Clampetts clownshow distracts from FIPA

Gosh, was it only five years ago that Alberta Energy spokesman Tim Markle said "Chinese takeover is good news for Alberta", even as Harper was blowing off the Kyoto Accord, supposedly due to China's crappy environmental record, and pledging to build a monument to victims of communism? 

Beginning Oct 1 for the next 31 years until 2045, under the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement Harper just ratified on Friday, Chinese corporations will be able to directly sue the Canadian government for any public interest measures that interfere with their ability to make a profit in Canada. 

Do you think China-owned Nexen, Sinopec, and PetroChina just might consider Enbridge's Northern Gateway Pipeline to be somewhat integral to getting their $30B investment in the tarsands home to China for refining?  
Think Steve can count on Christy Clark to ensure no BC environmental protection laws might harm China's assets?
Think it's an accident Steve released this news on a Friday during the Ford brothers' Clampett Dynasty pitch?

Two years ago in Vladivostok, Harper announced his signing of the FIPA deal with China. MP Don Davies introduced a motion in the House to not ratify it. His motion failed. All the Libs and Cons voted against his motion not to ratify FIPA, including 24 Con MPs from Alberta and 19 from BC.  
You can contact those quislings through this HoC page showing that vote.

NDP Petition : Stop FIPA Now     
Green Party Petition : Stand Up to the Sellout to China          
LeadNow Petition : Stop the Secretive, Reckless & Binding Canada-China FIPA


Council of Canadians : Harper government sneaks through Canada-China FIPA despite ongoing court challenge

The Tyee : FIPA 'is the price China demanded to open its purse strings for investing in the resource sector in Canada.' and 

Harper's Sneaky, Undemocratic, Terrible Deal with China 

Montreal Simon : Stephen Harper and the Great Chinese Betrayal 

Update : Laila Yuile : Who's Harper working for?



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Steve flexes his sino-pecs from China

Star : Harper blasts foreign money in oil sands debate while welcoming China

        *cough*

Reuters : Canada PM vows to ensure key oil pipeline is built 


CBC : Harper ties China trade deals to Canadian values 

"Canada does not — and cannot — disconnect our trading relationship from fundamental national values."

Meanwhile ...


CTV : Chinese dissident writer gets 7 years' jail for poem

"a poem he wrote urging his countrymen to gather at a public square"

Sinopec seeks appeal in oilsands death case

A Chinese state-owned corporation wants the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn an Alberta court judgement ruling that would force it to stand trial in the deaths of two oilsands workers and 53 safety charges.

Patrick Brown : Harper in China : Great, Glorious and Always Correct 

In the Great Hall of the People, Harper told Premier Wen Jiabao that Canada and China enjoy “a strategic partnership based on respect and admiration.” Wen answered that Harper’s visits “opened a new page in our bilateral relationship,” which translated into English means, “We’re glad you finally got with the program.”

Then Harper said he would be raising human rights and consular issues. That’s when the journalists were ushered out of the room. It felt just like Ottawa.

Confused?
Mound of Sound explains : Okay, I Get It.
Harper Needs China to Buy Bitumen So Canada Can Buy F-35s to defend Canada Against China
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Steve frets about foreign influence on Enbridge pipeline

G&M : 'Foreign money' could gum up pipeline approval, Harper warns

"Stephen Harper is warning about the possibility that hearings into Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline will be "hijacked" by foreign interests. The Prime Minister is threatening to prevent foreign environmental interests from delaying the approval of a pipeline that would take bitumen from the Alberta oil sands to the West Coast for shipment to Asian markets."

Ok then, let's have a look at some of those 'foreign interests' which have applied for intervenor status at the Enbridge hearings due to start in two days, courtesy of the National Energy Board's  Regulatory Document Index:

Enbridge Northern Gateway Project Joint Review Process 

Registration for Intervenor Status

• DAEWOOD INTERNATIONAL AMERICA CORP,  Anaheim, California 

• BP CANADA, subsidiary of BP (formerly British Petroleum) of Gulf Oil disaster fame

• TOTAL E&P, a wholly-owned subsidiary of TOTAL SA, France 

• EXXON MOBIL OIL,  Fairfax, Virginia 

• FLINT HILLS RESOURCES LTD, a Koch Industries subsidiary   

• SINOCANADA PETROLEUM, Sinopec, China

Bloomberg, Jan 4, 2012: 

"Ten companies have contributed $10 million each to help Enbridge finance the regulatory approval process, Enbridge spokesman Paul Stanway said in October.  

China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. also known as Sinopec, was previously the only company that had publicly stated its participation."

G&M : Oil giants back Gateway pipe :

"Gateway’s financial backers include Chinese state-owned energy company Sinopec. Market sources have said they believe China National Petroleum Corp. also holds an interest in Gateway. Sinochem Group, another Chinese energy firm, is also believed to support Gateway."

According to StatsCan in October last year, much of our tarsands is already "hijacked by foreign interests".

StatsCan : Total assets, operating revenues and operating profits under foreign control

Oil and gas extraction and support activities - 2009 

• Assets - 35.9% under foreign control
• Operating revenues - 51.1% under foreign control 
• Operating profits : 41.3% under foreign control

"American-controlled enterprises continued to dominate the shares of assets, revenues and profits under foreign-control. These enterprises increased their share of both revenues and profits to 59.1% and 58.3% respectively." 

"In the oil and gas extraction industry, foreign-controlled enterprises increased their share of revenues to 51.1%. This occurred as revenues declined nearly twice as fast in 2009 for domestic enterprises as they did for foreign enterprises."

I thought this was kinda cute from Ethical Oil's Kathryn Marshall though :

Canadians have much at stake in the construction of the pipeline and “must take a stand against foreigners and their lobbying groups interfering in our decision.”

Okey dokey then. Really looking forward to her defence of China as a foreign 'ethical oil' majority financial backer of the pipeline.

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Updates via Dave : There's nothing ethical about it :

• The Real Story : Unethical oil and its friends and 

• Northern Insights : "Ethical Oil" - an argument that makes no sense

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No science, please, we're the tar sands

Remember that two year Environment Committee study on the tarsands that was ultimately shredded because the four parties at the table couldn't agree on the wording of the witnesses' testimony? The Lib members of that committee have now released their own report on the testimony and as Andrew Nikiforuk reports at The Tyee, it is "scathing".

~ Athabasca River is being polluted
~12 barrels of freshwater required to produce one barrel of crude
~world's largest man-made dams contain 170 square kilometres of toxic mining waste and they're leaking
~steam plants could affect aquifers over an area the size of Florida, using 3½ to 6 barrels of groundwater to extract one barrel of bitumen

Most alarming is the report's contention that science-based policy has been replaced by "bureaucratic compromise", with the federal government entirely abrogatiing its responsibility to monitor and protect our water supplies. The Alberta government just flat out refused to appear before the committee at all.

You're shocked I'm sure.

Wait. Did I say our water supplies?
A year ago Alberta Energy spokesman Tim Markle said : "The Chinese takeover is good news for Alberta."

He was referring to tarsands in northern Alberta being developed by the Chinese state investment fund in partnership with Calgary-based Penn West Energy Trust. China National Petroleum Company obtained 11 oilsands leases and the Chinese Offshore Oil Corporation invested $150 million in Calgary-based Meg Energy. Sinopec has bought into Syncrude. PetroChina, also state-owned, holds a 60% majority stake in two oilsands projects, and has also signed a memorandum with Enbridge to take up to half the space on its proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline from Alberta to the port of Kitimat in BC.

In comments under Nikiforuk's Tyee article, commenter Ed Deak weighs in :

The opposition can jump up and down, they won't get anywhere, because they're attacking the effects and not the causes.
Attacking other political parties, this is also true for BC, and anywhere on Earth, is a waste of time, because politicians are nothing more than pimp/executioners of and for the criminal neoclassical market economic economic theory, being taught in our universities as a "science", that's destroying the Earth and humanity.
Unless our politicians will one day get enough gumption together to attack the causes
they're part of the problem, regardless of the hot air they're blowing.
The tar sands crime wave is part of the "growth" and the "GDP", without any deductions for damages and no politician would dare to question it, as it would bring panic to the almighty stockmarkets.
Then, when the Chinese bring back the money we're paying them for killing our manufacturing infrastructure, praised by economists and the WTO, to buy the country up from under our feet with our own money, it is called "wealth creating foreign investment" that helps to pay for the billions spent on "defence".

Afterthought : An Alberta Energy spokesdude says : "The Chinese takeover is good news for Alberta" and yet back in March we were all apparently shocked shocked shocked when CSIS head Richard Fadden casually mentioned China in his remarks about "foreign interference" on "possibly unwitting" Canadian public servants and politicians here in the West.

We pretty much behaved as if we were teenagers horrified to discover that our parents have sex. I mean obviously we know they must have but we don't much like to hear about it. And given the public pillorying Fadden received for it, I don't imagine it will be brought up again.
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