Why a BREXIT, is a good thing for Canada

Suck it Mark Carney

(Mark Carney left, holding his severance package
after quitting as Governor of the Bank of Canada)

This piece will be in no way influenced by my dislike of current Bank of England Governor Mark Carney. After all, Mr. Carney has always done what's best for the people he represented. Canada may not have fared half as well in 2008 if it wasn’t for his leadership as Governor of the Bank of Canada. So how can I blame him for forwarding his career? Because hate is irrational - Mark Carney is an opportunistic shrew, who should have stuck with the country who raised him, rather than jump ship and start angling for Lordship. Alright, maybe i’m just a little mad that the UK is reaping benefits from employing one of the modern giants of international finance, and this giant happens to be a Canuck. It’s like our paradox with losing movie stars or musicians to the US. We can breed as much talent as we want, but we don’t have the market to keep these things at home. Oh yeah, Mark Carney is against the BREXIT. So suck it Mark, here’s my take. 

As I've said in the past, the Liberals apparent desire to return Canada to middle power status, rather than our previous delusions of being a great power, is a pragmatic and beneficial move. To get to the point and stop rambling, my argument has a bit to do with this pragmatic move, and a lot do with trade.

As most people know Canada and the US enjoy a pretty huge trading relationship. Our border, and the trade that goes over it, are some of the largest in the world. This was not always the case for Canada. As a former colony of Great Britain we also do a lot of trade with the UK. Most people think US trade has always dwarfed that of trans atlantic trade but, It was only in about the 1960’s that the US surpassed the UK as the our biggest trading partner. 

Bi-lateral trade between the US is a good thing though. Pragmatic through its proximity, beneficial to both nations, we’re already NAFTA and NATO buddies, this is why we are were each others  biggest trading partners. This was a special perk afforded to Canada, or at least we thought it was. We assumed we had a special little place as number one friend of the coolest kid in school. That’s what we thought. But in about 2011 China surpassed little ol' Canada and the US’ biggest trading partner. 

We’ve been undone by China, and no surprise really, proximity can only compete with overwhelming size for so long. Maybe this should be our wake up call to diversify things a little bit though. With another big surprise, i’m not the first one to suggest this either, politicians in the west coast have been pushing for pipelines like the TPP, or the Trans Mountain for ages, politicians in the east are pushing for deepwater ports for Supermax tankers, all in a desperate attempt to sell a fraction of our oil to anyone but the United States. I’m not an economist but it seems like exporting 99% our oil to a single country can be a volatile game. If our primary export market’s need for oil drops suddenly, or if an economic collapse happens, Canada is seriously at risk - in case you’ve been under a rock, both of these things have happened in the last decade. There is a sliver of hope though, and it relies on a large state, friendly to Canada, with seriously high oil prices, reducing some of its trade barriers and potentially looking for new trading partners.

You may have guessed it, i’m talking about the UK. With gas prices upwards of $2.00 a litre Canadian, there’s no reason we can’t tap into some of this inflated market. Without it’s EU trade benefits, the UK will have to pay even more to ship oil across continental Europe. The UK voting to leave he EU means their return to a much more free market economy, one that will likely open up the floodgates to new imports from nations that can offer competitive pricing. Without former EU tariffs this could be Canada.

Even if we were to tap into a small portion this market, the UK itself has nearly twice the population of Canada  making it lucrative as hell. Their economy is the fifth largest in the world, and as far as I can tell, Canada doesn’t currently export much oil to the UK. 

It’s the fifth largest Canadian commodity imported by the UK, after Gold, Nickel, Waste metal, and Uranium. Alberta is maybe not so coincidentally, number 5 on the top provincial exporters  behind the powerhouses of Ontario, Quebec, B.C., and … Newfoundland. Look, I love Newfoundland and the Newfish people, but if a province with a GDP of $3.3billion is in number number three exporter to the UK while Alberta with an economy almost ten times the size plays second fiddle, it might mean we are not exporting as much oil as we could, to a country that seems like they could use it.

This brings us back to my point about middle power status. As Canada continues to angle with China and other states for bigger role in trade and diplomacy as a middle power (regardless of how journalists try to fuck it up) doing the same with one of historical trading partners might just put us back into some sort of grace with them, giving us a more privileged place in diplomatic talks. Canada and the UK both sit on the G7, G22, NATO, UN and countless other treaties. Bringing us closer together with an increased trade relationship could have similar repercussions for our diplomacy, which I shouldn't have to point out would be a good thing.

We’ve been a one trick pony with the United States trade wise for too long, not only have we been surpassed as their largest trading partner, but they are increasingly shifting away from our oil as it is. The BREXIT could have huge consequences for Canada if the UK returns to the truly free market, and we reaffirm our position as a trading partner, and possibly become a middle power between the UK and other states. So I say vote to leave. Suck it Mark Carney. 

Note: I wrote the majority of this piece yesterday before the tragic loss of life of Helen Joanne “Jo” Cox, British Labour MP for Batley and Spen. I don’t feel like anything i’ve said will offend, but most British politicians have suspended their campaigns. I didn’t know of her career previously but from all accounts Jo was a outstanding MP, and the tragic loss of life that occurred is a loss for us all.

Why trains are killing Canadians

and why politicians aren’t allowed to stop them 

(Burning DOT-11A Tank Cars)

Marc Garneau announced this week that his government was going to start dealing with the issue of runaway trains. The issue he is referring to is the fact that during 2015 there were approximately 42 incidents of runaways, up from 30 incidents the previous year. While a few runaway rail cars drifting down the track doesn’t immediately strike fear in Canadians hearts, it really should. Here’s a couple visual aids to help explain why 

(A photograph that shows some
of the devastation)

      If these images don’t jog your memory let me remind you of the terrible tragedy that occurred. Approximately two years ago in July, an unattended freight train with 74 cars rolled down a 1.3% grade (not insignificant for a train as the max grade allowed is 2.2% in the US) causing many of the tanker cars to explode in the town of Lac Megantic, Quebec. The resulting disaster killed almost 50 people, and physically devastated the small Quebec town. 

After such a damaging tragedy, I should dam well hope Minister of Transport Garneau   would make stopping runaway trains a priority. After all as this article has already said incidents such as the one that caused the Laq Megantic disaster are on the rise. One of the other problems with the governments line of change, is with one of most daring, albeit mundane parts of the issue - the tanker cars themselves. 

The type of train car used for oil transport is Canada is overwhelming the DOT-111A Tank Car. Here’s a quote about the car’s safety features 

“… DOT-111A  have [sic:has] a high incidence of tank integrity failure when involved in accidents and that certain hazardous materials are transported in these tank cars even though better protected cars (less liable to release the transported product when involved in accidents) are available." 

We can’t expect politicians to act immediately, after all the amount of infrastructure, cars, engines, track etc. that is needed to run a railroad is immense, and replacing such a large part of that infrastructure would be an insurmountable cost for any company. So when was this report, the one determining these cars have a much higher rate of failure than others available, released, i’ll take a sip of coffee and assume it’s recently and not that the Canadian government ignored such dire warnings for decades…

1994…

(This post is already getting pretty dark,
so i've tried to brighten it momentarily
with this photo)

Not only that, but 1994 represented the Canadian Transportation bureau bringing this to our politicians attention by citing and earlier American report from 1991.

So what the hell right ? Our politicians clearly know about this problem and have for more than 25 years, the issue is clearly getting worse, why is nothing being done? Who is tying our politicians hands on this issue ?

You are.

(The same "you" that made the cover of Time)

Canadian Politicians can say they want to fix the problem all they want, but the truth is they know, just as you soon will, that instituting the very solution to the problem of runaway rail equipment, would put any politician out of a job, ensuring they could never actually see the change through. 

So what is this magic solution ? Well if you’re about 60% of the population by my serviette-math (napkin -math for my non existent US readers) you might not like it. 

Pipelines. 

Now hold on a second, put down your pitchfork and give me a chance to make my case.

Canada moves quite a lot of oil, we are a rather large long country after all, and most of what we have (oil wise anyway, all the people reside in the middle) is on one side of the country. Because of current opposition to pipelines, we transport an alarming amount of that oil by rail. As i’ve already said, this is safety wise a pretty bad move, as far as efficiency goes, it doesn’t get much better. 

The basic process as you can imagine is taking a lot of this oil, confining it to a small tank, attaching that tank to a long string of other tanks, then pulling this with a giant locomotive across the country at an incline of no more than 2.2% - oh and occasionally the brakes on these locomotives don’t work, or are improperly locked causing tragic loss of life, a calamitous damage. Because of all this the rail is usually the last option for moving oil, but because of the political reality of pipelines that I mentioned earlier it has to be used in areas where safer infrastructure isn’t available. Rail transport in Canada moved the equivalent of 167 million barrels of oil in 2013, and about 1,307 Mboe (Million barrel of oil equivalent) from 2003-2013. During this period there was 296 accidents where oil spilled. Due to the nature of this mode of transport almost all of these incidents where spills occurred were outdoors. 

When you flip the coin, during the same period there were 1,226 pipeline incidents. While that number seems initially higher, the amount of oil transported by pipeline from 2003-2013 was a startling 24,909 Mboe. That means pipelines moved a little over 19 times the amount of oil as rail did. When you remember were talking about millions of barrels of oil here, this becomes pretty astounding. Now if you’re not already crunching the math, let me put it out there. This means per barrel oil transported by by pipeline there is a 0.049 % chance of a spill. By rail transport, of every barrel transported 0.227% or about one in five barrels leak. It is over 4.5 times more likely to have a spill if we move a barrel of oil by rail, rather than through a pipeline. This is not the end, because about 83% of pipeline spills do not occur “in pipe” or out in the wild where serious damage can occur. 83% of pipeline spills, happen in oil processing facilities where many safeguards are in place, and product does not make it to the environment. Compare this to rail, which as I already said transports most of its oil outdoors, and 75% of spills do occur directly in the environment with little to no safeguards.

These numbers and facts while startling, do not in any way compare to the images a Laq Megantic burning. Those images do their best to try to represent the true impact of transporting oil via rail, rather than the much, much, safer pipeline option.

No matter how much politicians like Marc Garneau say they will stop rail disasters from occurring, no matter how many safeguards are added, or dangerous tanker cars replaces, putting oil into little tanks and dragging it from one side of the country to another will always a terrible option. Politicians know this, but we, the public, with our heads so deep in the sand of bad environmentalism and pipeline hate, we have tied our representatives hands. 

Its time to wake up and do the one thing that will stop, the tragedies of transporting oil by rail, stop transporting oil by rail. 

note: most of the hard data from this report was taken from the Fraser institutite study linked here