Tar Sands are Responsible for Canadian Job Losses
Source:  Matt Price, Huffington Post

What follows is a brief excerpt in terms even a non literate economist like myself would understand.  I did expect that the tar sands were a sink hole for federal monies, not only directly in terms of capital investment based on tax write offs but also in giveaways through lack of environmental cleanup, CO2 emissions and resultant burden on the environment.  I did think that as we were up until recently tied to costing on carbon tax, that there would be monies owed by high polluting companies.  It is, in the main, a factor of petro dollars dictating our real finances.

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The term "Dutch Disease" was coined in the 1970s after the Netherlands discovered a large natural gas field. The country's exchange rate became tied to the rising price of natural gas, pricing its manufacturing goods out of international markets and leading to job losses.

In 2011, the Canadian dollar traded on average above the U.S. dollar for the first time since 1976. This puts an extra burden on Canadian companies who export, since it makes their products less competitive versus products from other countries.

While experts will tell you there are various factors behind our exchange rate, it's hard not to see the close correlation between the price of oil and the exchange rate, charted in a graph here. Thanks to increased oil production, we now have a petro-dollar that rises and falls with the price of oil.
And, with oil being a finite commodity, its price will only rise, taking our dollar and manufacturing jobs in Ontario and Quebec along with it.

How many? One economist at the University of Ottawa has estimated that 42 per cent of manufacturing job losses in recent years are due to Canada's case of Dutch Disease. Another study out of Montreal points out that while 95 per cent of Canada's oil reserves are in Alberta, 75 per cent of Canada's manufacturing output is located in Eastern Canada, making this a growing issue of regional fairness.
So when you hear boosters argue how great the tar sands are for the Canadian economy, it's a new kind of snake oil, this time of the viscous and toxic kind called "bitumen."

If we were at all serious about both regional economic fairness and about charting a new economic future that isn't based on trashing our planet, we'd reverse the growth of tar sands production and instead invest heavily in the ample renewable energy resources that exist all across the country.

Notice the Nationalism - Always be Selling.

source for Blogs

In the Interests of Oil

Big Push By Harper to Peddle Influence 

"The Prime Minister was also asked about a proposal by Alberta Premier Alison Redford to create a national energy strategy that would pull together Alberta's oil sands, the hydro power of British Columbia, offshore oil in the Atlantic and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's green-energy agenda."

So it's going to be a bundle of bad oil with a bit 'o green to sweeten the deal. B.C. is suffering the lowest job growth of all the provinces and is running out of options given the lack of government stimulus ideas other than gas plants.

The Northern Gateway push seems to be only concerning the Canadian provinces, without any discussion or attention paid to all the native bands who vehemently oppose the pipeline. They see the Chipewyan experience.

The people have complained of illnesses caused by the pollution of water and air. It will take 10 years to guarantee the results of scientific studies to prove their allegations. They don't have that much time. So it is up to us to bring attention to this horrible crime.

“We want to ensure in Canada that we have a regulator system that protects our environment and obviously protects worker safety and various other community interests,” Mr. Harper said. “At the same time, though, we have to have processes in Canada that come to a decision in a reasonable amount of time and processes that cannot be hijacked.”

Harper cannot bring himself to utter the words of the native bands in opposition.

Harper's Right Wing Lurch 

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

Canadian Media Supports the Old Boys' Network

Our major papers support the status quo and function as propaganda tools for positive spin.  How else to explain the recent glowing headlines:

• 

  Stephen Harper in HOC

  Why Canada’s corporate tax cuts rate a collective cheer

Think about it.  Reading this, I would assume we, the working poor, will see the corporate elite pay more in taxes.  No.  Harper's really referring to a Forbes magazine article indicating Canada as attractive to investors because of its inviting low corporate tax rate.  Here's the  evident outrage from a Globe reader:

  from: Changing Canada 7:27 PM on January 3, 2012

The only "collective" cheer that is going to take place is at the Granite Club, or University Club, or any other good old boys club in Canada. The rest of the nation is completely well-understood economic principle to the fact that this is a tax transfer from the poor to the rich. No wonder the good old boys are cheering collectively! Foxes in the roost eating them chickens.

It is the role of the media to deconstruct the message of the elite.  But the only real contrary view comes from the readership, frustrated by the nonsense we are being offered by our key newspapers.  We cannot have a democracy without an open dialogue in our mass media.

 The "Old Boys Network", began with Jean Chretien and helped to insulate political figures from embarrassment.  Favourable stories often lead to more leaks and headlines for reporters.  Or the opposite.  Witness today the spat between The Toronto Star and Rob Ford over a supposed insult.  While Harper's grudge against the CBC curtailed his annual interview with Peter Mansbridge and was instead cast with Gord Martineau at CTV, a much less hardball press.

Over Christmas we had spin after spin of Harper voting results both from Naxos and Macleans attributing positive reception of the Harper agenda.  Using polls is fraught with deception and manipulation, but more on that later.  We are being numbed with fluff informercials of the nature that Harper is writing a hockey book while in fact, the country is being sold out to the Chinese.


The way in which the stories develop is mainly a one version of events with mollifying qualifier words or abstruse constructions that avoid saying the difficult words.  Here are the examples of economic speechifying.

Economists predictably disagree on the economic importance of corporate tax rates, mostly on an ideological basis, but it makes good sense to keep this particular tax as low as possible. These taxes, after all, are a direct cost of doing business – and Canada’s corporate cuts ensure that this country will have a cross-border edge for the next two or three years at least. With a combined federal-state rate of 39.2 per cent, the United States has the second-highest rate in the world (after Japan, with 39.5 per cent).

Yes, our low taxes encourage investment.  Then our Harper government also gave tax incentives, and then the US Caterpillar company cut salaries by 50%.  from $35.00 to $16.00.  Are we not delighted with this strategy?  See:  Net Benefit to Canada


You can call this a one party state, with an information cartel.

SUPPORT THE CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD 
Reader Comments in The Globe and Mail (800 comments)

Masdar

6:29 PM on October 18, 2011

Saskatchewan Wheatfield

Prairie farmers vote to keep Canadian Wheat Board.

The fact that the Canadian Wheat Board has served Canadian farmers and ultimately consumers for generations seems to have been lost on Conservatives over the decades and now by the Reformatories under Harper. This of course in due to fact that the Conservative supporting agribusiness want full control of grain production in Canada in order to control pricing.
Currently farmers depend upon stable pricing for their products. A study conducted in the mid 1990s suggested that farmers gained on average a premium of $13.35 a tonne on wheat as a result of the board's market. Supporters of the marketing fear that an end to the board would put farmers in a situation like that in the early part of the 20th century where farmers effectively competed with each other to sell their grain, a situation that effectively put them at the mercy of big agribusiness and the railroad monopolies and reduced farm incomes. Should the Reformatories pass this legislation to scrap the Wheat Board look for a wholesale loss of family farm operations in favour of the giant agribusiness producing Monsanto grain clones.

Port of Churchill Depends on Wheat Shipments

Disbanding the Wheat Board makes little sense given the losses in jobs in this mainly single industry town.  The future of the Port of Churchill is doomed.  Grain shipments from the CWB make up more than 90 per cent of the port's business but the expected end of the single-desk is likely to cause a serious reduction in the number of grain shipments.
Legislation to disband  the  single-desk is poorly planned and will cost money to fix the problem of lost revenues.  But as is common with the PC tactics,  the federal government will just doll out money which includes $5 million a year for five years for incentives to encourage grain companies to use the port for their shipments. Sounds like a giveaway to me.  As well, Transport Canada will provide up to $4.1 million over three years to help maintain the port.  These are taxpayer funded monies which didn't need to be spent in this way.

It's not clear yet exactly how the cash will be used or what incentives will be introduced.  Why are these decisions being made is such a random manner with no real plan, no real purpose except to follow a policy of unregulated economy.
 

• Friends of the CWB
• Canadian Wheat Board Alliance
• National Farmers’ Union
• Canadian Wheat Board
• Council of Canadians