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Originally Posted by AstulzerRZD
I appreciate the detailed response! The current Liberal provincial government in Ontario and their leader aren't exactly well received 
Could you point me in the direction of some literature with regards to the complexities of moving refine vs crude petroleum?
I took a look at Quebec's child care scheme, and this is what I was able to find:
Quebec?s child-care scheme pays for itself, economist | Toronto Star
I question the NDP's ability to execute their plans myself, my question is how much expertise they have within the party? I think I remember the Liberals having quite the expertise military wise within their nominees: Trudeau unveils foreign policy team of ex-military officers, ambassadors - The Globe and Mail
With regards to the pay not comparing in tech, I'm curious. Although pay south of the border is much better (especially with the value of CAD right now), even starting pay for a good developer in Vancouver is about $70k. Hell, even Google pays their a second year co-op student $25+ an hour in Kitchener (near Waterloo), and pay in this region seems to be much lower than in Toronto.
There is, however, a ceiling for engineers/soft devs at about $150k, but from what I see around me, pay doesn't seem to be a big issue in tech/innovation - brain drain due to high US incomes is.
As well, one thing that I've found is that Canadian investors seem to be much more risk averse, while startup money flows much more easily in the States. Their investors seem to better understand that there is a certain risk associated with startups, but also significant reward if success is to be found. |
I'm invested in two Canadian start ups that moved their ops to SF lol.
Child care - for every positive perspective in the media expect a negative as well
Quebec's failed child-care model
I've heard locals in Montreal bitch and complain about how it cost the gov. billions, 2.2B to be exact. Obviously anecdotal, but you get the idea.
Literature for the crude issue is not easy to find, but I'll do my best to explain.
Exporting crude is simple, you export one product that a large number of customers want, and you can do it with one type of vessel for virtually any geographic area. Refineries are typically strategically located to service immediate geographic regions. Take a domestic refinery that converts crude into gasoline, getting the oil to the facility was cheap and easy via pipeline, once it becomes gasoline it's now three separate grades that must be trucked to consumers. That costs a lot of money.
If you wanted to export refined products you need to find a buyer for the products you can refine for them. That is to say that many geographic areas require specific types of fuels and other petroleum derivatives. To set your refinery up to make a wide variety of these products is difficult and expensive. Refining is by in large, a low margin business actually. Someone needs to have or build a facility to receive these individual refined products and then arrange for their retail distribution.
Then there is the shipping, you can ship all the crude in one large single vessel. With refined products you will need specific smaller vessels and compartments for each product. How many stops will this ship make while it delivers the various products? Are there unique double bottom or double hull requirements for the types of products you are shipping? etc.
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Crude tankers are mainly used for the deep sea transport of crude oil from production sites to refineries. They range in size from 55,000 DWT* up to around 450,000 DWT. The main trading routes are from the production areas in the Arabian Gulf and West Africa to Asia, Europe and the USA.
Product tankers are used to transport refined oil products (gasoline, diesel, kerosene, jet or fuel oil) to the market. They range in size from 5,000 DWT to around 80,000 DWT. One traditional trading route for product tankers is between North America and Europe, where gasoline is carried to the US and diesel fuel is transported back to Europe.
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The Tanker Business
Keep in mind when you refine crude you cannot turn 1 BBL of oil into 1 BBL of gasoline, during the distillation process you typically receive something like this;
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A barrel of crude oil is about 42 US gallons. Oil refineries heat it to 370 degrees celcius, as the vapor rises it is transformed into various oil products. The lighter molecules of gasoline, diesel or jet fuel continue to rise until it is cooled and syphooned into seperate holding tanks. A barrel of crude oil can make about 19 US gallons of gasoline, 10 gallons of diesel, 4 gallons of jet fuel and another 9 gallons of other oil products such as liquid petroleum gas, plastics, lubricants or heating oil. A flight from San Francisco to Tokyo may take about 9,000 US gallons of jet fuel which requires about 2,250 barrels of crude oil to extract.
The biggest questions for Canada may simply be WILL anyone buy our refined oil. We are now, and will be for some time in a position where there is a glut of oil, if we don't want to sell crude to a foreign company that has the refining capacity, they will buy the crude form someone else before they buy our refined products and pay the extra costs that come with it.
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So you would have to find a buyer for each of the products, not just one etc.
On top of that, we are in a situation where people do not depend on Canadian oil exports. If you told a trade partner that we didn't want to ship them crude, we would only shipped them refined products, they would buy their crude elsewhere and continue to use their existing refining capacity which is no doubt much cheaper than ours would ever be even before the costs associated with shipping products vs crude.
Scattered I know, my level of caring has been very low today, but I felt a duty to respond lol.