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Max Fawcett 🇨🇦 Profile picture
Max Fawcett 🇨🇦
@maxfawcett
Lead columnist for Canada's National Observer.
3 subscribers
Jan 24 • 14 tweets • 6 min read
I see that Danielle Smith and ever other oil and gas loving Conservative in Canada is sharing this latest exercise in spurious correlations.

Let's pull it apart in a thread, shall we? 🧵 We'll start with the $16.1 billion Mackenzie Valley Gas Pipeline.

It was approved in 2010. Harper had a majority for four years after that. Why wasn't it built?

Oh, right. The business case didn't work with lower gas prices.

Moving on.... Image
Jan 22 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
I see a lot of folks trying to tarnish Mark Carney by suggesting he's somehow responsible for Britain's current economic woes.

That's ridiculous. A thread: 🧵 Image First of all:: the thread being QTed here is about government debt and deficits. That's not the Bank of England's purview.

And guess what: Carney left as BoE governor in 2020. You know, before things got out of control here due to COVID. Image
Jan 20 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Poilievre and other Conservatives have been claiming that the Liberal government "forced us to sell our energy at a discount" and made us more dependent on US markets.

Is that actually true? Of course not.

A #cdnpoli thread 🧵 First of all: there's no universe where we would be able to "go around the Americans", as Poilievre says here. We're always going to be linked and integrated. Geography matters.

But if he really believes in the importance of going around them, he'll loudly oppose KXL. Has he?
Jan 16 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Translation: give us everything we want or we'll drag the country down with us.

Shall we do a quick thread? 1) Donald Trump is the one threatening said livelihoods. Canada is trying to *prevent* that from happening. And yet, you seem determined to remove any negotiating leverage we might have there.

Why might *that* be?
Jan 8 • 18 tweets • 6 min read
Let's take a quick break from all this 51st state nonsense and unpack this column from the @BizCouncilAB's Adam Legge.

Thread time!
calgaryherald.com/opinion/column… It revolves around the premise that it would be unfair to target our auto sector and its climate footprint, since those vehicles would just be manufactured somewhere else.

And if the emissions cap worked the way these folks keep pretending, I might agree. We'll get to that. Image
Jan 4 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Here's a genuine answer for Sean.

I think his question is a bit of a straw man, since it's not at all clear to me that Bruce is being "subsidized" any more than the opinion writers at the National Post or Calgary Herald are.

A brief thread: I'll speak from personal experience here. I'm an opinion writer. My organization, Canada's National Observer, receives government support -- mostly in the form of the LJI (local journalism initiative), which directly funds the work of reporters.

Not columnists.
Jan 3 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
One of my favourite parts of the JoPete/Poilievre interview is where Peterson says that Ontario is the richest province in Canada (it isn't, and isn't even close) and then talks about how poorly it compares in per-capita GDP to Mississippi.

Let's dig in a bit, shall we? Image "The inhabitants of Canada's richest province are poorer than the inhabitants of America's poorest state -- and that's actually occurred primarily in the last 10 years, because we were basically at parity before that....pretty much tracking them one-for-one."

Mmmm, no. Image
Jan 2 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Since I can't answer Evan's question -- the original post has its replies locked -- I'll do it in a thread.

Warning: we're going to talk about LNG-related facts here, not feelings. The original post was about Zelensky's call for more US LNG imports, followed by the usual hand wringing about our inability to build an LNG facility on the east coast -- and the PM's comments about its business case.
Dec 30, 2024 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Licia bought the ticket. Now let's take the ride.

Thread time. And @nenshi, you might want to join us. Under the Paris Accord, countries are responsible for their own emissions reductions.

There's a provision for the transfer of them (we'll get to that), but saying "what really matters is global emissions" is an attempt to play the forest for the trees.
Dec 9, 2024 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Crapping on their country has become a *very* popular activity among Canadian Conservatives of late. One of their preferred arguments is that Canada can't possibly compete with America right now -- and we're losing our best and brightest as a result.

Thread time. First, it's important to understand the difference in our national cultures. America has always venerated and valorized risk. It's marbled into so many aspects of its past.

Canada, on the other hand, has been a place where things like order and caution hold more sway.
Dec 4, 2024 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
The Calgary Chamber of Commerce has come out with a letter asking the federal government to withdraw its proposed emissions cap.

Let's dig in.

calgarychamber.com/open-letter-ca… First of all, credit where it's due: they referred to it as an emissions cap, not a "production cap". So, you know, points awarded there.
Nov 28, 2024 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
My word, this thread is quite the trip.

Let's dive in, shall we? Fred starts with this framing of how the study in question "shows" the carbon tax is inflating costs across the board. But does it? Image
Nov 27, 2024 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
How many times do we have to do this, David?

Grab a seat if you like, folks. It's thread time. Image First of all, spoiler alert: there still isn't a business case for LNG exports from Canada to Europe. There never was. There never will be.

Why? We'd have to spend billions upon billions building the infrastructure -- new pipelines connecting western gas to eastern terminals.
Nov 21, 2024 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Sure, let's do this Brian.

Thread time. First, the facts: it sounds like the feds will be able to recoup almost all of that $34 billion.

The PBO just put its value at between $29.6 and $33.4 billion.

pbo-dpb.ca/en/publication…
Nov 4, 2024 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Since all the usual suspects are out parroting the province's line on the emissions cap and the studies that supposedly show how bad it'll be, it's time to push this column out again -- one where I take said studies apart. nationalobserver.com/2024/05/31/opi… Image
Nov 1, 2024 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
This is a little Russian nesting doll of nonsense -- one he seems to think his supporters won't see.

That's a tell in itself. But setting aside the dubious morality here, let's unpack the facts really quickly. First: Carney is the board chair of Brookfield Asset Management. The company belongs to its shareholders.

He owns 41,337 of the company's 418.87 million shares outstanding -- or 0.0099% of the company.

It's not "his company". Image
Oct 28, 2024 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
This piece that Eric Kaufmann wrote for the Telegraph is something else. Let's unpack it. telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/2… After some perfunctory criticisms of Justin Trudeau's vision of a post-national country and the apparent chaos that has wrought (we'll get back to that), he talks about a recent holiday to Atlantic Canada.

It's....weird. Image
Oct 10, 2024 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
The PBO just updated its modelling of the carbon tax and rebate. Let's get into the details, which will surely be shared in good faith by Conservative pundits and politicians across the country.

(I know, I know)

Report here: …bution-a617274656661637473.pbo-dpb.ca/a019e3958622ad… For starters: after accounting for their error (including industrial pricing in modelled impacts/costs), the net fiscal benefit for the average household goes UP. Image
Sep 3, 2024 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Do we really have to keep doing this?

Fine, I'll play. Let's debunk this nonsense with a quick thread.

nationalpost.com/opinion/save-t… The entire editorial is built on a foundation of straw men and red herrings, and hardened with the concrete of can't-do thinking.

It also sidesteps a crucial question: what happens to demand for Canadian oil and gas if these other jurisdictions DO make different energy choices? Image
Aug 9, 2024 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Sorry, @RitaTrichur, but this requires a bit of a thread.

theglobeandmail.com/business/comme… The piece's central premise is that we ought to build Energy East because of supply uncertainty in the Middle East and Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine.

Remember: even if it started tomorrow, it wouldn't be in service until 2030 at the earliest -- and would cost many billions.
Jun 27, 2024 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Since this stuff is circulating among conservatives in America and Canada, let's break down the data in it and what's actually driving it.

(spoiler: it's not the politician that conservatives want to blame) Image Cocoa? It's being driven by climate change -- and it's probably only going to get worse. Image