Richard White
Senior Member
It may have been a disaster but exporting the natural resource then buying it back at a premium is not ideal.
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President Joe Biden's United States of America
- Thread starter W. K. Lis
- Start date
It may have been a disaster but exporting the natural resource then buying it back at a premium is not ideal.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Whilst I like the idea of reducing natural resource extraction, what will the 150,000 Albertans thus employed do for work? They can’t all become farmers.
lenaitch
Senior Member
I don't have a problem exporting our natural resources. What I do object to is exporting them not-value-added. We should not be betting our economic strength on exporting unrefined crude or raw logs.
afransen
Senior Member
So we should be baking cakes and exporting those instead of wheat?
I don't think we should second guess the private sector on how to most efficiently create value.
I don't think we should second guess the private sector on how to most efficiently create value.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Northern Light
Superstar
I'm all in favour of small business and socially-democratic, non-crony capitalism.
But the point of that is to promote the efficient delivery of societal value for us all; rewarding those who innovate in delivery of same.
The private sector, left to its own devices, particularly w/large employers, often doesn't represent the best interest of the country.
That's not an argument for large-scale nationalization; it is an argument for not having left Canada w/no capacity to produce its own vaccines.
In like fashion, it may well be more profitable for business to export unrefined, raw natural resources from Canada to the U.S.; that does not mean it represents the best value for Canada.
Do you know, major projects that require pressure-treated lumber have been delayed because we have lacked the product here in Canada, even though we produce the lumber that goes into said product?
You have to factor in not only the income not made here in employment, but the income not taxed here, the profit made by foreign, rather than domestic businesses and the costs to other businesses and consumers when evaluating these things.
The private sector often externalizes costs, the bill for which goes to others.
afransen
Senior Member
I'm not arguing for unfettered capitalism. But a command and control economy has been tried and has failed in innumerable times and places. Canada could view the ability to produce vaccines domestically as a strategic capability and contract with the private sector to secure that capability. But it would be a terrible idea to say, require that all vaccines used domestically be produced here. India and Brazil have tried policies like that--it is an utter disaster. Autarky is a recipe for being poor and deprived.
lenaitch
Senior Member
If cakes weren't so perishable, I would argue, yes, it would be better to export them than wheat. Value-added is employment-added, income-added and tax added.
I don't know if it is only a matter of a command and control economy. It can things like attractive/favourable/competitive tax rules, government support funding, etc. One big problem is US protectionism, which exists regardless of who's in the chair. A 2x4 milled here is no different than a 2x4 milled there from our lumber, but their industries have waged a regular and successful campaign to protect their industries. They also have a much broader sense of the concept of strategic importance in foreign ownership and government procurement.
I don't know if it is only a matter of a command and control economy. It can things like attractive/favourable/competitive tax rules, government support funding, etc. One big problem is US protectionism, which exists regardless of who's in the chair. A 2x4 milled here is no different than a 2x4 milled there from our lumber, but their industries have waged a regular and successful campaign to protect their industries. They also have a much broader sense of the concept of strategic importance in foreign ownership and government procurement.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
They are value added. We’re not shipping oil-encrusted sand to the US, but are instead removing the sand and making it into something of higher value. The customer then makes further changes to add additional value, and this repeats a few more times before it gets into our car’s gas tank. Same goes for lumber, we’re not exporting rough trees, but are adding value before we export them.
lenaitch
Senior Member
But why not higher? Refining into whatever the customer wants. They are only doing that upgrading to make it transportable. Even at that, the price per bbl is discounted because of the cost to make it useful for transportation and refining.
Exporting raw timber is not so much of an issue in the east but it is big business in the west. From the attached, BC axported ~$660Mn in raw logs last year.
British Columbia’s largest raw log exporters make pitch to deregulate
Federal government would do well to resist call by Mosaic Forest Management, before opportunities to process wood in province are further compromised British Columbia’s forest industry was in trouble long before anyone had heard the name of the virus now seared into our brains. Months before CO
www.policynote.ca
Admiral Beez
Superstar
I don’t think expanding domestic petrochemical refining capacity is part of the Liberal’s green plan.
afransen
Senior Member
Why anyone would be clamouring for Canada to invest tens of billions in uneconomic oil infrastructure when it is essentially a sunset industry is beyond me. New refineries aren't really being built anywhere, why should we spend a bunch of money on them here when it will just cost more than the current arrangement?
afransen
Senior Member
Probably the less popular opinion is that we shouldn't be trying to block Alberta oil exports. I think Canada's accountability is for the CO2 we emit through our own consumption, and that is used to produce oil from oilsands. We shouldn't be trying to curb foreign emissions by constraining exports from Alberta. This won't work anyway, and just makes us poorer and stokes resentment in Alberta. Norway has this figured out.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Norway also figured out having a majority state-owned company (Equinor, ex-Statoil) contributing the profits to a state fund; Canada (and by extension Alberta) haven't done that; in fact, the oil industry itself is leaving a significant environmental legacy that had been downloaded to the government to address.
AoD
Northern Light
Superstar
Plastics are not going away, neither are Polymers. As of today that vast majority of these made from oil.
It is possible, to use some plant-based oils, in part, for some products as well as use recycled content; but I don't think oil, wholesale, is going away in the near term.
I do think new investment in the Oil Sands is likely in decline; though much of the existing industry has several decades left in it.
Bitumen/heavy crude of the type found in AB is actually very well suited to the plastics side of things.
I'm not a big fan of of the oil sands; I rather wish we/AB had not gone there; but having done so, maximizing our ROI as a nation would seem to make sense.
I'm a little confused by how in one post you suggest its a sunset industry and in another we should get out of the way of exports from it............
Those two things seem to be in contradiction.