| What Did You Do With The Money Ralph*? * Ralph Klein was the Premier of Alberta from December 1992 to December 2006. Four years after leaving office he was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. The following was written in 2005 and is not meant to show any disrespect for the man. His politics, however, are another matter for they have effectively bankrupted the richest province in Canada (Alberta is running a deficit and has been for a number of years), squandered much of the province's conventional oil reserves and encouraged the reckless exploitation of the Athabasca tar sands which is devastating large tracts of the Boreal Forest, poisoning the water and spewing megatons of greenhouse gases into the air we all breath. The Howard Stern Radio Show had a regular segment where a staff member, posing as a reporter would ambush celebrities and other luminaries and asked the most irreverent ego-deflating questions. A question for the fourth Beatle which was the inspiration for the title of this posting: Reporter: Ringo, what did you do with the money? Ringo: What money? Reporter: The money your mother gave you for singing lessons. Perhaps someone should ask the Premier of Alberta the same type of question. No, not about money for singing lessons, but what is he doing with all that gas and oil money, and soon, before it is to late and there is no more gas, no more oil and no more money. It’s bad enough that while Canada is self-sufficient in oil and gas, because of Mulroney’s poisoned gift to the nation, the free trade agreements, Canadians are forced to pay the same price for what they own as the Americans and to look after their needs first. With all this extra cash going to Alberta what is Ralph doing with all this oil and gas money apart from increasing the oil industry’s share? He is obviously not giving it back to Alberta farmers who are seriously hurting from lack of rain and oil companies using their water to obtain oil from almost depleted wells, water that will be lost for millions of years. In a province that has been wracked with drought and wildfire in recent years and that still relies on farming and fishing, residents voice concerns over the huge amounts of water used to extract oil sands. Although producers recycle much of their water, about one barrel of water is lost for every barrel of oil culled, according to the Pembina Institute, a Canadian environmental group. Sand Dollars, U.S. News & World Report Oct 13, 2003 The water lost washing the tar from the tar coated sand is in addition to the millions of gallons of water that are pumped into conventional oil wells that are close to depletion to recover that last drop of crude. When Alberta ranchers and farmers complain about a lack of water it’s not only because of drought conditions but because their government favours getting more oil to the Americans than the needs of their farmers and ranchers who put food on the table of every Canadian. You could say that both oil and water resources in Alberta are being depleted at an alarming rate. He is obviously not giving it to ranchers who are hurting from the mad cow disaster. He wants to privatize health care, claiming the province doesn’t have the money to care for the sick, the poor, the elderly so they are not getting it. He wants to privatize or cut back other government services, so Albertans of modest or moderate means are not getting it. Municipalities are not getting it. Both Calgary and Edmonton, the province’s largest cities, must depend on seniors like Olga Friesen, under threat of fines or jail time, to clear snow off the sidewalks for free. So who is getting all the money from the province’s booming exports of oil and gas? When the Canadian government abandoned its efforts to set a domestic price for oil and gas and let the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) set the price Canadians would pay for their oil, and the Americans the price for our natural gas, billions upon billions of extra dollars flowed into Alberta. With Canadian oil and gas falling further under the control of foreign interests, and Alberta politicians of the Ralph Klein persuasion, oil and gas exports exploded. From 1988 to the end of 1999, oil exports increased by over 76 percent and natural gas exports jumped by a huge 165 percent. These increases beg the question. What happened to all those extra billions? Alberta got world prices for its oil and gas, production increased and yet we seem to have a case of diminishing returns for Canadian taxpayers. The more oil and gas is sold, the less money Canada makes. This is serious! At the rate that oil and gas is being sucked out of the ground and sent gushing south, Canadian reserves of proven natural gas reserves and conventional oil reserve (2004) will be depleted in a decade or so. What will Alberta be left with after the oil and gas that can easily pump out of the ground is gone? Immense polluted underground lakes,: a scared environment and the Athabaska tar sands. Mining tar to get oil is a lot more expensive and polluting than piping it out of the ground. To get the tar out of the sands, the substance from which oil and oil derivatives are obtained, the sands must be heated and this takes a lot of energy and a lot of water. The process creates a tremendous amount of air pollution of the green house variety, while wasting approximately a barrel of fresh water for every barrel of oil produced. It takes fuel to get fuel out of the oil sands. Turning water to steam consumes extraordinary amounts of natural gas--in short supply in both Canada and the United States. Canada has long planned a pipeline to bring natural gas south from the Mackenzie Delta, adjacent to Alaska; analysts figure the oil sands operations will gobble up 100 percent of that new gas. Because of the large volumes of natural gas consumed, carbon dioxide emissions are at least five times as high from oil sands as from conventional oil production, according to the Canada National Energy Board. Sand Dollars, U.S. News & World Report Oct 13, 2003 If the tar sands are developed to their full potential, Alberta runs the risk of becoming number one in the world in the production of greenhouse gases. No wonder Ralph doesn’t want Canada to sign the Kyoto accord, it will ruin his plans to make Canada into a tropical paradise, a paradise that will boast some, if not the largest strip mines on the planet. Here is what Gordon Laird had to say about the development of Alberta’s bitumen deposits, deposits that taken together cover an area the size of New Brunswick. Not only are some of the biggest strip mines in the world being carved out next to the flowing Athabaska, but air pollution is to rise dramatically in a place that is already a national hot spot for greenhouse gases. Combined, the two oil sands plants in production – Suncor and Sync rude – are already the fourth largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in Canada. These emissions risk giving Canada a permanent black eye internationally in response to growing exports that will add additional tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Based on initial predictions, the carbon-intensive refining and mining process could also emit enough nitrogen and sulphur to acidify lakes and soil throughout the region … this massive industrial mobilization threatens the ecological health of a major slice of Alberta. [Encountering pollution on the way to visit the plants] We crest a hill at Poplar Creek to the sight of a huge pink and brown cloud hovering over the highway, an air mass so thick that it throws a shadow on the road and blots out the other side of the creek valley. In addition to the loss of the river [Alberta pulp mills had dumped enough mercury in the Athabaska River to make the fish inedible before Suncor and Syncrude made the air and the ground a health hazard.] and the disappearance of moose, more subtle changes are happening. Elders notice that the plants are drying up, says Bertha. In the winter, they see black soot on the snow … I never had asthma. My kids never had asthma – I raised them on a farm near Edmonton. But my two oldest grand grandchildren in Fort MacKay have asthma and skin problems. Gordon Laird, Power, Journeys Across an Energy Nation When the National Energy Program was in place, we had a Made in Canada price for oil and gas and Canada decided how much of its oil and gas it was prudent to export. Alberta lobbied to get paid an international price for its oil and gas. Now the price of Canadian oil is mainly controlled by OPEC and the price of natural gas by the United States. Oil and gas export levels are for all intents and purposes set by the industry that seeks to maximize its profits by maximizing exports. Canadians will eventually have to pay even more for their oil as mined oil replaces oil from wells. The Americans won’t have to. Under FTA and NAFTA they are entitled to the cheaper oil until the last drop is out of the ground. When that happens the agreement still entitles them to drain the oil and gas in the Mackenzie Delta, Sable Island, Hibernia, … and your government dare not interfere. Canada was built in part, by different regions helping each other out. This tradition has been enshrined in equalization payments, the wealthier provinces giving to the less fortunate provinces. I don’t think Canadians begrudge Canada giving Alberta what OPEC and the U.S. feel it should get for its oil and gas, even if it means digging a little deeper to keep warm, as long as all Canadians benefit and these finite resources are carefully managed to benefit future generations and give the environment time to recover. At this time, this decision-making power to do irreparable damage to Canada reside almost exclusively with the Premier of Alberta and the American Oil and Gas cartel and a few remaining small Canadian Oil and Gas producers. Not surprisingly the American oil and gas cartel favours sending the bulk of the profits south of the border and Mr. Klein, in having his government reduce the royalties and taxes they pay, seems to agree. Just like Newfoundlanders, Albertans will wake up one morning and find out that a resource that they depended on is gone. Just like Newfoundlanders they will have relied on the industry that was profiting from exploiting that resource to the max to tell them what was left. Just like in Newfoundland the industry will report that the resource will be there for generations to come. In Newfoundland, days before the cod was fished to extinction the industry was reporting record catches (read Where Have All The Fish Gone). Albertans will be told that there is plenty of gas and oil for generations to come just as the last well runs dry or that last cubic meter of gas enters the pipeline. Just like Newfoundlanders, Albertans will have little to show for the resource that is no more. Then it will be too late to ask "What did you do with all the money Ralph"? To be fair to Ralph and Alberta politicians, the same question could be asked of their Federal counterparts. Federal politicians have been just as concerned about helping the oil and gas industry avoid taxes and royalty payments. Just recently the Department of Finance proposed amendments to the Income Tax Act as part of the 2003 Budget to provide an additional 260 million dollars a year to the mining, oil and gas industry as encouragement to speed up the plunder of the country’s non-renewable resources. In 2001 Canada lost its "best country in the world" designation, dropping to number 3. The number one country is now Norway. Unlike Canada, Norway, whose oil and gas industry is state owned, collects about 25 billion dollars more in the way of royalties, tax revenue and profits from oil and natural gas sales. As Canada gives more and more tax breaks to the non-renewable resource industry and the rich, the funding for social programs will be further curtailed. We can expect a further drop in this quality of life ranking, eventually dropping past the United States should it decide to use those extra donated billions to improve the quality of life of its citizens by implementing a Canadian-style social safety net which our own government and business leaders are attempting to shred. Bernard Payeur, April 4, 2005 Updated July 22, 2011
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