I'm Becoming an Oil Baron

For those who complain there's nothing in the news but COVID these days, try the Alberta section. Lots going on. For example, our government just laid off 26,000 school support staff while shelling out $1.5 billion, plus a $6-billion loan guarantee, to buy us a piece of the Keystone XL pipeline.

I'm already part owner of the Trans Mountain pipeline which the federal government kindly bought for us for $4.5 billion in 2018. And then there's the investments that Alberta crown corporation Alberta Investment Management Corp. has made in various pipelines. That's the group that our premier has decided will manage my government pension. I am practically an oil baron.

I once worked in the oil industry. It was good to me and I quite appreciated it, but that was long before the product I was proud to help produce became commonly recognized as the major contributor to global warming. I have recognized the need to downsize fossil fuels for years and yet here I am becoming increasingly invested in producing more of the stuff. I think it's called irony,

Sinking the public's dollars into pipelines may seem foolish at a time when oil prices have collapsed and investors are becoming increasingly wary of the industry, but Alberta has a premier who seems to consider the oil industry more a religious institution than a mere economic one. And he is a man of faith. The evidence that governments in this country are serious about global warming gets thinner and thinner. If they were, I wouldn't be becoming an owner of ever more pipelines, i.e. increasingly becoming an enabler of greenhouse gas emissions.

All hope is not lost however. On April 1st—this is not a joke—the federal carbon tax ramped up from from $20 to $30 a tonne. An action to reduce emissions can't help but be appreciated in these days of respiratory pandemic.