Scandals and Coverups in Harper Government
source: Dennis Gruending
Don't be fooled by Harper's religious cloak which he displayed prominently to sell Christmas to Canadians. There are no ethics behind his false exterior but human rights violations galore. Here's an excerpt from the above writer for context on the Beth Oda affair, the coverup and the significance of what was felt to be not worthy of conservative strategic importance - namely outing of criticism of tar sands by religious groups.
KAIROS is an inter-church coalition that has been around for a long
time. It is well respected and does good work internationally,
particularly on social justice and human rights issues. KAIROS also has a
habit of speaking its mind on public issues. It has offered criticisms
of Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. KAIROS has also raised
questions about the rapid development of the tar sands in Alberta and of
certain environmental and human rights practices of Canadian mining
companies working in developing countries.
A similar unethical deal with Honduras, murder capital of the world, shows the extent to which Canadian mining interests have no boundaries for their investments. Free trade is an oxymoron. There is no free trade. It comes with a proviso. Free trade - our way - or no trade.
Source: http://www.rightsaction.org/action-content/sweatshops-mining-tourism-free-trade-negotiations-canadas-involvement-honduras
Neighbor to the United States, Canada often escapes critical attention
to its unjust global economic and political ventures. However, Canada
is making its complicit involvement in post-coup Honduras increasingly
obvious through Canada's sweatshop, mining and tourist interests in the
country.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Income Inequality
Journalists and financial reporters continue to assuage and appease the worried public by minimizing the damaged Canadian economy. Andrew Coyne from MacLeans Magazine shows us graphs from Stats Can that indicate not such a wide spread between the years of 1980 to 2010.
What is less often heard is the massive amounts of funds not in circulation.
As of January first of this year, the last of five annual corporate tax cuts has been put in to affect to lower the rate a further 1.5 points to a total of 15 percent. That means that businesses will save an additional $2.85 billion this year. Through the third quarter of 2011 figures by Statistics Canada suggest Canadian business is squatting on more than $583 billion in Canadian currency and more than $276 billion if foreign currency. It seems those reserves have climbed 27.3 percent since 2007, back at a time when the Canadian economy was doing quite well for itself and the new corporate tax (then at 22.12%) cuts were announced. In fact, corporate taxes have been slashed by nearly half since 1990, when they were at 28%. source: 404 System Error Blog
Journalists and financial reporters continue to assuage and appease the worried public by minimizing the damaged Canadian economy. Andrew Coyne from MacLeans Magazine shows us graphs from Stats Can that indicate not such a wide spread between the years of 1980 to 2010.
What is less often heard is the massive amounts of funds not in circulation.
As of January first of this year, the last of five annual corporate tax cuts has been put in to affect to lower the rate a further 1.5 points to a total of 15 percent. That means that businesses will save an additional $2.85 billion this year. Through the third quarter of 2011 figures by Statistics Canada suggest Canadian business is squatting on more than $583 billion in Canadian currency and more than $276 billion if foreign currency. It seems those reserves have climbed 27.3 percent since 2007, back at a time when the Canadian economy was doing quite well for itself and the new corporate tax (then at 22.12%) cuts were announced. In fact, corporate taxes have been slashed by nearly half since 1990, when they were at 28%. source: 404 System Error Blog
Saturday, January 7, 2012
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.
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.
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.
...............
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.
Friday, January 6, 2012
 |
| In the Interests of Oil |
"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.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
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