They are laughing in Texas, 15 April

[Robert Anderson <randerso@sfu.ca>]

Have you heard the voice of PM Trudeau today saying "I am instructing the Minister of Finance to initiate formal financial discussions with Kinder-Morgan....etc" So we, you me and others reading this, will provide letters of comfort and subsidies to two Texas oil gangsters who happen to own an old pipeline running from Alberta to Burnaby? This is the PM's solution to a conflict of interests? Simply to pay his way out?

They must be laughing in Texas at Canada, at the PM, and the grip that the energy sector has on our democratic process. The people who are saying this is a crisis in confederation, a collapse of the constitution, etc are exaggerating wildly, for effect. This conflict of interests is democracy in action, this what confederations look like some of the time. Ever since K-M's memo of last week the drama has been a shadow play, each side knowing just what the others are doing.

The investors who committed money to this pipeline have no risk, because they haven't put any money in to it yet, they have put letters of commitment in K-M's parking lot, that's all. Now they will have probably letters of comfort from the Government of Canada.

And as for the worry about the risk about sending the wrong signal to foreign investors, it does send a useful message that poor business deals like this one should be avoided in Canada. And foreign investors (perhaps not in the energy sector though) are far too smart to confuse other sectors and other investment types with this one. Oil investments and particularly junk oil investments (the type of dilbit that Texas doesn't want and won't buy), is both tricky and unwise.

And that message, that signal, it a good thing because junk oil, this bithumin in slurry, this dilbit, is an evolutionary dead end. And take note, I put petroleum gas in our car and heat our house with natural gas. Have done it for years and though not proud of it, expect I'll be doing it for a while yet.

Bob Anderson, Communication