Like... do inflamed Canadians hold the door open for you but not tell you to have a good day...ah?

Jokes aside, Canada actually stands to profit well from global warming. With thousands of years of resting, fertile top soil, lands not suitable for agriculture due to short growing seasons... well, you'll have better growing seasons. Plus still be cool enough to not be a scorching wasteland. Just being realistic. Many countries used for agriculture will dwindle in the average increase of temperature. Canada will actually increase. Same with Russia, most of Siberia is fantastic top soil, just really, really shitting growing seasons... well, lack there of.

Har har stereotypes.

Most of Canada's north is in fact granite "Canadian shield" country with thin or non-existent top soils. See map here: https://cdn.britannica.com/s:700x450/98/180898-050-810A6879/...

Also the bulk of the population lives next to the border, in areas as far south as northern California / southern Oregon.

In reality Canada will not likely benefit economically from global warming because for its entire history it's been mostly an exporter of resources, not a producer of finished goods. Right now a large part of GDP from exports is from oil and gas, and the dominant economic class here benefits from keeping it that way. Similar to Russia, actually.

Canada already has plenty of fertile soils (rapidly being destroyed by urban sprawl, but that's another story). And it used to be one of the world's biggest food exporters. It is now a net food importer. Because it's cheaper to produce food elsewhere with dirt cheap labour in Mexico and so on. That isn't likely to change.

I know stereotypes are fun. Us yankee-pollocks are consistently drunk and shooting off guns, all the time.

Also... humans... if there's a will, there's a way. Just because today is not true, does not mean tomorrow is not. That's been human history. If the food starts to not come in from other countries, I highly doubt Canadians, in all their kindness, won't result to scorching the earth and planting potatoes. Hopefully they don't use them to make vodka. But that's still plenty of land in the west that if the population goes hungry, they're going to figure it out... let's see, in America we have invading to spread freedom... oh! Canadians! "Looks like you all need some kindness!"

That and when it comes to Russia, you anglo-saxon-frenchie descendants have an extremely bad habit of underestimating that bear. If the Russians have the ability to adequately utilize that hell hole called Siberia, they will. Right now, there's nothing to be gained from a 2 month growing season. If temps rise enough to about a 4-6 month season. They will force farmers out there. As working farmers or as ground up fertilizer. Because they've done it in the past.

The rural parts of Canada that aren't currently being used for growing are in the arctic/near arctic.

The changing climate won’t make the days longer. Canada will always have a shorter growing season.

As per this article[0], "The eastern provinces rely on an oil supply that's imported from Saudi Arabia, Africa and Venezuela."

Canada, an oil rich country, imports oil from Saudi Arabia... how does that make sense.

It would be better for Canada and the environment if a pipe is built. First, Canadian environmental standards vs. Saudi, Africa, Venezuela. Second, less tankers burning diesel and oil tanker accidents. Third, Canada keeps the economic benefits.

[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-imports-oil-while-ba...

Logistics and refinery technology. It can be easier to move a cargo of crude via ocean than build a pipeline. And refineries are not all identical, western canada has tar sands that produce very heavy oil which require a much more complex refinery with more capital expense, the existing refineries in eastern canada have lower complexity refineries that are well suited to refining Saudi Arabian oil.

Actually incorrect. Bitumen from Alberta shipped through Line 9 is now refined in Ontario and Quebec and is now the majority of oil consumption in central Canada. The poster above posted an out of date article and then drew incorrect conclusions from obsolete information.

No, it's not out-dated dude. In a different post from you, you're quoting the National Observer which I've never heard of. In Wikipedia's entry it says this: "According to an article by Vivian Krause in the Financial Post, the National Observer has received funding from The Tides Foundation of San Francisco, and Linda Solomon Wood is the sister of a former chairman of the Tides Foundation. Terence Corcoran in the National Post referred to the National Observer as a "left-wing Vancouver online magazine".

For facts: As per BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2019 report, Canada consumed 108.8 millions tonnes of oil equiv. It imported 29.1 of crude. 65% from US, remainder from rest of world. 19% from Saudi.

Come. On. Read what you just posted. It does not disagree with the article I posted. 108.8 million tonnes of crude vs 29.1 tonnes imported means only 25% of _all of Canadian_ oil is imported, and of that 65% of it is from the U.S., not Saudi.

By your own quoted numbers only 5% of Canadian crude comes from Saudi Arabia. (20% of 29.1 = 5.82 million barrels, 5.82 million barrels out of 108 million barrels is 5.3%)

The CBC article was 2012. Before Line 9 reversal. You may not want it to be true, but it is. And you actually just confirmed it.

And in fact most of that Saudi oil is going to eastern provinces, not central Canada:

https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/nrg/ntgrtd/mrkt/snpsht/2019/03-03m...

Breaks down oil imports by source and province and -- this is the NEB, not a 'left wing' source -- its first sentence is: "Canada imports around one barrel of crude oil for every seven and a half barrels it produces."

Note that the rest of the page only breaks down imports and doesn't show domestic sources, which as I pointed out is 75% of consumed oil _nationally_ and 90% of Ontario's.

Also here from the NEB: https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/nrg/ntgrtd/mrkt/snpsht/2019/08-01q...

Look a the pie chart "crude oil supplies to Quebec" and look at how small the "Other" in the pie chart is. There's Kenney & Scheer's "saudi tankers."

Even if you accept your argument, as you pointed out, a pipeline (Line 9) helped the situation.

Sure, an existing pipeline. It was originally built to move oil east decades ago. Then it was reversed because oil coming from the other direction was more economical. Then they reversed it back recently.

My overall point is that almost every Albertan I've spoken to doesn't even know about Line 9, and politicians and media there keep repeating points about Quebec and Saudi Oil and Saudi tankers, and being denied access to markets. This doesn't accord with reality: oil from Alberta is already distributing across the country. Oil from Saudi Arabia is only a minor part of the mix in Quebec and almost none in Ontario.

Also worth pointing out that as a % of GDP and as % of exports manufacturing still tops oil and gas and mining. So the claims that "Alberta is holding up the economy of the country" sound pretty unsound and shrill.

In fact, when Alberta is doing really well because of high oil prices, the manufacturing centres suffer due to a high dollar.

What does it matter if it's existing or not. The pipe helps Canada reduce spending money elsewhere. It helps the environment vs trucks, rail and tankers. A new pipe will help further, whether you think 25% imports is still high or not (it is still high, see next paragraph). You've already shown the benefits of adjusting Line 9.

Oil prices are not high. Today WTI is at $54 and Alberta oil (which is also Canada's oil) is selling at $12 cheaper (21%) because of transportation issues... that's then on top of that we pay an addition cost for refined products! $12 is per barrel... and we import 592 million barrels PER DAY according to the website you linked.

EDIT: you also said in a previous comment "and the world wide price of oil has been sagging for a half decade because of global macroeconomic forces"... but now you're saying oil is high? Ok, I'm really out of this discussion now, you're just making stuff up.

What? I never said oil prices are high. You just didn't read. I said _when_ oil prices are high, central Canada's manufacturing industry suffers.

Stop throwing insults around and read.

I can't reply under your reply.

>imported means only 25% of _all of Canadian_ oil is imported

Yes! 25% of Canadian oil is imported! Don't know why wrote "only". An oil rich country gets 1/4 of it's oil from elsewhere, including Saudi and apparently Azerbaijan.

Anyway, HN reply mechanism is nudging me to move on from this discussion, so I will.

That 25% number does not accord with the CBC article from 2012 you posted. And it's for the entire country -- from looking at the NEB chart the majority of that is going to the Atlantic provinces.

You posted an extremely out of date article.

This is actually incorrect since the reversal of Line 9, 90% of Ontario's oil consumption comes from Alberta. 44% of Quebec's comes from Alberta, with the remainder being other North American sources from the U.S.

Here's my source: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/11/13/news/guess-where...

Suncor's refinery in Quebec now processes 25k barrels of Alberta bitumen a day.

There's links in the article to primary sources, including industry documents.

I know many Albertans think we're burning Saudi oil here, but we're not. Strangely enough, Kenney doesn't seem to advertise this fact, and keeps going on about oil tankers going up the St Lawrence.

P.S. I'm born and raised in Alberta. Moved to Ontario in my 20s. Line 9 runs 2km north of my house.

I replied to another comment of yours. It's not out-dated info.

And from another HN commenter: "This seems more like a heuristically constructed perception of reality, presented as if it is fact."

"Constructed perception of reality" is _exactly_ what's going on in Alberta right now.

Read my reply to your comment. All you did was confirm my numbers.

> This demand whimper thing is inflaming politics very poorly in Canada. There is a very vocal and strong wing of right wing politics centred out of Alberta that blames central Canadian liberalism for its economic woes (for not building pipeline capacity and enacting carbon taxes).

This seems factual.

> Or at least that's their public line to inflame the masses while they know full well that their oil is expensive low quality oil and the world wide price of oil has been sagging for a half decade because of global macroeconomic forces that the rest of Canada has no control over.

This seems more like a heuristically constructed perception of reality, presented as if it is fact.

> It's becoming quite toxic, and is an example (along with Trump's nonsense coal jobs rhetoric) of the kind of thing that we are going to have to deal with as the economic and political realities of climate change become more visible.

This seems to equate the economic feasibility of coal jobs with that of oil in Canada (if a pipeline to transport the oil existed). Again, this doesn't seem consistent with a factual evaluation of reality.

> (That, and xenophobic hostility to refugees which will inevitably increase as climate change further damages the global south.)

  xenophobic having or showing a dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries.

This seems to presume a specific line of reasoning behind a presumed level of disapproval of refugees (and I would presume this judgement would also extend to immigrants in general?), when the reality is there is actually no way to know with a high level of certainty precisely what and how (or if) large groups of people think on complicated multi-dimensional topics.

The mind is a very tricky thing, it seems prudent to learn the sorts of powerful but error-prone things it does without our conscious knowledge, such that we can improve the quality of discourse on these and other topics, before time runs out.