Shannon Stubbs, Conservative MP for Lakeland, is a rookie opposition backbencher but she has been one of the heaviest hitters on the forefront of the fight for Alberta and for Canadian energy sector jobs.
I met her down at the Vegreville rodeo grounds, in the heart of her riding, to talk about the amazing success of her last House of Commons petition, her new petition and what she thinks about the rabid lefties who attacked oil patch advocate, Bernard Hancock.
Stubbs is standing out as a rising star in the Conservative caucus and she is working hard to get Albertans back to work.
She’s a much needed voice, especially when the four Alberta Liberal MPs have lost their tongues.
Click here to visit her website to add your voice and let the Liberals know that Canadians can’t afford another tax.
Photo credit: Facebook/Shannon Stubbs
<a class="tweet-url username" href="http://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=david">david</a> ROSS...leviticus 2013… Thanks to Rachael, I have no fkn day job. I very much want to refine and develop our resources. We have been blessed with an abundance, hence why I feel it to be a good investment to ship raw materials for a certain amount of time thus generating the needed monies to build the infrastructure necessary to set us up for the LONG HAUL. Investment has been driven out of the province David, big money would be needed to do this . Its all moot with the NDP in power and hell bent on destroying the oil patch, along with Mr. Metro and Butt head in Ottawa. David, the way our governments are destroying jobs it may not matter. Sorry I’m not up to your economic standards David, I lack in many areas I guess.REPUBLIC OF SASKALTA
No David… All our resources like gas and oil should be refined at home and sold internationally as a finished product..
The same as lumber…
Maybe we differ slightly in our views of natural resources but I am glad we agree that separation would be the best thing for the western provinces.
………but as it stands, as long as it is cheaper to refine oil elsewhere than to spend years and double digit billions building more refineries, that is what these companies will do to best maintain their profit margin. I don’t like it either, but last time I checked no business does business to lose money. If the formula doesn’t work they go where it does work. It isn’t something you can legislate, unless of course the government (tax payer money)spends the cash to build themselves. Where do you think that money will come out of, the benefits of which wouldn’t be seen for a decade at least.
The proposed refinery in Kitimat is contingent upon financing and if it can survive its opponents holding it up in court (‘first’ nations and enviro nazis.) If it were built it would be good for BC eventually. Being so close to tidewater is a big bonus. I hope it happens but I am not holding my breath.
I have known people who worked in the patch years ago and I know people who work there now. They aren’t druggies and don’t buy hookers. Maybe the government can do something about the unions who should stay out of the way of the companies who really don’t need the safety issue or the bad press and are trying to clean up any drug issues.
It’s due to politicians with your mind set that we are becoming more and more third world . WE’ve been sending our raw resources out of the country since time began. We simply cannot afford to do that any longer.
I agree with you on one thing; Wind power is a fantasy. There is nothing more uneconomical ,inefficient, undependable and environmentally disastrous as wind turbines . The wind never blows at the constant forces required to generate any meaningful power. And when it does the efficiency is still very low. One humungous 100ft (wing span) wind mill sitting in a persons back yard running at peak efficiency would still not be enough power to run an electric furnace of one standard home in the winter in Alberta. Just not enough power .
In short , it is no place I would encourage anyone to send their son or daughter to work as a stating job.
If hue or she wasn’t in drugs when they left home there is a high chance they would be after spending time on the rigs.
Having inspected all industry in BC , the oil patch has the highest incidence of drug abuse out of all industrial sectors. It is rampant and needs the attention of our local ,provincial and federal governments. FACT.
LEVITICUS…. Please, some practicality. In a perfect world we could produce all finished product from our natural resources. We are not prepared to do ALL at this time. and we have hundreds if not thousands of years of said resources. The biggest problem we encounter is how the governments waste the money when it comes in, and never seem to look at expanding our turf with off shoot business.
As for separation, with you all the way Levticus 2013
DJBT et al
The only reason its not happening right now is due to inept , greedy politicians and oil companies looking for instant gratification and quick money. “Lets just keep on logging and drilling and sending our raw resources and hundreds of thousands of potential jobs to China and elsewhere because we have lots of oil and logs” is the greedy mindset of those in positions who make that decision.
If it is profitable for a country to purchase and ship our raw resources thousands of miles into their own country, process it and manufacture it into an end product and sell it back to us at a profit I fail to see any logic and reasoning that we cannot do the same thing with far huger profit when we own the raw resource in the first place. Please get serious. Very naive statement Liza if you really believe what you said is true.
“I know how I would vote if there were a referendum today. It needs to be announced just before it happens, and one must have lived in Alberta for at least 6 months( or more if the rules allow it) , or the western provinces will be flooded with immigrants and eastern plants to skew the vote”
To have a true stake in Alberta or anywhere for that matter you should be multi generational but I think five years or maybe even 10 would eliminate any of the question for separation..
Only patriot voices would be heard and the lefties even in our own province would be foaming at the mouth and intellectually incoherent for having such a racial and strict voting policy to skew the vote and vote in favor of leaving Ontario and Quebec behind.
Yep.. 5yrs would probably do..!!!
I remember some crazy crazy parties at Syncrude in the 70s and the 80s… and not just syncrude..
But in those days that was the norm everybody drank hard everybody worked hard and everybody showed up for work.
The oil patch is a little different today..
We are buried in the rules and procedures from the textbooks of management and operations..
But even with all these professional thinkers they still manage to hurt as many of us as when we used to think for ourselves..
Team leads that lead from behind a desk..
It costs just as much money to pump crude or pump refined diesel to #1 grade gas and everything in between..
Also we have the added benefit of local jobs… We should not be shipping anything out for refining..!!
This article is from 2012 and things are much worse now. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/should-canada-refine-its-own-oilsands-bitumen-1.1248009
David Ross, I feel your pain, but who is going to invest in Canadian refineries right now if they wouldn’t in 2012? There are enough refineries to service our domestic needs at least according to this article. Refineries for any export would have to be built. Do you think it would be prudent to do anything other than let the market decide whether it makes sense to build more refineries? It is cheaper to refine it elsewhere for export. The alternative would be for the taxpayer to bankroll them. Never a good idea, even if the economics were there to support it. If it made sense to do it it would be happening.
Also, what a bias view of drugs in the oil and gas sector. It is every where that money is made. No one sector can lay claim to abuse. I work(ed) in this sector, I would bet that none other is tested like ours.
Unless exporting raw resources out of the country is made illegal it will never stop. Our country will continue being expiated like some third world country.
Only an IDIOT would continue down this path. There should be no “meantime”.
You don’t ship it 500 miles . You build the facility very close to where you mine, extract or log the resources. There is absolutely no way Canada has enough oil refineries to refine and produce all the oil products Canadians consume. A thinking person would know they need to be built.
Your main stream “simplistic” way of thinking is the very reason why we are still importing refined oil products and manufactured oil based goods at exhorbitant prices from the very raw oil we export. Your way of thinking is the very reason why we export raw logs to China, they manufacture a piece of plywood and send it back to us. Including shipping it is still cheaper than than what we pay for it made right in Canada. Obviously this is due to Unions and outdated non-automated mills and plants. Also due to unions. But to sit there and preach to me that it is uneconomical to manufacture our own products is narrow and simplistic thinking at the least.
Time to wake up and take a Donald Trump approach and bring our jobs back home and quit saying is cant be done or it is too uneconomical to do. Its exactly the opposite.
Far from an over exaggeration on the drug use in the patch.
Have you ever worked there on the rigs?
As far as manufacturing goes, get the federal and provincial governments to co operate with an economic climate which would be conducive to attracting manufacturers and maybe more plastic products would be produced here. At the moment Canadian companies manufacturing here without some sort of taxpayer subsidy are few . The reasons being the fault of government regulation and taxation.
What you are advocating would be nice wouldn’t it, however none of your suggestions are economically practical. Your argument is simplistic.
Regarding drugs in the patch, I also have first hand knowledge, and I can say that your comment is a gross generalization and misrepresentation of employment in the industry. And if you want to blame anybody blame unions for crying that random testing on rigs is an infringement of the workers human rights.
And finally, try re-reading Glenn’s post.
What are we going to do about the drug problem the “green energy patch” unleashes on us? When the country goes completely broke with the leftard green energy-carbon tax insanity, we will all turn to drugs to ease the pain of being broke and destitute. That surely is the purpose of the carbon scam, they want to control us all.
Yes Donald, we should advance our refining and manufacturing involvement with our natural resources. In the mean time, exporting raw materials for monetary gain is a GOOD thing. The REVENUES from these exports could be used to build refineries etc so in the future value added dollars would increase. Other than the few with a clue, such as Brad Wall, we are doomed. The drug problem in the patch must be minimal now, there is NO patch.
DJBT and his sicko-phants
So all the oil I put in my truck is refined and packaged within 200 miles of my home? Total nonsense. We ship it in from the southern Sates somewhere.
All the plastics I use in untold products are manufactured within 200 miles from my home? Nonsense.
All the gasoline I put in my truck is refined within 200 miles of my home? More nonsense.
We need to refine our raw oil and turn it into usable products right here in Canada and ship and use it ourselves all over Canada and the United States. We need to manufacture and ship oil based products all over the world thus creating enormous wealth and prosperity for our country. The same is true for any of our raw natural resources. Nothing should ever get shipped out of this country in its raw state. That is just straight common sense. Anybody arguing with that has sold out to the Globalists or has the IQ of a gnat.
I speak with first hand knowledge of the drug problem in the Alberta and BC oil fields. The oil companies benefit from young workers right out of high school who get hooked on drugs right in the oil patch.They blow their pay cheques and are back for more work every shift turn around. They can work 15 years in the oil patch making over 100,000 per year and not have a pot to piss in. In that sense it is a “dead end” job with no future Liza. These kids will never save for education or be able to advance in the oil industry due to their drug addiction. They are used and then tossed aside by the oil industry when they start blowing shifts or showing up to work high or drunk. The oil companies do not help these young kids unless the kids come to them for help before they get in to trouble at work by showing up high, drunk or hungover. In the latter case they are fired or never called back to work. From there it is down hill for them unless they have supportive families. The oil companies do not drug test enough period. They are fully aware of the problem, fail to be proactive and intervene ,are complicit and in effect exploit these kids as an almost guaranteed labour force until they are all used up by drugs and prostitution.
These are the hard facts Canadians need to be aware of.
How do you expect the oil companies to succeed in eliminating illegal drug trafficking and addiction when all the king’s horses and all the king’s men have failed to do so even though it is their job and not the oil companies….it is my understanding that most oil patch companies piss test on hiring. And which city livelihood is drug free?
That sounds good Ross, but my question is can we do that and still remain competitive?
http://www.albertaoilmagazine.com/2013/05/suncor-random-drug-test-case/
Here is a snippet from link,
“In the last three years, supervisors at Suncor Energy Inc. have found marijuana in the maintenance room of an upgrader, a bottle of vodka at an oil sands mine and crack cocaine on a company work site.
Those discoveries – and 97 others – shocked the country’s largest oil producer. Suncor already has drug-sniffing dogs patrolling company operations, a drug pre-screening program for new hires and mandatory drug and alcohol tests whenever a safety accident occurs. But the discovery of crack cocaine, and cocaine use among some heavy-equipment operators, led Suncor to develop a new program: randomized drug and alcohol testing for all employees and contractors in what it calls ‘safety-sensitive positions.’ "
“The union says randomized drug and alcohol testing is a violation of human rights and an intrusion on workers’ privacy. The Alberta Court of Appeal agreed and granted an injunction, effectively putting the program on ice. The case is now before an arbitrator.” I take exception to your comment regarding, “dead-end jobs on the oil rigs”. Those jobs feed families, allow them to prosper and contribute to the Canadian economy. To suggest they are ‘dead end’ and are only good for causing drug addiction is a gross generalization over simplification and down right misrepresentation of employment in the industry.
Just as importantly the oil and drilling companies must be held accountable for the illicit drug trade that has infested the oil industry in Alberta and BC . Many young lives have been and are still being destroyed by exploitation at the hands of the oil companies and drug pushers. There is a symbiotic relationship between them both. The oil companies know many young workers are hooked on the drugs being pushed by pushers who have set up shop in the oil patch. However young kids that sop end all their money on drugs will keep coming back to the dead-end job on the oil rigs to support their habit. The oil companies have a never ending supply of drug addicted kids hire , lay off and rehire over and over again until inevitably those drug addicts end up on the streets of Calgary or Vancouver because they are no longer employable. This sad picture of the oil patch industry in Canada is a reality that many Canadians are totally unaware of.
Until the oil companies become accountable for this disgraceful situation it will continue.
The Federal government doesn’t want to use our oil or even let it out of the ground. That is simply unacceptable, (as are their plans for electoral reform)Many of the repercussions of their proposals will be irrevocable and change the face of the country for ever.
Is he speaking about Sean Penson? Sean said: “The oil an gas industry is dead. Accept that fact, and move on. Follow your provincial government’s leadership and change!”
Somehow I think that for Sean to say that he is very real.
More likely, Drew is speaking about the long-haired guy brought into pictures of the Alberta MP. He is certainly real, and well worth the money. He looks legitimate with his log-hair and his overalls unbuttoned just to there.
“I do work in Information Technology and I believe that we need to get away from oil and gas and coal and start to re-balance our energy systems and grids so that we use cleaner sources like geothermal, hydroelectric…”… Gee JS,did you say “HYDROELECTRIC”?… Okay then guru “Information Technologist John Siciliano”, why are the Greenies opposing the Site C dam project on the Peace River, which would provide “clean energy” for a hundred or more years to future generations of British Columbians!… What?… Because maybe eight families have to be paid and re-located off of the flood plain?… It’s that sort of “fart for brains logic” that drives me nuts…
He comes across as a real oil worker. He certainly deserves his pay.