NS Politics

Everything is politics, at least to someone.

Tag: canada

  • Imperial Oil (ExxonMobil) Cuts Jobs

    ExxonMobil Leaves Loves Canada!

    You can’t make us pay to clean this up once we’re done either.

    We at ExxonMobil would like to remind Canadians that as the owner of 70% of Imperial Oil we call all the shots. Including inserting all the highest executives. And at Imperial Oil (and/or ExxonMobil depending on any legal issues that may or may not arise, we are legally two different companies, don’t get it twisted) we believe our people are our greatest strength.

    As long as they don’t cost too much.

    And while we might be legally and realistically obligated to keep a certain number of operators and technicians to keep a plant running we realized that design, optimization, and compliance are huge areas to potentially streamline our operations. And we are passing the savings on to you, the shareholder! So it is with great pride we announce that we have the privilege of laying off 900 Canadians.

    You are a shareholder right? We wouldn’t want to miss out on this golden opportunity!

    We have spent the last 5+ years innovating the art of offshoring jobs. Conventional wisdom said that natural resource jobs seem land locked to the country they are found within. But we wanted to think bigger and leverage our position as a global mega corporation to take those good paying jobs and put them in India instead! Because those good paying jobs don’t pay as well there! Did you think your family member who went for an engineering degree had safe job prospects? Not if we can help it. Tell them to buy stocks.

    We all have to face the hard facts that despite Canada’s oil and gas sector making money, it simply doesn’t make as much as it could. Like it does in other countries that are easier to plunder. Canada needs to look inwards and ask how it can make itself competitive in the global market. The cost of Canadian workers is just not something our shareholders can bear.

    We look forward to not having to pay the retirements we promised those employees when they joined. It’s a harsh world for anyone without capital. Our company knows this because we worked hard for our capital by destroying the global climate. The people we grace with continued employment will just have to work harder to pick up the slack of two other workers. The sense of pride and accomplishment they get for their works will no doubt improve their lives.

    We will usher in a new era of Christian work ethic!

    For the poor.

    They should have been born rich, or have retired at age 55 in 2007.

    Disclaimer:

    The author of this post does not speak on behalf of ExxonMobil or Imperial Oil, which should be obvious from the content. The author merely wishes to express discontent that there never seems to be such a thing as enough profit, regardless of the lives upturned as a result. And a real government would not let those jobs be off shored to places that do not pay taxes or live in our communities.

    Some true facts:

    It is worth noting that less than two years ago Imperial Oil, in agreement with ExxonMobil as the primary shareholder, bought back approximately $1.5 billion in its own shares. A move one does when it has no interest in investing in anything but wants its share price to go up.

    Imperial Oil has also been operating at a profit in the billions of dollars each year since 2021, with 2022 being a record year. But global oil prices have been slipping so it’s time for the chainsaw.

  • Liberal Death and Liberal Resurrection

    General thoughts on a provincial and federal election.

    The Nova Scotia provincial election of November 2024 was boring. Which is probably good since all the exciting elections recently have been about someone losing the plot.  But Tim Houston has held it together, “A good man you might disagree with” to paraphrase John McCain. Houston was only one term in and had a deeply unpopular federal Liberal party holding the provincial Liberals back. My absence will have to excuse my unfamiliarity with Zach Churchill and if they were doomed from the start. Calling an early election after promising not to is a class move, but no one likes keeping promises when it’s hard.

    We were getting electoral reform at some point, right Trudeau?

    Conservatism Rising

    Economic issues have been eating at the general public for a couple years now. I’m still convinced the federal liberals lose the 2021 election to a conservative minority if they didn’t seize on several conservative premiers looking stupid with how they were handling ongoing COVID measures. Needless to say, everyone be pitching tax cuts in 2024-2025. But even pitching more tax savings couldn’t save the NS Liberals. I don’t think what came next could have given them a win but it might have saved their party status.

    By Matthew McMullin – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=154461541

    Die Libs!

    The federal liberals were destined to a similar fate. But bizarrely didn’t seem able to boot Justin Trudeau to attempt to cut the bleeding. I was sure no one wanted to take the fall, until that fateful day.

    Et Tu, Chrystia?

    It’s likely impossible to know all the motivations involved, was this a mistake on Trudeau’s part, was he given bad advice, was Freeland waiting for an opportunity? But to cut to the chase Freeland stabbing Trudeau saved the Liberal party. (My Caesar metaphor breaks down a bit on that point, but Freeland held to the rule that you probably don’t want to hold the knife that stabs.) Mark Carney becomes the new leader and PM and gives to the inevitable election call.

    Milhouse Loses The Trump Card

    But before I give all credit to Carney, who generally seems like the boring centrist dad a lot of people crave right now, we can’t discount how effective Trump was at getting him elected and how ineffective Pierre Poilievre was at pivoting the message. To avoid a long digression, Trump is an idiot and the willingness of half the US population to follow him off a cliff is the swan song of this dying age. With that much of a following, behind that much stupid, it is a huge national and global risk. And with all those chips down we had Poilievre, who up to this point only had a real strength at messaging (the guy was an MP for 20 years with no bills)… fail to message. Except enough to scare NDP supporters to back a more centrist Liberal party.

    Centre-right leaning provincial conservatives didn’t seem to care if Poilievre lost which is notable. A glimpse perhaps that they see too much of Alberta’s Danielle Smith brand of “break the government to own the Libs” in him. That might be projection on my part, and a certain Elon Musk owns that crown now.

    The analysis that given a couple more weeks we likely would have seen the Conservative win seems possible given how close we got to a two party system in that election and the direction of the polls. NDP losing ground to a central banker who at least isn’t as bad as the other guy, and more populist economic messaging on the right. There’s a lot of data with none of it being easy to solve.

    What’s Next?

    Having lived in a province with only viable NDP and Conservative parties, do I think the NS Liberals are dead? It’s a more interesting “what if” had the federal Liberal party died this year, but now I would say no. Not unless the NDP tries to choke them out of the centre, and that risks alienating their core supporters. The Alberta NDP happened into a situation in which the Liberal party was nonviable, right when the right split itself in half. They emerged as the only surviving alternative. I expect a return to the status quo in NS so long as there are no breaks in the PC party. But Houston is leading a very boring party so far (let’s see where the Uranium fights go, I’m living the coal on the rocky mountains all over again).

    As for the federal government, I think their task is impossible. Especially for a minority government. But if they can swerve around the on-again, off-again maniacs to the south to give us a bit more independence, I’ll take what I can get.

    Alberta politics weren’t boring, but that’s not necessarily good. I’m more bored now in my native land, but still not inspired.