Oils Well that Ends

 An article in the Economist Business section: “On shifting oil sands” asks: Canada’s oil industry is booming. Can it last?

Looser regulations will help with pipelines—but may not boost production

Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, is intent on promoting a speedier process that will apply to a new pipeline under development to British Columbia. Lisa Baiton of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, an industry group, has spoken of a “generational opportunity” to rally political and public support behind new oil projects.

Enbridge, an energy-infrastructure firm, has paused construction of a pipeline to the east, citing a lack of commitments by producers to provide enough oil to make it worthwhile.

The unique challenges of the oil sands provide an explanation. Investment in new sites has been virtually non-existent since the oil price crashed in 2014 as demand weakened while America’s shale oil gushed and opec opened the taps. “It cannot be overstated how much that changed the industry,” says Kent Fellows of the University of Calgary. Moreover, projects in the oil sands take far longer to develop than conventional wells. They require enormous amounts of capital that could be tied up for five to ten years before profits flow. Uncertainty over the future price of oil—and the danger that a change of government might lead to the reinstatement of tighter regulations—make for risky bets. (Canada's Oil Industry Is Booming. Can It Last?, n.d.)

References

Canada's oil industry is booming. Can it last? (n.d.). The Economist. Retrieved September 7, 2026, from https://www.economist.com/business/2026/08/20/canadas-oil-industry-is-booming-can-it-last? 

Little Lorraine Links to Life

 As a son of Industrial Cape Breton who was born there with fellow “boomers” almost 75 yrs ago, I found this movie resonated with the all too common experience of loss of employment for the main breadwinner as the steel and coal industry cycled from full shifts to shut downs under the tyranny of capitalism and brought into stark relief the morality of the extent to which displaced workers may have to go to provide for their families.

Cineplex Image https://www.cineplex.com/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmediafiles.cineplex.com%2FCentral%2FFilm%2FPosters%2F61059_320_470.jpg&w=1920&q=75

Most of my pre high school years were lived in the immediate neighbourhood of the Roman Catholic Parish of St. Anne’s and much of my school, spiritual, and social life revolved around this parish.The connection of the community to the Church in the movie and the closeness of the parish priest to the life of the people was reminiscent of my experience.

My dad was an electrical engineer who worked for the Dominion Coal Company and the successor public Cape Breton Development Corporation. We lived in a mixed economic neighbourhood in Glace Bay and a few “pit heads” along the coast were visible from the backyard. The relationship he had with the miners was mutually appreciative. He had a “pit bag” with a miner’s headgear and made trips underground to engineer and maintain the electrical motors and equipment upon which mining the “black gold” depends. My brother and I frequently spent what seemed to be hours in the car in the parking lot of one of the collieries on a weekend or during “miner’s vacation” in the summer as Dad needed to stop to check some electrical equipment. We were not discouraged by this experience as we are both now retired after careers as electrical engineers.

While I was studying prior to graduation from Nova Scotia Technical College, I was employed by Public Works Canada as part of a crew of surveyors who “staked out” roads and parking lots for the visitors to the Fortress Louisbourg National Historic Site. The movie displayed a bit of this impressive historic restoration that was constructed by coal miners displaced from the mines. This model of public works of national importance becoming employment for displaced workers, even those who had to be retrained, is an excellent option for support that has seemingly been forgotten. My trip to Louisbourg from Sydney was along the highway that is a few kilometers inland from Little Lorraine but the excellent cinematography of the movie captured the centrality of making a living on the sea that is so much a part of life in Canada’s Ocean Playground, and the opportunities for illegal enterprise based on a coastline with thousands of coves and boats of all sizes and purposes in and out of the harbours. During the days of “Prohibition” in the United States “rum runners” supported themselves addressing the thirst of the Republic to the South and today a visit to the coastal towns of the Maritimes reveals the wealth of some “respected families” who engaged in this “trade”. The "libertarian" view of not taking personal or social responsibility for the choices of others that may be detrimental to their health, particularly if it would threaten your sincere efforts to improve the lot of those close to you was brought into conflict with the long standing ethic of miners and “socialists” that we are our keepers of our brothers and sisters and the equitable distribution of the wealth of work is essential. This movie “moves” us to ponder the paradox of “progress” that we have to confront, particularly returning to an economy that prioritizes returns for the shareholder over sustaining families and communities.  “Little Lorraine” creatively and dramatically with excellent acting clarifies the future decisions we will need to make as AI displaces the workers of today.

Insecurity and the Economy

Our community is experiencing severe housing and food insecurity. The increasing numbers of people living in tents and depending on food banks indicates that action by the government is essential and urgent.

Homeless in the Ball Park

 

The 2023 CBC Massey Lectures, The Age of Insecurity, feature filmmaker and writer Astra Taylor who explains how society runs on insecurity and how we can change it. The lectures are also available as a book, The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, from House of Anansi Press.

Taylor takes a deep dive into the history of capitalism and explores how, paradoxically, the ways that we’ve been encouraged to achieve security — purchasing health and wellness products, buying life insurance, acquiring property — actually work against us.

She also looks forward at the ways we might be able to achieve true security, using collective action. 

But today, we also live in an era of manufactured insecurity, imposed on us from above. Consumer society, Taylor argues, capitalizes on the very insecurities it produces, making us all insecure by design.

How we understand and respond to insecurity is one of the most urgent questions of our moment — nothing less than the future security of our species hangs in the balance. (Taylor, 2023)

Agnieszka K. Wielgosz serves as a vocal sustainability/ regenerative wellness advocate. She is the woman behind CEI Collective, serving the creative needs of wellness professionals, regenerative & green living brands to grow and make a dynamic impact.

When we consider the phenomenal speed at which the USA ramped up industrial production during the Second World War, or the efficiency with which developed nations are able to respond to natural disasters, we see that notions of “money” and “the economy” quickly fall by the wayside.

If only we allocated the same amount of resources and effort into the health of our global community!

It’s a well established fact that modern societies with advanced levels of technology could easily provide all the resources required for their citizens to live in ample comfort and safety, without having to resort to money, credit, bartering or worst of all, debt.

With shared responsibility and co-owned resources, humanity would quickly overcome the artificial boundaries that currently separate us, leaving us free to pursue a better way of living whilst caring for our shared environment. (Wielgosz, 2020)

A report by Lars Osberg tracks Canadian income inequality through 75 years of growth and recessions and speculates about the post-COVID-19 future. 

Although the Keynesian consensus on the importance of full employment to balanced growth and social stability enabled growing real wages and stable inequality, it was replaced, after a surge in inflation in the 1970s, by Neo-Liberal policies that emphasized budget balance and low inflation. But slowing growth and the concentration of income gains at the top produced widening income gaps, increasing discontent and political instability—even before COVID-19 hit. In the post-COVID-19 era, the Green New Deal emphasizes social and environmental sustainability, and is reflective of the economic policy changes that likely lie ahead. This report has contrasted the balanced growth and stable inequality of the Keynesian consensus era, 1946–1980, with the unbalanced growth and increasing top-end income shares of the Neo-Liberal years that followed. It has also contrasted the policy choice facing both past regimes—how to share the gains from growth—with the possibility that a post-COVID-19 world will be dominated by a more depressing choice: how to allocate the costs of contraction. As always, future policy choices will be conditioned on prior experiences. The era of Keynesian consensus decision-making saw full employment and the sharing of the gains from economic growth as central issues because that generation had experienced the costs of social instability. And although they could not solve the problem of inflation, they left a social insurance system and a history of stable inequality to their Neo-Liberal successors, which muffled initial discontent with the high unemployment, stagnant middle-class wages and increasing inequality of Neo-Liberalism. Neo-Liberalism solved the inflation problem but could not produce a fair distribution of the gains from economic growth—and that matters. When social insurance protections are dismantled and top-end incomes grow faster than middle-class incomes, inequality and insecurity increase over time. So the legacy of Neo-Liberalism includes the populist political reaction of those who were left behind in the Neo-Liberal decades and those who were, and will be the casualties of the COVID-19 years. The legacy of Neo-Liberalism also includes a global climate crisis. Those failures of Neo-Liberalism will condition Canada’s responses to the challenges of the post-COVID-19 world. (Osberg, 2021)

Prior to the Keynesian consensus era, 1946–1980, Crown Corporations, including Wartime Housing Limited built thousands of homes in Canada.

Klein, Seth. (2020) A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency. Toronto, ON:ECW Press.

Wartime Housing in Halifax

 

The abstract from the Masters Dissertation of Jill Wade (1984) entitled Wartime Housing Limited, 1941-1947 : an overview and evaluation of Canada’s first national housing corporation asks the question of why did the federal government not reconstitute WHL as a permanent, low-rental housing agency.

Between 1941 and 1947, a federal crown corporation called Wartime Housing Limited (WHL) successfully built and managed thousands of rental units for war workers and veterans. At the same time, an Advisory Committee on Reconstruction study (the Curtis report) described the enormous need for low and moderate income shelter throughout Canada and recommended a national, comprehensive, and planned housing program emphasizing low-rental housing. Instead, in 1944 - 1945, the federal government initiated a post-war program promoting home ownership and private enterprise; it neglected long-range planning and low income housing. Thus, an interesting question arises. Why did the federal government not reconstitute WHL as a permanent, low-rental housing agency (Wade, n.d.)

The evidence of stagnant middle-class wages and increasing inequality is seen in the growing numbers of homeless people and the increasing importance of food banks and soup kitchens in our community.

Feed Nova Scotia essential for food security

The role of the government to protect the health of Canadians was essential during the Covid 19 emergency. Government Action, similar to wartime programs, to guarantee the right of Canadians to adequate housing and access to healthy food is urgently required now.

References

Klein, Seth. (2020) A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency. Toronto, ON:ECW Press.

 

Osberg, L. (2021, March 2). From Keynesian Consensus to Neo-Liberalism to the Green New Deal. | Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Retrieved November 21, 2023, from https://policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/75-years-of-income-inequality-canada 

Taylor, A. (2023, June 16). The Age of Insecurity. 2023 CBC Massey Lectures. Retrieved November 21, 2023, from https://www.cbc.ca/radiointeractives/ideas/2023-cbc-massey-lectures-astra-taylor/lecture-1-curas-gift 

Wade, J. (n.d.). Wartime Housing Limited, 1941-1947 : an overview and evaluation of Canada's first national housing corporation. Open Collections. Retrieved November 21, 2023, from https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0096317 

Wielgosz, A. K. (2020, October 20). A New World is Possible: An Introduction to Resource-Based Economies. Agnieszka K. Wielgosz. Retrieved November 21, 2023, from https://agnes-wielgosz.medium.com/a-new-world-is-possible-an-introduction-to-resource-based-economies-5def63e87e2a 

Inverness Economic Inequality is Not for Mabou.

The top photo in this article could have been taken in the town where I grew up, Glace Bay, or the region near Stellarton where my ancestors lived and worked, or the town of tragedy, Springhill, where I instructed at the community college for a semester, but this image is from the village of Inverness.

Streetscape in Inverness Nova Scotia

One common denominator of these places is coal mining and the characteristic miners’s houses. The history of coal mining in Nova Scotia is the story of robber-baron capitalism, union resistance to poor wages and dangerous working conditions, and class struggle. Coal mining is not a primary source of employment in Nova Scotia anymore. The persistence of the mining houses in the streetscape of Inverness may be an indicator of another form of employment that requires maintenance of class separation and service of the privileged by those with less political, social and economic capital. In my youth, the riches underground were extracted by miners, processed into rails by steel workers and the profits enriched the foreign companies who abandoned Cape Breton in a flash when the market reduced their profit. The natural resources on the shores of Cape Breton have been shown capable of returning profits from golf for the owners of the course and service wages and security as the “economic benefit” for the less privileged class. We can do better by focussing on preparing the people of Inverness to be guides and provide services to visitors based on the natural history and beauty of the region, eco tourism, and the culture of the area. Economic development based on short term profit to outside owners and minimum wage service employment while the business stays is not in the long term interest of Inverness or any other community.

Climate Priorities for Capitalist and Socialist

Climate mitigation and adaptation strategies will need to be adopted by both capitalist, centrist, and socialist governments in the next decades.

Taking action in our community

 

Iman Ghosh reports on the Visual Capitalist website that greenhouse gases (GHGs)—chiefly in the form of CO₂ emissions—have risen at unprecedented rates as a result of global growth and resource consumption.

Billions of people rely on petrol and diesel-powered vehicles to get around. As a result, they contribute to almost 12% of global emissions. But this challenge is also an opportunity: the consumer adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) could significantly help shift the world away from fossil fuel use, both for passenger travel and for freight—although there are still speedbumps to overcome. Meanwhile, buildings contribute 17.5% of energy-related emissions overall—which makes sense when you realize the stunning fact that cities use 60-80% of the world’s annual energy needs. With megacities (home to 10+ million people) ballooning every day to house the growing urban population, these shares may rise even further. Agriculture, Forestry & Land Use

 

Sub-sector	GHG Emissions Share	Further breakdown
Transport	16.2%	• Road 11.9% • Aviation 1.9% • Rail 0.4% • Pipeline 0.3% • Ship 1.7%
Buildings	17.5%	• Residential 10.9% • Commercial 6.6%
Industry energy	24.2%	• Iron & Steel 7.2% • Non-ferrous metals 0.7% • Machinery 0.5% • Food and tobacco 1.0% • Paper, pulp & printing 0.6% • Chemical & petrochemical (energy) 3.6% • Other industry 10.6%
Agriculture & Fishing energy	1.7%	-
Unallocated fuel combustion	7.8%	-
Fugitive emissions from energy production	5.8%	• Coal 1.9% • Oil & Natural Gas 3.9%
Total	73.2%

The second biggest category of emissions is the sector that we rely on daily for the food we eat. Perhaps unsurprisingly, methane from cows and other livestock contribute the most to emissions, at 5.8% total. These foods also have some of the highest carbon footprints, from farm to table.1

 

Seth Klein, writing for the National Observer, states from the outset that, without question, a truly successful climate plan requires collective action at the political/policy level . Any plan that relies on individual households voluntarily doing what he spells out here will see us fry.

Reducing our carbon footprint

 

He owns his home, which provides him with privileges, opportunities and obligations to act that do not exist for most renters.

As stated up front, the path to victory on the climate emergency will not be won by encouraging and incentivizing households to voluntarily do what we did. While individual households all have their part to play, confronting the climate crisis requires collective and state-led action. As my family’s conversion journey makes clear, the process can be complicated and it is costly, and if we are hoping everyone will do this on their own, we’re going to lose the climate fight… Under any future scenario, as we confront the climate crisis, energy costs are going up, and thus, issues of energy poverty and cost stress for lower and middle-income households is an issue that needs to be mitigated. And that’s something we can only do together… while all this encouragement and financial assistance is needed (policy carrots), fuel swapping can’t be left to voluntary goodwill. We also need the state to set clear near-term dates by which fuel-swapping will be mandatory (the policy sticks). Tackling the climate crisis and eliminating GHGs from our homes isn’t optional. We need to get this done.2 

Ultimately, however, a comprehensive climate program does require that all our homes cease using fossil fuels.

• Induction electric stove: $2,000 plus tax
• Electric hot water heater and tank, including installation: $3,400 plus tax
• Heat pump system, including installation: $17,000 plus tax (minus $9,000 in rebates)

 

This article walks us through how that can be done. On twitter, the Earth carer called Angie, user (@lifelearner47) shares some statistics from the Climate Action Tracker on emission reduction goals and projected achievements of the leading industrial countries. The numbers in these reports identify the priority we need to place on transition from fossil fuels as our major source of energy for industry, transportation, and energy in our built environment.

 

Which countries think it's perfectly OK to aim for >4°C extra climate heating ?#Fossilfuel countries! What a surprise. pic.twitter.com/y2YTW1eOmj

— Earth carer called Angie (@lifelearner47) December 19, 2021

References

 

1	(2021, December 15). A Global Breakdown of Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Sector. Retrieved December 19, 2021, from https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/a-global-breakdown-of-greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-sector/
2	(2021, December 10). Getting off gas: A how-to guide to get fossil fuels out of your home. Retrieved December 19, 2021, from https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/12/10/opinion/getting-gas-how-guide-get-fossil-fuels-out-your-home
3	Earth carer called Angie. [@lifelearner47]. 18 Dec 2021. Which countries think it's perfectly OK to aim for >4°C extra climate heating ? #Fossilfuel countries! What a surprise.Tweet.[tweetdeck].https://twitter.com/lifelearner47/status/1472504740051361794

Climate Mitigation in a Market Economy

A curation of recent articles in the media invite a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of action by investment, industrial, insurance, and service enterprises to mitigate the disastrous effects of climate events like those that the people of the east and west coast of Canada have endured.

 Environmental racism in Nova Scotia

Matt Galloway, of the Current on CBC Radio, interviewed Tom Rand, managing partner at ARK turned Venture Capital and the author of The Case for Climate Capitalism, and Christine Bergeron, president and CEO of Van City, a credit union in British Columbia. Galloway asks if the pension fund leaders are in a bind if there is a moral imperative to not destroy the planet, but their job is to make sure that my pension is taken care of?

An investment fund manager has a fiduciary obligation to maximise long term returns for their beneficiaries. There's two kinds of arguments, as Christine just pointed out. One is that investment managers are beginning to realise that there is a boatload of money to be made in this transition to a low carbon economy. This is the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century. The other, more nuanced argument I would make, though, is that pension funds have an obligation, as you say, to meet their beneficiaries' needs, sort of 20, 30, 40 years from now if we head into three degrees and four degrees. I'm sorry, is Mad Max the economy? You know, to think that the economy is going to keep growing and that we can meet those obligations, financial obligations many decades out and of the world you're dreaming of. And so I would argue there's actually a fiduciary obligation on behalf of the industry as a whole. No single pension fund can do it by themselves, but as a whole, they have a responsibility to help solve this problem because if you don't solve this problem, the economy is not going to be running the way we expect it to in 20 or 30 years.1 

Megan O'Toole and Jillian Kestler-D'Amours, of Al Jazeera, report on the fight to end environmental racism in Canada and Nova Scotia that has been the result of putting industrial development ahead of the health and welfare of marginalized communities. In the article, Ingrid Waldron, Canada’s preeminent expert on the topic and author of There’s Something In The Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous & Black Communities, says rural and isolated areas are most affected.

whose book on environmental racism was the basis of a 2019 documentary co-directed and co-produced by actor Elliot Page, has spent years documenting the phenomenon in the province. She serves as executive director of the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities and Community Health (ENRICH) project, which has mapped the proximity of dozens of waste disposal sites and other toxic industries to First Nations and African Nova Scotian communities.2

 

  A report By Simran Chatha outlines plans involving the private sector to mitigate the effects of rising seas that threaten Canada’s Atlantic and Pacific Coasts.

As for Canada, the report indicates that the country “does not yet have a strategic planning framework or standard classification of approaches for coastal risk management.” To properly build and maintain future flood mitigation measures, the report recommends Canada develop a set of national standards to support a consistent evaluation of nature-based solutions compared to infrastructure solutions, develop national monitoring standards for these solutions and to build the capacity to fund nature-based projects in the private sector.3 

Tom Perkins, in an article for the Guardian, reports on the math of confusion as McDonald’s avoids the bold step of cutting beef offerings to reduce GHG emissions. Jennifer Molidor, ​a senior food campaigner with the Center For Biological Diversity points to the absence of menu changes needed to significantly reduce beef production and emissions in McDonald’s plans.

“One of the main signs that something is ‘greenwashing’ is that it’s not clear or transparent,” she added…McDonald’s “net zero” by 2050 pledge has also been criticized because such plans can allow polluters to continue emitting high levels of greenhouse gases over the next decades. To offset emissions that companies continue to produce, “net zero” programs often rely on carbon offset schemes – which have been the subject of multiple investigations pointing to flawed carbon calculations and uncertain impacts – as well as carbon capture technology, which is expensive and not yet operating at scale. Though McDonald’s plans and metrics are complex and controversial, they hold high marketing value because they give the appearance to the layperson of real progress, Molidor said. “McDonald’s is taking advantage of people who don’t understand this kind of math,” she added.4 

Significant players in the market economy have identified strengths for their enterprises in the upcoming low carbon environment. Our role as individuals is to highlight the weakness and threats to these organizations of delayed action.

 

References

 

1	(2021, December 8). What We Can Do: A special show on fighting climate change in your .... Retrieved December 10, 2021, from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/what-we-can-do-a-special-show-on-fighting-climate-change-in-your-home-work-and-finances-1.6277706
2	(2021, December 8). Toxic legacy: The fight to end environmental racism in Canada. Retrieved December 10, 2021, from https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2021/12/8/toxic-legacy-the-fight-to-end-environmental-racism-in-canada
3	(2021, December 9). Rising seas threaten Canada's Atlantic and Pacific Coasts: Report. Retrieved December 10, 2021, from https://www.watercanada.net/rising-seas-threaten-canadas-atlantic-and-pacific-coasts-report/
4	(2021, December 10). Hold the beef: McDonald's avoids the bold step it must take to cut .... Retrieved December 10, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/10/mcdonalds-emissions-beef-burgers