Canadian News
The latest news from and about Canadian issues.Sunday, October 11, 2009
There’s no such thing as free trade
Toronto Star, October 11, 2009 - “Be careful what you wish for. Canadians – or at least the politicians who claim to speak for Canadians – are desperate to have this country exempted from Washington’s Buy America laws. In much of the media, this fight for special status tends to be treated as a black-and-white issue pitting free trade good guys (us) against protectionist baddies (them).There is little sympathy for the idea behind Buy America, which is that money raised from U.S. taxpayers to fight the recession should be used to save U.S. jobs.Instead, the assumption here seems to be that once the U.S. finally sees the obvious virtue of our case, it will agree to return to life as it was before Buy America.As Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty put it in August: “Ideally, we’d simply like to go back to where we were six months ago."But all trade deals come at a price. The original Canada-U.S. free trade deal bound this country to a permanent energy-sharing arrangement with America. Its successor, the North American Free Trade Agreement, limited the ability of Canadian governments to set up social programs that might interfere with private business, such as public auto insurance schemes.The new deal under consideration will almost certainly curtail Ontario’s efforts to refocus manufacturing around so-called green industries. Ultimately, the price could be higherConsider what is at stake. In its Buy America laws, the U.S. is not flouting any of its existing trade arrangements with Canada. Rather it is making use of the fact that deals such as NAFTA don’t cover state and local governments which, under the terms of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package, are responsible for spending about $260-billion (U.S.). It may be illegal for Washington to discriminate against Canadian exporters. It is not illegal for Kansas or California, Tulsa or Chicago.As University of Toronto political scientist and trade expert John Kirton puts it, the only way for Canada to obtain an exemption from this arrangement is to bring all sub-national governments (states in the U.S., provinces in Canada) into NAFTA or something like NAFTA.” Read More
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Burying CO2: Fix or folly?
Calgary Herald, October 6, 2009 - “In 2008, Edmonton Journal columnist Graham Thomson was awarded a fellowship from the Canadian Journalism Foundation that gave him a year of academic and journalistic freedom to study any courses that caught his interest at the University of Toronto. Besides dabbling in modern english poetry, he spent the 2008-09 academic year focused on energy and environmental issues, including the emerging technology of carbon capture and storage.
That led to an invitation from the Program on Water Issues at the Munk Centre for International Studies, which each year commissions an author to write a public policy report on a water-related topic that is then the focus of a day-long symposium at the U of T.
This year’s topic was Burying Carbon Dioxide in Underground Saline Aquifers: Political Folly or Climate Change Fix? The result of Thomson’s research was a 63-page report (25,000 words and 176 footnotes) that was peer reviewed by a group of scientists over the summer and then presented by Thomson at the U of T on Sept. 23. Today, Sunday Reader presents a synopsis of Thomson’s report:It promises to clean our dirty coal, green the oilsands and save the global climate.
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS)—a complicated title for what is essentially a simple concept.” Read More.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Oil Sands: Destroyer or Savior?
The New York Times, September 8, 2009 - “Few energy resources stir passions like Canada’s oil sands. The vast, gooey mixture of clay, sand, water and, most notably, bitumen — a hydrocarbon paste that, with a fair amount of work, can be separated from the granular stuff and eventually refined into a variety of petroleum products — has the potential to produce upwards of a trillion barrels of oil, by some estimates. Accomplishing that, however, is a profoundly expensive, dirty and energy-intensive affair. Huge inputs of natural gas, for example, are needed to separate and process the bitumen, and according to one study by RAND, production from oil sands generates perhaps 30 percent more greenhouse gases than conventional oil extraction. As my colleague Ian Austen noted for The New York Times this year, the process amounts to the most capital-intensive method for extracting oil. “Each of the tires on the cartoonishly oversize dump trucks used in oil sands mining,” he noted, “costs about $60,000.” The question in the United States, then, is how to weigh the disadvantages against the very real benefit of securing access to a substantial — and friendly — source of foreign oil for decades to come.” Read More.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
China invests in Canada oil sands
BBC, September 1, 2009 - “PetroChina has agreed to buy a 60% stake in two planned Canadian oil sands projects for $1.7bn (£1bn). The firm, which is Asia’s largest oil company, is buying the holdings in the MacKay River and Dover fields from Canadian firm Athabasca Oil Sands. The two fields hold about five billion barrels of oil, and Canada’s government is expected to back the deal.Canada’s Alberta oil sands hold the world’s second-largest crude reserves, but the cost of extraction is high. This is because the process of separating the oil from the sand is both energy and labour intensive, and as such it has only been cost effective when global oil prices have been high. Analysts say world oil prices need to be above $80 a barrel for the Canadian oil sands to be viable. Oil is currently trading at about $70 a barrel after hitting highs of $147 last summer, and a low of near $30 at the start of this year. “The Canadian government is looking for investment and injections of capital,” said William Lacey, an analyst at First Energy Capital.” Read More.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Canada, ultradeep water assure US Gulf oil supply
Reuters, August 18, 2009 - “Growing volumes of crude oil from Canada and the Gulf of Mexico should assure U.S. Gulf Coast refiners adequate supplies for years to come despite fast-declining imports from Mexico and Venezuela. Imports from the two major Latin American suppliers have dwindled by 24 percent in the past four years, but the huge refining region they serve is unlikely to run short due to billions of dollars planned for new pipelines from Canada and exploration in the deepwater Gulf, analysts said. Canadian oil sands production alone could make up for both losses, said analyst Martin King of Calgary-based FirstEnergy Capital Corp. “You’re essentially switching to Canadian crude from Mexican and Venezuelan,” King said. In its June forecast, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said it expects output from northern Alberta’s vast oil sands to nearly double to 2.2 million barrels a day by 2015. Weak oil prices and the credit crunch led numerous companies to delay development projects, forcing CAPP to cut expectations from its previous forecast. Still, pipeliners have zeroed in on the Gulf Coast—site of 40 percent of U.S. refining capacity—as the next big market for Canadian oil. There, Mexican and Venezuelan imports have fallen by 700,000 bpd since 2004, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. TransCanada Corp’s (TRP.TO) proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline expansion would ship as much as 500,000 bpd to Gulf Coast refineries by 2012. Enbridge Inc (ENB.TO) and BP Plc (BP.L) are working to develop a 250,000 bpd system to the Gulf Coast by that same year at a cost of up to $2 billion. Several other proposals, including one to move Canadian crude to the region by rail, are on the drawing board.” Read More.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Obama Says Buy American Stimulus Rule Doesn’t Hurt Canada Trade
Bloomberg, August 11, 2009 - “ “Buy American” rules that Congress included in the U.S. economic stimulus package don’t endanger free trade with Canada, President Barack Obama said after meeting with the leaders of Canada and Mexico. “This has in no way endangered the billions of dollars of trade taking place between our two countries,” Obama said yesterday, noting that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper raises the issue “every time I see him.” The $787 billion stimulus measure approved in February stipulates that products purchased with the funds must be made in the U.S. That’s caused friction between the U.S. and Canada, its largest trading partner. “It’s important to keep it in perspective,” Obama said during a news conference at the close of a two-day meeting with Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Guadalajara, Mexico. “We have not seen some sweeping steps toward protectionism.” Along with trade issues, the leaders discussed flu-season preparations, Mexico’s battle against drug cartels, combating climate change and encouraging economic growth. Read More.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Pressure growing for summit results
The Star, August 10, 2009 - “When it comes to Canada, annual Three Amigos talks have yet to prove their worth” - “Prime Minister Stephen Harper sits down today with President Barack Obama and Mexico’s leader for a meeting that will test the value to Canada of the North American summit process. Today’s discussion is the centrepiece of the fifth summit since 2005, when then-U.S. president George W. Bush kicked off the annual trilateral talks aimed at promoting economic growth and security on a continent-wide basis. The closed-door chats give the leaders a chance to share their thinking, but whether this setting can produce results for Canada seems more unclear than ever.The most urgent regional issue for Canada is the recent rise of protectionism in the United States. Barring Canadian suppliers from bidding on federally funded urban renewal projects in the U.S. is resulting in lost contracts – and lost jobs – in Canadian factories. And the problem is getting worse as U.S. cities and states gear up to award more contracts on projects paid for out of Obama’s $787 billion (U.S.) stimulus package.Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon are expected to raise concerns about the troubling Buy American phenomenon during the talks here. But for Canada, nothing concrete is expected from Obama on this problem until Harper visits Washington on Sept. 16. At that time, the Prime Minister and Obama are expected to hold serious talks on how to curb the protectionist wave sweeping the U.S. At this meeting, Obama, who chose to hold a separate, one-on-one talk with Calderon yesterday, is focusing on issues of immense joint concern to Mexico and the United States: border security, drug trafficking and immigration. While Canada has a stake in all these issues, trying to solve them in a North American context might not always be in Canada’s interest.’ Read More.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Huge merger closes today
Calgary Herald, August 1, 2009 - “CEO to address rank and file -The new Suncor Energy Inc. sign has yet to be hoisted up on Petro-Canada’s towers, but the launch of Canada’s new energy titan is already well underway. Chief executive Rick George will address the newly merged rank and file at the Telus Convention Centre on Tuesday to chart a course for the new Suncor, now Canada’s largest energy company with the official close of the deal today. But the hardest work still lies ahead as the company must integrate more than 12,000 employees and operations from coast to coast and also abroad. “I don’t think it will be easy at all,” said Phillip Skolnick, analyst at Genuity Capital in Calgary. “We’re talking about a company with a big mix of downstream assets....There’s a lot of moving parts in this company.”
While he expects management will eventually overcome the challenges, it could take several years before the transition is fully complete. “I just think the market may not be appreciating the difficulties around it,” he said.” Read More.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Accelerating Carbon Sequestration in Alberta
The New York Times, July 29, 2009 - “An advisory group in Alberta, Canada, is proposing that carbon dioxide captured from large industrial operations could be pumped into dozens of semi-depleted oil fields, with the idea of extracting billions of dollars of uneconomic crude from conventional Alberta reserves. The Alberta Carbon Capture and Storage Development Council, a federal-provincial group comprised of oil industry veterans, said in a report officially released last week that the combination of carbon sequestration and “enhanced oil recovery” techniques offered long-term opportunities for an industry that bet massively on the oil sands, only to see crude prices plunge to levels that have put the brakes on many large-scale projects. Pumping carbon dioxide into oil fields to help squeeze out more oil has “great potential,” the report said, but comes with high upfront costs. In general, according to the report, carbon capture and storage “is expensive and currently uneconomic.” Read More.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Canada must focus on its birth rate
Vancouver Sun, July 18, 2009 - “Population growth in Canada and other rich countries may be stalling, but people in many other parts of the world are still multiplying like mad. If current trends continue, the United Arab Emirates, for example, will double its population in just 15 years. And places as diverse as Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Kuwait aren’t far behind. What this means for us — aside from the developed countries’ unique problem of who’ll do all the work and pay the taxes when the baby boomers are put out to pasture — is, broadly speaking, one of two scenarios. If the many countries that are struggling today do manage to succeed, we who now dominate the world economy will become increasingly irrelevant. And that’s the best outcome we can hope for. Because if the others don’t do well, if so many remain so poor, we can expect to be increasingly resented and even violently targeted. Worse, if the world does grow into an uglier place, the West’s ability to protect its interests and to impose order — to put boots on the ground in order to contain regional conflicts, for example — can be expected to diminish at least as fast as our economic clout. Today our failure to do anything effective to stop the horror in places like the Congo and Darfur is mainly due to lack of will; tomorrow it’s likely that we’ll lack the means.” Read More.
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