PM Carney announced that the Pacific Link pipeline was a national interest project. And for too many people, the immediate knee-jerk reaction seemed to be "we're against it!".#CanadianNews ๐จ๐ฆ - As Canada diversifies its exports away from US's Convicted crook Donald Trump ๐ด☠️๐ฉธ๐บ๐คข, P.M. Mark Carney designated today a proposed $44 Billion West Coast oil pipeline, project of national interest redirecting exports away from US ๐ช financialpost.com/commodities/...
— The Torontonian๐๐จ๐ฆ ๐ช๐บ ๐ฌ๐ฑ ๐ฎ๐ฑ ๐ฒ๐ฝ ๐บ๐ฆ ๐⚽️ (@thetorontonian.bsky.social) October 1, 2026 at 6:05 PM
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The route hasn't even been settled yet, nor the ownership, its all still up for negotiation. But the expectation that governments are determined to screw us all and that everybody must endorse every detail before anything can happen ...well, that the kind of thinking that got Canada into this mess in the first place.
The Prime Minister invited our Nations to co-develop the conditions that must be met before the proposed project can proceed. He also committed to continued consultation and identified protection of the Athabasca River as a priority. #FirstNations #pipeline #oilandgas #majorprojects
— Windspeaker.com (@windspeaker.bsky.social) October 1, 2026 at 6:09 PM
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The Canada-EU story is getting a lot more concrete. A draft plan says Canada and Europe have deals on critical minerals, digital trade and energy, plus a joint purchase of 50 CANADIAN-built water bombers. Whatever “associate membership” means, this relationship is moving fast. ๐จ๐ฆ๐ช๐บ
— Pat G๐จ๐ฆ ๐๐ณ️๐๐ (@pguist.bsky.social) October 1, 2026 at 4:23 PM
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— The Globe and Mail (@theglobeandmail.com) October 1, 2026 at 8:16 PM
— Unofficial CBC News Mirror (@cbcnews-mirror.bsky.social) October 2, 2026 at 2:03 AM
More Canadian news
First, here's a fascinating column by Justin Ling about how Carney is running the government these days - and "running" really is the word. It's lengthy and detailed but worth the read. Ling concludes
...If Carney can get everyone doing their jobs, [gkft link] get the engine tuned up and explain the bumpy ride ahead in a way that prevents his passengers from screaming, he might just get us to where we’re going in one piece.About the BC election
Alternatively, if he can’t even communicate the nature of his own government, things could go awry...
Evan Scrimwshaw writes an excellent piece about the BC election so far -BC: Is David Eby Going To Blow It? Spoiler: I Am Unconvinced
...It is very important to know the difference between losing because you’re getting outplayed and losing because you’re playing like shit. The NDP aren’t being outplayed, they’re playing like shit, and they’re the political equivalent of being down 1-0 at the first intermission because they turned the puck over 77 times against the worst team in the league. All they have to do is remember how to do the basic blocking and tackling of political campaigning.
Maybe Eby and co are so up their own asses they can’t do it. Maybe they’re so convinced of their own genius that they’ll actually blow this race. But fundamentally, the Conservatives are an untested entity with an unknown leader, a chaotic history, and no clear plan or vision for government. The NDP would have to be the most incompetent party in modern Canadian history to lose to them.
It’d be really funny, but it won’t happen.
Catching up with Residential School Denialism
Manitoba premier Wab Kinew talks about residential school denialism and the Brandon school
Fuck Around.....
"Oh boy! I'm gonna trigger the libs on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation!" - John Adair, Sooke Brewing Company
— Alan Ranta (๊ฑแด แดกสแดแด?) ๐จ๐ฆ (@alanranta.bsky.social) October 1, 2026 at 6:31 PM
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And Find Out.
a lot can happen in six hours
— Justin McElroy ๐จ๐ฆ (@jmcelroy.bsky.social) October 1, 2026 at 4:30 PM
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Signs of the Apocalypse - a regular round-up of the crazy stuff happening down south
He’s going to use nukes before it’s all over. People need to wake up
— Asha Rangappa (@asharangappa.bsky.social) October 1, 2026 at 7:00 PM
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6 comments:
It's shocking how little support judge Kim Clark has received from the Canadian government. No statement condemning her treatment by the US, no lobbying in Washington, no amicus brief for her lawsuit against Trump in NY.
Trump sanctioned ICC judge Prost a year ago, over her work on a case involving American troops in Afghanistan. That may be why our government has been dead silent. I recall the Libs and Cons teaming up during the Harper era to kill the investigation into our own military's complicity in prisoner abuse by the US. That was a shameful part of our past that the Canadian government might be happy to kibosh.
Absolutely correct Cap.
The pipeline is a terrible idea except in so far as it successfully panders to Albertan shortsighted whiners. The issues with a pipeline are not mainly local and specific, they are rooted in the global environment (climate change, pollution) and the global economy. Luckily, the issues rooted in the global economy will reduce the damages to the global environment, but that's really not a recommendation.
It doesn't matter what the route is, the point is it will lose money, it will not enable the selling of much oil, and it will create major opportunity costs in that the money and political effort devoted to building this thing and ramming it through will be unavailable to do things that are actually useful. The reason it will lose money is that the world is pretty much at peak oil consumption, and given the exponential growth of the technologies replacing oil consumption, that means DECLINE in oil consumption will arrive in the next few years. When that happens, oil prices will enter a decline as there will be more supply than demand. Sources of oil that are priced out of the market will be mothballed to reduce costs and to try to keep the oil glut down so prices can maybe recover. Guess who will be near the top of the list of oil sources that are priced out of the market?
Alberta!
Right now we have artificial scarcity because of Trump's stupid war. But it will not last forever, and one major geopolitical response from many countries has been to treat fossil fuel use as a security risk to be mitigated by transitioning away from them. To break even, a pipeline has to be pretty solidly in use for like 40 years. The Alberta tar sands are going to be out of business within 10. It's a terrible project. Any local problems from the fact that there is no such thing as a perfect route for a massive pipeline full of damaging crap that leaks and creates risk of tanker spills are just the puke icing on the turd cake.
All that said, there are real reasons right now to pander to shortsighted Albertan whiners, but I have doubts whether they are sufficiently compelling to make this worth doing. Bribing them almost any other way would have been better.
I am generally on board with the EU thing, and quite pleased about the payment system thing.
Well, I'm hoping Canada can sell its oil before it all becomes valueless. I think we've got 10 years maybe.
We can sell SOME oil before it becomes valueless, yes. We are already selling it. But even assuming that oil companies immediately start building out a bunch of new tar sands capacity (there is no indication that they intend to), and so a new pipeline will be consistently full for that 10 years (it won't be), it would still only earn in fees like $10 billion of its $40 billion cost to build in those 10 years.
As a side note, this in itself makes me seriously doubt that the private sector is going to invest substantially--what's in it for them except big losses? So if we insist on building it, that would have to leave the public sector on the hook. I'm pretty sure there are other projects on which we could spend $40 billion or so that would make more revenue and be better for Canada in many other ways.
The existing pipelines are in fact already adequate to carry the volume of oil being produced in Alberta, and while oil companies are investing to some extent in increasing capture from current, existing tar sands plays, there are no projects being planned to do "green fields" development of new ones that would seriously increase production. So the most likely scenario is that a new pipeline, adding the additional transport capacity on line, would leave all the pipelines not entirely full, and force pipeline operators to compete on price, thus lowering the fees paid by oil companies to pipeline operators (including the EXISTING one famously owned by the government which is already losing money). This is no doubt good for the oil companies, but not much good for anyone else and certainly not good for the public purse.
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