Hello Chestermere! Congratulations to the City of Chestermere for their beautiful Light Up the Night festival. I was so honored to participate and to join in with our Councilors and His Worship as we said the magic words and the Christmas lights came to life. I am happy to see that all the reindeer made an appearance this year.
I had the privilege of attending The Manning Centre conference this year, and I have to say meeting with and hearing the incredible and comical Rex Murphy certainly fulfilled one of my check marks on my bucket list. We have posted his full speech on my Facebook page, and if you have the time, get comfy with a blanket, a cup of tea, and take the time to listen to this brilliant, funny and inspired Canadian who is well known from commentary segments on “Point of View” on “The National”. Please read his article Rex Murphy: Shelve those ‘carbon’ taxes until the oil is flowing. (https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-shelve-those-carbon-taxes-until-the-oil-is-flowing)
The next time you see someone from Greenpeace or other environmental activists going on about landlocking Alberta oil, consider this quote from Rex’s article:
“There should be an audit on the “downstream emissions” of environmental protest. It would include:
Billions of dollars in revenues lost from projects that were halted.
Tens of thousands of jobs that never materialized.
Towns that will languish from unemployment.
Capital investments that will fail to come to Canada because of the hostility to enterprise generated by irresponsible protest.
And most significantly, a single instance of a global industry — Alberta oil and gas — being made the villain of an entire global campaign.”
This is what we have lost as a nation to environmental activism. As Mr. Murphy states, it is thousands of jobs, and billions of dollars. Capital is fleeing and it is no wonder when the governments that have the privilege of running our country and our province have been antagonistic to our industry, and moreover have allowed the malicious and vicious attacks on our industry to go unchallenged. The Federal Liberals allowed the rest of the world to believe and continue to believe that our oil is dirty, and even worse, so did our Premier and her “Environmental Activist Minister”. How do they justify turning our industry into some sort of mythical monster that does not care about the earth, the air, or the water? How did we let this happen? Our resources, and the pipelines that we need to build to get our resources to the global market are what will help us fund schools, roads, and hospitals. Why are we allowing activists to make the decisions for us about our prosperity, our national best interest and our national unity? Why are we unable to work across provincial boundaries to get our product to the global market? The Prime Minister could change all of this with one swipe of the pen. He could re-open the Northern Gateway project, get moving on Energy East, and most definitely could get Trans Mountain going, especially because now it is owned by the Federal Government, in other words you and I. Why are we allowing environmental activists to twist the truth? Did you know that Shell is expanding in Iraq? This will benefit Iraq socially and will create amazing economic benefits for that nation. It is a shame that the word expansion has become a dirty word in our country where we are the greenest, and we do not violate basic human rights. Shell is a 44% operating partner in Iraq and continues to build mega projects as ours come to a grinding halt.
The Prime Minister has acknowledged that this is a crisis, and our Premier has finally acknowledged that this is a crisis, so now what? These governments have failed you and they have failed our children. They are the reason we have to give our oil away to our neighbours to the south. 70 million dollars lost per day…just take that in. For those of you who would like to see schools built, that is about 2 schools a day. Meanwhile, the Government merrily grows our debt like a weed past 60 Billion dollars which could soon make it impossible to build anything. We are in a pipeline crisis because our governments have chosen to put us into one and for no other reason. The Prime Minister has chosen this action and he could fix it right now. Please write to the Prime Minister, get your kids to write to him, and let’s get our voices heard! BUILD THAT PIPE!
Finally, as I finish this article, I would like to remind everyone that November 25th was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Please help individuals in our communities and organizations that fight violence and let us work together to shine bright lights on violence and intimidation. It affects all of us, our families, schools and where we work. There is nothing normal about violence, and it is unacceptable. We must not be afraid to have this conversation and I would personally like to thank the survivors and the advocates for never giving up and for being the voices of those who may not be able to speak for themselves. As always, we love to hear from you.
