Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft made a major policy announcement yesterday while speaking to Calgary's Rotary Club.
Turn West into energy superpower, Taft urgesYou can read Kevin Taft's full speech to the Rotary Club here.
Upgrade oilsands in western provinces instead of south of border, Liberal leader proposes
CALGARY - Alberta could forfeit a major economic opportunity worth billions of dollars if the province does not do whatever it can to ensure that more oilsands bitumen is processed here at home, Kevin Taft said Tuesday.
In a speech to Calgary's Downtown Rotary Club, the Alberta Liberal opposition leader proposed an inter-provincial strategy to turn Western Canada into what he called an economic "tiger" by attracting more oilsands upgraders to the region.
Though industry officials say 70 per cent of bitumen is already processed in the province, Taft said it's time for Alberta to call a summit of western governments to explore the possibilities of upgrading more bitumen in Western Canada.
Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft speaks to members of the Rotary Club during a luncheon meeting at the Fairmont Palliser Hotel in downtown Calgary on Tuesday.View Larger Image View Larger Image
Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft speaks to members of the Rotary Club during a luncheon meeting at the Fairmont Palliser Hotel in downtown Calgary on Tuesday.
He noted estimates project that one million barrels of unprocessed bitumen will be exported for upgrading to the U.S. every day within eight years.
"I believe we now have an opportunity -- an opportunity unlike any other in our history," Taft told his audience. "A once-in-several-lifetimes opportunity to transform ourselves forever."
Posts
7 comments:
That sure is a goofy picture of Taft.
Yeehaw.
This is what a leader talks like. Taft reminds me of Peter Lougheed in this way. Where Stelmach is content with a style of ho-hum leadership, Taft is daring to dream big. Albertans like this and deserve better than the complacency they're getting under Stelmach's administration.
At any point does he ever say how he intends to make big oil stop exporting jobs south? Or does he just say 'please don't do that'
It would be nice if he had a clue what he was talking about.
Fran from Medicine Hat says: Expect to see a more aggressive and visionary Kevin Taft over the next few days and weeks. While Stelmach was featured in Alberta print media discussing how unsettled he was by recent threats against himself and his family and declaring the Albertans are still "good people", the already once delayed Royalty Review made headlines as the Chair of the Review Panel asked for yet another delay to "check the data"...Taft is coming out strong!
Re: coming out strong...yeah, but, no one is listening! they could be jumping up and down and crying 'over hear, listen to us...we've been saying this all along' and still no one would take them seriously. the polls show it. the libs are dead in alberta. not even a fraction of the undecided is looking their way.
and the media is predisposed to lessening the worth of ideas proposed by the libs. they're always sort of wacky.
and that is a goofy picture.
This is great! It was the top headline story in the Edmonton Journal!
Post a Comment