You do realize Uke fits the typical leftist model. Teacher/Professor with a guaranteed job and salary that really has not suffered one bit during Covid . My guess is he has tenure as well

Not at all. I'd put it as Liberal>NDP>>Green>>Conservative>PPC. The NDP plan and the Liberals is largely identical in 2021 election. Same price on carbon in 2030. Same ICE cutoff year of 2035. But there were a few really weird aspects of the NDP plan that were not remotely flushed out (like their "sectoral carbon budgets") that made little sense. And the NDP has a history in BC and Ontario of opposing quality climate legislation brought in by liberal governments because they care about the poor first and the climate second. So it is close, but I put the liberals ahead of the NDP. As for the greens, their plan was an utter disaster. Yes they set a higher price target for 2030, but their plan was so utterly unworkable and defying basic common sense that it almost should be below the conservative plan, as much of a joke as it was. I get it, you like to think these things are just lined up in a row and the more "left" you are the better the plan is, but the details matter. Regardless, you are going to vote for the 2nd from the right party no matter the quality of the plan so I'm not sure why you care about the details.

Well, someone very close to me died from covid, many decades too young. Maybe don't speak to me about suffering during Covid. Criticize my opinons, if you must, but seriously stfu with this bullshit and naive guesses about my profession. I don't cast aspersion at your career, although perhaps I'll point out that the random academia bashing fits the "typical model" of old white Abertan construction worker like yourself. Nah, even trying it on for size that kind of posting seems just utter ****. Cut it out.

Yes ok , I believe you , didn’t check alberta scale wages charts .
Here in Quebec we lack teachers and nurse because wages kept getting beating for decades .

Bill 21 , Pretty much watch’s happening now .
Liberals in Quebec went very slowly against school , cause u know …..votes .
At one point , liberals were so bad , they only had 15-20% votes from francophone with highly divisive political discourse ……
Today they are more of a Montreal party than anything else now.

I ignored your earlier comment along these lines - and certainly ignored the spurious guesses as the motivation - but I haven't made any comments recently about pipelines as compared to rail/trucks, and it turns out your guess as to my position is not what I think. I don't disagree that pipelines are less polluting per million barrels than other methods, and am not intrinsically anti-pipeline in my positions. Sadly, your post was quite........bad:

Your view is that higher prices lead to more consumption of oil?

I don't think you understand the basic economic principle of supply and demand. There is not one fixed "demand" that supply is driven to meet. Instead, the quantity consumed depends on the price. This is the whole point of carbon taxes, that at higher prices there will be less consumption.

Go for it but fossil fuels are the most plentiful, reliable and cheapest.


Yes, I am aware you have no idea. You should read that article, maybe define what you think a subsidies is. Here is a report from the EIA for you: https://www.instituteforenergyresear...rgy-subsidies/

500,00 barrels a day, Keystone would have easily transfered that. Hardly a "quirk" when the Biden administration is already under fire for fuel prices. While we banned straws and cancelled pipelines Russia upped their production to make more of the world more reliant on their oil/gas.


Pipelines burn oil? Who's talking about taking more out of the ground? A pipeline to the east coast and would help solve Europe's energy problems and not reliant on Russia, amazing that you need these basics explained to you.

Except energy is a necessity not a good to consume. People drive, eat, heat/cool their homes to survive. Higher prices for survival means people suffer or sacrifice other things to survive.

Energy doesn’t ignore the laws of economics as they apply to everything else. People adapt to higher prices and consume less. That’s the goal. Smaller cars, smaller houses, higher population density, buying local, biking, transit, not flying around the world, etc. It doesn’t happen over night but people adapt to price changes just as people are adjusting to high energy prices for reasons entirely beyond the carbon tax right now.

You seem to have missed a subtle but important point in his post: "If more oil is getting out of the ground and being burned because of the pipelines..."

I agreed strongly with your previous post about the shortsightedness of refusing to build pipelines, when it means we'll be shipping the same oil through means that will be worse environmentally and/or more dangerous. What I see uke talking about here is that if a pipeline leads to more oil being extracted, then there is an environmental cost, potentially quite significant. I agree with that as well.

For the time being, yes. Did you think that someone was disputing this, or that it makes the environmental consequences go away?

LOL, awesome.

I did read it, thanks, but apparently you couldn't be bothered to properly read a one line post, and/or remember your own. Let's rewind:

"Why would there be subsidies" you ask, as if there wouldn't be subsidies for fossil fuels. I pointed out that there are plenty of fossil fuel subsidies, and you kindly linked another article that says the same. Glad we both agree that your "Why would there be subsidies" line was pretty lame.

I'm aware that renewable energy presently has large subsidies. I'm good with that (although not unconditionally), and I understand that you aren't. Going forward, maybe you should keep in mind that most people are aware of these basic facts, and suggesting things like there wouldn't be fossil fuel subsidies is a waste of our time.

And still...

Higher prices per barrel of oil (what you want to force) allow for otherwise less profitable areas of oil (Shale, some oil sands, etc) to now be extracted economically while at the same time improving the technology and output.

The exact opposite of what you say you want but you miss the forest for the trees as most on the left do. You guys have bought corporate spin and made it dogma and unfortunately for Canada, I doubt we ever shake it, thus this terrible Canadian schizophrenia over our Oil and other resource assets.

The left on this issue is well intentioned. They advocate for policy in the world they WISH to live in but there is no pragmatism in their view for the world we DO live in. Here is what matters ...

Canadian Oil is coming up and getting to market, so do we make it as clean as possible? The left says 'No' in a wrong headed belief that it will keep from market. The rest say 'yes, if it must come up and go to market lets make it as clean as possible'.

uke, can you not see the flaw in your dogmatic position in this reply by Shifty?

Do you actually believe (yes or No) that the prevention of the pipelines, and keeping oil more expensive, equals less oil coming out of the ground? And can you not see that it just creates an opening for Russia or Shale to fill that gap in a way that is even more polluting?

For your position to have merit you have to stick to a false belief that 'well done. We blocked that pipeline and thus have succeeded in keeping more oil from getting to the market'.

You are looking only at the local result and not the counter action it creates and that is something the left seems to do more than right, imo.

Think i answered that above and it is a nonsense point in my view.

Anyway perhaps you can explain it. How did or does keeping more Canadian oil (lets correct that for accuracy as you are not slowing other sources) because of slowing pipelines impact what Russia or Shale or other sources will then process?

I want you to dig in to Macro economic principles as what is being asserted here is that DEMAND is actual created by CANADA and our pipelines or not modulate DEMAND up and down. The premise here is if we have no pipelines in Canada there will be less demand world wide for Oil for other to fill.

I cannot understand that dogmatic position from otherwise reasonable people and that is what i am asking. Because their really is a such a HUGE disconnect in what uke is asserting in that area.

The reality is this is shifting source from one pocket to another and Canadian pipelines OR NOT, are not going to have any negligible effect on world demand. We ain't changing sh*t in that regard. So all we are doing (the schizophrenic Cdns) are trying to deny ourselves participation and profits in a market that will march on without us.

I think, for many on the left it is more a virtue signaling thing (to be more fair I think most is just ignorance of the facts) in that they would gladly shut the entire O&G production down to zero and celebrate their huge win while ignoring all the other sources who stepped up to then produce it, even if more polluting.

I can't quite tell from your posts: do you recognize that higher prices lead to lower consumption?


This whole series of posts is really weird. It is like you have this caricature of what the left's views on pipelines in your mind, and then just plastered my face on top of it but I haven't said just about any of the things you are acting like are my position. You think this is my premise? Where? Quote me suggesting it.

You know I am not sure if they do. BC is paying $2.00 a litre is transit ridership growing ?

What seems to sell the most for vehicles? Are less trucks being sold, less SUV's ? It seems folks just carve out more of their budget for travel costs.

Reality is Oil hit $115 a barrel and gas prices still reflect about $90-$100. If the price does not drop you could see $2.00 a litre in AB and $2.50 in BC

Why would energy magically not obey basic economics?

Remember, price sensitivity happens on the margins. So someone far from the margin doesn't change their behaviour because of small changes in price, but can resort in a big change (smaller car or hybrid/electric, closer or smaller apartment, buying that ebike, etc) in behaviours.

From Elon Musk

Are you going to address whether you think it is 'Demand' that is the main driver of supply or Supply is the main driver of Demand?

Higher prices have small immediate impacts but tend to not have long term impacts. Meaning you may see some people cut back in the immediacy of new higher prices but once that sticker shock wears off and we have the 'new norm' for O&G prices things go back to normal. Thus why O&G consumption curves go up and to the right even as prices have consistently gone up and to the right. So the opposite of what you think is true over time.

It is not a caricature as I bet you are generally more informed than most on the left who hold your vies but you still repeat these cartoonishly simplistic views.

Answer this. Do you really believe that keeping Canadian Oil moving thru trucks and trains, is helping, in even the smallest ways to lower over all O&G consumption or do you recognize it is just made up for by other (often worse) sources?

And 'if we agree that the Oil is just being replaced by Oil coming in from Russia or Shale, etc, do you not see how that is worse in many ways, including that blocking/slowing Cdn supply is the only SYMBOLIC (virtue signalling) in terms of impact on Climate change and harmful to Cdn citizens overall (less revenue) and harmful to the improvements that can be developed to make the industry more green?

Again I will offer an example of the foolishness of the dogmatic approach.


We can all agree that the ICE autos as produced by most of today's major manufactures need to be fazed out as more green energy is available and a grid can be provided to 'fuel' them.

Going to war and trying to deprive ICE manufacturers profits because you know 'ICE' = 'bad' may seem like a nice short term win. You may think you are 'helping the environment' if you could achieve some wins in that area.

But the reality is that it will be today's ICE manufacturers who get us to that world of of 'all' or 'mostly EV's' far quicker than new startups or companies like Tesla can.

The short term objective (harm the 'bad') would just be short sighted and any wins claimed 'naïve'. You could virtue signal those wins and sure, you will find an audience to applaud but you are harming the long term goals.

I don't really want to get dragged into some long-winded conversation against the caricature you've fabricated here, but, uh, briefly no neither of these reflects basic economics. Demand or Supply aren't just one thing. They are curves on a quantity-price chart. That said, I'm personally more into government interventions that suppress demand through higher prices (example carbon tax) than limit supply from restricted quantities (example moratoriums on drilling). So while I don't think your question as posed makes any sense, I'm more of a demand-side person on this issue.

Let me rephrase what you are sort of half right about. Oil typically has lower elasticity of demand compared to other commodities. For example, it is quite hard to get someone to sell an F150 and buy a Leaf or to downsize a large suburban house for a smaller apartment closer to work. This connects to what lozen suggests as well where most people not close to the margins just absorb the increased costs for a while. However, low price inelasticity works both ways. Once someone does make a change, they tend to be long term changes as well (you don't sell the car and house the next year when prices come back down). Nevertheless, the ultimate conclusion which is that long term prices won't affect consumption is simply wrong. If you believe this, you need to articulate why this particular commodity is immune to basic economics.

The reality is for all of CDN resources weather its Gold, Oil or Natural Gas Canada leads the way in how it extracts these products.

If you want to see the worst of gold mining watch Trafficked on National Geographic on Mafia Rainforest.
Do you think Russia, Saudi care about the environment or emissions

Everyone talks clean energy though does anyone realize were all those minerals come from to make the panels and the batteries. Very little is extracted with the environment in mind

To think every CDN will be driving a electric car and powering their homes with solar panels in 30 years is a pipe dream

The planets doomed and Justin's not going to save it all he will do is lose CDN jobs and turn us into a debt ridden country (actually already done)

Right so you ask me to answer your question and refuse to answer mine.

Again, do you believe that a continued denial of Canadian pipelines has any impact on world oil consumption, and thus as you posit it is no brainer that it means less consumption & emissions, or do you recognize that Oil that does not come from Canada, then just comes from somewhere else (ie Russia)? And that oil coming from Russia can be every bit as polluting (factoring distance traveled) as well as having other ethical considerations?

You seem to have a child like view that preventing Canadian pipelines is absolutely something that then means less profit and thus less production, thus means less supply to the world, thus good for the environment. And that is really naïve.

As I said, I don’t want to be dragged into a protracted debate or 20-question Cuepee-style investigation about the “childlike view” you have purely imagined I hold on a subject you haven’t seen me talk about. I answered your first specific question and explained the specific economic fallacies you made. You can respond to that or not, up to you.

No I will just ridicule you for ducking your clear error and child like view.

You act like its a no brainer that denying Canada pipelines, means higher prices thus less demand and thus better for the environment.

You do exactly what the most naïve on the left do which is completely ignore or are ignorant to the other side of the ledger, were Russia ships in the oil across the ocean that we do not supply.

So the only victim here is the Canadian coffers. There are no winners here as the oil still gets transported just from elsewhere,

But you are so sure you have the equation down. Keep Canada's prices higher, try to deny Cdn oil getting to market and voila, we impact overall world wide consumption and better the environment.


It is a such a child like view you will not even attempt to address and just pretend you have the high ground. But that is because this is mostly ideological for the left. You could make it crystal clear that Russia will make up every drop even if at higher cost and worse environmental impact and the ideologues on the left would still fight against Cdn pipelines.

Sorry, can you quote me saying literally any single one of the various things you claim my childlike view is?

Painting my face on top of the effigy of the left so can you burn it down might make you feel better, but if you actually want a discussion you should respond to the only thing I actually said which was point out some basic errors in economics from your posts.