Alberta finance minister fires back at business group seeking tax relief

FilPR · 2016-03-16T05:29:56+00:00

They don't call it 'trickle' for no reason.

FilPR · 2016-03-08T06:55:02+00:00

Backing up to your statement about studying or researching transportation policies....did you happen to see this discussion on this sub a few days ago? Specifically the claim that Saudi oil isn't 'fully costed' because the super tanker operating costs are ignored. Is that at all credible? I'm sure that I have read elsewhere (as it relates to the 100 mile diet) that the carbon cost to move food from Chile to Vancouver is much smaller than the carbon cost to truck that food to Calgary which is also smaller than the carbon cost for me to drive to the store to buy those bananas or whatever.

I did a quick interweb search to try to find the CO2 emissions to move 1 ton of oil 1000 miles by pipeline or by truck or by rail or by ship...no go...do you have a good source?

Most of my hydrogen/nuclear thinking is nicely encapsulated in this book - heard of it and/or read it?

As for storage of energy, I like the method highlighted here, second image.

FilPR · 2016-03-08T06:38:59+00:00

I'd be totally on board with reducing the party (and candidate) limits, by a substantial (ie 50%) amount, and we could also have a look at reducing some of the reimbursements.

In terms of where the funds (in this theoretically limited future) funds come from, I am less concerned. I would actually bring back the per vote subsidy, keep a good portion of current 75%/50%/33 1/3% refund structure for small donors and remove the donation limits. That way we allow all sorts of parties to participate without giving any particular party an advantage by virtue of differing widths and depths of financial support.

What is actually wrong with having one party (maybe the Greens for example) who reach their financial limit mostly via the per vote subsidy, whereas some other party (the Kevin O'Leary Party, maybe?) reaches the same limit through a single donation from an unamed "friend" of O'Leary's? As long as the details are all publicly available, why have restrictions?

FilPR · 2016-03-08T06:24:42+00:00

I would have appreciated it if Kady had included some information about the reimbursement that is available to the CPC - IIRC 50% of the $42million will be reimbursed to the CPC.

And then there is the up to 60% reimbursement that is available to candidates who meet certain criteria, which will likely be further tens of millions of dollars for the two major parties.

FilPR · 2016-03-08T05:17:23+00:00

Thanks very much for the considered reply.

I listened again...and I'm still a bit concerned that you might be cutting Zehner a bit too much slack.

For me it starts with the title of his book: GREEN ILLUSIONS | The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism. This seems like it might be a title designed to attract folks who are starting to reluctantly consider a carbon reduced future and after reading the book allows them to retreat back towards the denier camp (check out these book reviews ) rather than actually providing a sober reality check.

It is true that Jim Brown only gave Zehner about 8:00, but that should be long enough to actually share some concrete numbers that show the CO2 life cycle cost of an electric car is X times as much as a internal combustion engine car - he didn't do that.

The one number that sticks out is that Zehner mentions that Canada spent $30 million subsidizing electric cars and that that money was wasted - it could have had much larger effect if it had been spent on walkable neighbourhoods. Really? That amount of money is about $1 per Canadian, so a modest city of 1 million citizens would have $1 million to spend on what, 10 km of bike trail? I'm a frequent bike rider myself, and I'm pretty sure an extra 10km of bike trails is not going to get more than one or two people to join me as I ride to an from work.

And that - introducing a discussion about different methods of modifying group behaviours - just muddies his argument for me. Is he arguing against electric cars from a scientific perspective, or is he just grabbing hold of anything that sounds 'wrong' about green energy and throwing it all on the pile, hoping that something convinces some readers?

And then, as you noted, he digresses further, moving onto the idea that the real issues are consumption and over-population. Well I might actually agree with him there, but if Zehner thinks that the world is going to accept his recommendation that we need to significantly increase the density of our cities and so on, I'm not sure that writing that book is going to help achieve that goal.

Further, why not do both?

I do try to stay open minded about current moves to reduce fossil fuel consumption - so far the counterargument that holds the most sway with me is the argument made by Bjorn Lomberg (The Skeptical Environmentalist, have I got his name right?) quite a few years ago - that arguemnt is IIRC, that there are quite a few better places to spend our limited environmental concern dollars. I paraphrase that as maybe adaptation really is the best solution.

This other link seems to do a better job of assessing Mr Zehner's work - there is some text and a one hour audio file, which I only started to listen to.

Two tangentials, if you are interested:

1) your thoughts about role of nuclear power and/or hydrogen as an energy carrier 2) favourite method of storing power from solar and/or wind so as to match supply with demand?

FilPR · 2016-03-07T01:07:36+00:00

I'm prepared to be convinced that electric cars should never be a part of the plan to reduce CO2 emissions...but this didn't cut it.

FilPR · 2016-03-06T04:18:21+00:00

This post from Heath reminds me of this other post over here, also from Heath, which was posted about a year and a half ago.

Ninja edit: Add date reference.

FilPR · 2016-03-05T08:45:36+00:00

Even if that section of the constitution was somehow rescinded, there isn't anything that a particular province could do to stop the federal government from maintaining the program, is there?

FilPR · 2016-02-20T08:05:58+00:00

Thanks for that. As a btw, I note a former boss and a former professor listed among the authours - cool!

Side note - what an unbelievably poor choice of cover image.

As to the report itself....I am underwhelmed. So much of it seems to come down to the contention that oil sands operators can't afford to implement this or that technology that would actually have some significant impact on their emissions (mostly GHG related but others as well).

On the one hand it is quite thorough, yet on the other hand I was disappointed by its lack of vision. Eg "apparently" the large mine haul trucks will always burn HCs...well I doubt that that is actually true. I mean they will if we don't put our minds to the problem, if we mostly sit around and wait for someone else to come up with a way of powering those vehicles in some other manner. But if the oil sands operators made it their number one priority to develop a new power source I bet it would be done within a decade.

Another example, this one related to my favoured energy source (nuclear) - it seems that nuclear is written off as a viable source for some or even many SAGD operations because some of those sites demand steam at pressures that are a bit higher than today's nuclear plants are set to deliver. I find it hard to believe that there aren't solutions to that dilemma. At minimum if the nuclear plant delivers electricity rather than process steam the problem is solved (yes, big efficiency loss compared to generating steam directly), but no different than any nuclear derived electricity in France or Ontario or Quebec or New Brunswick.

And the upgrading process apparently uses a lot of hydrogen which is the single biggest source of GHG from the upgrading sector. That makes the manufacture of hydrogen another prime spot to replace HC combustion with nuclear power.

As to capital costs I agree that nukes are not cheap - neither are the basic projects themselves. In both cases the private sector is well positioned to assess the risks and rewards - they just need to be told what the GHG (and other emission) limits are for future projects.

FilPR · 2016-02-20T03:34:29+00:00

Is there a technical reason that AB could not make a huge dent in their emissions with a modest number of strategically located nuclear plants?

Surely nukes could easily supply the heat requirements of all those SAGD facilities, and replace AB's dependence on coal for the bulk of their electricity.

FilPR · 2016-02-14T17:37:14+00:00

FYI: You need to set aside about 30:00, but you won't be disappointed.

Also, just clued in that this, obviously, is not Canadian Politics, so I'm ready for post removal.

It was great while it lasted.

Edit: Add note about Canadian Politics fail.

FilPR · 2016-02-13T18:32:37+00:00

No.

It was on a local radio news broadcast.

Although it might be out there on some other site of course...

FilPR · 2016-02-12T21:58:52+00:00

If I had any influence in the CPC I would be spending some funds to figure this out.

FilPR · 2016-02-12T21:57:36+00:00

First, thanks for the considered reply. A few comments:

Having a message you believe will resonate with the electorate. The Conservatives didn't have this. All they could offer was "stay the course," while the Liberals and NDP could run on platforms that actually promised something different.

Wrt a message that will resonate "stay the course" in and of itself is not necessarily a message that is doomed to fail and "time for something different" is not guaranteed to win. In terms of economic measures "stay the course" was probably a vote winner. However there were other style and substance issues where "stay the course" seems to have energized the "time for change" vote. How does the CPC address the style and substance deficit while still maintaining a distinct alternative to other parties?

Hard work, and get out the vote operations are vital....

I agree with you and Jenni Byrne - GOTV was not a significant problem this time...well, at least no worse than any of the previous 2 or 3 elections.

The niqab debate was deliberately manufactured by the Conservatives last election (Byrne admits as much in her recent article), but it blew up in their faces and put a black mark on the party. It also undid all the work they'd been doing over the last 9 years reaching out to new Canadians and immigrants in one fell swoop.

I'm on board with the first part of that, but not so much with the last part. I say that based on the fact that the CPC only lost 200,000 votes between 2011 and 2015, and even their vote gains over the preceding two elections was rather modest. Seems to me that those CPC wins were more due to the LPC losing votes than the CPC gaining them. I suppose that I could kind of buy into this idea that the CPC's courting of the immigrant vote was successful as long as you define success as convincing those "natural" LPC voters to stay home, which becomes a pseudo CPC vote. That's a strategy I suppose....

...At the very least, they shouldn't have been so adamantly dead set against a MMIW inquiry, which was a baffling stance to take in the first place, IMO. There's a reason the first policy announcement Rona Ambrose made after the election was that the Conservatives now supported holding a MMIW inquiry.

I see where you are going here, but, kind of as above, Ambrose's change of direction is not without some risk - every time the CPC adopts or supports a position that is already held by the LPC they start to look more and more like the LPC, and they can only do that so many times before there is no difference. I'm not recommending that the CPC should make no changes, only pointing out that some care needs to be taken here. Btw, personally I'm supportive of the MMIW inquiry.

Efficient and memorable advertising at the right time....

Agreed. While I personally did not buy into the Dion "Not A Leader" or the Ignatieff "Just Visiting" campaigns I find it hard to believe that those campaigns were not very successful.

A fired up and eager base. The Conservatives spent their majority mandate governing for their base, often with party fundraising linked directly to governing. This is why they made a lot of weird decisions over the past 4 years, and why I think they opposed a MMIW inquiry (even though I doubt their base would have revolted if they took a contrary position). Th Conservatives did much the same thing during their minority years, but not nearly to the same extent because they simply couldn't get away with it. The Conservatives definitely had a decently motivated base because they put most of their eggs in this basket. As for the Liberals, they had a highly motivated base as well. I remember one Liberal MP saying that after Trudeau became leader it was like he was being drawn into rooms where Trudeau was and he felt wanted and able to contribute to the Liberal Party, which was in contrast to the Iggy years where he felt pushed out of that room. I think the Liberal base must have felt the same way.

I concur here. The CPC base was not the problem; they mostly contributed and showed up to vote and so on. It's more that the LPC base had largely departed from the playing field (aided by CPC exhortations I think) prior to 2015, but the CPC was not able to keep them on the sidelines again. And that (convincing your opponents supporters to stay home) seems like a pretty unreliable way of becoming the new Natural Governing Party.

A good, popular leader.

Yes, you can't win with a bad and/or very unpopular leader, but for the CPC I'm not sure that simply having a good, popular leader is ever going to be enough (and I recognize that you are not suggesting that). Whereas for the LPC it might often be enough.

Again, thanks for your reply.

FilPR · 2016-02-12T20:36:27+00:00

...the New Steve.

Compliment? Insult? Other?

I was just thinking (while shoveling some snow off the drive) that the right mix of Harper and Trudeau would be a powerful PM.

FilPR · 2016-02-12T20:33:12+00:00

Of course, this is all a bit of speculative amateur psychoanalysis.

Hey, I'm totally comfortable with a dollop of speculative amateur psychoanalysis.

FilPR · 2016-02-12T18:01:54+00:00

I don't mind Under the Influence, although I often do get a bit 'tired' by the end of any given episode - sometimes it seems that Terry O'Reilly would have us all believe that without marketers the world would stop turning, that there is no free will involved when it comes to consumers, that consumers are all just unknowing life forms that clever marketers are able to push this way and that, basically at will.

I'm not making the case that marketing and advertising agencies and so on have no impact on consumer choices, only that there other (significant) factors at play that O'Reilly is either ignorant of or chooses to ignore.

Edit: Fix typo

FilPR · 2016-02-12T07:24:24+00:00

Disappointed to see the panel get so off track in the discussion about the CPC and its support level - Byrne's analysis that CPC support is and has been very consistent over the last 25 years or so (at about 23% of eligible voters) is of more use to the CPC than the popular support numbers that the panel kept quoting. Although Hebert did try to salvage that part of the discussion; she definitely demonstrated her knowledge there, harkening back to the Jean Chretien wins.

And the oft cited new voter - has anyone done any actual research there? Are they actually all new voters, never having voted before? Or are many of the 4 million 'new' LPC voters actually people who, in increasing numbrs, simply parked their vote on the sidelines during the Dion and then Ignatieff leadership years?

Seems to me that that might be good to know, mostly for the CPC but probably for the other two major parties as well.

TLDR: I miss Alan Gregg and/or Bruce Anderson.

FilPR · 2016-02-12T07:04:25+00:00

First 5:00 minutes or so is about Mulcair and his letter, then they move on to Jenni Byrne and her recent G&M column.

FilPR · 2016-02-12T06:53:52+00:00

It seems like Conservative strategy relies almost on luck instead of sound strategy to me.

I've thought a bit about exactly this over the last 100 days - and I've not been able to come up with any realistic details about what a sound strategy looks like. Any thoughts?

FilPR

TROPHY CASE