So I understand...

[jsburbidge]

...that some Albertans who are upset at the current discount on Alberta oil want to secede from Canada.

Of course, the discount is there because it's hard to get volumes to market without having built the pipelines they want to build over other provinces' land. And that's not because the federal government is against them, but because there are serious environmental issues involved, plus First Nations jurisdictional questions, which are genuine legal issues, and because British Columbia, understandably, does not want to take the full risk of oil spills and other environmental risks; and because the world price of oil is at enough of a discount (for various reasons, including reactions to climate change) generally that industry doesn't see enough ROI on building a pipeline to make up for the risks.

But here's the thing. If Alberta were to secede, it would be trying to get pipelines to run across another country's land, not just another province's. Which would be much, much, harder.

These people really do make Wile E. Coyote look like a super genius.

Comments

[graydon]

The modern construction of "to adult" strikes me as relevant. It's what you say when you have to go deal with some things you wish weren't facts.

We have to stop with the fossil carbon extraction. All that tar isn't money, it's death. These are statements as factual as anything, but nobody making that money wants to acknowledge them. So, grand failure of adulting.

Whether that's a failure of intelligence I shall leave to those as believe there's any such thing in the first place.

[dewline]

I wonder who they think will side with them in making the pipelines happen by force if they did separate.

I have some "usual suspects" in mind, of course...