When The Tories Left Office

I was too young in 1991 to put the news I was hearing into context. My family had worked for months on my Dad’s campaign for the Sask Liberals in Moose Jaw, and he’d come away in second place. Roy Romanow was the new Premier of Saskatchewan, and Grant Devine would soon fade into political obscurity as some of his cabinet and other MLAs would go to jail, and in the sad case of Jack Wolfe an early grave. Future Lieutenant Governor Linda Haverstock was the only Sask Liberal MLA in the Saskatchewan Legislature.

Soon, the new hospital in Lafleche was turned into a band-aid centre; babies no longer permitted to be born there. In the next four years, my school was closed despite it costing more to bus kids to other towns than it did to run the entire school in Wood Mountain. The railway was closed and ripped out everywhere near my hometown (but not through it, because of a clean-up bylaw imposed by the Village council). Rural Saskatchewan was both dying, and being killed. The NDP were in charge, and their eyes turned to urban Saskatchewan, as they shunned their rural roots.

In 2007, The Saskatchewan Party came to power. Brad Wall was the new Premier. The NDP faded from the scene, and wherever there was big industry, private or public, they got the support of the government. Our huge resource revenues were utterly spent. There was nothing put away into a savings account, and now that oil has come crashing down, there is nothing in the tank.

Suncor, known for its huge presence in Alberta's oilsands, cuts 1,000 jobs amid oil rout http://t.co/ebuHaBsWQm

— Regina Leader Post (@leaderpost) January 14, 2015

Another provincial election is coming, Wall’s 2nd as Premier. Will the oil crash of 2014/15 expose how badly the province is being managed? Is Wall’s extended honeymoon over? Probably not, but now there’s a chance of him reaping what he’s sown.

Meanwhile, Premier Wall tweets about music. #skpoli

— Adam Duke (@Adam_Duke) January 14, 2015

Saskatchewan’s Biggest Net Loss

How did Postmedia manage to let this Hanley column sneak into its pages? Mandryk got his shots in at Cenovus and Wall already too. SaskWind has provided a breath of fresh air to Saskatchewan political analysis also.

I expect Canadians would want to know whether their tax dollars are being used to subsidize the oil industry.

But as SaskPower says, beyond the question of costs, CCS technology provides a major benefit: It allows us to continue to use cheap and plentiful fossil fuels to provide base load power while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

[photo added]

Actually, that’s debatable [link added]. Remember, the net result of the project is increased recovery of oil, which emits greenhouse gases in production and combustion. One analysis, Life Cycle Inventory of CO2 in an Enhance Oil Recovery System published in Environmental Science and Technology, shows that the CCS-EOR cycle remains a substantial source of greenhouse gases.

The IPCC, the UN climate science panel, is quite clear about the need to leave the vast majority of proven fossil fuel reserves in the ground in order to mitigate extreme climate change. So why subsidize the fossil fuel industry?

This is much bigger than the smart meter fiasco.

The public deserves answers.

ADDED (waste):

@LarryNeufeldSK Even if capital cost is reduced to $0, still loses money bcos revenue from CO2 sales does not even cover process energy cost

— SaskWind (@SaskWind) December 9, 2014

#EnergyEast Hot Tub Party

TransCanada wants to use an old pipe that was designed for another product, and send tarsand bitumen through it, under Regina and many communities.

What municipalities are crazy enough to allow this?

TransCanada is a bit like someone offering to host a hot tub party while they know they have explosive diarrhea.

SaskPower Carbon Capture and Storage Goes Online Late, Over Budget

I must print a “correction” to my piece in April when I reported that the SaskPower CCS plant was on time and online.
The plant went online late last month, two seasons after it was scheduled, to deal with an apparently surprise asbestos attack.

While the final costs are still being calculated, Mr. Watson acknowledged the project is over budget. Last fall, that overage was pegged at $115-million, or 9 per cent.

“The project aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by one million tonnes annually, which amounts to about 90 per cent of the emissions from the plant.”

People’s Climate March

On Sunday I attended a climate rally in Regina with what looked to be well over a hundred other people.

It’s too bad more of the 33,400 Rider fans in attendance didn’t make the People’s Climate March a priority for their pre-game activity. Listening to the crowd at the Legislature though, it’s apparent there are plenty of people in oil country who are afraid to speak out against the industries ruining their water tables and flooding their towns with oil money. Who would they speak to anyway? Some local papers won’t publish stories of oil spills a journalist told me in 2010. Bad for business. And Postmedia owned papers are in cahoots with CAPP. That makes it all the more amazing that Murray Mandryk managed to write a fairly critical piece on McMillian bolting from Wall’s government to work on the private side of the oil lobby sector. McMillian perhaps exhausted his public oil deeds.

You probably want to read this about oil lobbying in Canada. Look who is sitting with criminal Bruce Carson? Oh, it’s just the Premier of Alberta.

The Premier makes a little cameo appearance in this short film of the Climate March. Bring ‘Em Out.

CAPP Gets A Cabinet Minister #skpoli

The headline of this Global story is wrong.

“Sask. Party MLA Tim McMillan leaving politics to lead petroleum group”

CAPP is not outside of politics; they are a branch of the federal Conservative Party, and exist solely to lobby governments to favour petroleum over other energy sources.

It’s farcical to assume he won’t use his ties to the Sask Party to influence energy policy in Saskatchewan over the coming year. What’s he supposed to do for his first year of employment if not attempt to convince the Saskatchewan government he works for another week, to ignore renewable energy in favour of petroleum products?

Brad Wall says, “As President of CAPP, I know Tim will continue working hard to develop our resource industry in western Canada, including here in Saskatchewan.”

There Are Homeless People in Saskatchewan?

How is this even possible? How could a Minister of the province of Saskatchewan not realize there are homeless people, and others struggling to pay rent right here in Regina?

#yqr #skpoli housing http://t.co/Wur55qkFQ3 "You’re assuming that there’s these desperate homeless people”-Harpauer. Oh. My. God. #skpoli

— Tammy Robert (@tammyrobert) September 9, 2014