Canadian News
The latest news from and about Canadian issues.Saturday, October 18, 2008
New Union With Canada And Mexico: Open Borders For US.
Amero Weblog, October 18, 2008 - “The Security and Prosperity Partnership between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. is underway at this moment. Why such a massive international cooperative trade program has not been promoted by our government, may seem a mystery. It is touted as an arrangement to ‘increase security and enhance prosperity’ through ‘greater cooperation and information sharing.’ Why so little fanfare if it’s such a great thing?” Read more.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Alberta Saline Aquifer Project Awards Key Contracts to Launch Carbon Sequestration Pilot.
MarketWatch, September 22, 2008 - “Industry, government, and academic participants in the 35-member Alberta Saline Aquifer Project (ASAP) announced today that five companies have been awarded contracts for the engineering, design and environmental-related work that is needed to support the first phase of ASAP’s initiative to store carbon dioxide in deep underground saline aquifers.
With this work now underway, the project is on track to complete Phase I - the identification of specific aquifer locations and application for permitting - on schedule by the end of 2008. Pending the receipt of regulatory approvals, the ASAP team anticipates that it will begin Phase II - constructing the pilot project and beginning injections of carbon dioxide - in 2009. Phase III will involve expanding the pilot project to a large-scale, long-term commercial operation.” Read more.
Layton broaches idea of political alliance.
Winnipeg Free Press, September 22, 2008 - “NDP Leader Jack Layton says he’s good at working with other people to solve problems—and the problem right now is Prime Minister Stephen Harper. For the first time in this election campaign, Layton has broached the idea of a political alliance to prevent Harper from leading again.” Read more.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Canada Tar Sands Oil Equals Saudi Arabia.
Macedonia Online, September 21, 2008 - “With Canadian crude oil becoming a far larger part of the future U.S energy supply landscape, the principal oil and gas pipeline system connecting the two countries is rapidly rebuilding its presence in Superior. Houston-based Enbridge Energy Partners, LP (NYSE: EEP), has roughly tripled the workforce at its regional operations center in Superior this year to 135 employees, said spokeswoman Denise Hamsher. The company also has hired 60 contract employees — many of them engineers and other pipeline design professionals — as Enbridge begins the first of three major projects that will expand its pipeline capacity between Western Canada, Chicago and downstate Illinois.” Read more.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Armoring NAFTA: The Battleground for Mexico’s Future.
CIP Americas Program, September 19, 2008 - “In April 2007, on the eve of the North American Trilateral Summit, Thomas Shannon, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, described the SPP’s purpose with remarkable candor: The SPP, he declared, ‘understands North America as a shared economic space,’ one that ‘we need to protect,’ not only on the border but ‘more broadly throughout North America’ through improved ‘security cooperation.’ He added: ‘To a certain extent, we’re armoring NAFTA.’” Read more.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Immigration Deception.
NY Times Opinion, September 18, 2008 - “Yes, immigration is a complicated and combustible issue for political candidates — and the economic meltdown is everyone’s top priority. No, that is no excuse for ignoring immigration or lying about it to voters, as John McCain and Barack Obama have been doing. Mr. McCain lied first, in a Spanish-language ad that accused Mr. Obama of helping to kill immigration reform last year, by voting for amendments that supposedly doomed a bipartisan bill. The ad lamented the result: “No guest worker program. No path to citizenship. No secure borders. No reform. Is that being on our side?” That is a jaw-dropping distortion.” Read more.
Alberta’s ‘dirty’ oil a sticky problem for Charest.
Globe & Mail Report on Business, September 18, 2008 - “If you had to choose between Alberta oil or crude from Algeria and Angola, which should you pick? This is the decision Quebec Premier Jean Charest faces now that Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. has unveiled plans to pipe heavy crude from the Alberta oil sands to refineries in Montreal for the first time. Quebec currently relies almost exclusively on imported oil, with Algeria, Britain, Norway, Angola and Venezuela as its main suppliers. The Parti Québécois, along with some leading environmental groups, think it should stay that way. To them, piping in oil from the “tar sands” - the enviros’ preferred term - would reverse all of Quebec’s progress on climate change.” Read more.
US Refinery Investments Align With Oil Sands Supplies to 2015.
RedOrbit, September 18, 2008 - “Supply of Canadian oil sands products will increase by 2 million b/d between 2007 and 2015; half of this growth will be in Canadian heavy crude blends. A recent study shows that the export pipeline infrastructure and US refinery capacity will be able to handle forecast additional supplies of Canadian crude during 2007-15. Planned export pipeline infrastructure should keep pace with forecast additional supply of oil sands products to 2015; export pipeline capacity will increase by 2.1 million b/d. Current capacity tightness should be resolved once expected new pipelines start up in 2008 and 2009. By the end of 2015, spare capacity will reduce, suggesting the need for additional export capacity shortly after 2015.” Read more.
Friday, September 12, 2008
U.S.-Canada: world’s longest over-defended traffic jam.
Financial Post, September 12, 2008 - “Right after 9/11, it was obvious that America’s borders were shutting tight and that Canada and Mexico should have become part of a three-country perimeter. Under NAFTA, this is the case involving economic goods. Product origins are checked because they cannot be back-doored through one of the three countries into another. But the movement of people, tourism and immigration, should also be a jointly-managed affair. It isn’t. And in the absence of that, the Americans have erected fences along portions of the Mexican border and red tape and hassles along the northern border.” Read more.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Issues - Whose energy independence?
Vue Weekly, September 11, 2008 - “One of the ways in which the current US presidential election differs from the current Canadian federal election is that oil prices, energy independence and energy security are all critical campaign issues for the US. Americans are upset about high prices at the pump, and they are clearly concerned about being so dependent on “volatile” countries in the Middle East and Venezuela for more than a quarter of their petroleum needs. Both the Republicans and the Democrats have responded by making energy security and independence a key plank in their respective platforms, and senators Obama and McCain have gone out of their way to ensure they are addressing these issues in every speech.” Read more.
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