metroid_dragon

British Columbian.

I've heard many people talk about the money the Kinder Morgan pipeline from the Oil Sands will bring to BC; however, nobody seems to have any solid idea of figures. So let's look into the facts, mostly pulled from Kai Nagata.

890,000 barrels per day; or, about two* billion dollars worth of product every month.

If the toll were $5 per barrel, Kinder Morgan would earn $134 million a month from the oil producers.

From that, the company estimates it would pay an average of $1.4 million in municipal taxes, spread between the communities that house its facilities along the route.

Kinder Morgan would also pay $822,000 a month in provincial taxes. It costs $370,000,000 to keep the province running for that length of time. Kinder Morgan's contribution would amount to a fifth of one percent of our current budget.

Put another way, the monthly provincial tax revenue from the pipeline would average out to 18 cents per British Columbian.

Bearing in mind that no system can anticipate every possible permutation of natural hazard, mechanical failure, and human error, I think we, as a province, should be demanding a MUCH bigger cut from the pie while we still have the power to do so. We have an incredible amount of leverage here, let's use it.

*note that my calculations may be off, but $101 / barrel * 890,000 barrels * 30 days = nearly 2.7 Billion dollars. Mayhaps I'm missing information though. adjust the numbers above slightly to compensate.

Kinder Morgan estimates the expansion project will mean 300 to 850 construction jobs (either with the company or hired through contractors) related to the terminal and the pipeline. That's not including jobs involving traffic management, trucking, first aid and supplying sand and gravel. According to Kinder Morgan, there are also indirect economic benefits linked to support services, such as the food and hospitality industries and commercial businesses that support construction."

http://www2.canada.com/.../burnaby.../7476933/story.html...

Still the bottom line for most British Columbians, (including myself) will be less than a quarter from Kinder Morgan itself. Considering the massive profits the company intends to reap, and considering I hunt on the public land the pipeline will be crossing I do not feel that a quarter, $0.25, the elusive moose, is sufficient payment for the destruction of public lands I, and many other British Columbians, use every year.

The vast majority of the pipeline is thankfully going to be buried, but I still believe that we British Columbians need to demand FAR more out of this deal.

If I've gotten any facts wrong please do correct me, I'm not intentionally trying to spread misinformation, and I'm a layman on the subject.

Here are some of the horror stories I've come across on the web. Could you confirm that these are indeed true? I pulled most of this from the sites linked above.

Force Internet service providers to collect and hand over your private data to anyone without privacy safeguards.

Could this be expanded upon? Who can request the information? Could I go in and get my neighbours internet history?

See the Electronic Frontier Foundation's analysis to learn more about the ways the TPP increases the threat of litigation from Big Media. Under the TPP, Big Media could come after you in court even "without the need for a formal complaint by a private party or right holder".

So These are the guys who will sue grandma for $80,000 per song she downloaded who are about to get MORE litigation power? WTF citation - https://www.eff.org/files/filenode//EFF%20TPP%20TPM%20Analysis_0.pdf

Create a parallel legal system of international tribunals that will undermine national sovereignty and allow conglomerates to sue countries for laws that infringe on their profits.

How would this affect things like Supply Management)? I believe that this tariff is controlled by the Provinces, and so could any individual province say "Fuck the TPP" and keep Supply Management in place? Is this where the international tribunals could come in and sue the Prairie provinces for protecting their farming economy?

terminate your access to the Internet.

(Could anyone elaborate?)

This is seeming pretty shady, I hear it also bans Transactional Taxes, which proportionally taxes those who exchange money more often (read:banks) but typically at the rate of only 0.05%.

In my opinion this agreement is looking like another case of corporations jerking off corporations in the back room. That's a shame because a free trade agreement which is more forward looking and transparent, while less blatantly corrupt could be quite beneficial. Time to scrap this one and try again.

For my fellow Canadians: Currently, Canada’s Copyright Act criminalizes certain types of copyright infringement for profit. TPP would expand this to cases without any direct or indirect motive of financial gain, as well as cases of aiding and abetting, which could be applied to internet service providers. - http://infojustice.org/archives/9508

I would like to thank you for not banning subreddits that I find disturbing. Even if I don't like the content I don't have to consume it. Censorship is telling a man he can't enjoy a steak because a baby can't chew it. Intentional ignorance of our human natures is unhealthy for civilization / Civil rights circlejerk.

But seriously, Thanks for keeping the platform inclusive for all and ethical (despite these sometimes feeling like conflicting priorities). You've done a stand up job on fighting the good fight. I got a lot of respect for you all.

Over the past couple years I've made up moose, elk, mule deer, and black bear souvlaki. I love BC.

I encourage eight.