Big oil running the show

Big oil running the show

Written by Mark Sandilands

Wednesday, 12 May 2010

According to a recent report from Associated Press about the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, BP somehow avoided submitting a plan in 2008 for handling a blowout. This illustrates how big oil companies can get governments to bend to their will. Here in Alberta, a recent example of this phenomenon is the oil royalties issue. Some highlights: • 2006: all PC leadership candidates call for a royalty review • February 2007: Premier Stelmach appoints a Royalty Review Panel; • September 2007: The Panel calls for increased royalties; • October 2007: Alberta’s Auditor-General Fred Dunn says in his annual report that the Alberta government knew as far back as 2004 that Albertans could collect at least another $1 billion a year from the oil industry; • October 2007: Stelmach increases royalty rates by 20 per cent (25 per cent less than the panel recommended); • February 2008: It comes out that the Royalty Review panel was not given all the data — data indicating royalties could be increased without harming the economy; • March 2008: Stelmach announces a five-year royalty break worth $237 million per year. And on it goes. There are two story lines to the oil and gas royalties issue: 1. Stelmach changed the oil royalties at the absolute worst time — when the prices were plummeting, causing the oil industry in Alberta to flee to other jurisdictions where royalties are lower, making the economic slump in the Alberta oilpatch worse than otherwise. 2. The oil companies were outraged that Stelmach and company and decided to punish him. First, they pulled out of Alberta — their huge profits allow them to lose a bit of money and the loss is worth it to teach Stelmach a lesson. Second, they pull donations from the PCs and funding an upstart further-to-the right party, the Alberta Wildrose Alliance, which promises to give the oil companies what they want. What’s the effect of all this on Albertans? Less money for health care, long-term care, etc. Cataract surgery is pulled out of Lethbridge and long-term care facilities are closed in favour of DAL where costs are carried by families. If you’d like to hear more about this topic, plan to attend one or both of the talks by Brian Mason, leader of the Alberta NDP: Thursday at 10 a.m. at the Lethbridge Senior Citizens Organization.  Title: Good Health Care and Royalty Fair Share. Thursday at 7 p.m. at Southminster United Church Thursday.  Title: Good Health Care, Long Term Care and Royalty Fair Share.

Setting the record straight about climate science

Editor:

The letter from Ben VanHees (April 21: Climate scientists have done nothing to earn respect) contains a number of misleading statements which need to be corrected.

To start, the IPCC scientists did not and do not work for pay from the UN. The IPCC website clearly states, “Experts contributing to the review will do so without any remuneration.” And they didn’t work for a solid year: a glance at the call for applications at the IPCC website mentions frequent week-end gatherings and rely on email the rest of the time.

Secondly, the hockey stick graph, based on an analysis of tree rings (used as temperature estimations) showed clearly how temperatures were fairly steady for hundreds of years and then spiked in the last part of the 20th Century.

The hockey stick graph has been the focus of attacks by certain right wing national newspapers, perhaps because it was prominent in the Third IPCC Report (we’ve received the Fourth and IPCC is working on the Fifth) and in Al Gore’s film. Yes, two Canadians found errors in the Mann “hockey stick” paper, not by visiting trees, but by obtaining the original data and re-analyzing it. However, independent assessments agree that, although there was one small error in the paper, the overall conclusions were reasonable. This website http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptic_arguments/fakeddata.html has a nice summary of the controversy.

VanHees says that replication is the basis of the “scientific method” and charges that Michael Mann, one of the authors of the hockey stick graph, refuses to release all of his data. How then did the two Canadians re-analyze it? In fact, Mann’s data are available (see the website above for links). More importantly, the research findings shown in the hockey stick graph have been replicated again and again, using different temperature proxies and different methodologies. The findings have been published in peer-reviewed journals, such as SCIENCE (arguably one of the top science journals in the world) unlike attempts to discredit the research.

That the earth is warming is accepted by the national academies of the G8 countries (http://www.nationalacademies.org/includes/G8+5energy-climate09.pdf) and even by most skeptics who now focus on the cause. There are local temperature changes such as receding glaciers and earlier spring break-ups. More importantly, global temperature averages show the warming (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/). Quick action is imperative.
________

Mark Sandilands

Published in the Lethbridge Herald 2010-4-29, page A8

Fraser Institute take on stimulus plan off target--Letter to the Lethbridge Herald April 14th

Fraser Institute take on stimulus plan off target

Readers must have been surprised to see the right-wing Fraser Institute attacking the federal government stimulus program (“Stimulus Plan Didn’t Help Economy,” Lethbridge Herald, March 31). After all, doesn’t the Fraser Institute usually cheer for the Harperites? Well, they do except when Harper and company are forced into doing something they don’t want to do by the majority of members of Parliament.

Memory takes us back to the fall of 2008 — the first time Harper prorogued Parliament to avoid a nasty situation: the confidence motion that might have toppled his government. The Tories went into overdrive, convincing a slight majority of Canadians that this was an illegitimate, undemocratic move by the opposition parties. Harper tossed away his credibility, particularly in Quebec, by accusing the Liberals and New Democrats of colluding with separatists. (All this is grippingly detailed in a recent book: “How we almost gave the boot to the Tories” by Brian Topp). The culmination of the drama was the budget of January 2009, brought in with enough stimulus to ensure that Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals would not vote it down.

So, did the stimulus plan help the economy? Fortunately other economists have analyzed the report done by the Fraser Institute and found it lacking. One (Erin Weir of the Progressive Economics Forum) analyzed Statistics Canada data and found that “government purchases and investment, which accounted for only one-quarter of the economy in the second quarter of 2009, have accounted for one-third of the economic growth since then.”

Weir then asked how the Fraser Institute got it so wrong. The answer is that the Fraser authors did not examine stimulus as a share of economic growth. Instead, according to Weir, they compared the rate of increase in stimulus between quarters. This would almost guarantee that no effect of the stimulus would appear. But then, that would suit the relentlessly anti-government-action Fraser Institute to a T, wouldn’t it?

Travers: PM fills political vacuum with rhetorical hokum

This is great commentary from James Travers of the Toronto Star. Copyright laws mean I have to include the ads.

Demand Dignity Campaign Launch - Premiere of "Poverty of Justice" Film

I just returned from Amnesty International (Lethbridge Chapter)'s launch of AI's Demand Dignity campaign.  The event at the Lethbridge Public Library, featured, first, the premier of "Poverty of Justice".  It's a film produced by Amnesty International.  It's about three communities who tell their own stories of the human rights abuses that keep them in poverty. The stories are from Kenya, Peru, and right here in Alberta: Little Buffalo, Alberta (Lubicon Lake Cree).  After the film the human dynamo behind AI Lethbridge, Mary Kosta, introduced agencies in Lethbridge that work to eliminate poverty:
Lethbridge Shelter Resource Centre, 
The Salvation Army
Interfaith Food Bank,
Lethbridge Food Bank
Lethbridge Family Services, 
Lethbridge Native Women's Transition Home Society, 
Streets Alive, 
Red Cross, Lethbridge
Lethbridge Public Interest Research Group, 
YWCA Lethbridge, 
Pathways to Housing, 
Opokaa'sin Early Intervention Society.

(If I've left any out, I hope someone will let me know.)

It was an eye-opening event, both for the depth of poverty that exists in many places in the world, the unfairness of the way the Lubicon Lake Cree have been treated, and the wonderful work that's being done right here in Lethbridge.  Thanks to everyone, especially to AI Lethbridge for bringing this together.

Update on the rally against prorogation Jan. 23 Lethbridge

An Update on the rally at Rick Casson's office on Saturday, Jan 23rd.
Thanks to Bev Mündel-Atherstone for this report and to Henning Mündel for photographs.

Thanks to the approximately 100 participants who came out in cold blustery weather to show their disgust and opposition to the Conservatives and the P.M.'s prorogation of Parliament. People marched in a circle chanting, "No prorogation--Listen to the Nation", while holding the coffins high. CTV and Global filmed the rally for their early evening news. Ric Swihart of the Lethbridge Herald interviewed many of the participants. His story is on the front page of Sunday's Herald. Staffers of the U of L Students newspaper, "The Meliorist" were also on hand, taping interviews.

Many people brought their own creative signs. We had two coffins symbolizing the "death of democracy". Someone brought a huge Canadian flag.
Tom Moffatt reminded the crowd that we must vote. Over 40,000 people in Lethbridge did not vote in the last election. Everyone must vote if we want change.

Mark Sandilands, our newly acclaimed Lethbridge Federal NDP candidate, pointed out that 36 bills were killed when Parliament was prorogues. Some of these were Mr. Harper's favorites on his getting tough on crime policies. Some were to protect consumers from the lead and cadmium in products, most especially toys produced in places like China. But, no matter, these bills were killed as Mr. Harper doesn't really care about Canadians.
The amount of effort, time, money and energy, never mind all the work that the various parties put in together to create these bills, was in naught. Four months of
work, lost! From January 25th, when Parliament was to resume, until March 3rd, another 5 weeks of work is lost. Then when Parliament begins, those same bills will have to start from scratch. How efficient is that to redo all that same work all over again? This is a waste of tax payers' money, our Parliamentarians time, and everyone's effort.

Thanks again to everyone for the terrific support.

Thanks to Bonnie at the Round Street cafe for the donation of the hot coffee and hot chocolate to the participants. Thanks to Sheila Rogers for organizing the bull horn and one coffin, which she and her partner James made. Thanks to Tom Moffatt for making the second coffin.

You can find a slide show of a power point by Henning Muendel of his photos of the event, here.

Thanks again,

Bev Muendel-Atherstone and Tom Moffatt, Organizers

Proroguing and the Afghan Detainees

Letter to the editor, Lethbridge Herald Saturday, January 23, 2010

Editor:

Stephen Harper's proroguing of parliament continues to cause criticism. We've heard the phrase "naked self-interest" from the UK's The Economist. His former chief of staff, Tom Flanagan, said "[doesn't] have much credibility."

By proroguing parliament, Harper cancelled all committee work, killed 36 government bills, including bills dealing with consumer protection and white-collar crimes. Only 27 out of 63 bills have passed, or just 43 percent--which, if it were a grade, would be a failing one.

But what were the real reasons? Many point to Harper's wish to end debate on the Afghan detainee issue. This is serious: just before Christmas Parliament passed a motion demanding access to the Afghan detainee documents, in effect a subpoena. Prorogation stops this from happening.

Harper's spin doctors are saying Canadians are not very concerned about a few Taliban sympathizers, but the detainee issue has a keen relationship to the success or failure of the Canadian/NATO mission. First, to say there were only a few (or just one) incidents of torture is to obscure the evidence. The International Red Cross, which can't directly give details, is widely believed to have repeatedly warned the Canadian government that the torture was widespread.

Second, the detainee issue has a strong influence on the view that ordinary Afghanis have of our soldiers: Are Canadians bringing democracy to this troubled country or do they represent a repressive occupying force? We're trying to convince Afghanis that democratic ways are better for them, but if they find that they or their friends and neighbours can be picked up and passed over to prisons where they'll be tortured, their trust and acceptance of Canadian soldiers is compromised. This, in turn, means that every day Afghans are less likely to cooperate with Canadian troops such as by telling where IEDs are hidden. Canadian soldiers and civilians are dying as a result.

Thirdly, as stated by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Canadian forces have legal obligations under international law to ensure that any person in their effective control is never transferred to torture. If reports of torture are made, Canada is legally obligated to intervene to stop the torture, or to request the return of the detainees being tortured.

Our elected representatives are there to hold the government accountable. Without them there, the very idea of Canadian democracy is weakened.

________

Mark Sandilands