How Does Social Media Analysis Assist Politics

From inside the infinite scroll of the Twitterfeed, its glitter and gutter, one explicit tweet referred to as me to a halt. It was from Catherine McKenna, the climate change minister, and was posted hours after the Americans put a tariff on Canadian steel. The minister is nothing if not quick. Proud to be carrying my new hammer necklace as we speak in honour of my hometown, Hamilton.

Our authorities will stand up for Steeltown jobs - and the jobs of aluminum and steelworkers across Canada - in the present day and daily. Fairly than dance round, let's go along with the plain query instantly. When was the last time the minister had a tweet about oilpatch jobs? Where was that swift digit hitting the Twitter highway following the assorted, deep hits to the oil trade, which has been underneath so many guns — costs, protests and pipelines — for therefore a few years. Out of the blue the minister for local weather change has a phrase about jobs. It brings me to ask, what does it take to acknowledge a disaster? If it's in Ontario, a matter of hours. If it's in Alberta, years.

The crisis in Alberta jobs has been present for years and the assorted forces blocking Alberta energy have been energetic, present and pressing for the same period. But it took the determined measure of Kinder Morgan setting a deadline to abandon the challenge for good earlier than both the federal government or the national press wrapped their busy minds around Alberta's dilemma.

It's more than strange that it took so long to get so far. For till the deadline — not less than outdoors Alberta — the nationwide press and national politicians had been casual, sporadic and basically not severe in their attention or protection. Yet over, at a minimum, the past two years no less than, the crisis could be seen building, nearly on a daily basis. It's helpful to evaluate the atmospherics that led up to the final week of May and the flurry of concern that instantly manifested itself.

It is easily recalled when Power East was cancelled and the little consideration that acquired. Here was a genuinely all-new project destined to bring Western oil to the Canadian East Coast, and finish the embarrassment of feeding Jap Canada from suppliers as far afield as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. It was as much a nationwide challenge as Kinder Morgan's is insisted to be. But when it went by the wayside there was hardly a peep.

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Likewise with Trudeau's off-hand fiat on Northern Gateway. One other pipeline cancelled. No big deal. Simply the standard blather from the federal management, the usual self-congratulation: save the environment, leaders on local weather change, and all that. Much the same with the ban on any new West Coast tankers. This dropped into the information line with the mildest of mild thuds, though it meant another twisting of the garrote round export of Alberta's No. 1 useful resource.

Add to that the charade of the "social licence" deal. The Alberta government genuflected to social licence, brought in the carbon tax — and two years later social licence is a useless phrase. With every project cancelled, or hurdle erected, the enviro consortia tasted fresh ecstasy. Any alternative that hamstrung the oil trade and villainous Alberta raised a cheer from Sierra, Suzuki and Greenpeace. But, when all this was happening, apart from just a few tepid responses, a scattered warning that shutting down all outward access from Alberta would possibly, sooner or later, show an issue, might stir things up between B.C.