The Agenda Pushes for Keystone While Jobs Are Lost

Let me be clear.  The media is still pushing all those positive stories about how we need the tar sands and Keystone when in fact it ought to be shut down as a complete failure.  Our country has slid downhill so dramatically that it's hard to recognize it anymore.  Yes, Steve Pakin's The Agenda is stating the positives about the Keystone, despite the evidence of our Petro State linked closely to the fortunes of the wealth exporters and job destroyers.

London's Caterpillar workers were locked out and shut down today.  Harper plans to go to China, for more talks about prosperity, capacity, incremental death.

When Harper took office in the winter of 2006, there were 2,127,200 manufacturing jobs in Canada. Today there are 1,743,700 -- a total loss of nearly 400,000 manufacturing jobs under his watch, according to a Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey. Over 40,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the last 12 months alone.

 The federal government has failed to protect Canada's manufacturing sector. Tax breaks have not saved a single job in London. We need to protect Canadian jobs and we need a government that will stand up for all Canadians.( Huffington Post.ca)

There is no immediate fix for lost jobs in London, but a tough lesson learned.  It's time to push back from the sidelines and stop corporate welfare, free money and reckless giveaways.  Impose austerity with taxpayers' dollars and institute taxes on money flowing out of the country.

Bloggers have suggested a Tobin Tax which the Canadian Parliament passed in 1999 but never really implemented.  Flaherty dismissed any thoughts of it as if it were only up to him.  Notice, that's how the reigning party speaks these days.

Comments that make sense

EM_Spectrum

9:38 PM on February 4, 2012

Here's a different thought for all the anti-union Harpocult!

How about the government(s), provincial & federal, delist Caterpillar as a vendor!

That would take a bite out of their $5 billion per year Canadian sales!!!

If they don't want to business in Canada, then why should Canada do business with them!!!

Perhaps, while they are they at it, they can do the same for Vale, which shutdown their Manitoba operation after receiving $1 billion of taxpayers money to NOT close down!!!

Here are some positions in favour of a tax that ends corporate bailouts. 

Green Party position on Tobin Tax
Council of Canadians
Centre for Policy Alternatives

The last link above has a plan on limiting all those free trade, world trade, globalization and free market ideas that have not been any good to any of the countries as a whole.

• oppose any further liberalization of trade and investment rules, including at the World Trade Organization; demand a full review of the social, economic, cultural and ecological consequences of WTO and NAFTA decisions to date; and work for the establishment of new global agreements aimed at regulating the activities of transnational corporations and global investment;
• push for an international Tobin Tax on currency exchanges, to cool down the casino economy; and
• freeze and slowly lower the limit on foreign investment for RRSPs and other tax-subsidized pension plans (so that tax-deductible capital stays at work in Canada). 

The above are push back to recapture some market share for the plebes who at present are being dictated to and in the case of the London Caterpillar workers, simply smacked down.  Follow the U.S. lead to insist on worker's rights to work close to home, to be viable members of their community.


Lost jobs are indeed going to immigrants, of which the new classification is called temporary, so they are not subject to the scrutiny of statistical oversight.  They will never get citizenship, but will be parachuted in for cheap labor in the tar sands, the local Timmys, because there is a shortage in the work camp towns.  And the government wants to give its businesses a cheap supply of labor until they break the backs of its own people into submission.  Why?  Because a weak people become sheep.
Download the full pdf on the temporary worker story here.

• Do Canadians know how increasing numbers of temporary foreign workers is changing immigration? PDF File, 199 KB

Will the Pipeline Stand Up or Will it Fail?

Imported Pipe from India, S. Korea

Rumours spread that the pipeline might not stand up to possible fractures as there has already been 12 breaches.  Do we dare continue building this project where benzine may spill into rivers, wetlands or muskeg that could catch fire?

It seems the pipeline was built not in Canada, but outsourced from a not very reputable company which has used inferior grade steel.  source:  Pipe dreams?
Jobs Gained, Jobs Lost by the Construction of Keystone XL
a report by Cornell university Global Labor Institute

KXL will require over 800,000 tons of carbon steel pipe.23 TransCanada has contracted with an Indian multi-national company, the Mumbai-based Welspun Corp Limited, and a Russian company, Evraz, to manufacture steel pipe for KXL.24. In fact, a significant portion of the $1.7 billion already invested in KXL by TransCanada has likely been used towards the manufacture and import of the pipe. Clearly, this is an investment that is for the most part generating economic activity and job creation outside of the US. TransCanada’s claims that US manufacturing would reap considerable benefits from the project need to be viewed in the light of these data.

Of this writing, TransCanada has not received the Presidential Permit that is required to construct the KXL pipeline, but has already signed contracts for almost 50% of the steel pipe for the project.25 The Russian company, Evraz, will manufacture about 40% of KXL pipe in its Camrose and Regina mills in Canada. This information is based on Evraz’s own contract announcements and their contracts with Bredero Shaw, the company coating the KXL pipes.26

The Indian company, Welspun, is likely to be manufacturing the rest of the pipe for the KXL project. To date, Welspun has manufactured and imported almost 10% of the pipe for KXL. Shipping and customs records show that TransCanada imported over 70,000 tons of carbon steel pipe from Welspun through the Port of New Orleans since April 2011.27 The pipe TransCanada has imported from Welspun since April 2011 meets the specifications for KXL (36 inch diameter) and has been imported after the completion of Keystone Phase 2, which also used 36 inch pipe. It therefore seems likely that the rest of the pipe needed for KXL will probably be manufactured in Welspun’s Indian plants and then shipped to the U.S for final processing (double jointing and coating) or manufactured in Welspun’s Arkansas plant, which imports raw coiled steel and other production inputs (notably from India and South Korea.)28 These arrangements allow TransCanada to state that “approximately 75% of the pipe for the US portion of the proposed project would be purchased from North American pipe manufacturing facilities.”29 This claim is misleading on two levels. Firstly, it is possible to purchase from a North American facility, but this does not necessarily mean that the steel was produced in those facilities. Secondly, the jobs created in Canada-while important to the Canadian economy—should not then be pitched as “American jobs” to the media and the American public.30