Alberta Jobs are going down the pipeline

The Edmonton Sun and Neil Waugh in particular is one of the consistently best reads in the province! nwaugh@edmsun.com

Premier Ed Stelmach did a good job promoting Alberta's economic interests at the Council of the Federation meeting in Quebec City last week.
He fought off attempts by eastern premiers, Ontario's Dalton McGuinty and Quebec's Jean Charest, in particular, to pressure Ottawa to set up a cap and trade scheme for greenhouse gases.

It's a "pay-to-pollute" boondoggle that would transfer billions of dollars out of the Alberta economy - not unlike Stephane Dion's suspicious Green Shift initiative designed to win votes in southern Ontario at the expense of our industry.

Stelmach did a good sales job for Alberta's own greenhouse-gas plan, stressing repeatedly that he has the only program that is up and running.

Meanwhile, the eastern premiers were simply posturing for all those TV cameras.
The trouble with the premiers' meeting is that it's largely all greenhouse gas - or hot air.
However, what was happening on the home front last week was for real.

And many Albertans must be asking, "Who's got our backs?"
Clearly not Alberta's struggling Energy Minister Mel Knight.
Knight was tasked by the premier over two years ago to come up with an effective strategy to get the best bang for our energy buck.

During the PC leadership campaign, Stelmach felt the issue was so important that he compared shipping raw oilsands bitumen to the United States to stripping the soil from a farm.

Now it appears that Knight has sold the farm because of his failure to produce an effective value-added strategy.

So far, all the minister and his failing bureaucrats have come up with is a minor royalty give-away.

In the meantime, more and more bitumen is moving over the border along with thousands of permanent jobs and construction work.
Last week, three disturbing events occurred that highlighted and exacerbated the PC party's lack of will and direction.

There's going to be a $10-billion upgrader and refinery in South Dakota, of all places, designed to exclusively process oilsands production.

There's a ludicrous proposal to ship Alberta bitumen to Portland, Maine, then tanker it to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

And there's the plan for another $5-billion project to pipeline our bitumen from Nebraska to Texas.

Clearly, the Stelmach government is failing to promote long-term jobs in Alberta.
Once production leaves the province it may become problematic to get it back because of the provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Scoring some political points at the premiers' gab fest may be good for Stelmach's ego - but it will do nothing to stem the flow of jobs down the pipeline.

Albertans need a tough value-added strategy and they need it now. Get busy, Mel.
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Alberta to be a Major Exporter of Power to the USA

We all remember the outright lies of the past dozen or more months. “The power lines being built are not for the purpose of export of electricity” was shouted loud and clear by our “honest” politicians in Alberta.

At the crux of the issue is “Should Albertans pay for the power lines built to export electrical power?”

For proportion:
Alberta consumes 70,000 GW of Electrical Power in a year. Up-graders and oil project expansion will increase that to 100,000 Gwh.(Billions) (Lowball figure) or 240 Mwh per day.(Millions)

Nuclear Power in Peace River is expected to furnish part of the increase.

Applications to export power to the United States are now filed.
ENMAX - 11,000 Gwh per year over 10 Years.

Aquila – 10,000 Gwh per year over 10 years

Royal Bank of Canada – 4830 Gwh per year over 10 years

AVISTA -50,000 mwh per year over 10 years.

And, the list goes on.

EPCOR – 1200 Gwh per year over 10 years.

On the surface it would seem that EPCOR and ENMAX have an arrangement for EPCOR to keep the province accounts and ENMAX take the export market.

Alberta Carbon sequester is BS!

The Weyburn CO2 Monitoring and Storage Project is funded by several international energy companies, the U.S. and Canadian governments, and the European Union.

The main concern is whether the CO2 will stay in place.

Good information on how this works can be found here
http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/weyburn.htm

and here
http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/sleipner.htm

Stelmach’s program is no program at all; same as usual. Why would you put carbon dioxide into salt caverns for storage when you could pump it into the strata to scrub the older oil fields? This crew are all about flushing more money into buddies pockets and are after the publicity and don’t give a dam about the environment.

This whole program is about what is basically wrong with these guys!. There is no public disclosure of who gets what for a contact nor are there details of process. Bids are asked for but reesults are never revealed. Only the Governments “selected” winner gets the headline and no bid results are published nor are bidders advised of the details. The Government knows who they are going to give the contracts to before the bid is let. Why even bother going through the expense of bidding?

Cost plus contacts given out at every level with no due process! Pipelines, power line construction; you name it. Effectively this Government takes no responsibility for anything they do! They are at best, totally irresponsible. Always some one else’s fault and cost over runs are paid without a blink. And at the end of the day, no guarantees on anything.

Alberta Carbon Sequester Program-or not

Not all carbon sequester is equal! Mostly it will end up by design as being still another bonus to oil companies and the Tory elite.

Carbon Dioxide can be used as a solvent to free up or thin out oil trapped in shale formations (or any other formation as far as that goes) making the oil thinner so it is much easier to recover.

This is the case in Weyburn Saskatchan which has been doing this for a couple of years. As it stands the operators in Weyburn do not know where the carbon dioxide they pump down the hole goes to. It is acknowledged a large percentage of it come back out of the hole saturated in or adjacent to the oil which is freed up. Effervescent oil?

What percentages, no one knows. Where it ends up even partially; they are still looking.

Stelmach and company would have us believe he is out to save the world. Certainly you know him better than this; just about everything that comes out of his mouth is an outright lie.

Look to the announcements of pipelines going to the south and southeast. This is the territory of the huge shale oil deposits which will require a huge amount of carbon dioxide along with horizontal drilling to get the oil out. Most of it will be on the US side where the majority of the oil is. (Map at the start Bakken Formation)

The US is at a disadvantage in starting projects like this. Different states and the feds must agree. Alberta owns the resource to the Government can just say “do it” and, it is on the way to being done.

Pipelines are being built to the south east and North Dakota who now sells Weyburn their clean carbon dioxide is looking closer to home.

When Getty shows up with his hand out you have to believe it is still another rip off!

John Clark

Alberta resource is lost to Texas at 19% royalty

Alberta to Port Arthur Texas
Highlights:
The expansion includes a 36-inch (91.4-centimeter) line that extends about 3,200 kilometers (1,989 miles) to Port Arthur, Texas, from Hardisty, Alberta. An 80-kilometer line may be built to deliver Canadian oil to refineries in the Houston area, the companies said.
TransCanada Corp., owner of Canada's largest pipeline system, and ConocoPhillips plan a $7 billion pipeline expansion to provide additional capacity to ship crude from western Canada to U.S. Gulf Coast refiners.

The $7 billion addition would allow Alberta oil- sands output to be processed by Gulf Coast oil refiners who represent almost half of the U.S.'s refining capacity

Texas Keystone project. Customers have signed contracts for 300,000 barrels a day.

Carbon Tax- I Agree for the right reasons

Stephen Dion has the correct idea with his Carbon Tax. Presented as a cure all for climate change it is ultimately a program for the redistribution of wealth in this country, something that Conservatives are dead set against.
Alberta can only be a better place to live if Stephen is allowed to bring his program forward! We are getting nothing of the Oil royalty now; it can only get better.

Take a moment to think here! Stelmach’s new royalty rates will not come into effect until after the next election! The Energy Minister Mel Knight pulled the royalty rate down to 19% from the already low of 25% prior to the last election then continued to lie about what the rate was.

As new production comes on the royalty rates will be dropped below 19%. The conservatives will continue to cut programs and public access to run the infrastructure while they further reduce the royalty percentage. That is the new future you are looking at from this Government!

Mr. Knight has said on any number of occasions nothing is in stone and there will be adjustments. And again, no adjustment until you elect him again. Just look to their track record of cut slash and lie.

Financial papers broadly heralded the 19% as a means to prop up profits of the oil companies in advance of a brutal royalty regime.

Royalty regimes around the world have increased with the exception of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Both conservative governments are playing one against the other in a public arena trying to create an atmosphere of fear in both provinces. There is a market for everything both provinces can produce.

The lowest rate in the world outside of Canada is 50% royalty! In Alberta we are collecting 19%! That numbers leaves us not only loosing money; we are paying them to take the oil away!

In Alberta our hospitals and schools are short funded. Revenues collected from income taxes are used to further support the energy industry rather than them supporting the tax base and the future of this province.

Oil companies are not going to abandon this province! If Alberta’s royalty rates go up Saskatchewan will soon follow. That is the fear of the oil companies.


The Carbon Tax will tax away some of the profits of the oil giants most of who are owned by foreign currency and most of their profits presently go to foreign currency.

This Carbon Tax will be in the public purse to support individuals in Canada who are not empowered by oil stocks.

Mr. Mandel has recently questioned the cost to EPCOR and to the consumers in Alberta and, he is correct in doing so. There will be a charge made on coal fired electricity at the source. However EPCOR has been increasing their rates and add in service charges almost whimsically collecting billions in profits. Mr. Mandel and the city of Edmonton council claim they treat this as a private company and don’t interfere but, they are quick to pocket the same billions.

Certainly losses in revenue in EPCOR will result in lower profits and perhaps property tax increases. It does not have to be an increase in power bills that is levied against 2/3rds of the province. Perhaps it is time to give Mr. Mandel his deal on service sharing and leave the power milking alone.

John Clark.

Alberta Conservatives pay off buddies with tax money.

Rebranding Alberta contract awarded to Tory-friendly ad firm
Link downplayed, but opposition parties say money best spent elsewhere
Published June 26, 2008 by Trevor Howell

There is no end to the crap this outfit goes into.

On June 20, an advertising firm with ties to Premier Ed Stelmach’s campaign team was awarded a $25-million contract to “rebrand” Alberta. With little fanfare and no official announcement by the Alberta government, Calder Bateman Communications and Identica (a division of Cossette Communications Group) were given the lucrative contract. Margaret Bateman, a co-founder of Calder Bateman, is a former managing director of the government’s Public Affairs Bureau, the department that awarded the contract. She is also listed as a member of Stelmach’s election campaign team.

The awarding of the contract comes just six months after the NDP requested the Alberta auditor general investigate another Tory-connected ad firm. Highwood Communications Ltd., owned by Barry Styles, has received more than $41 million in government-related advertising contracts in the past decade. Styles is also listed as a member of the Conservative election campaign team.
According to Public Affairs Bureau spokesperson Sonia Piano, a committee of representatives from different government ministries and members of the Public Affairs Bureau conduct the selection process. More than 80 advertising firms initially applied for the new $25-million contract that will see $5 million paid out the first year and $10 million the following two years.
Frank Calder, co-founder of Calder Bateman Communications, downplayed the link between Bateman and the premier as a reason for being awarded the contract, adding other firms with “very strong Tory associations” were unsuccessful with their own bids. He was unable to provide any specific details on how the campaign will be run by the two ad firms, saying, “It’s generally not our place to discuss what priorities the government might have.”

According to NDP leader Brian Mason, while there is no doubt Calder Bateman has connections to the Conservative party, he says the ad firm is very reputable. What concerns him is that the government is ignoring the impact of the oilsands on the environment, which leaves Alberta’s economy vulnerable to an environmental backlash that may result in fewer investments in the province. “Unless there’s a real effort on the government’s part to actually clean up the tar sands and adopt more environmentally friendly practices [the rebranding campaign] is not going to work,” says Mason. “It’s like the tobacco companies taking out ads to convince people that cigarettes are safe. People just won’t buy it.”

“It’s business as usual with our provincial government,” says Liberal MLA Hugh McDonald. “They think they can buy political goodwill through public relations and this is another example of it.”

According to the government, the $25-million, three-year campaign is intended to promote the province as a “great place to live, work, visit and invest in,” and to polish Alberta’s environmental record. The premier rationalized the need for the rebranding campaign because of “misinformation” spread by the opposition parties and environmental groups like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club about Alberta’s environmental record. He also accused the opposition of trying to damage the reputation of the Department of Environment and oil companies after being asked if the money could not be better spent protecting the environment. “Twenty-five million dollars is well spent in ensuring that we protect the integrity of this province not only within Canada but within North America and around the world,” said Stelmach in the legislature on April 30.

The opposition Liberals labelled the campaign as nothing more than taxpayer-funded propaganda. With U.S. politicians increasingly opposed to the use of fuel derived from Alberta’s oilsands, McDonald says taxpayer money would be better invested in new technologies like carbon capture and storage.

“The $25 million could be spent actually cleaning up the environment, rather than this propaganda campaign to convince people there’s no problem, when everyone knows there’s a problem” says McDonald.

U.S. politicians are increasingly opposed to the use of unconventional energy sources that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases. Regarding Alberta’s oilsands, Henry Waxman, U.S. congressman and co-author of the U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, was quoted as saying, “It is important to ensure that the [U.S.] federal government does not subsidize or promote the expanded use of these fuels through government purchasing decisions.” Earlier this week, the oilsands were the target of U.S. presidential candidate Barak Obama and a number of big city U.S. mayors. Both called for the U.S. to reduce its addiction to “dirty oil.”
“American consumers are going to be quite skeptical because they already know our environmental track record,” says McDonald. “And it hasn’t been a good one.” He adds that taxpayer money would be better invested in new technologies like carbon capture and storage. “The last thing we need in this province is another propaganda campaign funded by the taxpayer.”

The Economics of Power LInes in Alberta.

The Economics of Power Lines in Alberta.

It has been a few years since Mr. Lougheed said that he was moving ATCO away from pipelines into building power lines as the pipelines only paid at cost plus 10% whereas the power lines paid a cost plus 15%

Cost Plus: In this province that means an unaudited free for all in a grab the cash game. All eyes are on the supply side of things, not the cost. This leaves the door open for private sector kick backs and double dealings through associated companies.

There is no ceiling on the costs in Alberta. A few million dollars here and there is of no consequence when you consider it is taken from the users of the power in the province. A one cent per kwh increase in your home bill produces 2 million dollars in revenue per day over the system.

The more that is spent, the greater the profit!

The 800 million for the cost of building the Edmonton to Calgary power lines needed for the export of electricity to the US has been around for 3 years or more.

800 million would offer a minimum of 120 million dollars in profit for the builders.
On the other hand, a 1.6 billion dollar construction would offer profits of 240 millions!

This Government has not managed anything since the beginning of time. Everything is shelled out of General Revenues not budgeted. Cost plus negates any need for this Government to follow costs or hold people to their bids.

At 19% oil royalty you have to wonder how we survive! And, EPCOR and ENMAX are not in the business of “saving” anything.

John Clark

Alberta Power Lines just increased in cost!

As predicted the cost of steel is going to drive up the Alberta Power lines construction. Along with the understated contruction costs the additonaly 30-60% increase in the prices of the steel towers will easily put the prices for the power lines above 1.5 billion.
John Clark

Threat to Alberta recognized.

This is the crew who dropped Alberta's royalty from 25% to 19%! This is the crew who plans on reducing the royalty even more as new production comes on board!

This is the crew that is about to move the Peace River south for use in upgraders and supplement water now lost.

This is the crew who prides itself in decimating social programs entrenched for several life times in favor of putting the programs into the hands of their "friends" through the exercise of privatization.

No one person or party could possibly do more damage to this province than the ruling Conservatives and Iris Evans!

John Clark

Alberta Natural Gas has Peaked; on its way down!

Trans-Canada Pipelines are seeking federal jurisdiction for approval of a new export pipeline.

Link http://ago.mobile.globeandmail.com/generated/archive/RTGAM/html/20080617/wtranscanstaff0617.html

The approval is nothing new. Any company that operates out of provincial boundaries falls under federal jurisdiction. The pipeline wants to extend beyond Alberta boundaries so, this is federal jurisdiction.

What this interesting article is pointing out is Alberta's Natural gas has peaked; it will now start to diminish. Further Trans-Canada want to export most of it before it runs out.

Alberta oil ripoff further demonstrated.

Petro-Canada signs still another deal with Libia.
The agreement with Libyan National Oil Corp. contemplates total spending of $7-billion (U.S.), with 50 per cent of all development costs to be paid by Petro-Canada, which will receive an initial 12 per cent share of production.

In Alberta Petro Canada would pay 0% for the development and receive 81% of the revenue!
Something to remember when you hear the squeals about the new, non existent royalty framework.
John Clark.

Bill C-51- Harper does away with search and seizure formality.

Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario, Tony Clement's response to the letter: Quote:
The compliance and enforcement proposals will allow us to respond to risks, regardless of the product type - they will not result in more enforcement action taken against natural health products or any other regulated product. In fact, the approach to compliance and enforcement activities for natural health products will stay the same, and will continue to be guided by the Compliance Policy for Natural Health Products and the Health Products and Food Branch Inspectorate's Policy--0001."

The question remains, do you trust conservatives to do otherwise than exploit to the fullest an enforcement law like this?

Alberta Power needs being exploited by EPCOR and others.

EPCOR, one of the principals who want to export power to the USA is warning of a catastrophic power failure if the power lines between Calgary and Edmonton are not doubled immediately. These people are also leading the pack in power price increases by the invention of a number of “add on charges” to the power bills.

It is true the power lines are working at near capacity. It is also true the power could be managed by controlling current export.

EPCOR’s jaundiced view of our situation fails to inform the people of the time line for the power generation coming on at Brooks Alberta, South of Calgary. When that comes on line the power load between Edmonton and Calgary will drop by a full 50%, possibly more. This 50% slack in capacity is what EPCOR want along with a lot more, to export power on.

I think we should watch closely any attempts by EPCOR to make their predictions come true!

John Clark

AlbertaConservatives planning their futures.

The Alberta Conservatives are thinking they will never get elected in Alberta again once the public catches on to the changes they are going to put in. This from a Tory insider.

Get all the cash you can get your hands on and then, bail!

This explains so much. The huge raises, the extreme cut in royalties. The dismantling and privatizing of health care and water; the wholesale give away of crown lands to friends.

Because all the deals are made behind the scenes, “public” tenders are never made public you will not know of most of it until it is over.

I continue to say it is very hard to distinguish this group of politicians from organized crime!

John Clark

Alberta Conservatives- Take the money and run!

Alberta is getting robbed
Alberta is giving our resource away at 19% royalty, less that 1/2 the amount the lowest paying country in the world collects! This Government has plundered the so called Heritage Savings and Trust Fund to a point it is void of any appreciation and now undergoing privatization.

Take the money and run! To hell with the future, we will move on is the philosophy of the ruling Alberta Conservatives.

HIDDEN WEALTH
Alberta's oil sands are the largest-known reserve of oil in the world
There are two trillion barrels of oil there, with some estimates judging the reserve at closer to three trillion barrels.
Global oil exploration companies have witnessed an exodus of workers to Canada for higher salaries .
From India, roughly about 400 workers have put in their papers after getting solid offers from companies working in Canada.
US downstream companies are expanding their capacity to process the extra-heavy sour crude from oil sands.

More than two-thirds of the expansion of US refining capacity is being tailored to handle the sand crude oil from Alberta.

A recent study by US environmentalists estimates that the tar sands capacity in the US will increase by 1.9 million barrels a day, while the cleaner conventional oil refining will decrease by about 300,000 barrels a day

John Clark

More pressure on Gasoline supplies!

Refinery vapour base (what gasoline is made from) is going to be moved into Alberta for use in extracting crude out of the tar sands. The now polished crude along with the saturated dilutant will be shipped from Hardisy AB to Superior Wisconsin for refining. Over producing the tar sands leave us in the positon of digging the stuff. We remain hewers of woodand haulers of water. This "dilutant" could arguably be made into gasoline.

One has to wonder how much of this the taxpayer is going to end up paying for. I can only go be the track record of this Government and say, all 5.3 billion dollars of it! The Conservatives don’t use and account system as such. Everything goes into “General Revenues” and is dispersed from there, attributing the expenditures to one Department or Another without those same departments knowing anything about it.

The Conservative way; Accounting by slush fund.


Process for recovering high quality oil from refinery waste emulsions
Document Type and Number:
United States Patent 5882506
Abstract:
An invention is disclosed whereby refinery waste emulsion streams such as API slop oils, desalter rag layer emulsions, mud pit sludges and the like having high viscosities and specific gravity approaching that of water can be treated for the recovery of processable oil values which had previously been unavailable by adding a sufficient amount of a light hydrocarbon diluent to the emulsion to lower its overall viscosity and to reduce the specific gravity of the oil phase to less than about 0.92. The diluted emulsions are subjected to flashing at emulsion-breaking conditions after which the oil is recovered from the various streams created in the flashing steps.

John Clark

Carbon Controls a patch work of NIMBY projects.

Carbon Controls differ across all the jurisdictions. The underlying theme is how many hat tricks do we have to preform before we can saddle the consumers with the bill. You couple this circus with the hand outs planned by Stelmach and it is not hard to figure it is still another way to cut deeper into Alberta's share of the royalties and fatten the corporate banks while doing so. Carbon be dammed! Take the money and run!

John Clark

Carbon Dioxide- Why is it dangerous.

Your body has no inkling of how much Oxygen you are getting. When you breath you take in a mixture of air and the Oxygen is picked up and burned in your body. Carbon Dioxide is produced. Your body monitors the amount of Carbon Dioxide, not the Oxygen you have in your blood.

When you walk into an enclosed, oxygen deficient area like an empty tank. Your body does not get sufficient oxygen; you do not produce enough carbon dioxide and your body registers the "oxygen deprivation" effects of suffocation.

On the other hand when you walk into a Carbon Dioxide enriched area, your body registers you have enough carbon dioxide so, you stop breathing, are overcome and probably die. There is no sense of suffocation because you body, measuring carbon dioxide is in a happy place.

John Clark

Alberta carbon sequestor program.

There is no public plan put forward on Alberta's program. There is however information available about what one may reasonably expect.


“CO2 will be injected at depths below 0.8 km (2600 feet). CO2 increases in density with depth and becomes a supercritical fluid below 0.8 km. Supercritical fluids take up much less space than gases, as shown in this figure, and diffuse better than either gases or ordinary liquids through the tiny pore spaces in storage rocks. The blue numbers in this figure show the volume of CO2 at each depth compared to a volume of 100 at the surface.”

Source:

Carbon stored at marginal depths create problems where carbon dioxide will stay down at one temperature but not another. In this case the carbon dioxide flooded a valley killing thousands.



And finally the CBC document summary on the Weyburn Co2 Sequester experiment:
The conclusion of the study will be an assessment of the integrity of the reservoir and its
ability to store CO2 over the longer-term. The risk analysis will evaluate the potential for
leakage, migration paths this leakage may take and future land-use changes that may
impact on reservoir integrity.
Nothing is solid or fixed!

One thing I have heard nothing about which, seems obvious to me is a pro active use of the carbon dioxide by injecting into the very deep aquifer that is not potable. Indeed, it is outright poison with no chance of redemption. I see no reason why pressurizing that aquifer would not make this water available to the oil industry rather than using our drinking water the way they are.
The last time I enquired into this was about 8 years ago having to do with the water use at and near Drayton Valley by the oil industry. It was explained to me the deep water would work fine but, it is too expensive to bring up to a point they can use it.

If the industry plays at this it will serve no other purpose than to rip off more cash. Because it is public funded by the taxpayer we should be able to get access to their efforts, good and bad.

I am sure as hell not going to believe anything this Government tells me. There is no accountability!

John Clark

Alberta Electricity and the cost of power lines.

We are told the new double power line down the centre of Alberta is going to cost 800 million of dollars. My guess would be closer to 1.6 billion.

However, using the 800 million dollar figure one has to wonder how long it will take to pay for this line.

Fortis are presently charging you 2.5157 cents per kwh plus .451 cents per day.

Using only the per kwh rate and a base of 9000 megawatts system in Alberta, that means Fortis will collect $226,413.00 per hour for the whole grid.

If .005 cent were allowed for a rate increase to pay for the 800 million dollar construction it would take only 7.4 days to pay for it in total! 1 week of one half cent increase in power bills will pay for this construction in total!

This is why I am insistent we have a construction rate that will come on to pay for the lines and drop off when they are paid.

If some one tells you that you will have to pay .01 cent more until the end of time to pay for the new power lines I would complain loudly!

Expect no help from the Conservatives. Like the oil they will gouge the hell out of the consumers in this province allowing record profits for the companies.

John Clark

Alberta Electricty dog and pony show-Transmission

The transmission lines between Genesee and Langdon are working at peak. Peak invites overload and leaves little room for flux or flex. A new power line is needed because this Government allowed it to fall into neglect as they did with all aspects of the infrastructure through the Klein years.

Now privatized they are prepared to put the big bucks in place. Under this scheme the big bucks will come directly from your pockets for years after the line is paid for. What is needed here is a cost analysis. How much will it cost and over what period of time. After that time will the construction fee(no such thing yet) come off our utility or will it remain on as still another escalated cost.

Consider power lines are built in this province on a cost plus 15% for profit basis. There is no tender as such and the system does not encourage any one to control the costs. Only approximations are used. The rich get richer.

There was a working proposal put through to the Government where the cost of power lines would be put onto the generator source. Then, the charge would be put forward to the people who used the power. The large cost of lines would be put through to the exporter!

Stelmach said “No way is this going to happen.”
This is going to be built. New government agencies assure that!

If being built, the double tower high voltage would be the only choice. Single towers are not really considered; only there for the exercise. The double towers will be 20’ higher than and 3 times as wide as the single towers and from a technical stand point the best of all worlds.

When all this is in place and the populace goes back to sleep thinking Conservative is the best of all worlds, the 500 MW power plant at Brooks Alberta will be built and 95% of the power on these new towers will be for export, paid for by you on your utility bill.

John Clark

Alberta Electricity continues to be challenged.

”We are meeting with Alberta Electric Systems Operator now to discuss some options. There are options available to satisfy both the industry and the public. However, we are at odds with EPCOR, TransAlta, and AltaLink if they try to make the public pay for an export line that will only raise our electricity rates and does not provide any additional electricity to Albertans. It is time we worked towards a solution,”

The conservatives through still another sustained lie, told Albertans they would take control of the power lines so that all schools could enjoy fancy computer rooms. This was early after the relatively honest Government of Peter Laugheed so, it was taken at its word.

After they had control of all the lines the story was hammered home "Albertans have always paid for their own power lines"

With these pieces in place they sold the power lines through power purchase agreements. The acronym for these was the "PPA's"

These PPA's ended up in the hands of the choice few after someone made millions flipping the PPA before they got into the correct hands; the major cities.

Because this Government opens all of the bids in secret and no one every knows who bid or who the top bid really was, we have no knowledge of who they handed the original PPAs to. In other words, who they decided was to get very rich in a hurry.

All the pieces in place now and more than enough power lines and generation to look after the citizens of Alberta the power companies look for export markets to other parts of Canada and and the coveted USA. The latter are going to be short a very huge amount of electrical generation starting this summer.

Alberta residences are set up presently to pay for all the line costs that is associated with the export market.

That, is what the people are fighting!

John Clark

Conservatives to Improve Pensions?

CD Howe has in an unusual statement endorsed a secondary pension fund to protect the army of workers in Canada who do not have pensions other than the CPP which is in itself very inadequate for a stand alone retirement vehicle.

The point here is that CD Howe Institute would not come up with an idea like this unless Harper’s crew already had it tooled for an election platform!

There is no reason to make a separate “only for the destitute” pension. There is however a great need to bring the Canada Pension Fund up to a point it can be a functioning income for people; all people. This will take an increase in the fund yes, but as CD Howe point out it is necessary.

The Liberals on the other hand are mired down in a Carbon Tax that will unfairly penalize this same group of people for the size of their houses. 300 square feet per person is simply not adequate.

The Liberals are not suspect when the right wing news papers are shouting their success in coming up with this plan. As with the US Democrats one only has to wait around until these guys self destruct.

Alberta: Don't speak ill of the devil!

Mr. Ronald Edward Labelle 57, goes to gaol while the judge says “You threatened violence against the premier.” And continued to say “Politicians must be able to serve the public without fear of harm.”

If this Government was representing the people of this province instead of the Oil Industry this wouldn’t have happened. At point here the Judge was in error. This Government is not serving the public! At best, they are self serving. At worst they are thieves and bandits stripping our resources while getting less than 1/10 their value from their buddies.

The outright lies and deceit this Government practices is all okay according to this Judge.

And why not? The RCMP cannot investigate the blatant insider trading in oil stocks by members of the Alberta Government and Oil Companies unless they get approval from the Alberta Attorney General. That is not going to happen. The judges are under a similar restriction when it comes to Alberta law.

Saddled with a useless opposition, what recourse does a person have?

I think Stelmach has a bad conscience, knowing full well he is ripping us off and is acting in a very defensive manner.

John Clark.

Alberta Electricity to go up 50%? No!

Alberta Electricity going up 50% ? NO!
The spin doctors are at work, forcing the price of electricity up in this province to a point where we can afford to pay for Nuclear power. Some kind of expert in the east is saying it will cost 50% more for electricity if the carbon sequestering program is started at the coal plants.

I think carbon sequestering is necessary but because the general public ends up paying for these projects on their utility bill, we should get an itemized cost of what goes into these programs.

Consider, the people generating the power are getting paid between .05 cents a kwh and .09 per kwh with the bulk of the power purchases now around .06 but much higher in the winter. With the power system putting out close to 9000 megawatts per hour of power! At the optimal rate of .07 per kwh it means that power generators are taking home 630,000 dollars per hour in this province! That is 15.12 million dollars per day! The utility companies post huge, some say unreasonable profits which are taken by the cities of Edmonton and Calgary. They are more than healthy!

Consider these same companies retail the power they have already been paid for generating. A contract at .12 per kwh would return these same companies an additional 450,000 dollars per hour or 10.8 million dollars a day.

Some one is taking 25 million dollars a day to the bank, all of it out of your pockets.

Aside from this; the power companies will be further eligible for large grants under the "carbon sequestering program" announced earlier by Stelmach.

The Conservatives have the system rigged so you have no recourse to correction because you have signed a contract. However, it is something you can change at the civic election! I think Albertans should be given some degree of accountability in the implementation of new programs in the power industry before we pay attention to charlatans calling for 50% increases. In this province however there is no accountability from Government and, that seems to be okay.

John Clark

Alberta Royalty Regime is an Outright Lie!

The Conservatives have been telling outright lies to the party faithful!

If anything, the new royalty program will end up costing Albertans.

John Clark

As of today oil is more than 120.00 per bbl that

gives Alberta 27.80 and the oil companies 97.20. !

When your Boss (Premier) is a liar.

When Your Boss is a Liar:

Mark SwartzQuestion: I'm at my wit's end about a problem at work. I discovered last year that my boss had personally changed the results of an expensive market research study our firm had paid for. In doing so, she ended up costing the company a ton of money because the original research results said that we shouldn't launch the new product. We did anyway, and our department is now in the dog house. I feel my job may therefore be in jeopardy. Should I go over her head and report her actions so at least upper management knows it wasn't my fault? I've since caught my boss in several other lies. I love my job here and the money's good, so what do I do? "This is a direct quote from the Workopolist web site."

John Clark

Alberta royalty an outright lie!

Alberta's Energy Minister has a job that is guaged on how well he can stall and delay changes, not how well he can help build this province. Billions of dollars are lost to this province every month due to the unchanged oil royalty scheme. Worse, Mr. Stelmach has said there may well be no changes at all to the Royalty scheme.

Mr. Knight refuses to answer the questions on the current rate of royalty charged. The Journal reported the royalty being reduced to 19% and Mr. Knight is still talking agreed rates of 25%.

At no point will he clearly state what the current rate of royalty being charged is and our all but useless opposition will not ask that question!

Certainly the Liberals are pandering to the Oil Companies; they are 750 Million dollars in debt. Where else are they going to get that kind of cash after two frittered away elections?

The stock market correctly identifies the Conservaives as being a lying deceitful bunch and as I pointed out prior to the election there is nothing in Stelmach's package for Alberta!

The stock market reports energy stocks a good deal: "There may be no urgency to act as long as oil and gas prices appreciate. In fact, we think there is a cause and effect between untrustworthy government and commodity price. "

John Clark

Alberta politicians elevate themselves

Alberta Conservatives declare their entitlement status by issuing themselves with Diplomatic Passports. This group of louts are not going to wait in line at any airport, thank you!

John Clark

Alberta Electricity is good to Electrical Business.

Alberta's high cost electricity is makes it impossible to bring on new industry and nearly impossible for consumers in Alberta to pay their power bills.

There is no protection for consumers from the Alberta Utilities boards.

What is a fair return?

Transalta Utilities have announced a 75 million dollar upgrade to the Sundance Generating Station. This will increase electricity production by 53 megawatts of power.

The numbers:
53 megawatts = 53,000 kw per hour.
Market for electricity is .07 per kwh.
When producing the new 53 megawatt will return $3710.00 per hour at .07 per kwh.

This expenditure will be paid for in 2.3 years. From that time on it is clear profit!

Wouldn't you like to start a business that will be paid for in less than 3 years?
John Clark

Shaw.ca reply1

Reducing to 6kbs is lower than any industry in Canada or the US. Shaw are obviously protecting their cable PPV business.
-------------------------
Hello John,
Thank you for choosing Shaw Technical Support.
With the popularity of the Internet having grown so quickly, the challenge faced by all ISP's is upgrading the network fast enough to keep up with bandwidth needs. Since 2002, Shaw has increased bandwidth guidelines ten-fold. This has been possible only with continual upgrades to the network infrastructure. These upgrades are still being done continuously, but can only be done as quickie as manpower and operating budgets allow.

We recognize that there is the ability to transfer hundreds of Gigabytes of data in a relatively short time, but the current network could not provide this type of service without seriously impacting the speeds of most users.

Much as many of our cities find that the roadways are overcrowded, and are constantly trying to expand their infrastructure to keep up with the demand, so is the case for ISP's. In five years, we have expanded from 770,000 Internet customers to 1,500,000, almost double. We have also seen an extremely rapid growth in Digital Television customers (more than doubled). As well as needing continual upgrades to support these customers, there is also the task of upgrading areas where cabling is simply old and beginning to deteriorate.

We hope this information has been useful to you. When sending a reply to us, please remember to include all previous correspondence.
Thank you for choosing Shaw.
Bernice E-Mail Support Team Shaw Internet Service
Should you require further assistance in the future, you may reach us via any of the mediums listed below: Web: http://support.shaw.ca/
Email: edm.help@sjrb.caTelephone:Edmonton
(780) 490-3590 Option 1 then
Option 2Red Deer (403) 340-6420
Hinton 1 (800) 465-9605

Shaw.ca

Shaw Internet services “shape” the bandwidth you use. For those of you who use torrent sites, don’t bother buying the Shaw “Extreme” package thinking you will get better download speed. Simply won’t happen.

Shaw have limited these downloads to 6 kbs which on a bandwith that has the capability of 160 kbs is nothing!

The limiting as they are managing it screws up your modem, routers and switches. In effect it will overload the resource of your machine so you cannot get your internet pages, email etc until you shut down your torrent program.

Coming up will be industry comparison of services.

John Clark.

First evidence of pay your own way health care shows up

Seniors told they have used up all their allowance on Alberta Health Care cards. When senior contacted Alberta Health Care stating her health care card had been ruined when it was inadvertently put through the wash she was told “This is your last free health care card!” Future card will have to be paid for in cash.

Sign of things to come under this hawkish right wing Government. I would like to see their budget for body guards.

John Clark

Conservatives position for Bulk Water Export

The Conservatives want to Export bulk water!

Do you trust them to negotiate a new NAFTA?

The Conservative party of Canada appeared before the Privy Council to make the case that water exports were included in the present NAFTA agreement. They were defeated but said they would pursue this through the courts if needed.

The Conservative policies are set by large by the Fraser Institute and the CD Howe Institute. Both of these organizations have U S citizens and industry as a large segment of their membership.

I have come to think of these organizations as being the shadow government for the ruling Conservatives.

The articles outline Harper’s plan to talk to the provinces getting them to lobby for the agreement. With the Conservatives in charge in Alberta and Saskatchewan there will be no resistance to the privatization and export of our fresh water.

Do you really want to keep the Federal Conservatives in power for this exercise?
A must read

John Clark

Liberals move to prevent export of water!

Federal Liberals aggressively move to prevent export of water.

On September 12, 2007, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion called upon the government to work with the provinces and territories to close any possible loopholes in our water protection framework, and to pass backstop legislation banning bulk water exports. A Task Force on the protection of Canadian water resources should be established and would work to ensure that federal, provincial and territorial governments treat bulk water diversions in a consistent manner.

In addition, the Liberal Party has called on the Conservative government to immediately inform the governments of the United States and Mexico that bulk water removals from Canada’s major drainage basins will not be permitted and that the topic of water export will be excluded from all future Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) or related discussions.

As it has in the past, the Liberal Party will continue to protect Canada’s water resources through a comprehensive water strategy that works in partnership with our provinces, municipalities and First Nations communities.

Thank you for sharing your concerns about our country’s water resources; they are concerns that we share as well.

Sincerely,

Scott Blurton
Electronic Communications Officer
Liberal Party of Canada.
info@liberal.ca

Alberta Royalty lies are laid bare.

Royalty lies lay bare!
It is as I predicted before the election. There is nothing in this royalty regime for Albertans!

I read the original proposal with dismay. The increases as such were no increase at all but a means to shuttle crude from one account to another while subsidizing the oil up-grader scam.

Certainly the Conservatives knew they could not subsidize the up-graders as it would be against the rules of NAFTA. With Harper set to re- negotiate the NAFTA and the US hungry for tar sands crude, this may well change.

When Mel Knight says there will be no changes for 5 years he is saying they are willing to fight the royalty fight again in the next election. Why not? With a worse than useless Liberal opposition and the NDP solidly on their side, they did famous. All Stelmach had to do was parrot “We have a plan” without divulging it lay in the further privatization of Alberta’s Heritage, Schools, Water and trust funds.

It is also very important to notice that Mr. Knight does not state publicly or publish what exactly is being paid for royalties now. Amongst the field of lies and misdirection this Government lays down, keeping mind the reduction in royalty from 25% to 19% and he is saying no changes for 5 years!

I have said before and will say again “It is hard to distinguish this Government from Organized Crime”

John Clark

Alberta 19% royalty revisited

Mr. Mel R. Knight Minister
Alberta Energy
404 Legislature Building,
10800-97 Ave
Edmonton, AB T8V-0T8

Cc: Honourable Ed Stelmach, Premier.

Dear Mr. Knight:

I will make a reply easy for you! During one of your very rare public appearances during the past election you were asked in public forum “What about the 19% Royalty?” You blew this person off saying “That is a matter of record; that is old stuff!”

So, why does your on line information all refer to our no existent 25% royalty?

Meanwhile; after the Auditor General’s report addressing the potential of self serving profiteering by yourself and other members, Mr. Stelmach said publicly “We will certainly have to find another way of handling royalties”

Somewhere between Premier Stelmach’s “open Government” promise and his pointed direction of finding a new way to settle royalty rates would leave the casual observer to read this as being “more open” which seems not to be the case.

Certainly you will appreciate http://albertathedetails.blogspot.com/ is a good advertisement for the Conservative nature of your Government.

John Clark

Alberta Crude up to 1.05 per barrel.

Oil is up to 1.05 US a barrel!

Under the Conservatives hidden oil royalty rates that works out to:

Alberta gets 19.95
Oil Company gets 85.05


John Clark

Alberta Innovation Fund????

Alberta spending more millions on the oil industry in new found projects. Still no money for municipal projects.

Bitumen, and plenty of jobs, heading south to U.S.

Bitumen, and plenty of jobs, heading south to U.S.Tories making a huge mistake not upgrading more, and 'scraping off the topsoil'
Diana Gibson and David ThompsonMonday, March 24
"Our product is steel, our strength is people." So goes the motto of one Canadian steel company.
What would Alberta's motto be? "Our export is oil; our other export is jobs."
And now it looks like even more jobs will be flowing flow south to the U.S., along with Alberta's non-renewable resources.

The U.S. State Department has just given its approval to the Keystone pipeline, which will eventually ship 590,000 barrels per day of Alberta oil to the U.S.

It's already been given the nod by Canada's National Energy Board, which also recently approved the Alberta Clipper pipeline which can carry 800,000 barrels per day.
This is enormous capacity. To give a sense of scale, these two pipelines alone will exceed Alberta's total 2006 oil exports -- all of it. They have more capacity than the current total production of the tarsands.

Those pipelines can export either bitumen from the tarsands, or upgraded product. And American refineries are already retrofitting to receive and upgrade Alberta's bitumen -- along with all the jobs that would entail.

Exporting raw resources means exporting jobs. In fact, according to a consultant's report for a recent Energy Board hearing, even one 450,000 bpd pipeline can send 18,000 jobs south along with that bitumen.

Those well-paid jobs are critical to families, communities and the province. Without the job-creating, "value-added" processing, oil and gas extraction is one of the lowest jobs-per-output industries in Canada.

Many Albertans know this is a problem. And they've been speaking out about it for some time now. So much so that in 2006, one Tory party leadership candidate made a promise to address it, saying: "Shipping raw bitumen is like scraping off the topsoil, selling it, and thinking we have a rich farm because we have cash in the bank."

He even pointed out the obvious, "Once it's gone, it's gone for good."
While campaigning, he talked about increasing the amount of bitumen upgraded in the province. That candidate's name was, of course, Ed Stelmach.
But when he became premier, nothing happened on the raw bitumen exports file. Then value-added processing was included within the scope of Alberta's recent royalty review.

The government's own hand-picked panel surprised everyone with its recommendations, which included a rebate on royalties for processing in-province.
However, Premier Stelmach's government chose to ignore that recommendation, instead promising vague action sometime in the future. Still, nothing happened on the raw bitumen exports file.

Then the news came out last month that the Clipper pipeline was approved, and possibly 18,000 jobs would flow down to the United States. Many voices said the government should do something.

Still nothing happened.

Instead Stelmach claimed that 72 per cent of bitumen would be processed in Alberta by 2016 with upgrader plans already on the books. So obviously, there would be no need for government to act.

Wrong. Without government action, there is no guarantee that those upgraders will be built in Alberta. Quite the contrary. The lack of government regulation, in conjunction with runaway inflation -- also caused by government-without-a-plan -- has already resulted in some upgrader projects being shelved. More will likely follow.

Instead of those upgraders being built in Alberta, U.S. based refineries are installing upgraders, which will create thousands of long-term, well-paying jobs -- in the U.S.
And every time the capacity for upgrading and refining bitumen is stepped up in the U.S., the job loss in Alberta is permanent. When facilities are built elsewhere, companies have no incentive to build them here. And NAFTA makes it hard to bring those jobs home.
As Stelmach said, once it is gone, it's gone for good.
Few premiers have been courageous enough to make value-added jobs a priority. Perhaps only one has.

Peter Lougheed created an Alberta-first employment policy. He required natural gas exports to contribute to building the petrochemical industry in Alberta. This value-added strategy built that industry -- an industry with good, family-supporting jobs.

Sadly for many Alberta families, Ralph Klein rolled back the value-added processing rules, and good jobs started flowing south again.

And Stelmach has put himself squarely in Klein's camp. The recent oilpatch calls to slow the pace of tarsand leases (calls that are supported by broader public opinion) were rebuffed by Stelmach, who said his government will not "control" the economy. This is consistent with the laissez-faire approach that has allowed raw resources and jobs to flow south.

In other words, nothing has happened to curtail that flow, and now it looks like nothing will happen.

Pipelines will continue to take bitumen to the U.S., and soon there will be more of them. Upgraders will continue to be built -- in the U.S. And sadly, good Alberta jobs will continue to flow south.

Diana Gibson is Research Director for the Parkland Institute.
David Thompson is an independent public policy consultant.

The Parkland Institute is a charitable, non-partisan research network based at the University of Alberta

********************************************************************PARKLAND INSTITUTE - website http://www.ualberta.ca/parkland Edmonton Office: 11045 Saskatchewan Drive, T6G 2E1Phone: (780) 492-8558 Fax:(780) 492-8738 email: parkland@ualberta.ca Calgary Office: 2919 - 8 Avenue NW, T2N 1C8 Phone: (403) 270-9669 Fax (403) 283-6480 email: parkcalg@ualberta.ca

Alberta in the middle of the waste.

We hear of 60% of the bats dieing on the east coast of the US and in Texas. A huge boost for insects! We read that oxygen depleated "dead" spots are showing up on the west coast of Canada and the US. Oceans dying is part of the long cycle of the ice age. Over the past couple of years we have read about the bee population dying for no apparent reason, same as the bats. Then to top it off we read the southern ice cap is slipping into the ocean at a great pace.

One has to wonder what we are doing and when the chase the buck mentality is going to curb.

As if a bright spot, the Alberta Government anounces they are going to sump or bury Carbon dioxide under the coal at Sundance. This is curious to say the least. The gas has to be pumped down over 2000 feet in order to get enought pressure to hold it down there!. There are no deep strata formations around Sundance. This appears to be another PR deal by Stelmach.

An American writer repored in the Edmonton Journal that we will all perish before any real changes take place!

Then, a real bright spot! AESO are getting an award for intergrating wind power in Alberta. In effect doing much better than their peers. This should be a cause for a celebration some place.

John Clark

Alberta wealth going south of the border; big time!

Mar. 27, 2008 (Investor's Business Daily delivered by Newstex) --
On Wednesday we examined how well Canada stands as investors unlock their bank accounts and jump back into stocks. Much of the fortunes up north may depend on commodity prices.
Taking a look at Canada's recent winners, we see lots of natural resources companies, such as oil and gas, gold and silver, base metals, and wheat.
Prices for these raw goods recently plunged after major run-ups, so passing on a gold mine or an oil driller may have been smart.
Still, that's Canada's specialite du maison.
So let's start with oil and gas.
EnCana ECA, a big cap based in Calgary, is one of the biggest holders of onshore oil and gas properties in North America. The company was on Tuesday's IBD Big Cap 20.
Natural gas accounts for 80% of EnCana's (NYSE:ECA) output. But it hasn't ignored crude.
One of the company's projects is a joint effort with ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) COP. The result is an integrated stream.
It starts with heavy oil extracted from Canadian oil sands (or tar sands) in northeast Alberta. That's EnCana's ballpark.
It wants to raise output to 400,000 barrels a day by 2015. It's now at 50,000 bpd.
"Downstream," that heavy oil is refined at ConocoPhillips' refineries in Roxana, Ill., and Borger, Texas.
EnCana has put up some choppy earnings results. In the past four quarters, it reported gains of 49%, 55%, 4% and 116%.
Estimates for the current period are for a 13% gain. Sales have come in with gains of 43%, 39% and 58% in the past three quarters.
Margins and return on equity improved in 2007 from the prior year. But a concern is that analysts' estimates for 2008 are for a 13% earnings decline.Newstex ID: IBD-0001-24048124

Alberta better jobs head for the US Big Time!

Mar. 27, 2008 (Investor's Business Daily delivered by Newstex) --
On Wednesday we examined how well Canada stands as investors unlock their bank accounts and jump back into stocks. Much of the fortunes up north may depend on commodity prices.
Taking a look at Canada's recent winners, we see lots of natural resources companies, such as oil and gas, gold and silver, base metals, and wheat.

Prices for these raw goods recently plunged after major run-ups, so passing on a gold mine or an oil driller may have been smart.

Still, that's Canada's specialite du maison.
So let's start with oil and gas.

EnCana ECA, a big cap based in Calgary, is one of the biggest holders of onshore oil and gas properties in North America. The company was on Tuesday's IBD Big Cap 20.
Natural gas accounts for 80% of EnCana's (NYSE:ECA) output. But it hasn't ignored crude.

One of the company's projects is a joint effort with ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) COP. The result is an integrated stream.
It starts with heavy oil extracted from Canadian oil sands (or tar sands) in northeast Alberta. That's EnCana's ballpark.
It wants to raise output to 400,000 barrels a day by 2015. It's now at 50,000 bpd.
"Downstream," that heavy oil is refined at ConocoPhillips' refineries in Roxana, Ill., and Borger, Texas.
EnCana has put up some choppy earnings results. In the past four quarters, it reported gains of 49%, 55%, 4% and 116%.
Estimates for the current period are for a 13% gain. Sales have come in with gains of 43%, 39% and 58% in the past three quarters.
Margins and return on equity improved in 2007 from the prior year. But a concern is that analysts' estimates for 2008 are for a 13% earnings decline.Newstex ID: IBD-0001-24048124

Public Schooling to be marginalized while the private schools expand.

Under fund; close facilities and create a problem. (Remember the hospitals?) Then, point the general public to the cure in this case, private schools. More and more you are going to hear this Government tell you the existing schools (all public) do not meet some criteria or another and/or the funding is just not there to keep them going. The whole scenario is to instill more private schools.

Alberta already has the highest number of private schools in Canada!

They have invented the school credit that goes with the child to which ever school they enroll in. Keeping choices and facilities short the funding and the children are directed to private schools.

If you are one of the people who didn’t vote or voted for these characters, you deserve it.

John Clark

Heritage trust fund on the way out!

The announcement of the amalgamation of the credit unions into one large company with Mr. Jim Dinning heading up the board of the yet to be named company puts all the pieces in place. There goes the farm!

Mr. Dinning who is also the chair of the Western Financial Group will be the person who controls the purse strings on the Alberta Heritage and Savings Trust fund.

One has to wonder what kind of transparency will be provided to Albertans as to the health and well being of this fund and, what access will there be by this province. How much is it going to cost us to turn this money over to a private company? You can bet at the end of the day the Conservatives Friends will be much richer and the province will be much poorer.

John Clark

Man could face jail for venting.

Man could get 5 years for venting against the Premiers office!

This Government has gone through more than a dozen years of lying, cheating and conniving as they rip this province apart, selling it for pennies on the dollar of value.

When an individual feels his life has hit a wall and his future is destroyed by this Government’s irresponsible policies the Government adds “Bully” to its list of habits.

This Government who uses the police forces and if need be the army to enforce an industrial agenda are only too happy to play their bully role in the courts. No folks, this isn’t China!

After crooking the electoral system so they continue to win majorities with only 22 percent of the vote (too regular to be random) it is a small wonder they are not facing a full fledged armed uprising!

John Clark

Alberta issues have not changed!

Air Condition time in Alberta = 39 cents/hour

A rated 2 ton air conditioner (built in) is standard for houses up to 1200 or 1300 square feet.
Rule of thumb which works is 1 ton for every 600 sq foot of building. 1 ton = 12,000 BTU.

An efficient 2 ton built in unit cost of operation:

Power: 208 Volts at 13.5 amp = 2808 watts/hour of use.
Power Line charge .02
Power Contract .09
Power charge delivered 11 cents per kwh

Furnace motor efficient or semi efficient 7 amps @ 110 volt = 770 watts/hour

Total operational power 3578 watt/hour
Total operational cost 3.578 kwh X .11 per kwh = 39.3 cents per hour
This works out to 3.93 for 10 hours of continuous operation.

With reasonable insulation and decent windows one can reasonably expect a 60% duty cycle.

Providing your furnace fan shuts down with the air conditioning, this would leave you a bottom line of $2.36 per day for air conditioning.

Having said this, I see where ENMAX has again increased their contract rate and incorporated a per month charge on the same path the EPCOR has found a success.

Between their monthly increase and their add on charges they have again increased their rates 1 cent by 25%. On the other hand, EPCOR seems to be down by nearly 1 cent. Will have to look close at their add on charges.

John Clark

Nuclear Power - Bruce Power and the Peace River

The Bruce Power plan for Peace River seems to be gaining momentum!
Spokesmen for Bruce Power say they are going to take their considerable water needs from the Peace River and there is no talk of putting any of it back.

The Peace River is under the Navigable Water Protection Act. Approvals to move water from it or build pipe lines in or around it must come from Ottawa, Transport Canada!

With Harper in charge you can be very sure it will rubber stamped through!

John Clark

Nuclear Plants for Alberta - 4 of them!

Duke power sees 4 nuclear power plants for Alberta.
Appreciate they will have talked to both the Federal and Provincial Conservatives before publishing an article like this!
1. They are saying Alberta residences will be paying competing prices with oil sands projects.
2. They are planning 4000 megawatts of electricty increasing Alberta's power grid by 50%
3. They are abandoning the Canadian "safe" reactor in favor of world market. That is, down and dirty.

John Clark

Harper to Axe Social Programs!

Taking his lead from Stelmach, Stephen Harper plans on axing social programs in order to reduce the size and expense of Government. Turning the screws, an article by Murray Dobbin who quotes Tom Flanagn, Harper's former Chief of Staff.

Bean spiller: Tom Flanagan, former Harper chief of staff

Perhaps you won't blow your vote next time around?

John Clark

1.4 billion in promises to be paid for by you!

Newspaper reports say that Stelmach made 1.4 billion dollars in promises and continued to suggest there is no money in the revenues to pay for this.

This in turn opens the door for Stelmach to charge the people of this province more for goods and services or his last choice in tax.

The tar sands are producing more than 1 million barrels per day. The price of oil is above 1.00 per barrel. Stelmach reduced the royalty from 25% to 19% a difference of 6 percent.

At 1.00 a barrel price on oil that will be 6 cents per barrel reduction.
He gave away 60,000 dollars per day of our royalty to oil companies and continues to do so.

That is 22 million dollars a year he gave up because he thought it was enough for Alberta.

When he comes after you for more money tell him to get it off the oil we give away.

John Clark

Alberta -- Owned and operated by oil.

Prices are escalating in houses, store front buildings, utilities and the cost of living generally. Pensions and wages are not keeping up and the Conservatives have abandoned the average citizen.

Let the market prevail and those who can’t afford the market should move. That is the conservative way.

The result will be a segment of the population being forced to sell and move from this province leaving it to those people employed in oilfield service or the oil industry.

This government is facilitating the total take over of the province by the oil industry. It is now okay to employ people out of Mexico and abroad and put them up in hovels. Many of these people are abandoning Alberta in favor of their homes.

The fault in this case falls directly on those people who thought it not worthwhile to vote coupled with a crooked voting system. I guess it is a time to fight.

“I’ll say it a dozen times, people have to remember that the Oil Sands are owned by the people, they’re not owned by the oil companies.”- Peter Lougheed, Prime Minister of Alberta 1971-1985
John Clark

Alberta Royalty Benchmark

Put the crooks to the test:
The last royalty agreement made public was 25% on mature projects; 1% only during construction.

Stelmach in secret reduced the royalty to 19%. The lowest in the world by far! The 1% remains the same.

Then, he promised a 20% increase in royalty allowing oil companies to pay “part in kind” with crude. The latter to be given to the phantom up-graders.

If he is good to his word and I’m sure you will find he is not he will announce the royalty has been increased from 25% to 45%. The 45% is still at the bottom of the world in price.

If he comes out with a straight statement as in "we are going to increase" with no start or end numbers you know full well he is lying through his teeth!
Keep in mind insiders have told me it is their intention to further reduce the 19%

John Clark

Conservatives win by steath.

The numbers are coming in. The conservatives ran this election the same way they did the last election.

Make up a bunch of outright lies to go into an election on.
Do not show up for any all candidate forums.
Hide from all people who look like they may have a question.
Have security at the door to week out potential serious questions.

With less than 50% of eligible voters turning out they managed to win a huge majority with about 24% of the eligible vote.

When I hear of seniors being mistreated I will first ask “and who did you vote for?”

When I hear of atrocities in the medical arena; who did you vote for?

When in 2009 the interest rates go through the roof and these sit on your ass and let some one else do it types loose their homes and their savings there will be no tear from me. I’ll make them an offer as is the conservative way.

John Clark

Conservative program a complete lie - Proof!

Stelmach’s campaign an outright lie as is his royalty scheme.
Stelmach has been in politics as a Conservative boss for more than a dozen years. He knows the NAFTA agreement, inside and out.

His royalty scheme called for a large percentage of his BS oil program to be paid for “in like tender” as in tar sands oils, being turned over to the proposed up-graders at a discount price ranging from little to nothing.

Even as he was making the public announcements, he knew it would be impossible; would never get by NAFTA!

It was all lies a verbiage to kick off an election on.

As a kicker he reduced Alberta’s royalty from 25% to 19%.
When we were at 19% he made claims of increasing royalty under his new regime.

When the phony up-grader funding was exposed on the net, the oil companies and pipeline companies saw no reason to wait in instituting plans that have been in the making for at least 3 years. Pipelines were announced. Export the crude to the US and off the coast in ships.

There is no up-grader.
There is no increase in Royalty.
There is going to be a huge export of Alberta Crude to foreign soil.
The Conservatives have embarked on an unsustainable lie.

All these anouncements are straight out lies! What's left?

More and more you will be expected to dig deeper and deeper into your income for survival while all the resource coin is given to the oil and water companies, the ever popular conservative “trickle down” theory at work.

John Clark
cyberclark@shaw.ca

Stelmach twisting truths.

It would break a snakes back to follow Stelmach and crew!

Listen close to what he says. He says one thing and implies another.

Example: He says “1.4 billion dollars more in royalty next year” would have you believe he is increasing royalty rates. Not so! 1.4 billion dollars is made up of maturing production and new production all taken at 19% not 25% When he talks increase in revenues he is adding up increases in income tax no oil royalty!

His election is a sham! If you do not get out and vote this time you will be hit by a political bus! By not voting you will have put the most corrupt government in north America back into office.

John Clark

Alberta Doctors against Conservatives

Doctors give Alberta Liberals top marks
The Canadian Press
February 28, 2008 at 11:46 AM EST
CALGARY — Alberta's doctors have given the Liberals the best grade of the political parties heading into Mondays election.
The Alberta Medical Association posed 10 health-care questions to the parties.
The Liberals garnered a B grade, the New Democrats a C-plus and the Conservatives a C.
The Green Party fared the worst with a D.
The answers were assessed by about 150 physicians.
The Wildrose Alliance was the only party that didn't respond to the survey.

Energy Minister is on the run! More misdirection!

Alberta 2008 Leadership Debate

2008 Leadership Debate
Opponents cream Stelmach
Compiled by Heath McCoy, Renata D'Aliesio and Tony Seskus, Calgary Herald., Calgary Herald
Published: Friday, February 22, 2008
Kevin Taft
Liberal
On Health Care
Taft: "I can't stand on the sidelines . . . . People are dying, Mr. Stelmach. People are stuck in emergency rooms for days on end. This is a life-and-death issue. . . . This government has to be held to account."

On Energy and Environment
Taft: "It feels to so many people like Alberta's economy, particularly the oilsands development, is a runaway train . . . But you don't build a garage without a plan. You can't . . . develop the biggest industrial development on the planet without a plan."

On Social Issues
Taft: "Too many people are getting left behind. . . . Long term, so much of this comes down to great education. The best low-income policy in the long term is to give people great education."
- - -
Brian Mason
NDP
On Health Care
Mason: "Albertans really want to have health care that's there when they need it. They don't want to be waiting in the hallways. We have 10 years of neglect. . . . We are short 1,000 doctors and 1,500 nurses. How did we get into this situation?"

On Energy and Environment
Mason: "The decision of the government to not touch the brake, as Mr. Stelmach said when he first became the Conservative leader, is a terrible mistake. We need to pace development in the tar sands."

On Social Issues
Mason: "This government has done more to create homelessness than any other government since the Second World War in this province. The simple failure to bring in rent controls to protect people has meant many more people are living out on the street."
- - -
Paul Hinman
Wildrose Alliance
On Health Care
Hinman: "We've had 36 years of these guys (the Tories) saying more money, more money. It will never be enough. . . . There's nothing bold about (Stelmach's) plan. There's nothing innovative about it."

On Energy and Environment
Hinman: "He's hurt our reputation by tearing up those contracts and saying, 'You know what, we're not going to listen to industry. We are going to listen to my heart,' and he's failing on the economic decision that he's making for this province."

On Social Issues
Hinman: "We need to reduce the taxes on the people of Alberta -- then they'll be able to have affordable housing because they (will) have money in their pocket to actually pay the rent or buy the house."

On Health Care

Ed Stelmach
Progressive Conservative
Ed Stelmach, Progressive Conservative
Jenelle Schneider, Calgary Herald
Stelmach: "I'm fully committed to supporting the public health-care system. . . . While others are identifying issues in health care, we have acted. We have brought world-class physicians to the province. We've added more nurses."

On Energy and Environment
Stelmach: "The plan we have in place is already showing that we have dealt with a lot of the environmental issues in Fort McMurray and Fort Saskatchewan -- an overall cumulative environmental plan. We've got an excellent plan for water strategy."

On Social Issues
Stelmach: "Rent controls do not build one affordable unit (of housing) in the province of Alberta. It's proven. We've looked at the history of other provinces and we're not going to go (down) that path. We're going to increase the supply."

An Exercise: How a re ordering of the story can change the facts!

Alberta Land Use planning is a mess!

Report on Alberta's land use.

John Clark

Alberta to further reduce royalties!

The US dollar falling against the Canadian dollar was seen by the Conservative as an opportunity to upset what they had come to see as the status quo of the royalty regime.
Reducing our royality on the tar sands from 25% to 19% (current) is only the start of a long slide down!
It is their intention to further reduce royalties as new production comes on line. They will in effect benchmark what they think Alberta will need with the citizens charged to the brink for goods and services.

Alberta will not enjoy more royalties in the future under a Conservative Government!
Meanwhile, Oil companies in the US are doing budgets in anticipation of paying more money to the Government when the Democrats take office this election.
John Clark.

Stelmach tough on crime? I don't think so.

Crime
Is he going to start to publish the results of Government bids and show all the bids along side the insiders he gives the contracts to? In Alberta now, they know who is getting the contract before they put it out! They won’t change.

Is he going to change the Freedom of Information program to allow a full and honest review of Government polices? I think not.

These guys are the biggest crooks! Is he going to take the seals off the court on the West Edmonton Mall fiasco? I think not.

Is he going to divulge the details on the Firestorm rip off? I think not.

Is he going to post the list of people who flipped the power purchase agreements and check for improprieties? I think not.

Perhaps this is the lynch pin for private prisons?

Eddie and the crew were a part of all of these debacles. No one is exempt. After 14 years to lies and deceit, nothing has changed.

John Clark

Oil Profits up 28 Billions - Alberta Royalities down 21 billion.

Oil companies to record record profits of 28 billions of dollars while Alberta looses 21billion a year proping up these profits!
Reasoning follows:
Alberta Oil Sands important details Oil sands deposits contain approximately 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen.
Approximately 10 % or 174 billion barrels are proven reserves that can be recovered using current technology.

Current economic limit for oil sand surface mining is approximately 80 meters which makes up 20 % of the proven reserves.Current oil sand production is approximately 1 million barrels per day, 1/2 is from surface mining.

1 million barrels per day at $100.00 per bbl US is 100 million dollars per day US.

1% start up rate returns 1 million dollars per day into royalty funds.

25% agreed production returns 25 million dollars per day in royalties.

19% Stelmach adjusted rate brings in 19 million dollars per day royalties.

Stelmach has moved 6 million dollars per day from Alberta Taxpayers into the hands of the Oil Companies while he is telling us he has found the “middle road” turning even more revenue into oil company’s profits.
John Clark

Liberals outline a solid, sustainable plan!

Kevan Taft has outlined a solid, sustainable plan for Alberta's future. This is in direct conflict with the Conservative doom and gloom scenarios that Albertan's must learn to pay more.

John Clark

Conservatives approve endless increases in insurance.

Ed Stelmach in a tit for tat statment gives insurance companies the okay to charge what ever they see fit in the wake of the court decision to get rid of the cap on soft tissue.

The Conservatives have been whoring with Insurance Companies since the onset. There is no one in this Government looking after the citizens of this province!

John Clark

School Closures are a big thing in Alberta!

Conservative school closures are a deliberate means to push our education system into a privitized industry. There are people in our political arena who despise and resist this plan.

John Clark

A fresh honest face in Alberta Politics!

Here is a fellow with attitude!

He will make a differnce!

John Clark

The Conservative Plan to Fix Health Services

It takes 9 years to put a physician into private practice!

Alberta’s health care problem is short funding as it has always been. The plans have always been the same; destabilize then privatize.

Stelmach opted to secretly cut our revenue from royalties by 84 million dollars a day. (Dropping royality to 19%) This was done to prop up oil companies profits when the US dollar fell; it had nothing to do with their operational securities! That is 84 million a day he doesn’t have to put into other programs. Health Care is only one example.

It is not a far reach to say they have cut money to Capital Health in order to prop up oil profits!

University seats go to foreign students because these students pay multi thousands of dollars more for a lecture hall slot at a university than does an Albert student. Universities need the cash!

These foreign graduates go back to their homes to practice, they seldom stay in Alberta.

Stelmach has put up a smoke and mirrors royalty proposal that returns nothing to the Alberta revenue base! He has found a way to subsidize the oil up grader plants through a fiscal “payment in kind of crude” which can be 90% of the royalty further shorting the revenue into Alberta.

A shallow numbers game! More lies and misconceptions!

These guys have lied their way into the past 3 elections. Hold them accountable now!
Remember they were elected to a Majority Government last time getting only 23% of the Alberta Vote!

John Clark

The Conservative Plan to Save Alberta-Education

Increase funding to private schools while continuing to short public school funding.

Why?

The mentality of this crew is such that the privatization of schools allows them a place of fame with like minded people.

They feel the public system is too expensive and to walk away from regulation is a good thing because people will pay more to get their kids into better schools there by reducing “public” expenditures.

In all. a “feel good” thing for the Conservatives who claim private is always cheaper than Government but never ever do a follow up to see the huge cost increases.

John Clark
cyberclark@shaw.ca

Conservative Plan to Save Alberta - Water

Further privatize the water in Alberta.

Why?

The rivers are going dry, quickly as the glaciers recede at record speeds. This leaves the ground water; the aquifer as being our primary source of water. Much of the water rights for this aquifer have been given to Coca Cola, Calgary Malting and others in the Agra Food Industries.

The conservatives were unhappy with the hearings held by the Privy Council of Canada which ruled that bulk water exports were not covered under NAFTA and gave notice to the Privy Council the Conservatives were taking up a legal challenge to make it acceptable to export bulk water to the US.

Placing the water firmly in the hands of private companies makes it very easy to escalate the price of water to the residential consumers. Prices for water service will be levied by the pipeline companies. A bill for the water combined with a bill for the transmission of water if you like. The water analogy for electricity is applicable in more than one discipline.

Bottom line; your costs are going to go up by 10 times almost, overnight.

The kicker here is the oil up graders planned will use more water than all the residential housing but, will get it for nothing.

John Clark
cyberclark@shaw.ca

Conservative Plans to Savel Alberta-Heating

Immediately eliminate the subsidy to home owners on heating costs. When the price of heating goes up there will be no rebates!

Why?

The price of gas is down. Because of this now is a good time to eliminate the program.

The price of coal is moving up on the world markets. It is higher now than it has ever been and it will get much higher they will push for world prices on coal more especially since the Ontario Teachers Pension fund owns most of it.

John Clark
cyberclark@shaw.ca