands with this project that was basically approved already, then fuck 'em.
You’re welcome. And now let’s talk about the civil side.
Any litigant or witness appearing in any court established by the Government of Quebec has the constitutional right to use either English or French, as set out in the Constitution Act, 1867:
Now, you made the point earlier that the right to use a particular language does not entitle you to a judge who understands that language; an interpreter is an option. The Supreme Court established that point in a case called Société de Acadiens v. Association of Parents. So technically, yes, a litigant or witness in a Quebec court exercising their constitutional right to use English does not have a right to have a bilingual judge.
However, practicality comes into play - systems of simultaneous translation are extremely expensive, and there is no way that every court house in Quebec (or any other province) will have facilities for simultaneous translation for those cases where an individual uses English. Instead, the courts have the institutional capacity to operate in either language, as mentioned in my earlier posts, and when a litigant or witness advises the court that they want to use English, the court will accommodate that by providing a bilingual judge. Not a big deal in the major centres, like Montreal or Quebec; may be a bit more tricky in places like the Gaspé, which tends to have a pretty high rate of unilingualism, but courts as a whole have the institutional capacity needed to ensure litigants and witnesses can exercise their constitutional right.
Those are good points, but the problem is that if that’s the reason why Supreme Court judges should all be bilingual, then it’s an argument that all judges in all courts in all provinces of Canada need to be bilingual. All federal statutes are enacted in both languages, and both language versions are equally authoritative. I could raise an issue about a contradiction between the two versions of a federal Act in any court I appear in, and that judge would be required to deal with that issue.
And there’s also the point which Muffin made earlier, about the official languages of the Northwest Territories - do all judges of all courts that deal with cases from the NWT have to be able to work in all of those languages, so that they can hear or read all the evidence without the intermediary of an interpreter? That would include the NWT Court of Appeal, which is the Alberta Court of Appeal, sitting as the NWT Court of Appeal; it would also include the Supreme Court, since it can hear appeals from the NWT.
That’s where I come back to the fundamental double standard with Quebec’s position. In the civil sphere (thanks again for correcting my brain fart), Quebec has the abilty to, and in fact does, assign English speaking judges when a party wishes to be heard in English, but despite this institutional ability, Quebec has not put into its statues a requirement that a party shall be heard in English by an English speaking judge if that party requests it – but this is what Quebec wants the SCC to do with respect to French.
BTW, in areas where one official language is predominant (be it English in Alberta or French in Quebec) and a case is being brought or defended in the other official language, there usually still will be a need for translation even if the judge is bilingual, for one runs into the problem of witnesses, court staff, and lawyers also needing to be bilingual if translation is to be avoided, not to mention the need to have orders and judgements issued in both languages, and have documents including pleadings, evidence, and authorities translated.
It’s probably in his country’s interest to have Obama elected for a second term.
But he’s burning some serious bridges to do so; PM Harper made noises today about how we will have to sell our oil to Asian markets if the US doesn’t want it (hint: the US really, really wants it - we’re their biggest supplier).
Trans Canada also wants natural gas from Alaska, the issues are bigger than they seem.
No, there is an amending formula for the Constitution. It is difficult to amend the Constitution though, as we all learned from Meech Lake and Charlottetown.
It might, but it might not. I’m a little leery of following the path that our American friends follow–that of a separate criminal code for each state. There are many similarities (murder is a crime in each US state, for example, just as it is in Canada), but there are some significant differences. For example, jurisdictional issues come into play: no criminal wanted in Canada is safe if he or she skips provinces–extradition questions do not exist if a criminal wanted in (for example) Ontario is picked up in Alberta. The accused would be simply transported back to Ontario; which does not happen in the US, where extradition hearings between states must occur first.
No bridges have been burned, just scorched a bit. It’s the PM’s job to make noises when stuff like this happens. That’s what politicians do. It would take a lot more to burn bridges in a trading partnership as close as the U.S. and Canada’s.
This is the conversation that I imagine took place just before Obama announced his decision:
*OBAMA: Sorry, Steve, but I have to put the pipeline off by a year for political purposes.
HARPER: Okay, then, for political purposes, I’ll have to rattle my economic sabre.
OBAMA: Understood. *
For TransCanada and the oil companies, the issue at this point isn’t how much they’ve invested in the project, but how much they still have to gain from it, and I can’t see huge multinational corporations walking away, or even suffering too much, just because those gains will be delayed for a year. Otherwise, I’m sure Obama wouldn’t have done it.
22 Minutes sketch on the new $100.00 bill.
Thanks–that gave me a good laugh!
“That is not a sex toy for ghosts–it’s a map of Newfoundland!”
Dildo, Newfoundland!
You’re probably right about the discussion. Last I heard, though, TransCanada Pipeline (TCPL) stands to lose a billion dollars from this delay - even for a big O&G company, that’s a lot of money.
Whatever the number is, it’ll be bearable over one year for a company that’s already doing well without the new pipeline (if its dividend payouts since 2000 are any indication). I’m not going to take their side just because they won’t make as much next year.
TransCanada is a victim of bad timing here, but I don’t think it would hurt them to find out, like we all do, that life is sometimes unfair, and that they’ll have to suck it up and move on. If we’re all expected to do that, it shouldn’t be too much to ask of a healthy, viable entity like TransCanada.