The National Energy Program-time to bury the hate!

Seems like a great time to bring up the NEP; the much hated (and the haters don’t know why) energy program.

This was planned and put into effect when there was no internet to defend the project or the system. What parties and industry told the press was pretty much the news. Only channel for reason was letters to the editor which invariably did not get published or published out of context

The Oil Industry was completely dominated by US oil. If you wanted a business you worked through them, not the Government. Peter Lougheed and Pierre Trudeau had teams that seen the fallacy in this design so they proposed the “National Energy Program” and it was decided that PET would be the spokesman and answer public debate if any.

Well,no one anticipated the huge outpouring of spite and misinformation produced by the American Oil Consortium. They bought up pages of Alberta newspapers and inundated Albertan’s with their side of the story no matter how wrong it was.

The NEP plan was to increase Canadian ownership in the oil industry to an extent that Canada would have some say in the marketing aspects of the oil. At this time I think the number for Canadian ownership was 6 or 7% and none of that in the burgeoning Tar Sands explorations and developments.

Important to remember here that Lougheed agreed to this plan; helped to promote it. It was not as advertised by the oil consortium a grab placed on Alberta by PET and the Liberals.

The plan ran from 1980 to 1985. In this period we hit another Global recession but the fall out was near horrific.
The Conservatives under Lougheed and in keeping with the idea to increase Canadian ownership went out to the private investors and public in general expounding on the get rich fast aspects of the Tar Sands. Secure your futures in the Tar Sands projects.

Petro-Canada, an invention of the Fed invested in the Tar Sands, was really invented to do just that. And, they were totally trashed by the the US oil Consortium. Lot of trees died for that one; presses ran wild! But, even more astounding was the small army of Individual investors; Mom and Pops sold the store to invest in this new dream. Many sold the farm as the saying goes. In effect they borrowed against their homes and their farms to start a new business in line with Tar Sands service requirements.

This was done at a time when inflation was allowed to reign. It was allowed as it appeared as appreciative profiting by the Mom and Pop investors. Interest rates however jumped to 25% or more even throwing the local non investor homes into jeopardy,

Meanwhile the Oil Consortium US is still banging out their anti NEP stuff and blaming everything from the lack of production (we were now into another world recession and no internet) and the cry from the people who were loosing their live’s chattel was loud and clear. Ditch the NEP Trudeau killed us. All this vehemence brought forward by BS handed out by the US oil consortium.

We are going to see a lot of press similar to this coming out now because of the new social presence in Canada.  The article showing up quoting Prentice who cites Lougheed as an extremest outlines how Prentice is trying to draw on that old time hate and distress.

There was one very major event turning moment. Pierre Trudeau was making his way to a train departure followed by a scrum (not called that then) of reporters. More like a gang of hoodlums. All screaming crap about the NEP to be aired on evening news. The poison was in the questions recorded not in the answers not given.

One reporter got really nasty in his “question” throwing and Trudeau flipped him the Bird. This was caught on Camera and ran in the papers that Trudeau was flipping Alberta the Bird. It caught on quickly and was circulated around the province for months.

That is why Albertan’s seem to hate the Liberal flag. Its’ got to change; reason has to start somewhere, why not here?

In these few years the NEP operated the World Recession killed unnumbered businesses. Houses and homes were lost to banks. It was as nasty as it could possibly get with the inflation and recession going on at the same time. But, it was not the NEP that brought this on! In the few years it was in operation, the Canadian ownership went from the lowly 7% to over 25%. In that regard, the stated reason for its being, it was a success despite the oppressive, deep pocket resistance by American Oil Consortium.