As an actual oil and gas worker, I can think of no worse investment than to hand over billions of dollars to an industry with a very bleak future.
Dear Prime Minister Trudeau,
Earlier this week, Jason Kenney tweeted out an article with the caption, “A must-read open letter for Canadians from oil and gas workers.” As an oil and gas worker myself, I opened it to find that it was actually a letter signed by 14 CEOs and Presidents demanding a multibillion dollar bailout from the federal government. It came just days after Kenney laid off 26,000 education workers in the province only to announce a $7.5 billion dollar handout to the Keystone XL pipeline.
While working families are being asked to sacrifice their public services and dig into their savings to make ends meet, some of the oil and gas industry’s wealthiest CEOs — many of whom make more money in one year than any worker can make in a lifetime — are demanding that the federal government give them a multibillion dollar bailout by purchasing their accounts receivable. As an actual oil and gas worker, I can think of no worse investment than to hand over billions of dollars to an industry with a very bleak future.
For the past 11 years, I’ve been a machinist in Edmonton, working in the oil and gas sector. I began my apprenticeship immediately after high school graduation in 2008, during the thick of the global financial crisis. There was a lot of uncertainty then about what kind of future my classmates and I were entering into. As bailout packages began to roll out across the country and around the world, I remember feeling no sense of relief as I watched governments hand billions to the banks responsible for the crash, while leaving hard working families to clean up their mess. From Bay Street to the Canadian auto industry, the 2008 bailouts left Canadians footing the bill for CEO bonuses and stock buybacks, while working people struggled to rebuild their retirement funds and recover from a gutted job market. And despite the billions doled out, manufacturing plants across Ontario are still shutting down ten years later.
And now Prime Minister, as open letters and phone calls stream in from oil and gas CEOs and their political allies begging for a bailout, I can’t help but be afraid that you’re gearing up to repeat this same mistake. Right now, at a time when the world needs to move away from fossil fuels, you have the opportunity to invest in the clean energy future that workers and communities need most.
honestly some of y’all want a significant other so badly and can’t understand why you can’t find one, but have no sense of boundaries or healthy expectations of what a relationship is like. in a committed long-term partnership you get left on read, you wait for texts back, and you can forget about each other when you’re busy. sometimes you fall asleep without saying goodnight and sometimes you’re too caught up to text each other before 6pm. that’s how it is. thinking that you can’t be deeply, beautifully in love and still wait more than “1.75 hours” for a text back is such an unhealthy and unreasonable expectation of what love is, and you shouldn’t be in a relationship if you can’t allow the other person to exist on their own apart from you. if you’re projecting your anxieties and insecurities onto a partner who doesn’t even exist yet, then you aren’t ready for one.
While this song makes me merry,
Tyrian purple dyes many a hue
From magenta to berry
And a true purple too.
But fun as it is to watch this poetic race
The answer is staring you right in the face:
Roses are red and violets are blue
Because nothing fucking rhymes with purple.
tangentwithtanner
romaincrisis
janainaart
gummygunk
turnnoffyourmind
stormborns
blakekathryn
