Saturday, May 19, 2012

Halifax Naval Base to close, like Refinery & Coast Guard base ?

      HALIFAX - In the event of any all-out war involving Canada, the country's largest military base might be left high and literally dry, 'hors de combat'.
     So why in the name of God is it still here - why not move some of it to St John's Newfoundland and post the bulk of it to a base on Canada's Pacific Coast ?

     After all, that is where many experts are saying our next big global conflict is likely to take place - and fittingly, as it will be a fight over oil - at least British Columbia meets Canada's national security requirements for self-suffiency in the prime mover of war and violence: petroleum products.
   There are a number of pipelines from Saskatchewan and Alberta shipping petroleum to BC, but despite 85 years of talk still no pipeline from the Canadian West to the Atlantic Coast - and Canada's largest military base.
    If a shooting war means Atlantic Basin oil products are embargoed to bigger nations closer to the supply - or cut off from Canada by way of submarine action - the fuel tanks of the military ships and aircraft of CFB Halifax will be left bone dry and useless.
   Judged in that light, closing down CFB Halifax, at least in the eyes of the University of Calgary's smartest men in the universe, begins to make a lot of sense.
   This week, it was announced that the 95 year old Imperial Oil refinery in Dartmouth, the last of Nova Scotia three original oil refineries, will likely close or at best remain as a bare oil terminal.
  Next to it, Dartmouth's Coast Guard base, 55 years old, will also close.
   CFB Shearwater, also in Dartmouth, is more or less closed - a shadow of its former self.
   Victims of Canada's "Dutch Disease" as people and the smart money move West.
   In the summer of 1957, I rode through America when the Canadian dollar was $1.07 US.
   It wasn't hard to see why it was so high : moral hubris - the alter ego of moral panic.
   Everyone in the smart part of the world - the guys with degrees - just knew that nuclear was the wave of the future ( like the Tar Sands are so regarded today.)
    Canada had more uranium than anyone else : ergo bet on the Canadian dollar, the future's so bright we gotta wear shades.
   Just before we got to the American border, we had been delayed for days: every construction truck in the world was on the tiny two lane highway between The Sault (St Marie) and the dirt road to Elliot Lake.
   A zillion uranium mines needed to be built like yesterday, before the US bounty on uranium wore off.
    Canadians and foreigners didn't really believe that time limit on uranium was for real - Canada's uranium boom was going to last forever, or at least as long as today's current tar sands boom.
   But uranium crashed and foreigners fled Canada's dollar as fast - and as stupidly - as they had bought into it.
   Five short years later, the Diefenbaker dollar (size small) doomed the government that had lorded over Canada's short lived uranium boom.
   The western Canadian "TOMORROW COUNTRY" idiots in charge then ?
    Same as the idiots today : the naive,hubristic, full-of-themselves
Con  Party  .........

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