Hey all,
I don't know about anyone else here, but I am completely effing stunned by the "clarification" from the Sask NDP that our side supports Keystone XL. I haven't lived in Saskatchewan for too long, so perhaps I am not understanding the internal or external pressures upon the NDP here to support it. I am from Alberta, where there's even less room to oppose tarsands projects of any kind, and even there, the Alberta NDP point-blank opposes the construction of Keystone XL.
I'm no energy economist, but the main thing with the clarification is that it ignores and even undermines the primary insight that environmentalists and progressive economists have been conveying to the public for years, which is that we will get the energy that we subsidize to make economically possible. So the transition to renewables will never come, it seems to me, precisely because with Keystone and similar projects we subsidize and consolidate the cheapness of dirty oil.
There is also an abundance of evidence out there to push back against the claims of jobs, jobs, jobs which to me should be able to be easily articulated from the comparably massive media platform that the NDP has, a platform that is denied to grassroots environmental and social justice activists.
On top of everything else, the clarification fails to be framed as anything other than a massive cave-in to Brad Wall and the Saskatchewan Party— as agreement rather than concurrence with qualifications. The email that I got today just seemed surprised that it was a big deal at all.
Yeah. So I don't get it. Any insight on why the NDP here would apparently fold its hand when they could've been really strong on this and clobbered the Sask Party with Keystone would be super appreciated.