Stephen Harper's National Energy Program May Do More Damage Than OPEC

" I witnessed first-hand the movement of an economy from historic boom to deep recession in a matter of months. A radical, interventionist blueprint of economic nationalism, the NEP caused the oil industry to flee, businesses to close and the real estate market to crash. The lives of honest, hard-working Albertans were upended and I came to know many of those who lost their jobs and homes." (Looking Back at Trudeau, Stephen Harper, National Post, October 5, 2000)

By 2000, Harper had left the Reform Party, and was running the National Citizens Coalition, a right-wing, anti-liberal non-profit; created initially to end public healthcare; but grew to include a fight against unions and a fight for the ability of corporations to fund politicians and political parties.

I don't know if Stephen Harper really believed that the National Energy Program caused the devastation he describes, or he was simply reviving an old wedge issue, while attempting to rewrite history.

Admittedly, the NEP was not popular in Alberta, but its cancellation by Mulroney, was the cause of most of their woes.

Oscar Wilde wrote that there are only two tragedies: one is not getting what one wants; the other is getting it. In the fall of 1985, the latter tragedy befell Alberta's oil industry. The OPEC cartel failed to agree upon a world oil price. The result was a global free-for-all among producing nations. Canada's oil and gas producers were caught in the middle. Having recently gained freedom from the NEP, Canada's oil and gas industry was not protected as the price of oil dropped from US $27 per barrel ... to $8 per barrel by August 1986. ... Forty-five thousand oil workers lost their jobs." (Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, By Trevor Harrison, University of Toronto Press, 1995, ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6 3, p. 97)

In fact, most in the industry liked Trudeau's program because it allowed further exploration on public land. What they opposed was the proposed closing of tax loopholes by then Liberal finance minister, Allan MacEachen.

However, they couldn't campaign against that to attack the Trudeau government, so instead sold it as Ottawa aggression toward the West, and Ted Byfield, an early Reform Party organizer, kept the campaign alive. Wrote Harrison: "In the months and years that followed, Byfield's Alberta Report continued to mythologize the intent and the impact of the NEP", giving the Reformers their battle cry, "The West wants in".

Harper's National Energy Program

Since coming to power in 2006, the new and improved Reform Party, now calling themselves the Conservative Party of Canada, has done everything they could to deny that Climate Change exists, or that the Alberta Oilsands has anything to do with it, if it does.

That stance has made Canada a symbol around the world, of what Climate Change denial looks like, though it has increased Harper's creds with the diminishing Denial crew.

In the CPC's latest campaign, they suggest that the toxic bitumen coming out of the Oilsands is actually good for us. No more harmful than cooking a steak on a barbecue. Heck maybe we could bottle it and sell it as a sauce.

Economically, we've been turned into a Petro State with our fortunes dependant on how well the industry is doing.

Yet, according to the International Monetary Fund for every dollar in growth from oil, 82 cents goes to Alberta, with Ontario seeing just 4 cents. Yet the entire country has subsidized the Oilsands to the tune of 34 billion dollars.

Harper has also increased Alberta's federal transfer, while decreasing Ontario's and is moving the National Energy Board to Calgary, creating jobs in a province already apparently experiencing a labour shortage.

Will All of This Largesse Really Help Alberta?

The Harper government recently tried to bury a report, warning of the economic and health risks of the Alberta tarsands. Just another attempt at denying Climate Change exists, that has included muzzling scientists and ending tax breaks for environmental groups.

In the debate over the pipelines, we are told that without them Canada’s economic recovery would suffer serious damage. Says Russ Blinch in the Huffington Post: Prime Minister Harper says he won't lift a finger to help the environment because he's working too hard to protect jobs. In fact he is imperiling our future by blocking innovation in order to support a fading industry: fossil fuels.

The World Bank says that tackling climate change would grow economies, not hinder growth or recovery.

And while John Baird is putting pressure on the U.S. To approve the XL pipeline, a former Canadian ambassador claims that there is a very good chance that they won't be needed. Obama is now allowing American crude to be exported, which might also bring the price of oil down.

The Northern Gateway that would send the tar to China for refinery, is also not looking too promising. China is moving away from oil and switching to natural gas, which they are getting from Russia. Looks like Putin is laying claim to the Asian market with his own pipelines. So much for sanctions, as he's also moving away from the U.S. dollar.

So will Harper's National Energy Program cause the oil industry to flee, businesses to close and the real estate market to crash? Will it upend the lives of honest, hard-working Albertans, many of whom will lose their jobs and homes?

Jeffrey Rubin Former Chief Economist with CIBC World Markets asks Are Harper's dreams of Canada as energy superpower going up in smoke?

In the last decade, his Conservative government has done everything but roll out the red carpet for the energy sector. Whether it's multi-million dollar advertising campaigns in the United States, gold-plated junkets to foreign energy markets, or muzzling opposition from domestic environmentalists, never before have we seen Ottawa shill so unabashedly for a single industry ... Unfortunately for Canadians, it’s becoming clear that despite the Prime Minister’s best attempts at economic intervention, their government is playing a losing hand.

If Harper's Reform Party used the revisionist history of the impact of Trudeau's energy policies, with a tagline "The West Wants In", maybe the next election ours should be:

CANADA WANTS IN

But that won't happen until Harper is out.

Americans Fear Their Election Could End up Like Canada's. I Can Help

In the upcoming election, Barack Obama will not be challenged by the Republicans, who frankly have given up on even pretending to be politicians serving the public, but by the Super PACs.  Political Action Committees financed by wealthy corporations,  who are tired of democracy getting in their way.

Remember that leaked 2006 CitiGroup memo that they have worked so hard to suppress?

The World is dividing into two blocs - the Plutonomy and the rest. The U.S., UK, and Canada are the key Plutonomies - economies powered by the wealthy. Continental Europe (ex-Italy) and Japan are in the egalitarian bloc.

They warned that voters could try to change the idea of governing only for the wealthy.

We can see a number of potential challenges to plutonomy. The first, and probably most potent, is through a labor backlash. Outsourcing, offshoring or insourcing of cheap labor is done to undercut current labor costs .... Low-end developed market labor might not have much economic power, but it does have equal voting power with the rich .... the third threat comes from the potential social backlash.

It's like they predicted the Occupy Movement, that could be successful given that the "low-end", without "much economic power" has "equal voting power with the rich".  (Capitalism, a Love Story)

However, Super PACs are setting out to wrong that right.

And the way they are going to do that is with lots of money and telemarketers.  They can't garner more votes, so will instead try to suppress them.  The Koch Brothers are putting up $200 million for this venture, determined to oust Obama. 
 
I don't know how much Stephen Harper cost them, but they are already reaping rewards.  And if we wonder why the Harper government is so committed to outsourcing Canadian jobs, remember that CitiGroup memo.  It's all about cheap labour.  Which is why during the worst of the economic crisis, when Canadians were losing their jobs at record speed, Jason Kenney accelerated the use of migrant workers.
 
Money, Money, Money

Chris Matthews reminded us last week, of where those millions will be going.  To telemarketers who will work like mad to make sure that Democratic voters don't exercise their democratic rights.
 
The last Canadian federal election could serve as a guide to the Super Pacs, as Canadians were telemarketed to the point of madness.
 
In Kingston, Ontario, there were so many such phone calls, that we were ready to leave the country just to escape them.  And while Do Not Call Lists keep the cheap crap purveyors at bay, the rules do not apply to politics.  One call I received was supposedly on behalf of our Liberal candidate, Ted Hsu (now our MP), asking if we wanted a lawn sign.  The caller was so rude, that had I not been suspicious, I might have fallen for it.
 
Soon after, Hsu's office called asking for support and I informed them of the bogus call that I had received.  Others complained of the same thing.  Looking at the Conservative candidate Alicia Gordon's Elections Canada financial records, I learned that she paid Campaign Research more than $25,000 to annoy the hell out of us.  Remember those guys?  Think Rob Ford (but take a valium first)
 
Ironically when our Speaker of the House, Andrew Scheer was asked to investigate the damage done to Irwin Cotler by Campaign Research, it was learned that he himself had used them to assure his re-election.  He should have declared a conflict of interest.  Instead he gave them a free pass.
 
Another example is Joe Volpe, who was telemarketed out of seat.  Joe Oliver paid Campaign Research $12,159.33
 

An investment banker, he has now joined the Koch team to force feed us their XL-Pipeline, contributing to Canada's reputation as a Jingoistic Petro-State, calling environmentalists "radicals" and "terrorists".

 

If the American people want to preserve their democracy and not end up like Canada, with another stolen election, I have some advice.  If you receive one of these calls, you could just tell the caller that you will be voting so "get a life", or maybe "let me speak to David Koch" or "Am I being punked?". 

 

Although I think the best response might be "Where in the hell do you think you are ?  Canada???!!!"

American Magazine Calls Canada a Jingoistic Petro-State

Blogger Scott Tribe shared a link yesterday to an article that appeared in Slate magazine, which is owned by the Washington Post.

Saudi Arabia. Nigeria. Venezuela. Canada? Is our neighbor to the north becoming a jingoistic petro-state?

We think that Stephen Harper is only our problem, but like it or not, the rest of the world is paying attention and what they see us turning into is not something they admire.

It’s well known that America’s dependence on foreign oil forces us to partner with some pretty unsavory regimes. Take, for instance, the country that provides by far the largest share of our petroleum imports. Its regime, in thrall to big oil interests, has grown increasingly bellicose, labeling environmental activists “radicals” and “terrorists” and is considering a crackdown on nonprofits that oppose its policies. It blames political dissent on the influence of “foreigners,” while steamrolling domestic opposition to oil projects bankrolled entirely by overseas investors. Meanwhile, its skyrocketing oil exports have sent the value of its currency soaring, enriching energy industry barons but crippling other sectors of its economy.  Yes, Canada is becoming a jingoistic petro-state.

And Will Oremus, the author of the Slate piece is right.  It's pretty hypocritical that Harper is blaming "foreignors" for the opposition to the pipelines, when the damn pipelines and most of the Tar Sands are now owned by "foreignors".  

The U.S., French, British, Chinese, Thai, Korean and Norwegian interests have all bought stakes in oil-sands projects. According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), international companies have invested nearly $20 billion in the last three years through mergers, partnerships and outright purchases of projects.

While we were sleeping, the Harper government was selling us off.  The Northern Gateway pipeline is being built for China, Norway, Thailand and Korea.  The XL pipeline is being built for the Koch Brothers.

Again ... Ethical Oil?

The Ethical Oil Institute, is a phony grassroots organization, created by Ezra Levant and run by Stephen Harper’s current Director of Planning, Alykhan Velshi.  Velshi, as we know has close ties to Dick Cheney and George Bush.
 
Director of the Ethical Oil Institute is Kathryn Marshall, a blogger and sometimes columnist.  Marshall appeared on Power and Politics recently, where Evan Solomon repeatedly asked her if she was employed by Enbridge, but she refused to answer.
 
Kathyrn Marshall is married to Hamish Marshall, Harper's former strategic planning manager.  Terry Glavin writes for the Ottawa Citizen:  The real foreign interests in the oilsands:

While it's all good fun to play Spot the Freemason, something very serious is going on here. Last summer, John Bruk, the Asia Pacific Foundation's founding president, warned that Ottawa was ignoring the rapid emergence of Chinese government interests "in sheep's clothing" taking over Canada's natural resource industries. Bruk told B.C. Business magazine: "Are we jeopardizing prosperity for our children and grandchildren while putting at risk our economic independence? In my view, this is exactly what is happening."  As things have turned out, Bruk was more right than he knew.

When your currency is quickly becoming backed by a single commodity (not gold), the risks are enormous.  And when China and other foreign interests, have a large stake in that commodity, the risks become even greater.  Do they care if Canada's economy fails?  There is no vested interest, other than in profit.

Canadians’ increasing reliance on crude natural resources has economists on the lookout for symptoms of “Dutch Disease”—a phenomenon in which a natural resources boom strengthens a country’s currency, making its other exports more expensive and less competitive on the world market.

Oremus closes by saying:

President Obama’s rejection of Keystone XL is only as secure as his re-election. GOP front-runner Mitt Romney has called the decision “shocking,” and Newt Gingrich called it “stunningly stupid.” By 2013, the two North American countries could be on the same team again when it comes to oil. If so, it’ll be us against the world.

Newt Gingrich is now the front-runner, so it would be Newt and Harper against the world.  Imagine that.   Dumb and Dumber II.

Newt Gingrich Thanks Harper for Being a Pro-American Conservative

Rick Santorum may get his fashion tips from Stephen Harper, but Newt Gingrich likes the whole package.  The first truly pro-American prime minister of Canada.  What's not to love?

What Newt doesn't understand is the power of the people, who are just as determined to stop the Northern Gateway Pipeline, as they were the XL.

While blasting President Barack Obama for rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline and the thousands of jobs it has been estimated it would create, Gingrich warned Canada will send its oil to China instead.  And he praised Harper, too.

"What Prime Minister Harper -- who, by the way, is conservative and pro-American -- what he has said is he's gonna cut a deal with the Chinese and they'll build a pipeline straight across the Rockies to Vancouver," Gingrich said Saturday night. "We'll get none of the jobs, none of the energy, none of the opportunity.

Maybe Harper and Newt could go on Dancing with the Stars.  A much better couple than Manning and Gingrich.  Their steps are perfectly timed.

Moving Beyond Politics by Empowering the People

What if Environment Canada issued a tornado warning for your area?  And what if along with that warning they offered suggestions to keep you safe?  Things like moving into the basement; covering yourself with blankets and staying away from your windows.  You would certainly heed their advice, since it's based on scientific knowledge.

However, what if a lobby group, wanting to undermine the scientific community, told you to ignore the warnings? We'll call them the International Damnifying Idealist Organization for the Takeover of Sensibility, or I.D.I.O.T.S. for short.

And what if I.D.I.O.T.S., instead suggested that the warnings were unfounded?  Merely an attempt by criminals to get you in the basement, covered in blankets and away from the windows,  so they could steal your stuff.

Confused?  Science or a noisy lobby group?

Now what if a group of Nobel prizing winning scientists told you that a devastating change in climate, brought on by the warming of the planet, could make a tornado look like a balloon losing air?  And what if along with that warning they offered suggestions to keep you safe by slowing down that warming, but it would involve major changes by industry and yourself.

However, what if several lobby groups and short-sighted individuals, wanting to undermine the scientific community, told you to ignore the warnings?  We'll call them Exxon, friends of Exxon and the Harper government.

Confused? Science or the money and power behind I.D.I.O.T.S.?

This week President Obama, when pressured by another group backed by the oil industry, we'll call them the Republicans; announced that he would not support the XL pipeline, that would transport bitumen from Canada to the U.S. for refining.

Canada may not care about the environment, but he did.

However, he could not have taken such a stand, had it not been for another noisy lobby group.  We'll call them The People.  Backed by the Natural Resources Defense Council, they empowered Obama to act on behalf of the majority and do what was right.

The Toronto Star had an oped piece this week, written by someone suggesting that Obama's move was purely political.  An attempt to get re-elected.  We'll call him American journalist Robert O. Samuelson.

Bill Moyers, another American journalist, was on Bill Maher this week, and he saw Obama's decision as something else.  The oil industry pushing for XL, and their wholly owned subsidiary (we'll call them the Harper government), put $42 million into the pockets of politicians in an attempt to undermine democracy. 

But the NRDC, and other environmental groups, instead put millions of voters at Obama's doorstep.

Moyers had worked with Lyndon Johnson, when Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.  When headlines applauded the move, Johnson told Moyers that the Democrats had just lost the South for a generation, and he was right.  But the South didn't dictate, the majority did, and the Act was the right thing to do for the majority of Americans.

FDR's New Deal met with the same opposition by big business in the 1930s, but he asked the people to put the power behind him.  "Make me do the right thing".

Moyers believes that this is why the Occupy movement is a good thing for these times.  Instead of empowering politicians to work against our best interests, by allowing noisy lobby groups to work on behalf on the top 1%, we have to empower them to work for us.

We are the only ones who can build  integrity into the political process.

So This is Ethical Oil?

The American conservatives appear to be adopting, or at least sharing, tactics being used by the Canadian conservatives to get what they want.  Intimidation and corruption.

The Republican controlled Congress is voting on a bill that would force President Obama to make a decision on TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline by November 1.  An unprecedented tactic that would remove the authority of the president and the secretary of state.  Future abuse could be devastating to both domestic and foreign policy.

Obama had to accept the deal in order to avoid raising taxes on workers, something the Republicans were determined to do, and Jim Flaherty has already done. (Flaherty does love taxing the little guy, doesn't he?)

Protests are growing in both the U.S. and Canada over the controversial pipeline, with the Americans not wanting the environmental mess when bitumen is sent there for processing, and Canadians not wanting the risk of devastating oil spills.

Another factor not getting as much media attention, is that while the U.S. oil lobby is citing all the new jobs in their country, many good jobs in the industry are being piped South.

Why?  Lower wages?  Since our government is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil industry, profit will always be job one. 

Alberta Energy Minister Ron Liepert claims that Canada must find more markets for its crude oil if it hopes to become a global energy superpower.  Why can't we become a global energy superpower with something other than oil?  And how many Canadians dream of becoming a global energy superpower anyway?  We just want the world to stop hating us.

Another element to this story is one of questionable lobbying practices and conflict of interest.  Apparently at least three politician in the U.S. fighting for the pipeline, have shares in TransCanada; two Republicans and one Democrat.

Time to reduce the powers of the oil industry and put it back into the hands of citizens.

Should We Be Concerned With Those Harper is Passing the Pipe With?

In 1911, the United States Supreme Court broke up Standard Oil, then the largest multinational corporation, because it was simply becoming too big and powerful.  The company's battles with former president Teddy Roosevelt were legendary, as depicted in this 1906 Punch cartoon.

Standard Oil New Jersey has since grown to become Exxon, so unfortunately the action did not stop the continued threat of corporations becoming more powerful than government.

The XL pipeline that Harper plans to build for the Koch Brothers, that will send bitumen to the U.S. for refining, is causing concern on both sides of the border.

However, while the pipeline is an important area for discussion, we should also be looking closely at the company that our government is doing business with.

Not only have the Koch Brothers waged a war against President Obama, but they are also engaged in some troubling international escapades.

Bloomberg ran an in depth story this month: Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales.

They revealed that the company had been bribing foreign government officials to secure contracts. 

When that story first broke, Koch went into damage mode, firing many who were simply following orders.  Also fired typically was the whistle blower.

However, more troubling was the fact that they were supplying Iran with chemicals, through their foreign subsidiaries, side stepping the sanctions against the country that George Bush included in his "axis of evil". (A term coined by his former speechwriter, David Frum)

Internal company records show that Koch Industries used its foreign subsidiary to sidestep a U.S. trade ban barring American companies from selling materials to Iran. Koch-Glitsch offices in Germany and Italy continued selling to Iran until as recently as 2007, the records show. The company’s products helped build a methanol plant for Zagros Petrochemical Co., a unit of Iran’s state-owned National Iranian Petrochemical Co., the documents show. The facility, in the coastal city of Bandar Assaluyeh, is now the largest methanol plant in the world, according to IHS Inc., an Englewood, Colorado-based provider of chemicals, energy and economic data.

So while funding the Tea Party, who claim to be the only true patriots, Koch is unpatriotically doing business with a deemed enemy, providing them with sensitive materials. 

This used to be called treason.  Now it's called the Free Market.

Of course this is business as usual for the corporate sector.  IBM created a punch card system for the Nazis that helped to categorize all German and European Jews and other minorities.  According to Andrew Marshall in Financing Fascism:  The Military-Industrial Complex and the Rise of Neo-Conservatism

The punch card machines would punch in specific numbers, which would have different meanings, for example, one number would identify the person to whom it is being assigned as a Jew or a Gypsy or a Communist, and so on. Another number would determine the person’s fate, assigning specific numbers to mean slave labour, to be shot or what was termed ‘the special treatment’; gas chambers. These numbers were then tattooed onto the arms of each person interned in concentration camps. When Allied troops entered concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, there inside the camps, they found the punch card machines clearly showing the proud corporate logo of IBM. There are even photos of the CEO of IBM sitting down at a table with Hitler in the early 1930s.

IBM was not the only corporation to profit from the Holocaust.  According to Marshall, GM manufactured many of the vehicles Hitler used in his military campaign, and through their German subsidiary company, Opel helped to build leaded gasoline plants for the dictator.

Other companies profiting from Nazi aggression included Ford, Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon), Chase Manhattan Bank (now J.P Morgan Chase), DuPont, Dow Chemical - the list goes on.

However, there was another Nazi war profiteer that should give us pause.  Prescott Bush, grandfather of George Bush.  He was the director and Vice President of the Union Banking Corporation, that helped to finance many Nazi pursuits.  Another of his business ventures, the Silesian-American Corporation, profited from slave labour at Auschwitz concentration camp. (2)

When it was discovered that Bush was conducting business with the Nazis, he had his assets frozen, but after the war was compensated by the U.S. government to the tune of $1.5 million.  That was how he started the Bush family fortune.  Prescott Bush would go on to become a U.S. Senator, and both his son and grandson, Presidents.  Who said that crime doesn't pay?
 
With Harper and company posturing over Iran, why are they getting into bed with those supplying chemical to the "enemy"?  "The biggest threat to the world?"
 
And they wonder why the necessity of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
 
The closest my father ever got to a cuss word was "cripes", but that word packed a wallup.  So CRIPES why are we allowing corporations to get so big that they can not only push us into war but profit by supplying the other side?
 
Our addiction to oil is going to be our Waterloo.
 
According to retired Army brigadier general Steven M. Anderson:

As the military’s senior logistician in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, I saw the impact of our oil addition in the Iraq combat zone. Our appetite for fuel wastes billions of taxpayer dollars, transfers $1 billion daily in our wealth to the Middle East, and puts our soldiers at risk. The fuel trucks we depend upon provide hundreds of convenient rolling targets for our enemy. My experiences in Iraq convinced me that the greatest threat to our security is our over-reliance on oil and that Americans must immediately take steps to cut our petro-addiction before it’s too late.

The Keystone XL pipeline doesn’t help. This pipeline would move dirty oil from Canada to refineries in Texas and would set back our renewable energy efforts for at least two decades, much to our enemies’ delight. It would ensure we maintain our oil addiction and delay making the tough decisions regarding energy production, management and conservation that we need to start making today.

The $7 billion that Harper is sinking into this project could be better spent

Sources:
 
1. “IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation”, By Edwin Black, Crown Publishers, New York, 2001

2. "How Bush’s grandfather helped Hitler’s rise to power", By Ben Aris and Campbell Duncan, The Guardian, September 25, 2004.