High-speed rail coming to Canada!..in 4 years...maybe

[Acitta]

I can't see the northern pipeline happening. BC is adamantly opposed. First nations are adamantly opposed. The cost would be $30B+. Oil prices are not high, and oilsands crude is lower yet. No company has stepped forward to build it. Even if approved, timeline is 10+ years to complete, and by then the oil consumption is likely to be dropping. And I think the pipeline companies can do this math, too.

On the other hand, the Trans Mountain expansion could make sense. It needs far fewer approvals, can be ready in four (?) years (when there is still demand for oil), and cost not much more than a tenth of the price of a new pipeline. Mind you, it's not good enough for Danielle Smith.

I'm not nearly so hopeful on this kind of thing. Leaving aside what it looks like in 10 years, because you may (or may not) be right about peak oil...I don't think the companies and especially the executives chasing quarterly bonuses actually care about what it looks like in 10 years.

If nothing else, the crypto bubble followed by the AI bubble has shown clear as day those people with money don't care about the future. I have zero doubt that the right approvals could get the northern pipeline built only to be a useless disaster that the Canadian public will end up bailing out. Given the behaviour of the current gov...catering to the oil industries every demand, I don't see a lot of sensible pushback here. And worse, it seems that a lot of the public (especially in Alberta) are for some reason uncritical of this support.

I think that a lot of Albertans are supportive because resource jobs are among the best paying jobs for the working class. Back in the '80s, I was visiting my sister in Prince George, BC. One of my nieces, then a teenager, was getting $16/hr sweeping floors in the plywood plant, whereas, back in Toronto, I was getting $4 and change working in a bookstore. It is hard to blame people for wanting those good paying jobs.