Conservatives double postage charges

You hear of big spending for military police and the vancouver games. You hear nothing about increasing seniors pensions to cover the higher cost of utilities and services. You do hear of services cut and now a double hit on postage to the US out of consumers pockets. Bandits!

For Immediate Release
August 30, 2006

Canada Post Goes Ahead with Price Hikes Despite Public Outcry

Ottawa – Liberal Critic for Crown Corporations John McKay is once again calling on Conservative Minister of Transport, Infrastructure, and Communities Lawrence Cannon to stand up for Canadian small businesses that rely on Canada Post’s services to mail products to the United States.

“Despite the public outcry Canada Post is still going ahead with its plans to introduce a new “light packet” service for all light weight non-paper items, hiking its rates by up to 100% of the current letter mail service prices,” said Mr. McKay. “This kind of price gouging by a Crown Corporation is irresponsible and disappointing. It reflects a certain level of indifference towards Canadians.”

In a press release issued late last month, Mr. McKay drew attention to the planned rate hike, which would have seen shipping prices rise by as much as 230 percent. He argued that Canada Post’s proposed rate increase far exceeds both the rate of inflation and price increases introduced by US postal services, resulting in harmful consequences for Canadian small businesses.

For example, the cost of sending a 100 gram “light packet” from Canada to the United States will now cost $3.74, while the cost of sending the same packet from the United States to Canada only costs $1.40USD.

In addition, the new service will now require that sellers mail items from local post offices instead of their homes or businesses, resulting in added frustration for small business owners who mail several hundred items on a weekly basis.

Canada Post attempted a similar rate increase in early 2005, but public outcry at the time forced the company to listen to their customers, and retract the rate increase. Another price hike was attempted one month ago, and again, small business owners and eBay sellers responded, and succeeded in forcing Canada Post to postpone the introduction of the new service. The crown corporation is now again attempting to implement the same rate increase.

Tar sands royalities.

1% of Gross
vis
25% of net

This from CAPP

Oil sands royalties are 1% of gross revenue until the plant is paid off. After that it's 25% (not 1%) of net revenue until the end of time. If you refer to the following brochure and others listed on the CAPP website under publications, you may be able to find more information. Another recommended resource for information pertaining to royalties is the Alberta Department of Energy.

http://www.capp.ca/raw.asp?x=1&dt=NTV&dn=90360
http://www.energy.gov.ab.ca/

I hope this helps you out with some of your questions.
Regards



This from Alberta Connects; Energy.
Yes Mr. Clark the figures representing 1% of Gross and 25% of net can very well be the same number.

Consider the 1% is taken after all expences for the plant building are deducted.
where as the 25% is taken on the net a after all expences for operation are deducted and could very well return the same royality.

I still have trouble seeing the risk that the conservative buddies are taking.
John Clark
cyberclark@shaw.ca

Fraser Institute + Klein

Have a lot of catching up to do folks!

Klein is moving on from a regular member to a special spokes man for the Fraser Institute. This works nicely for a comment on the dual citizenship hype of a few weeks ago and the press recently pointing to Harpers pandering to the US agenda.

The Fraser Institute is reported as being a right wing think tank. That it is. Many of its members are US citizens pushing US industry objectives. Many more of these members have dual citizenship being Canada/US. Opening communication across the border is easier when you all belong to the same club.

Mr. Harper, Mr. Manning; the ex Ontario premier are all members of this club and support their views. The softwood lumber deal is a made in Fraser Institute dream as is the Conservative policy.

The globalization spoke of by this group is a thin veil meant to cover Americanization and American colonization.

In this circle Klein slight of hand and outright lies and manipulation of budgets covering the privatization of Alberta resource moves him to Hero status.

I have been advised Alberta's senator-elect also hold dual US Canadian citizenship should any of you wonder about the agenda or direction of this crew.

Electrical blackout report in as predicted.

The report on the blackout is in. As expected; no fault. No intentional rip off; just an accidental rip off.

Mr. Norris, One Conservative leadership candidate says he will order a full investigation into the Deregulation of Electricity even though we have proven rules are wrong.

A second Conservative says he will not run again but is going to work with a group to clean up corruption in politics.

What a day!
cyberclark@shaw.ca

Huge Aluminum project has negative implications for Canada

This is really a huge project!

Highway 19 a Klein personal disaster

Klein’s policies continue to kill people. In his mad rush to privatization he starved any number of infrastructure programs in the name of paying down the debt where in fact it was his normal plan of limiting funding to debilitate a service, and then privatize it as a means of “saving” us.

Highway 19 is one of these shelved projects. Now, with the employment at 110 percent of capacity and construction resources pinned to maximum, there are no men or equipment to do the highway. On top of that, the rates and costs are such that it may cost three times what it would have done, just 5 years ago.

Highway 19 is a symptom; a malady of a problem invented by Klein and, it promises to get worse as his attentions are spent in exploiting the tar sands in such a way that others who follow politically will face penalty if they try to fix the on going disasters.

Rogers, the Conservative rep for the area is trying hard to spin this as a battle for a spot in the construction tier.

John Clark
cyberclark@shaw.ca

Ralph fixing it so no one can make it right. Not!

The Journalism in this province is getting better and better! Friday August 7th Edmonton Sun, Page 7 Author Darcy Benton, Legislature Bureau. (Link will be posted when one becomes available)
OILSANDS PLAN NOT IN THE CARDS!

This is a response to the Parkland Institute who has pointed out that the new oil sands projects will all but destroy this province. There is not sufficient gas nor water nor infrastructure to support the sales. Some wonder if there is enough money in this province to pay the advanced charges for living as the rush to grab freebies pushes the wages and rents off the map.

Mr. Klein leaving the podium at the last election debate said “I will fix things in this province so none of you guys will be able to change it.” I would hope this statement is enough that a court will view these changes as a mad man’s action and void a number of the lucrative contacts he has given out.

In point Ralph says “The Pembina Institute should keep heir noses out of anyone’s business, especially businesses that want to take risks,”

As far as a plan, he says “To have a long-range plan would be an interventionist kind of policy which says you either allow them or you don’t allow (to proceed). The last thing we want to be is an interventionist government."

No shit Sherlock!

He's a great one for labels.

What risks are the oil companies and power companies taking?

Their arrangement with the Conservative Government is all based on a cost plus operation.

They get a free ride on taxation.

They can spend what ever they want, on what ever they want and charge it off as a development cost. No one audits them!

Your money is sending them on extravagant vacations and buying them SUVs and sports cars.

What is left over after, Albertan’s get less than 1% regardless of what the price of oil is.

They get a free ride on natural gas it us who pay the premiums and go short.

The only risk they run is that a new party in provincial power will have a new judge in the court and that judge will say there is no common equity in these contracts therefore, they are void.

I hear nothing from any of the Conservative leaders to be that will change anything.

We need an election, tomorrow!

John Clark
cyberclark@shaw.ca

Independent review of power rip off does nothing!

Word out today of an independent chair to look into the obscene profiteering of the Electrical industry in this province. The guideline as stated: Only if they have broken rules will there be a problem.

We all know that the 50 million dollar profit shown by LP Energy for their Alberta trade met with Mr. Kleins approval. “The deregulation is working fine” was his response.

If this rip off can happen under our deregulation rules then, the rules are wrong!

The only way to change those rules is to get the Conservatives out of Government!

On another front a new Eco group to take care of Wabanum like mishaps. It should be noted the oil companies had all the men trained and all the equipment to mitigate the circumstance and they never came forward. It was perceived as being a CN problem.

You will note no oil companies were penalized for not showing up. No good Samaritan laws in that business.

Keep track of the costs on this one folks it promises to be a major!

Cyberclark@shaw.ca

Deaths and mayhem attributed to US Power Deregulation.

Submitted by Electricity expert.

Click on Power Outages Hit US Grid; Utility Deregulation to Blame As an electrical engineer who has worked in the electric utility industry for about 15 years, I couldn't agree more with what is in this article if I had written it myself. I add that I was an independent consultant to TransAlta for about 6 months and am holder of an American patent....

Allan Dane, M.Sc.(EE)
adane@telusplanet.net

Enron-Smart Guys in the Room

Those of you who seen this program running Tuesday evening, you will have noticed the extreme similarities between the Enron scam and the rolling black/brownouts in Edmonton.

The Enron program detailed how the Traders coerced generation facilities into shutting down their plants; get inventive was the word.

Rather than the Enron board we have the elected officials of the City of Edmonton; the number of people whose identification is closely guarded by the Alberta Government and of course the Power Corp who own PPAs. These would be the equivalent of the Enron Board of directors.

We are up to our armpits in sleaze in this province thanks to the Conservatives.
I think it may help if you can contact your city elected member and your MLA and ask them just what in the hell do they think they are up to.

Don’t accept “oversights” or “untimely mishaps” or any other such mundane excuse.

It is time to do away with deregulation!

John Clark
cyberclark@shaw.ca

Think a moment, then go get your money back.

Until the power scam was blown on this blog, the attention was being spun to the inconvenience of it all. Media around the province went along with that and, helped to propagate that line of thinking.

Until this blog put up the numbers, EPCOR was ready to pocket the money and run. The city of Edmonton and those councilors took the same tact! I have been told by Edmonton elected officials they do not want to go back to the regulated system. They privatized EPCOR and it is bringing back a good profit for the city, thank you.

In fact, every one in the chain was happy to pocket the windfall profits no matter how questionable the practice was. No money went out of the system! One department paying another and charging us. Do you hear of any of these crooks saying they will give the money back?

I think we have to look long and hard at our elected officials. All of them seem to be more than happy to pick our pockets given the opportunity!

Why can’t we have the RCMP investigate? Well, the RCMP cannot investigate unless the Attorney General of Alberta gives them the go ahead. You can be very sure the Conservatives would not give such an approval unless they were very sure of a favorable outcome ahead of time.

John Clark
cyberclark@shaw.ca

PPAs- The inside circle

Many of the Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) are owned by The Power Corp. This is not an electrical company; it is the parent company of Great West Life. Mr. Mazankowsy is chair at Great West Life.

Many PPAs are unsold because they are natural gas driven and consequently too expensive to make a profit at. I ask you, why would the Power Corp hold onto worthless PPAs?

Nothing the Power Corp does is non profit! They are making money on holding these units. Is that part of the 192 million dollar a day brown out?

Yes, this is the same Great West Life sitting in the shadows to take control of our health care, picking up the paper from AOn, a non operational scam company.

These guys have a small profitable circle and they stick together like crap!

Sad to say but the only hope is to get rid of the Conservatives.

John Clark
cyberclark@shaw.ca

Is the Electrical Brown-out a deliberate rip off?

The last scam going in Electricity involved Genesee power plant planned shut down and, the activation of the Clover Bar plant. On the surface this seems like nothing however, the cheap supplies from Saskatchewan and BC were not used. Instead, a huge amount of money was pumped into the owners of the PPA for Clover Bar who, also held PPAs in the Genesee operation. A cash flow operation!

Simply put we were robbed!

When they were busted on Ralph’s world, the decision was prompted to shut down Clover Bar generation as it was too expensive being powered by natural gas which is now being given away to the oil companies at the tar sands.


AESO is to get advance warnings of outages from the PPA buyers. Then, if the planned shut down is going to cause brown outs, the AESO can ask (not order) the plant to change the date of it’s planned shut down. This should control costs.

What happened in Alberta was a number of plants shut down at the same time. Consider much of the Production is owned by the same PPA people. This little trick forced the price of electricity from 100.00 to 1000.00 per MwH. Considering the demand was peaked at some 8000 Mwh these same plants made a windfall profit of 192 million dollars over the course of 1 day! For days!

The question has to be asked is this a deliberate manipulation of the electrical system for profit? If so it is not the first time! It is time to heat up your phones to your MLA.

And yes, you will see it on your utility bills.

Ralph has said his deregulation is working fine. The criteria for success are the profit the companies are returning and that only. This is the Conservative way.

This is a cut and paste from the AESO link under the History tab.

9.Outage Scheduling CoordinationAll the PPA Buyers and GFOs are expected to review and take into account the short-term to mid term system supply adequacy when they prepare the schedules for their unit outages. It is expected that the PPA Buyers and the GFOs , in response to market forces, will change their outage schedules when needed to avoid insufficient supply situations. The changes in the original schedules should be communicated to the AESO, as specified in subsection 5a above. Each day, the AESO will review the next 7 (seven) day schedules for generation outages. Whenever an outage is scheduled for a date/time when the supply margin appears to be insufficient, the AESO personnel will contact the Buyer or GFO involved and:
a. advise of situation; b. suggest changes in schedule
etc


4. Types of outages covered

1. a) Forced Outage - the occurrence of a component failure or other condition that requires to remove the generating unit from service immediately or up to or including the very next weekend. b) Maintenance Outage - the removal of a generating unit from service to perform work on specific components which could have been postponed past the very next weekend. This is work done to prevent a potential forced outage and which could not be postponed from season to season. c) Planned Outage - the removal of a generating unit from service for inspection and/or general overhaul of one or more major equipment groups. This work is usually scheduled well in advance.
Since Forced Outages are generally not scheduled, out of these three types of outages, only the last two outage types (maintenance and planned) could be subject to effective scheduling coordination.

Trading page

Also there is a distinct possibility the heavy service power line between Calgary and Edmonton overloaded and tripped a breaker (heavy usage at 8000 MW)
This in turn may have blown other breakers.

Serious coin was pocketed in the meantime, it changes nothing.

cyberclark@shaw.ca

Klein tells Americans degregulation is great!

Today, Monday July 17, 2006 at the Westin Hotel in Edmonton our favorite guy Mr. Ralph Klein addressed an audience of mostly American mover and shakers. He told them we are second in the world as far as oil supply is concerned. He didn’t tell them we do not have sufficient water to exploit the production.

He also told them (Mr. Dinning’s) deregulation plan is working find.

Obviously his view of success is that all the Alberta taxpayer equities have been sold to US companies at a value of 1 cent on a dollar. Also, because these companies can charge Albertan’s anything they want basically, they, the companies, are allowed to tuck away over 50 million dollars a year in profits. Yet, we must pay the highest rates in the country and, pay for the power lines to export power.

Look at the game:

Oil companies draw off our resource at the lowest rates in the world.

To get this oil out of the ground, they need multi billion dollars worth of extraction equipment and plants.

To do this, they are prepared to pay the highest wages in North America, probably in the world.

This money is not paid out of their profits; no! This money is paid out of our cut of the very shallow royalties!

This “great economy” is pushing up wages and the cost of goods and services in this province. We are paying 20% more for bread, labor and mechanics etc. than they are in other parts of the country.

A double hit. First, rob us of our royalty then, charge us double for the results.

I have to believe it is planned that the high utility bills would close down industry in this province leaving a labor force available for the Tar Sands.

If any of you out there are thinking Dinning as a premier keep in mind he has no plans at all other than becoming Premier and enforcing the oil companies will.

Along side of him even Klein looks better!

John Clark
cyberclark@shaw.ca

Who pays and, where is the balance?

I recently had an extended conversation with a young man who has a welding rig, working from camp to camp around the machinery area. He drives up to a work site, contacts the job foreman and tells him he is available here and now and his rate is $320.00 per hour. Most times he works a 16 hour day, 7 days a week. Whew!

In most instances the job foreman will give him an open ended PO and put him to work welding offering bonus hours if he will work over 10. Also offered is only welding, the company will provide its own people to de-burr the seams after the welding is finished.

He makes an insane amount of money and pays the same scale for a hovel to stay in at Fort McMurray occasionally usually opting for sleeping in his truck.

It doesn't matter to the exploration companies can pay 1000 dollars an hour if they want, it goes onto the cost of their construction costs. All construction costs (as in 100%) are deducted from the money received from selling the oil until, all is paid for. Only 1% of revenue goes to the Alberta Government! When all is built and paid for, 5% goes to the Alberta Government, that being the lowest recovery in the world.

Our total take is far below the 25% of revenue talked about. This again is the lowest in the world. If the oil companies won't give up another 15% as they should, then, go explore in Ontario.

You and I are paying the extreme high wages in the Tar Sands! There is no accountability!

You and I are also paying for the higher rates in labor around the province, pushed up by the open process in staffing used by the oil companies.

In addition to this, these same processes use our natural gas. Whether or not the oil companies charge us for this by withholding royalty money or, they get it for nothing, it is all out of the taxpayer pocket. We, the tax payers pay for the electrical transimssion lines built from the Tar Sands to export power to the US!

We have more oil in this province than we have water! Yet, oil companies get huge amounts of water from the aquifer and lakes that they don't have to pay for and without regard to a dwindling resource.

There is another source of water about 4000 feet down, below the sweet water (Aquitaine aquifer). This water is poison and will never be used for drinking or domestic use. Why not force the oil companies to uses this water? Yes, it is more expensive but, since we are paying for it anyway why not?

People in this province better get interested and soon!

John Clark
cyberclark@shaw.ca

New scientific poll is out!

Tory leadership pin census.

I called 1200 people in the last 10 days taking a straw poll on the Conservative Leadership. Of these 1200 only 40 people said they give a crap and were not interested.

Here is the Poll
32 were for Lyle Oberg a clear win,
4 were for Jim Dinning.
4 were undecided

This flies in the face of the polls conducted by the news papers. Seems to me the leadership race has as much interest as does the last provincial election!

cyberclark@shaw.ca

Oil and Conservatives join in concert of lies.

Government and Oil Companies circle the wagons. Here

The conservative government has done an internal private study that tells them we are getting our fair share of oil royalties when we are collecting the lowest royalty rates in the world.

The same article is also saying the revenue received by the province (us, the taxpayer) has dropped 6% in the past 3 years.

The oil companies showing their regular high sense of humor state in this same article that we are on a par with other jurisdictions. They seemed to have relieved Klein’s group the task of outright lies.

cyberclark@shaw.ca.

Journal predicts Libertal Sweep of Province!

Edmonton Journal July 12-06 Link

In an article headed “Will Kevan Taft be the new Alberta Lougheed?” the Edmonton Journal predicts if Mr. Dinning is elected as Conservative Party Leader, The Liberals and Mr. Taft will sweep the province in the next election!

cyberclark@shaw.ca

Showing the difference between Alta and US system

In Alberta thanks to Dinning’s plan on electrical power, Albertans will pay for all power lines on their utility bills. However the US makes the companies more accountable. Do you want more of the same?

Quote Ohio Edison
There are seven different companies that have lined up to say that they would like to do renewable energy - wind energy - and if all seven of those companies did their proposed megawatts, it would totally overload the lines," Hagen said. "So they had to do what they call a TAG study - Thumb Area Generation study - which would tell them how much it would cost to upgrade the lines per company depending on how many megawatts they were putting in."

According to Tom Hiester, Noble project development director, the study is a cooperative effort by Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, International Transmission Co., and Detroit Edison.

That study, released Wednesday, tells each company how much they would have to ante up to help pay for those upgrades, Hagen said.

"I think when (the study's findings are released), most of the companies are going to end up saying it's way too much money and they're going to back out," she said.

There is a new power line across the mid province to hook with ATCO's proposed line running the lenght of the east side of the province to export into Montana.
Yes, you will pay for this on your utility bill (as it stands now).

cyberclark@shaw.ca

58.5 Millions in profit out of your pocket.

Albert Energy Savings LP, your friendly Electrical Utility Company has declared atg 58.3 million dollar profit this year!

Don't forget that 60million dollars of taxpayer money went down the tubes, never to be accounted for. And, the Power Purchase Agreements sold at something less than an open bid were flipped several times driving up the cost of the utility. This is Mr. Dinnings free trade in blossem. Nope, he can't see any way to change according to himself.

Consider your once cheap electrical power was sold off by Jim Dinning and you are now paying the highest power rates in the country your choices should be made a little easier.

The question is, do you want more of the same or do you want a fresh look on the conservative party?

With Dinning in charge it will be impossible to elect a conservative.

cyberclark@shaw.ca