Economics

Still no interest in exploring high Arctic: official
Last Updated: Friday, January 4, 2008 | 9:36 AM CT
CBC News

Companies have yet to take up the federal government's invitation to explore the high Arctic for oil and gas, even though that invitation has been extended for the sixth year in a row.

Richard Casey, an official with the federal Indian and Northern Affairs Department, told CBC News that there has been no interest from any company to explore for oil and gas around Axel Heiberg Island, located west of Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, or in any surrounding areas.

TransCanada wins bid to build natural gas pipeline out of Alaska

January 4, 2008 - 18:57

By: Jeannette Lee, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. (TSX:TRP) has beat out four competitors in a bid to build a natural gas pipeline out of Alaska that would supply energy to millions of consumers throughout North America, state officials announced Friday.

Hear no peak
by David Strahan
Letter to the Financial Times

Sir:

Just as the Financial Times’ news coverage of oil was beginning to improve (“Oil watchdog reworks reserves forecasts”, 27.12.07), Lex goes and spoils it with a truly shoddy analysis: “Peak no evil” (03.01.08) rehearsed all the old myths that have been comprehensively debunked in recent years.

Price too high: Weigh all costs of energy from oil shale, tar sands
Salt Lake Tribune Editorial // 01/01/2008 02:13:04 PM MST

It's obvious the Bush administration wants to go on record with the energy industry as having done everything it could to encourage development of oil deposits in the West, even those embedded in tar sands and shale, no matter the cost to the region's wild lands.

Fuelling Disaster: Beyond Alberta’s Culture of Resource Dependence

by Gordon Laird, Parkland Institute Editorialist Alberta

Sobering thoughts
Court ruling means Alberta's recreational drug users risk their jobs
By MINDY JACOBS // Fri, January 4, 2008

Casual pot smokers in Alberta who want to work in safety-sensitive positions had better pack up and move to Ontario. They're no longer welcome in the oilpatch.

A ruling by the Alberta Court of Appeal gives the green light to companies to fire -- or refuse to hire -- recreational pot users if they pose a potential safety risk.

Government foreign worker office long overdue - but still misses the point

Labour cautiously optimistic over government's foreign worker advocates

EDMONTON, Dec. 10 /CNW/ - The Alberta Federation of Labour reacted with
guarded optimism to the Government's new measures announced today to protect
temporary foreign workers.
The two special advisory offices for temporary foreign workers are a
welcome - if long overdue - measure," says AFL President Gil McGowan. "The AFL
had set up its own temporary foreign workers' advocate office last spring as a

Sex workers cashing in on Alberta's oil boom
Last Updated: Monday, April 16, 2007 | 3:30 AM MT
CBC News

Alberta's red-hot economy appears to be fuelling a flourishing sex trade as prostitutes follow men to the oil and gas fields.

And they're making big money when they get there, the sex-trade workers say.

"Truckers are big business and they're on the road for long stretches of time and they want to have adult entertainment," says Chastity, one of the strippers frequently seen working the bars in small boomtowns such as High Level, Alta.

$100 oil puts a new shine on Alberta
Record prices will fuel the world's interest in the oil sands, even as extraction costs soar
DAVID PARKINSON // January 3, 2008

Deepening nervousness over long-term global energy supplies will put Canada's rich oil sands even more in the global energy spotlight, economists said yesterday as crude touched $100 (U.S.) a barrel for the first time.

This article is put out by the "Journal of Commerce", and is a taste of the lengths that the system is going to in order to create the vast slavery pool that is the "Temporary Foreign Worker" program. Take note of their "explanations". Keep in mind that if the goals for production -- five times current levels, as spelled out by the Security and Prosperity Partnership [SPP]-- are to even be considered, TENS OF THOUSANDS of such workers will be needed for all aspects of tar sands 'development'.

--M

Industry refutes allegations of widespread mistreatment of temporary foreign workers