Justin's White Elephant
The Parliamentary Budget Officer says the Justin Trudeau Memorial Pipeline Trans Mountain pipeline will be a big loser for the federal treasury. With costs now at $21.4 billion and expected to rise further there's no profit to be had. The government paid top dollar for the project when the private sector wouldn't touch it.
The pipeline will, however, deliver a dandy subsidy to the energy giants that will benefit from the prime minister's largesse. They don't care if it costs 20 billion. They don't care if it costs 50 billion. Let the government eat the losses.
Of course, there is the revolutionary capitalistic thought of charging appropriate fees for the transport of the "product" flowing in the soon to be three pipes. You know, as in enough to pay for the investment and opersting costs. It's not like there's an alternative cheaper method of transport for about a million barrels per day. Twinning the rails of a railroad would take for ever and might still be impracticable. I don't remember, did Trudeau promise some cheap "freight" rate when he gifted Alberta with the federal purchase of TM and took over building TMX?
ReplyDeleteEnvironmental destruction proceeds apace, so might as well charge for the privilege of allowing something like this pipeline to proceed. Probably be $6 or $8 a bbl. Then when kenney and the prairie tribes of capital privilege gophers wail and howl bloody blue murder, the rejoinder would be: Well, buy it from us and run it yourself. Nothing better for the purloined pension plans of government workers and teachers to pay for through the Alberta Investment Management Company. AIMCo lost over $2 billion a couple of years ago, proving that private investment beats Canada Pension Plan going away. NOT. Once ever, apparentlu, but Cons love the fiction that government is inefficient, It's their core nonsensical belief in the infallibility of the Preston Man, whose fossilized blue bones were discovered in a Calgary backyard, and carbon-dated to the Cretinacious Period..
Bill, I understand the majors have locked in, long term 'budget' contracts. The risks and the losses are all ours. The Dauphin has painted Canadians into a corner.
DeleteSo; Justin's memorial pipeline is going to transport dilbit extracted by a Russian owned company through pipe produced by another Russian owned company!
ReplyDeleteAll of this whilst pipeline expansion is geared to shipping oil to a foreign nation, the USA.
Energy independent! not really.
Dependent on oil companies ??
TB
To add.....
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/03/01/opinion/jason-kenney-has-russia-problem
Oil rules Canada.
TB
Thanks for the link, TB.
DeletePlease help with my dilemma. A poll on Jr's greatest hits.
ReplyDeleteWhich betrayal was worse:
1) Electoral Reform
('The last election using fptp.')
2) TMX purchase.
(Reversing an incredible environmental win that used capitalism as a tool.)
Electoral reform. If we had #1 we would not have #2.
ReplyDeleteAnd it didn't earn him a single vote in Alberta.
ReplyDeleteTrue enough, Owen. Yet this was a political decision and devoid of courage. This was done out of fear. It was fear that dispatched Morneau to Texas with the government chequebook. It was fear that drove Morneau to pay a premium price when no one in the private sector would touch Kinder Morgan's TMX. Those Gringos learned a few things from their years at EnRon. Greenhorn Morneau was easy meat.
DeleteIt was a bad deal from the get-go. While Trudeau stuck with the $12 billion nonsense, critics said it was bound to go beyond 20 billion. Using BC's November floods and the pandemic as cover to explain the 70 per cent overrun is putting lipstick on a pig.
I expect Justin will move on before we go to the polls in 2025.
Year ago, when I stated TMEX would cost $30 billion, I was half-kidding. Now it seems I underestimated.
ReplyDeleteDon't fold your hand yet, Troy.
Delete