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Max Fawcett 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦 Profile picture
Max Fawcett 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
@maxfawcett
Lead columnist for Canada's National Observer. In the other place(s) now. Come find me.
6 subscribers
Sep 9 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Let's unpack this piece, friends.

Warning: annoying pedantry and some mild peevishness ahead. theglobeandmail.com/investing/mark… Let's start with the peevishness. I basically wrote this piece -- well, a longer and more detailed version of it -- back in March 2021 for Report on Business Magazine. Image
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Sep 4 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
My god.

The moment we're in calls for serious leadership. And this is just the epitome of unseriousness. Allow me to explain. First, the facts.

No, the federal government hasn't "blocked 18 LNG plants". It came out against *one*, and that was after the Conservative government in Quebec rejected it first.

It has approved all the other ones that came across its desk. All of them.
Aug 13 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
This is a tedious and tired argument that's been debunked *repeatedly*.

But sure, I'll do it one more time. Image There are two reasons why this argument doesn't hold up to scrutiny: time and money.

Let's start with time: even if a proponent started the process of proposing and then building an LNG terminal on the east coast fed with Alberta gas, it *still* wouldn't be operational.
Aug 6 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
Pierre Poilievre is so anxious to get one over on Mark Carney that he'll believe (and amplify) almost anything — including flagrantly obvious nonsense from Donald Trump and a Lorne Gunter column that, of course, fails to call it out as such.

Please, allow me. First of all: no, the federal government *never* blocked "LNG export plants" (as in, plural). It approved Cedar LNG, gave upwards of a billion dollars to LNG Canada, and granted Ksi Lisims a 40 year export license.

ksilisimslng.com/news/ksi-lisim…
Jul 30 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
It's woodshed time, folks.

Join me for a trip out there, if you'd like. 🧵 The "deal" that has Ryan triggered is a farce, if you bother to actually look at the details.

@Rory_Johnston has. He's an expert here.

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Jul 12 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
It's kind of amazing that after more than a decade of pipeline politics, folks like @TomOlsenXIX still haven't learned the most basic of lessons about what actually happened.

It was on full display during his debut appearance on @WestofCentreCBC. Let's unpack it -- quickly. "You bought TransMountain where you created a policy environment where it wouldn't work for the private sector, and then you paid three times what it was worth."
Jul 7 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Either Pierre Poilievre doesn't actually know what's happening here or he's depending on his followers not bothering to fact-check him.

Allow me. 🧵 Image First of all: no, Europe is not "exempting its businesses" from the industrial carbon tax. It's exempting small importers, who tend not to import things like steel, cement, and aluminum.

99% of said emissions will remain covered by the regulation. Image
Jun 5 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
This is being spun like a good news story. It's actually much more complicated -- and interesting -- than that.

Let's dive in with a thread. 🧵 Oil production is up, while emissions are slightly down. Good news, right?

Sort of. Image
Jun 2 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
This is an interesting interview, and anyone interested in Alberta should listen to it if only to hear what the Alberta NDP is up against. Smith is a very skilled storyteller.

But that's just it: they're stories. I'll dig into one in particular.

Yup, it's thread-o-clock. 🧵 Herle asks her what would be different if Harper had won the 2015 election and been prime minister ever since. It's a good question, and one I've asked folks many times.

Her answer is representative of her politics: it sounds reasonable and yet the facts clearly contradict her.
May 22 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
The prospect for oil demand peaking within a few years isn't just an academic conversation. It's central to the conversation around an independent Alberta -- one the premier keeps stoking.

Let's do a thread. 🧵 The piece she's quoting is a huge mess. It conflates peak *supply* and peak *demand*, and spends most of its time talking about the former.

Nobody, to be clear, is actually worried about the former. Image
Apr 28 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
As an Albertan -- and, like Licia, someone who was born and raised in different parts of the country -- I feel compelled to weigh in here.

A thread: 🧵 Andrew is right that Corbella is misrepresenting the facts on C-69 and Gateway. That's par for the course here.

Indeed, it's *central* to understanding the argument she's making. It depends on a wilful misrepresentation of the past, one designed to keep Albertans angry.
Apr 22 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
I respect Christopher Ragan. But I don't agree with this column he wrote on western alienation. A thread: 🧵readtheline.ca/p/christopher-… He starts by acknowledging the evils of the National Energy Program, and how it was "easy to see the damage done to the Alberta economy as the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau intervened in the oil market to transfer massive sums of money to other parts of the country."
Apr 18 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I honestly didn't think they made gruel this thin.

Let's try to pull it apart in a quick thread. 🧵 First of all: when this sale took place, he hadn't been Governor of the Bank of Canada for almost three years.

He resigned the role in June 2013. Stephen Poloz was the Governor of the Bank of Canada in 2016. Image
Apr 11 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
God help anyone who has to read this entire "book" on the carbon tax by the national director of the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation.

In fact, let me try to save the masochists out there the trouble. A thread: 🧵

nationalpost.com/news/politics/… Franco starts with the usual nonsense about Canada only being 1.6% of global emissions, which apparently means nothing we do matters.

This is equal parts nihilism and defeatism, and it ignores the fact that our trading partners are already starting to price carbon on imports.
Apr 9 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This is all wishful thinking. It's also dangerous. Allow me to explain. Quick thread: 🧵 Braid doesn't cite any actual evidence in support of his claim that "Conservatives are seeing a rebound."

He just points out that they've had big rallies lately. We've been over this before. If you're ignoring polls and focusing on rallies you're mainlining pure, uncut copium.
Apr 8 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
There's been lots of talk lately about the "lost decade" under the Liberal government. It revolves around this chart:

Let's dig into it with a quick thread. 🧵 Image First, some caveats/acknowledgements: we *do* have a productivity problem in Canada. We haven't focused enough on growing the economy. The Liberals, in part, have to own that.
Apr 2 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This is just pure lizard-brain stuff here from Conservatives like Ryan. All they know how to do is keep pounding the "oil and gas" button over and over.

But I want everyone to notice how dumb they assume Canadians -- and their supporters -- are.

A quick thread: 🧵 Image Look at number three: the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline.

It was approved in 2010. It sat unbuilt for years because it was proposed in the pre-shale era. The economics didn't work once fracking unlocked that basin. Image
Feb 10 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
Brian Lilley posted twice about the deal Japan struck with Trump on LNG. He claims it will "make them very wealthy" and that we could have had it if not for Trudeau's ideology.

I know this is like pissing into a gale-force wind, but let's bring some facts to the table. 🧵 Image First, no: it will not make the Americans "very wealthy". It's one LNG project that will, presumably, sell cargoes at global spot prices.

Nothing in this deal changes the long-term economic calculus for these projects, which remains....problematic. Image
Jan 31 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
This perspective is both frustratingly selfish and annoyingly common. What has Canada ever done for us as Albertans, folks like Staples wonder?

A lot, as it happens. Let's get it into it.

A thread: 🧵 Image I've already made the argument about the last decade and what it's done for Alberta's economic interests. If you want to revisit it, read this.

nationalobserver.com/2025/01/08/opi…
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