Conor Curtis

U.S.-Owned Oil Sands Giants Send Profits Out of Canada Despite Public Support for Resource Sovereignty Canada’s biggest oil sands producers are sending a large share of their profits out of the country to their shareholders in the United States, the CEO of the Trottier Family Foundation warns in an opi...

And here's some other stuff I recommend if you get time:

www.theenergymix.com/u-s-owned-oi...

And www.americanprogress.org/article/thes...

No worries!

YouTube video by Energi Media 7 Days After the MOU, Alberta Guts Industrial Emitter Carbon Tax (TIER)

(2/2) "Only 7 days after the MOU, the Alberta Government guts industrial emitter carbon tax": www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSmh...

Effectively oil & gas corporations got everything they wanted. The pipeline has more attention on it than ever. In AB, when the pipeline fails the fallout will be worse now.

(1/2) Even if no pipeline is ever built the erosion of climate policies makes reaching those targets impossible. Theoretically the MOU was supposed to lead to stronger carbon pricing instead but carbon pricing is easily undermined & as of today Alberta found a way to effectively eliminate it too...

YouTube video by Energi Media 7 Days After the MOU, Alberta Guts Industrial Emitter Carbon Tax (TIER)

(2/2) The other half of "individual people aren’t to blame for climate" is that big corporations ARE to blame. Policies like the emissions cap were inherently more popular.

& by the way the policies scrapped by the MOU include the industrial carbon price as of today: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSmh...

(1/n) @davidwcochrane.bsky.social what analysts are getting wrong: consumer carbon pricing was controversial because it was directly experienced as a tax on individuals, even if the money went back via an opaque system.

That isn't the case with climate policies scrapped in the MOU. #CDNpoli

Judge says proposed referendum on Alberta independence would be unconstitutional | CBC News An Alberta judge says a referendum proposal on Alberta separating from Canada goes against Charter and and Treaty rights, in a decision given less than 24 hours after the provincial government introdu...

(3/3) "The Citizen Initiative Act will see a number of changes under the amendments proposed in Bill 14, including removing a provision that a proposed referendum question can't contravene the Constitution."

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... #ABpoli #CDNpoli

Judge says proposed referendum on Alberta independence would be unconstitutional | CBC News An Alberta judge says a referendum proposal on Alberta separating from Canada goes against Charter and and Treaty rights, in a decision given less than 24 hours after the provincial government introdu...

(2/2) "The Citizen Initiative Act will see a number of changes under the amendments proposed in Bill 14, including removing a provision that a proposed referendum question can't contravene the Constitution."

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... #ABpoli #CDNpoli

Unlikely that he will and that's the problem with appeasement - it leads to more. His inner circle are too insular. Even if someone thinks there should have been an MOU this is clearly a bad deal and defending it merely encourages the government not to learn anything from it and to give up more.

ONE WEEK LATER and here's the other news today:

"The AB Prosperity Project issued a statement Thursday evening, calling Bill 14 an "unintended gift to pro-independence Albertans"

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Listen Below " @mark-carney.bsky.social got played. No question."
#bcpoli #abpoli #cdnpoli

Out*

I honestly feel Alberta looses put more than anyone from this MOU. It was a missed opportunity for honesty on the future of markets and energy so politics could be played.... poorly.

Alberta’s latest changes to industrial carbon pricing make MOU commitments harder to achieve Seven days after signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with federal government, Alberta changes regulations that make the $130 minimum effective carbon credit price harder to achieve

(2/2) “Just one week after the Alberta-Canada MOU, Alberta has introduced regulatory changes that will flood the province’s industrial carbon pricing market with credits & further weaken the carbon price signal for major emitters.

climateinstitute.ca/news/alberta... #PipelineMOU #CDNpoli #ABpoli

Alberta legislation would change citizen referendum rules, restrict political party names | CBC News Bill 14, introduced Thursday by Justice Minister Mickey Amery, transfers powers from the chief electoral officer to the minister when deciding whether citizen petition initiatives should proceed. It a...

(1/2) This new grand bargain by the fed gov. is gonna last! (Sarcasm).

"The AB Prosperity Project issued a statement Thurs evening, calling Bill 14 an "unintended gift to pro-independence Albertans"

& carbon pricing is ALREADY BEING WEAKENED by AB gov

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... #ABpoli #CDNpoli

Again, a lot of maybes here. Given the past track records on maybes I'm really not very confident in them.

How an extreme wealth limit - with direct, equal, redistribution - could be established by an equilibrium between cooperation and competition. Because if we fail to end extreme inequality there won’t be an environment or democracy left in which to cooperate nor a market left in which to compete..

Working in the climate comms world one learns people are inherently capable of fixing crises if there are ambitious baseline guarantees of fairness that are transparent. What's often lacking in policy, on climate or inequality, is ambition, fairness & transparency.
www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-ex...

A New ‘Fundamental Fairness’ Can Save Democracy, the Environment, and Canada As major media focus on negotiations between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Donald Trump, it’s the Canadian people who are our best line of defence. We need a new fairness to empower ourselves.

And (this is a tangent), as with climate change, the same is true of dealing with growing wealth inequality: opaque the measures lacking ambition simply don't work. You need simplicity and durability, and that only comes from people having a stake in fairness: open.substack.com/pub/energymi...

(3/3) this is why you listen to people with experience before you make decisions, this is why you learn from communications mistakes of the past.

Policy does not exist in a vacuum: it is a sailing ship in a storm with winds pushing it in many directions. And oil & gas interests have a lot of wind.

(2/n) … and you can have a policy that does absolutely nothing."

This is where oil & has interests excell, in manipulating details. & now even the anti-greenwashing rules have been weakened.

Policy decisions can be technically right, but practically naive. And we just abandoned all fallbacks...

ANALYSIS | Why a tonne of industrial carbon costs $95 in Alberta but credits sell for less than $20 | CBC News A key part of the pipeline deal between Alberta and Ottawa is a “minimum effective credit price of $130 per tonne” on industrial carbon emissions, but already the two levels of government are talking ...

(1/n) This is a very important read & highlights why I have very little faith in @mark-carney.bsky.social climate plans (i.e. eliminate all measures but a carbon price): www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... #CDNpoli #ABpoli #BCpoli

"all these little details that people aren’t going to pay attention to...

True, I've written about how wealth bends reality. But actually I see the movement's major issue as psychological. Too invested in thinking right leader = action & we dont need to push for more. Too prone to seeing obstacles, not opportunities.

I'd rather have 10 dedicated people than $1 million.

(2/2) ... follow them. We should unite. But if we unite under a political leader then the oil & gas interests have the true leverage and we don't anymore. And to be honest after this week I'd be scared to anger the environmental movement if I were any leader.

(1/2) Maybe this is the most important point i can make: As far as the environmental movement is concerned you're right that there's a need for more coordination. But leadership of the movement cannot come from within a party. Oil & gas interests don't follow political leaders they make leaders...

(2/2) I'll look for two things going forward:

- More concessions or this is it

- A real renewables plan with actual ambition

But any further concessions to oil and gas interests, or a failure to come out with true ambition on renewables, would be a massive tell and a massive loss of credibility.

(1/2) Again I think if you want to lead any spectrum you have to do a better job of communicating and consultation than this. We can agree to disagree on this for sure, but I don't think this really unified anyone & I think it did cause damage, at very least by it's approach. I'll say it this...

You probably already know I don't have faith in CCUS though. And I mean even considering I did this brings to mind that Futurama quote on bureaucracy: "You are technically correct, the best kind of correct."

As far as the overall climate framing goes it's pretty clearly on the side of greenwashing.

EXCLUSIVE: O’Leary’s Gas-Powered Data Centre Emissions Could Wipe Out Alberta’s Coal Phaseout Gains Celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary’s proposed $70-billion data centre, designed to run on 7.5 gigawatts of gas-fired power, could raise Alberta’s greenhouse gas emissions to levels not seen since the co...

A new exclusive by Jody MacPherson shows Kevin O’Leary’s $70B gas-powered data centre could emit up to 30.5 Mt of CO₂ a year, wiping out Alberta’s coal phaseout gains.

It would also draw huge amounts of water in a drought-hit region, with nearby First Nations reporting no meaningful consultation.

'Sorry prime minister, I'm no longer your man': Steven Guilbeault on leaving cabinet In Steven Guilbeault’s first English-media interview since resigning over Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to pursue a pipeline agreement with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, the former cabinet m...

Steven Guilbeault tells @woodsideful.bsky.social about his decision to leave cabinet over the pipeline deal:

“When the agreement came out someone texted me saying, ‘The only thing missing from the agreement is Pierre Poilievre's signature,’ and I went yeah, I think that sums it up."

'Sorry prime minister, I'm no longer your man': Steven Guilbeault on leaving cabinet In Steven Guilbeault’s first English-media interview since resigning over Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to pursue a pipeline agreement with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, the former cabinet m...

In @stevenguilbeault.bsky.social’s first English-media interview since resigning over the pipeline MOU with Alberta, the former cabinet minister said the government isn’t being honest with the public and is betraying its commitments.

Maybe, but good leaders listen to their generals and seek advice from those outside an inner circle.

On this we certainly agree though: the accountability doesn't come fast enough for some.