I’d settle for evidence of thinking at all. People online are talking oil export taxes and cancelling F-35 contracts, but this is small beer. I doubt America is thinking anything beyond economics, to the extent Trump understands that.
But it would be nice if someone had carefully considered all the contingencies a long time ago, reduce interprovincial barriers, build export infrastructure, etc. Even having an active government would help; instead we have upcoming elections and the finger-pointing game.
These headlines barely register on the websites of big American papers. And who knows what Trump will do anyway? Not even he knows.
The statement about oil is bizarre. If we’re charging an unfair price on oil (oil prices are set by commodity exchanges), which presumably means overcharging for it, he’ll put a tariff on it which will make it even more expensive.
I mean, part of the tariff response strategizing has been whether or not to slap an export tax on oil on the assumption that Trump obviously wouldn’t put a tariff on oil because it would be stupid due to cause gas price shocks. At this point, if he’s going to slap on tariffs anyways, I hope they do include oil.
Also for the record, US refineries get Canadian crude at a significant discount over the standard price of oil you hear reported on the news, because it’s mostly heavy oil that’s harder to refine than the standard light crude. Or maybe that’s what’s not fair, we’re not charging enough for our oil? Who the fuck knows with this moron.
Seventy percent of Canadian oilsands companies are foreign owned, so Trump would, to some degree, be tariffing American companies in Canada. It is only recently our government started occasionally saying “no” to foreign companies wishing to bogart our natural resources. Why we never developed our own refineries is beyond me, but probably the lobbyists and foreign influence deemed it uneconomic. Why we didn’t sell LNG to Europe when they came begging… another lost opportunity.
Trump has a long history of devaluing what people offer as a bargaining tactic to pay less. There are lots of trees in the US, but the thing about lumber is that if you don’t harvest it in a sustainable way you don’t have it anymore. The US does need Canadian potash, lumber and resources and that is why it buys them. Even Roosevelt thought a main cause of the Great Depression was America introducing tariffs, which decreased foreign investment and inevitably invited retaliation.
Oil export fees are a fine idea of a targeted retaliation; cancelling the F-35 purchase is stupid. We need a fucking air force and we’re a decade or more behind on just buying some damned planes because of the stupidity of our government.
But that said, it IS now, for the first time in my life, possible they could invade and occupy us.
Virtue signalling. LNG is a fossil fuel, and the government is obsessed with virtue signalling over climate change, despite the fact that Canada’s efforts make no measurable impact on it at all, and LNG if anything would displace even worse carbon-emitting activities. The fact its use is likely carbon neutral or better over the likely alternatives is irrelevant, because actually helping with climate change is not something our government cares about. They care about LOOKING like they’re doing something.
That’s why I have no confidence they are actually preparing for Trumpism in any way. I do not believe they have pulled in industry leaders, game theorists, insiders, intelligence analysts and brilliant economists in a war team to come up with the right tariff retaliation strategy. They absolutely could have done so but I don’t for an instant think they did. I think they’re just trying to figure out what public display of retaliation would win votes for the Liberal Party.
Similarly, do you really think they’ve ordered the Chief of Defence Staff to put together a blue ribbon panel of strategists and intel guys to come up with an assessment of the US threat and what Canada should do about it? No, they have not, I am totally certain.
‘Virtue signalling’ is one of those interesting expressions that Conservatives like to use, and it works best when it isn’t defined.
And similar to ‘woke’ and ‘politically correct/political correctness’, when I define it from the context in which a Conservative has used it, I usually find out they’re trying to disparage something that I agree with.
And so with this - we need to transition from fossil fuels to alternative sources of energy. Anything that prolongs fossil fuel use is to be avoided. The first nation to develop clean, green technology wins. Canada has a choice between being a world leader, or trying to sell our fossil fuels while we can still get something for them. I vote we be a world leader.
And it’s all part and parcel of that Conservative thinking that we can still have a ‘limited’ nuclear war, and that nukes are some kind of deterrent, or that we can compete with the US militarily without destroying the land we’re allegedly trying to protect, or that we can still burn fossil fuels or sell them to other nations to burn while the world is on fire.
Thinking like that is why the world on the brink of several irreversible tipping points in the fight against climate change, and the Doomsday Clock is now at 89 seconds to midnight.
But, hey - tell me again how wanting humanity to thrive is 'virtue signalling!
That’s funny, I hear liberals, conservatives, and moderates all using it. It’s quite a common expression. Do you have a factual response, rather than an ad hominem?
I’ll tell you what, @RickJay - seeing you’re the one who used the term, why don’t you tell me what you think it means, and how it applies to Liquid Natural Gas?
And I do not intend any of my remarks as an ad hominem attack - we have very different world views, but I understand you have reasons for thinking the way that you do. We have never seen eye to eye, but I do have to say, you’ve mellowed in the 15 - 16 years since we first met online.
Meanwhile, I have to clean the humidifiers, snake out the drains in the bathroom sinks, and cook dinner.
Posted this over in the MMP, but thought I could also post it here, since there isn’t much overlap in the posting groups for the two threads.
Major blizzard today. Things were pretty mild this morning, then by noon it was grey and windy. By 1 pm, blizzard was starting.
Went to the installation of the new Lt Gov of Saskatchewan at the Legislature (open attendance in the galleries). Big ceremony, starting with trumpet fanfare as the official party entered; lots of red-serge Mounties (with sabres and spurs); judges in gowns; police and military aides-de-camp in blue and black, with aiguillettes; the Speaker wearing black robes and a tricorne: the sergeant-at-arms wearing black robes and a bicorne; Black Rod carrying, well, the black rod; string quartet playing baroque music and excerpt from Handel’s Solomon; Indigenous smudging ceremony outside the chamber; God Save the King to kick things off; commission from His Majesty the King read out; oath of office and oath of allegiance to the King administered by the Chief Justice to the new Lt Gov; lots of speeches; O Canada at the end; new Lt Gov inspecting a squad of Mounties in the rotunda, with a piper playing the vice-regal salute from the balcony. Then a tea.
During the ceremony, could hear the wind howling, even though the Legislature is a sturdy marble clad building. Left the Legislature and the blizzard was going full blast; by the time I walked to my car, could barely see the Legislature Building through the blowing snow; very cold east wind.
My 87 year old mother is in Florida. Given her mobility challenges, she’s largely confined to her apartment building if she’s at home in Toronto during the winter and her fixed costs are already sunk - rent, airfare, health insurance - for the season.
I see that now the tariffs have been suspended tor 30 days. I expect Trudeau will make some symbolic gestures, Trump will declare a win and then quietly forget about the whole thing. He will never admit being wrong, but a whole lot of very rich people must have gotten to him.
I was very impressed by Trudeau’s speech on Saturday night. He and his advisors must have been preparing for this for weeks. Trudeau was in complete control and the way his eyes were scanning the audience made it clear he wasn’t using a teleprompter.
I just applied for my absentee voter registration for the Ontario election. I didn’t realize you can only vote for two years after you leave the province - I thought Canada had universal absentee voting.
For federal elections, you can vote absentee provided you are a citizen and have lived in Canada at some point. Provincial elections have stricter absentee voting residency rules, presumably to prevent Albertans from voting in Newfoundland elections 30 years after they moved west, etc.
Makes sense, I suppose. I was still a little surprised. Especially as, to the best of my knowledge, for both the Ontario provincial election and the upcoming Federal election, I’ll only be able to vote in the riding where I was last a resident. That means my vote will likely increase some candidates majority, as that riding was full of leftists like me.
