Prairie towns and villages are becoming relics of the past. Formerly bustling main streets are lined with boarded-up businesses, inhabited by aging retirees who carry the memories of a bygone era
What do you think is Canada’s riskiest business? Childhood on our family farm taught me the answer to that question. Despite years of heartbreaking disappointments, my father was a perfect example of the adage “hope springs eternal.” Each spring, he would sing happily on our tractor while seeding wheat, barley and oats. Then we hoped…
The answers to some questions to help you assess whether there really is a climate emergency
With energy and the environment playing an important role in the fall election, Canadians face starkly different policy positions from political parties, together with a bewildering array of both information and disinformation. Here is my rather eclectic list of little-known facts, head-scratching paradoxes and utter hypocrisy. Climate Emergency On June 17, the House of Commons…
How does a Liberal government that can’t campaign on its abysmal record go about gaining re-election?
As the federal election approaches, the Liberal government’s record has become increasingly more difficult to defend. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promise in the last election that he would run only ‘modest’ deficits has burgeoned into a national debt increase that is bigger per person than that racked up by any government in Canadian history, outside…
With Gerald Butts and others at the epicentre of power, it’s no wonder the oil industry has plummeted into purgatory
Canadians watch Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election comfortable in the belief that such foreign interference couldn’t happen here. Except it did happen here. And while the Russians adamantly deny interference in American political affairs, the perpetrators of interference in the 2015 Canadian federal election not only devised and…
Oil and gas contributed some $117 billion to Canada’s GDP last year, six times the economic contribution of the Ontario auto industry
What was Canada’s biggest business news story of 2018? According to the pundits at The Canadian Press, it wasn’t the giveaway of Canadian oil to Americans for tens of billions of dollars below world prices, caused by a lack of pipelines from Alberta. It wasn’t the loss of tens of billions more in oil and…
Encana, Canada’s flagship energy company, has now become Americanized, driven south by disastrous Liberal policies
My belief in the importance of Canadian-headquartered companies goes back to the early 1970s when, as a young engineer, I joined the Canadian subsidiary of a Nebraska-based oil and gas company. While I was treated well and given substantial responsibility, I yearned to work for a company where the decisions were made in Calgary, not…
Trying to solve a problem with the wrong solution will inevitably lead to failure
With polls showing the Liberals in a tight contest with the Conservatives, the Trudeau government needed to find a defining issue that will carry them to victory in next October’s election. From the beginning of his mandate, this Prime Minister has made lowering carbon emissions a centerpiece of his government’s raison d’etre. Trudeau promised an approach…
The court decision against the pipeline veered away from objective legal analysis into opinions designed to justify preconceived biases
For the second time in two years, three judges with the Federal Court of Appeal struck down a crucially important oil export pipeline project that had undergone years of regulatory review. The approval of Northern Gateway by the former federal government of Conservative Stephen Harper was struck down in 2016. That was after Enbridge spent…
We need a smart, realistic strategy for negotiations, starting with giving up our dairy supply management system
The importance of the North American Free Trade Agreement to Canada’s economy is staggering. Each day, $2.4 billion worth of goods and services cross the Canada/U.S. border. Some 78 per cent of Canada’s merchandise exports are destined for NAFTA partners. Now, the 23-year-old agreement is under severe threat from a hyper-protectionist American president. Initially, NAFTA…
The B.C. premier and his Green Party puppet master have created a debilitating, ill-conceived mess over the Trans Mountain pipeline
The political discourse surrounding Canada’s oil industry has morphed into a combination of schizophrenia, hypocrisy and fantasy. This debilitating countrywide phenomenon is clearly exemplified at both the federal and provincial levels. But it’s the recent actions of B.C. Premier John Horgan and his puppet master, Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver, that earn my nomination for…
What do you think is Canada’s riskiest business? Childhood on our family farm taught me the answer to that question. Despite years of heartbreaking disappointments, my father was a perfect example of the adage “hope springs eternal.” Each spring, he would sing happily on our tractor while seeding wheat, barley and oats. Then we hoped…
