By GRAHAM HICKS

STUFF PEPPER UP MY NOSE, THEN CALL ME SNEEZY

Edmonton City Council has done everything possible to deter downtown parking – bike lanes, complicating intersections, complicating signage, jacking up parking rates, narrowing roads, removing roads, removing parking spaces. And then, as downtown businesses complain, claim it’s just the price to be paid for becoming a big city.

Then city councilors feign shock when informed of a $45 million (!!!) downtown parking revenue shortfall!

RESPONSIBLE RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT – WHAT A CONCEPT!

Isn’t it great to see so many First Nations in B.C. and Alberta lining up in support of responsible resource development, arguing that recent federal government and appeal court decisions are denying them the right to a better standard of life?  How will the feds argue in court that it’s okay to allow LNG tankers and other huge ships in and out of B.C. ports, but not oil tankers?

I love the argument that a trans-B.C. oil pipeline and corridor is fine … as long as it is owned and operated by a First Nations partnership. If they can it done, go at ‘er!

WHAT IS GIVETH MUST NEVER BE TAKEN AWAY

If you listened carefully, you’d have heard Edmonton mayors since the ‘80s  singing from the same tedious songbook as Mayor Don Iveson last week.

Residents of all the surrounding regional communities are leeching off Edmonton, complained Iveson, using OUR roads, recreation facilities, parks, arenas etc. – whilst not contributing to their upkeep.

Just as predictably, all those regional mayors will fire back, using every possible argument to claim the opposite.

Truth is it’s likely an overall wash. And, unless forced by the province, no regional municipality would never ever voluntarily give Edmonton any kind of equalization levy.

There’s a stronger argument for pooling and re-distributing the region’s heavy industrial property tax. . But that would again take provincial legislation (not  happening) and would make municipalities with big industry – all but St. Albert and Edmonton – apoplectic with rage.

STICK HANDLING

Should you spot a train carrying what looks like a 10-year-supply of hockey pucks for all Canada, be not surprised. The pucks are “CanaPux” – not hockey pucks, but “pucks’ of hardened bitumen from the oilsands wrapped in plastic polymer.

It’s a bitumen transport innovation on which CN Rail has filed a patent.

CanaPux can be easily shipped by rail in standard hopper cars, can be scooped up if in a land spill, will float if released on water. They are near explosion-proof, easily  handled, and, unlike bitumen moved by pipeline, don’t need diluent. On the other hand, processing and de-processing costs would be added to the financial equation.

If CanaPux proves viable, it would still be years away. CN Rail sees CanaPux not as a replacement for pipelines, but an alternative.  And, as long as regulations are met, nobody can stop railways from carrying oil.

WHERE PRAISE IS DUE

Good call by Premier Rachel Notley, at least in the short term, to take the extraordinary step of forcing oilsands companies to curtail bitumen production.

The intervention – anathema to those of us who believe the free market is more intelligent than government intervention – has caused the price of our Western Canada Select  (bitumen mixed with diluent, or “dilbit”) to return from the grave, growing by a whopping $13 a barrel in under two weeks.

Which makes everybody – other than anti-fossil fuel extremists – happy.

What happens in the long term – so many factors at play – is anybody’s guess. But anything that so immediately improves Alberta’s financial situation is most welcome.