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The Americans are frothing at the mouth. So are oil company CEOs, but Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach was absolutely correct in commissioning a report to examine oil royalties in Alberta. The report, made public this week, recommends increasing overall royalties by 20%, equivalent to $2-billion based on 2006 revenues. It's important to note that what is being discussed is not taxation but the royalty paid to Albertans who own the lion's share of subsurface mineral rights in the province. And they are not getting as much revenue from their resources as competing jurisdictions are, according to the report. Industry spokesmen...

CALGARY -- With U.S. demand for Canadian crude forecast to double within eight years, investment in Alberta's oilsands is expected to snowball in the next 18 months with several multi-billion dollar projects in the queue. A report from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers shows U.S. refiners looking for 3.1 million barrels of heavy oil by 2015, maintaining the pressure on Alberta companies to develop new projects. And with Petro-Canada laying out its plans for a $26-billion project in northern Alberta last week, oilsands spending is forecast to continue to rise -- an estimated $35 billion in 2007 and '08....

Canada's tar sands, which have become a major and secure supplier of oil to the United States, have also been singled out as a major target for American and Canadian environmentalists. Issuing press releases against them, however, is one thing. Going without the increasing flood of oil they are pouring into the American market would be quite another. Two American environmental groups have declared war on the tar sands. One is the Freedom from Oil Coalition whose San Francisco-based director is formerly of Alberta, the province where almost all the tar sands are located. He was in Alberta last week...

Oilsands gain a dirty name Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post Published: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 Forget Canada's image as a source of secure energy to the United States. That was a couple of years ago, when the flavours of the day south of the border were indignation over soaring gasoline prices, while dependence on Middle East oil was the root of all evil, including the war in Iraq. Now that Hollywood actors are buying carbon offsets to feel even better about their air-conditioned mansions and private jets, Canada is held in contempt for being the source of the dirtiest oil...

SUNDRE, Alta. -The killing grounds extend for 1 kilometres along the top of Parker Ridge, a rugged landscape 40 kilometres west of Sundre where grizzlies, wolf and cougars prowl. Sixteen wild horses have died here since 2004, but not in the jaws of predators. The horses have been shot by a human enemy, their carcasses left to rot and be scavenged. For one horse, the bullet entered its withers, just behind the neck, causing instant paralysis and an agonizing death. Its slowly escaping body heat melted the snow around it, leaving a perfect impression of the horse in the frozen...

Stéphane Dion, who came from fourth-place standing to win the leadership of Canada's Liberal Party early this month, declared immediate war on the minority Conservative government last week, and made it clear he is determined to force a late-winter election. Implicitly, he made something else clear. He will attack the government on two principal issues, both of them integral to Canadian-American relations. One is the Kyoto Treaty, the other the Canadian role in Afghanistan. If he wins the election, therefore, America's northern neighbor will once again become vaguely hostile territory, as it was under the last Liberal government. On Kyoto,...

Sadly, the Liberals know not what they do John Robson, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Friday, December 08, 2006 Based on the record, Stephane Dion's victory at the Liberal convention is not surprising. But it is troubling. And yes, I predicted it on the radio beforehand; any fool can be wise after the fact. First, the federal Liberals have not won an electoral majority with an anglophone leader since 1945: before steel-belted radials, TVs in homes, or the birth of any of the eight convention leadership contenders. Liberals' blithe self-image as the Natural Governing Party may obscure their vision of...

Be nice. It's now the law in one Canadian city. Calgary, Alberta, has new regulations that ban public fighting, spitting, defecation and urination. Loitering or putting your feet up on public benches are no-nos, too. Officials said they're tired of the disgusting and disrespectful behavior. Violators can be fined, under an ordinance passed Monday. But critics charge the anti-rudeness regulations are aimed at the homeless in city parks. The city council narrowly passed the legislation. Laurie Fuhr of the Calgary Housing Action Initiative said she and her group tried to quash the bylaw and they plan to continue fighting it,...

Oilsands activity has uncovered vast wealth of a different kind -- a 10,000-year-old quarry rich with tools and weapons from some of the first Albertans, including a pristine spearpoint still smeared with the blood of a woolly mammoth... The so-called Quarry of the Ancestors, which scientists suspect may be one of the first places where humans put down roots in northern Alberta after the retreat of the glaciers, is found on an outcrop of hard, fine-grained sandstone adjacent to the Albian Sands oilsands lease about 75 kilometres north of Fort McMurray... The quarry was discovered in 2003 when Birch Mountain...

Prime Minister Steve Harper did it again last week. With little prior warning, he disclosed his intention of carrying out yet another promise he made during last winter's election campaign. He intends to launch a "step-by-step" reform of the Canadian Senate, arguably the most baffling and pointless legislative body extant in any Western democracy. To Ottawa's seasoned skeptics his announcement was doubly shocking. First, unlike almost all his prime ministerial predecessors, Harper apparently takes seriously the promises he made back then. One of those predecessors, Liberal Jean Chretien, announced at one point that he considered it unfair to demand that...

CALGARY -- The sheer number of Hummer urban assault vehicles crowding the roads -- reminiscent of the ostentatious Cadillacs of the heyday 1970s -- leaves little doubt that boom times have returned to Alberta. Gas guzzlers, mega-houses and lavish spending are signs of what several years of record oil and natural gas prices have done to Canada's oilpatch epicentre. In some ways, this is an encore performance after the first major oil boom 30 years ago, when events around the world and an inflexible oil supply sent prices soaring. "The cause of these current higher prices and energy boom, compared...

The Washington Post is wailing about the environmental ruination of that great ecological wonder, the Canadian tar sands. Canada's Athabasca Basin holds more hydrocarbons (oil) than anyplace else in the world. It has a huge patch of tarry goo, the remains of a once-vast inland lake, spotted amongst 40,000 square miles of jack pine and black spruce growing amid mosquito-rich swamps. The same evergreen-and-swamp vista extends in a broad band for more than 2000 miles, from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the shores of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia on the Atlantic coast. The Athabasca's population density is less...

It's wonderful that Ralph Klein and Stephen Harper are working to raise our profile in Washington, but for every silver lining there is a cloud -- and in this case it's a glowering thunderhead named Al Gore. Last week, Ralph was in the U.S. capital promoting Alberta, and specifically the oil-sands as a reliable source of energy. This week it was the PM's turn, with a meeting Thursday with birthday boy George Bush, and earlier a working dinner with heavy hitters from the president's cabinet. It's still news to most Canadians that our country is America's No. 1 source of...

Dr. Mahfooz Kanwar recently attended Calgary's largest mosque for a funeral. At one point in the proceedings, a man Kanwar has known for more than three decades led the prayers. "He was saying in Urdu (the official language of Pakistan): 'Oh, God, protect us from the infidels, who pollute us with their vile ways,'" recalls Kanwar, a professor of sociology at Mount Royal College in Calgary. "I stood up and grabbed him by the lapels, which was shocking even to me because I have never done anything like that in my life and I said: 'How dare you attack my...

Digging black gold Milwaukee machines unlock oil supply larger than Mideast's By RICK BARRETT rbarrett@journalsentinel.com Posted: May 27, 2006 Fort McMurray, Alberta - Like a monster rising from the tar pits, a Bucyrus mining shovel takes huge bites of gooey sand and drops them with a thud into the biggest truck you've ever seen. Advertisement Four scoops of the sticky dirt, roughly 400 tons, fill the truck that stands three stories tall. The dirt contains a tarlike grade of petroleum called bitumen, which can be processed into synthetic crude oil. Most of the synthetic crude from this desolate region in...

A black bear chased, caught and mauled a bicycle rider on a mountain trail in Canada's oldest and most popular national park, and was shot and killed when it refused to leave the area, a warden said. The biker, Greg Flaaten, 41, a Web administrator for the town of Banff, was being treated for severe arm injuries at Foothills Hospital in Calgary following the attack, and reconstructive surgery in the biceps and triceps area was scheduled Monday. Authorities initially feared Flaaten might lose his arm, but that concern was eased when a key artery was found to be intact, maintaining...

EDMONTON, Alberta, April 3, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An Alberta judge has ruled that adults can legally have obscene sexual conversations with children, so long as they don’t try to meet the child. Justice John Agrios acquitted a 32-year-old man of the charge of Internet luring on Friday, saying the explicit sexual chatting he carried on with a 12-year-old Ontario girl in 2003 was not illegal because he did not arrange a meeting with the girl. The accused, Christopher Legare, said he didn’t intend to meet the girl, although he talked to her about having sex and called her parents’ home.“The...

Canada's government-run national health system, often held before Americans as a model method of delivering medical care, has been gradually falling to pieces in recent years, and last week it received what many fear will prove the knock-out blow. That blow came from Alberta where the provincial Conservative government of Premier Ralph Klein is defying federal laws intended to safeguard the system against private medical practice. Klein unveiled a plan to institute a controversial "two-tier system" in his province – meaning two levels of medical care, one run by the government and delivered without fee, the other delivered privately with...

A woman whose elderly husband was stuck on an emergency ward gurney for three days last week because there were no hospital beds says it's time Ralph Klein fixed the public health-care system. Dorothy Hall said she came forward to complain about the situation yesterday, not just for her husband, but for all Albertans in the same situation. She said that front line staff in the emergency department were "absolutely disillusioned" and urged her to raise the issue in public. "It just breaks your heart to see the people lying on stretchers," she said. Hall said her husband, Harold, an...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of Energy is predicting crude oil from Alberta's oilsands -- not alternative energy sources such as biomass ethanol -- will help halve America's dependence on overseas oil within two decades. The assessment, in a report to be released later this month, follows President George W. Bush's challenge this week for the U.S. to sharply reduce its oil imports from unstable nations in the Middle East. According to data obtained by the Reuters news agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates America's oil imports from Canada will almost double by 2025, from 1.6 million barrels a...

EDMONTON -- The United States will be using Blackhawk helicopters and planes along the Montana border with Alberta and Saskatchewan to watch for terrorists, drug-runners and illegal immigrants. The aircraft will be equipped with cutting-edge photographic surveillance and monitoring equipment to watch for any suspicious activity, a spokesman for Montana Republican Senator Conrad Burns said Friday. Matt Mackowiak said the beefed-up border security comes in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. "(Sept. 11) taught us a lot, and the northern border requires greater security and greater surveillance," Mackowiak said from Washington, D.C. "I think...

Tonight, our great country has voted for change, and Canadians have asked our party to take the lead in delivering that change. To Canadians I say this – we will honour your trust, and we will deliver on our commitments. There are no individual victories in politics. Politics is a team sport, and there are a number of people I would like to thank. First and foremost, I would like to thank the people of Calgary Southwest, for having given me the great privilege of serving another term in the House of Commons as your representative. Though I am not...

The Oil Sands Of Alberta Jan. 22, 2005 (CBS) (CBS) There’s an oil boom going on right now. Not in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or any of those places, but 600 miles north of Montana. In Alberta, Canada, in a town called Fort McMurray where, this time of year, the temperature sometimes zooms up to zero. The oilmen up there aren’t digging holes in the sand and hoping for a spout. They’re digging up dirt — dirt that is saturated with oil. They’re called oil sands, and if you’ve never heard of them then you’re in for a big surprise...

A cow in Alberta has tested positive for mad cow disease, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has confirmed. Officials do not believe parts of the cow were processed for consumption. CFIA will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. ET. Federal agriculture inspectors sent what was termed a "suspicious sample" to a Winnipeg lab for further testing on the weekend. Canada's beef and dairy cattle breeding industry has been shut out of the United States since bovine spongiform encephalopathy was discovered in an Alberta cow in May 2003. A subsequent two-year ban on Canadian beef cost the industry an estimated...

RODRIGUEZ: Funny place this Canada of ours. Where else could a guy named Franco Nuovo who speaks French discuss the election with a guy named Jose Rodriguez who speaks English? About that election, Quebecers and Albertans have a lot in common -- we don't like crooks. We're both poised to annihilate the Liberals. Too bad your guy's a separatist. NUOVO: You're right about Quebecers and Albertans, but does that mean you're a Tory? RODRIGUEZ: Hey, if you live in Alberta, there's no other choice! The Liberals can't be trusted, the NDP are a bunch of commies and the Green party...

TORONTO: Like many Canadians, Ghazanfar Khan feels his country is far too much under US influence. The 24-year-old man of Pakistani origin, standing for next week's general election, wants to do something to change things. A debut candidate in the January 23 ballot, Khan has a definite agenda for Canada and feels that his country should carve out its own identity that is separate from its superpower neighbour to the south. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon of major parties like the Liberals or the Conservatives, Khan is with the Canadian Action Party, a little-known entity but one he believes...

Tory campaign worker resigns after blog posting Updated Fri. Dec. 30 2005 9:12 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff The campaign manager for Conservative Party member Peter Goldring stepped down Friday, after writing a blog posting that called for Alberta's independence. Gordon Stamp, who posts under the pseudonym "Psycho," wrote on Free Dominion: "I honestly see no benefit for Alberta to remain part of Canada. Seriously, there is absolutely nothing that Canada as a nation offers me." He goes on to compare Alberta to "a battered wife who has not yet realized that being divorced is better than staying married." While...

Given the incessant anti-Americanism from a majority opf Canadian people who are geographically unequally distributed, I'm thinking of proposals of dividing Canada into several regions so as to let the right-minded people able to control their own destiny, and more importantly for the US, to make it impossible for sworn enemies of the US to be able to control the giant landmass and hold Uncle Sam hostage ever again. I'm thinking of dividing Canada into several regions: 1) Coastal BC: they are American-style leftists. Either allow an independent nation or produce an ultimatum - move to Souther Ontario. 2) Interior...

For those of us who aren't completely on side with "Canadian values" ala Paul Martin and the Liberal party, yesterday's Sun Media election poll by Leger Marketing was welcome. In just the last few days, the Liberal lead in "vote-rich Ontario" (my how tired I am of that cliche) has been cut from 19% to 11%. Nationwide, the Conservatives were still behind 35% to 29%, but within striking distance for the Jan. 23 vote. But as everyone knows, "vote-rich Ontario" (is there no better term?) holds the key to national victory. If the Liberals lose that, they lose everything. Of...

While the Radio Equalizer isn't sure how much liberal talk radio gloating has yet begun over Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's guilty plea on bribery charges and subsequent resignation today, they might first look north. To Canada, that is, where the Liberal Party government has just fallen after losing a punishing, historic no-confidence vote in Ottawa's Parliament. There, an entire collection of rogue characters often called the Librano$, led by Prime Minister Paul Martin, have finally been held accountable for their sleazy "Sponsorship" funding scandal. From the CBC: ...snip...

What's left once all of Canada's faux national myths have been invalidated? Nothing but jealousy ------------------------------------------ Seventeen ordinary people shared the $54-million Lotto 6/49 payout last month. Those 15 men and two women were co- workers at a small-town gas plant in Alberta. They are the dictionary definition of "working class"; most wore blue jeans, ball caps and T-shirts when they claimed their millions, and they stopped off at a Tim Hortons on the way. What a great human interest story--salt of the earth working folks splitting up the big prize. Nice. But not according to Canada's largest news syndicate,...

Alberta will ignore Kyoto guidelines By DENNIS BUECKERT Tuesday, November 22, 2005 Posted at 6:22 PM EST Ottawa — Alberta will not be bound by federal regulations on greenhouse emissions, says a spokesman for the province's Environment Department. Robert Moyles said Tuesday that Alberta will introduce its own regulations to govern greenhouse emissions — and they will take precedence over federal rules. The comments open a gaping hole in the credibility of Ottawa's plan for achieving its commitments under the Kyoto protocol, with less than a week before a UN conference on climate change opens in Montreal. "Our regulations, we...

The province with deep pockets Lorne Gunter National Post (Editorial) Monday, November 21, 2005 EDMONTON - Between 1961 and 2002, while Ontario was fully engaged in its self-appointed role as the honest broker of Confederation, every man, woman and child in the province made an average annual contribution of $758 to the upkeep of the country. For a family of four, that's just over $3,000 a year. That's over and above what Ontarians were paying to Ottawa for the federal benefits they themselves were receiving. That's quite a commitment to Canada, to equalization, transfers, medicare, pensions, education, welfare, aboriginals,...

A federal judge proclaimed last week that in the final years of Canada's Chretien government, untold millions of dollars were channeled from the treasury into the bank accounts of the federal Liberal Party, several Liberal-friendly advertising agencies and a few senior party backroom gentry in Montreal. His report was viewed with alarm by the media, the politicians and the pundits – by everybody, it seemed, except the Canadian people. They knew that already. They had gathered it conclusively from a report of the auditor-general three years ago, and reaffirmed it in the testimony of the sordid parade of Liberal insiders...

Alberta's justice minister says he will be introducing legislation allowing children injured in car accidents while still in the womb to sue their mothers. It would mark the first such law in Canada, if passed by the legislature. Justice Minister Ron Stevens says the bill will be up for consideration at the end of November. The action has sparked concerns by opposition parties and the insurance industry, fearing it might open the floodgates for mothers to be sued for anything they do while they are pregnant. Stevens promises the legislation will be written narrowly to avoid too many cases going...

It does not require economic genius to see that big problems are arising in the economy of Ontario, which will result in big issues in the politics of Alberta. As this was written, the Ford Motor Co. had just announced the elimination of 1,100 jobs in the Windsor area over the next three years. Daimler Chrysler is planning to eliminate 450 jobs in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke and 400 more in Windsor. These numbers do not tell anything like the whole story. Layoffs totalling in the thousands by small manufacturers have wiped out 82,000 jobs so far this year,...

There seems to be some misunderstanding about where Ralph got the surplus cash he's handing out to Albertans My 16-year-old daughter tends not to pay much attention to the front page of the newspaper, usually flipping to the latest news on Brad and Angelina or to Dilbert's daily dose of cubicle irony. This pattern was interrupted the other day, however, when Alice accosted me at the coffee maker, waving a copy of the liberal Edmonton Journal, whose headline read, and I paraphase, "Klein Announces Prosperity Bonuses (the Dork)." "When," she demanded, "do I get my $400?" Now, mornings are not...

New deal needed to put unity issue to rest once and for all Divided we fall Calgary Sun October 30, 2005 One decade ago today Canadians coast-to-coast watched a cliffhanger vote on the fate of our country unfurl as Quebec separatists lost their bid for independence by just 1.2% of the vote. The nail-biting tally — 50.6% to 49.4% — shook our nation to the core. It also embittered Parti Quebecois Premier Jacques Parizeau’s supporters who came so close to fulfilling their dream to split from Canada. There were reports that had the PQ won by even the slightest margin...

I have been to the promised land. And, nobody gave me $400 at either crossing of the provincial border. When I passed from Saskatchewan to Alberta, nothing really changed. The sun did not suddenly shine brighter. The rolling hills were empty of trees, or anything resembling green, on either side of the border. There is no Lone Tree Road here. The wind was ripping on both sides. And no matter where you were, the people were complaining fiercely about the tug of war the gas companies continually play with our wallets. In the dawn of a Thursday morning, I hit...

Jealousy, thy name is Canada Don Martin National Post September 22, 2005 OTTAWA - It's official now. Alberta is a heaping embarrassment of riches, and the rest of Canada is bloody jealous. It wasn't as hard to take when Premier Ralph Klein was just throwing bunches of billions at paving freeways, building schools and buying the nation's most advanced health care while charging Albertans the lowest provincial taxes. But his plan to cut a $400-per-person cheque just in time for the Christmas shopping season is different. It has captured Canada's eye -- and triggered its envy. Alberta's "prosperity" dividend was...

King Ralph's 'handout' program a mess There are better ways to use cash -- let's start with... So Ralph Klein is going to give me $400 (more or less). And he's going to give you $400. And my five-month-old nephew. And the CEO of every major Alberta company. And every guy awaiting trial at the Remand Centre. Actually, that last paragraph is a bit of a fib. Right now, the beleaguered civil servants in the Finance Department who've had this idea lobbed their way have no idea who's going to get a cheque. Will they only go to people who...

It used to harvest cod, process phosphorus, dock U.S. warships and launch massive air force cargo planes over the North Atlantic. Now the resource- ravaged Placentia region exports youths, ambition and job skills to Alberta for paycheques that can't be found on The Rock. The harbour that Mayor Fred Whelan recalls walking across as a kid over tightly packed boats now hosts just a handful of moored fishing trawlers with a couple of beached and broken vessels rotting on the shoreline. The two fish-processing plants are but a faded memory, the nearby phosphorus plant has spent a decade in mothballs...

Secession of the West: Is it time? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 3, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Alberta and Saskatchewan marked their 100th anniversary as Canadian provinces last Thursday, precisely two months after a poll found that 41 percent of Albertans and 31.9 percent of Saskatchewanites thought that "Western Canadians should begin to explore the idea of forming their own country." The results in the other two western provinces were lower – 30.8 percent in British Columbia and 27.5 percent in Manitoba – but all four figures nevertheless ran much higher than anything shown in previous polls on "western...

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Friday September 2, 2005 Alberta Christian Pastor Hauled Before Human Rights Tribunal For Letter to Editor on Homosexuality Will not pay fines or write apology should decision go against him RED DEER, Alberta, September 2, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Currently Reverend Stephen Boissoin, a young Albertan pastor who spearheads a youth ministry that makes hundreds of weekly contacts with at-risk youth, is in the process of learning Arabic so he can better minister to the many Muslim youth who he says come to his centers. And with a wife and two children of his own, in addition to his full-time ministry,...

United Church officials in Calgary are offering what is believed to be Alberta's first same-sex marriage preparation classes this fall. They say such classes are long overdue in Alberta, but the church waited for the provincial government to recognize the law before offering the marriage preparation course. The first seminar was to be held this past weekend, but was cancelled after only one couple signed up. Organizers blame the political climate for the lack of seminar participants on the weekend. Reverend Linda Hunter of Wild Rose United Church in northwest Calgary said the legislation is new, Alberta is particularly homophobic,...

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, August 12, 2005) – A special ceremony at the Canadian embassy Aug. 11 kicked off a major reunion for a famed U.S.-Canadian military unit taking place on the other side of the continent. The event in the U.S. capital was to recognize the veterans of the First Special Service Force – better known as the Devil’s Brigade – who were gathering for their 59th annual reunion in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 11-13 August. It was also to note a special presentation at the reunion, the awarding of U.S. Army Combat Infantryman’s Badges to Canadian infantrymen veterans of...

http://westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=928 A nation torn apart An exclusive Western Standard poll shows more than a third of westerners are thinking of separating from Canada. What’s dividing the country--and can anything be done to save it? Kevin Steel - August 22, 2005 It wasn’t just what the bumper sticker said, but where it was placed and what it was stuck on. The white rectangle that read, "One hundred years is long enough," followed by the website address, www.separationalberta.com, was high up in the rear window of a shiny new, high-end SUV driving through supposedly Liberal downtown Edmonton-- not on a dusty old...

<p>CALGARY (CP)-More than one-third of Western Canadians surveyed this summer thought it was time to consider seperation from Canada, a poll suggests.</p> <p>In the survey, 35.6 per cent of respondents from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia agreed with the statement: Western Canadians should begin to explore the idea of forming their own country.</p>

A woman slain in the northern Alberta town of High Prairie telephoned 911 for help, but the RCMP did not respond to the emergency call, CBC News has learned. Brenda Moreside, 44, was stabbed to death in February in her home in the city, nearly 300 kilometres northwest of Edmonton. Her common-law husband, Stanley Willier, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. The 911 call came shortly before 6 a.m. on Feb. 13, 2005. According to a classified briefing to the Commissioner of the RCMP obtained by CBC News, Moreside was calling for help. She told the operator that Willier...