Canadian Consulates Closing in US Our Biggest Trading Partner

Eight out of twenty-two consulates in the United States will be shut for a purportedly cost saving measure.  One does wonder, if the ones left will be staffed by Conservatives.  It does seem to be related to a Harper chill after the cancellation of the Keystone and a snub against the too Liberal Obama who would see the China visit as openly shifting allegiances.  Harper's also betting that the Keystone will be a go once the GOP Republicans push it through with all their money and clout.
And if anyone wants to say that this back turning really isn't intended as such, then not at all.  Harper's very calculating about optics and messaging.  All that flag waving and whatnot, the open handed gestures that are de rigueur.  Here are some comments to this latest action.

Clearly you have never been in business before! My company: for every 1 Canadian order we get, we get 100 USA orders are 30 European orders... And you know how many from Asia???

NONE!

That's right, not one... Asians don't buy things from us, they never will. They just sell us stuff.. That is not a business relationship. We must stand with the USA to ensure our economic survival, without them, we're so done!

....................................

Canada is "shifting focus from the US struggling markets".... Tsk Tsk ...Has Harper begun to believe his own propaganda or was this little slip of the truth sneaked into the article to throw the stupid public off?

By all reports, the US economy is growing at a much faster rate than Canada's.

Harper is "shifting focus to China" right now ... to benefit his Conservative pals in the US congress and senate ... and to benefit his pipeline investors who in turn will fund his next election.

Cozying up to China and expanding trading partner offices in every region that can be exploited by Canadian businesses is far more important than supporting where Canadians may be looking for services.  Here is a list of the countries that now have Canadian offices.

Canada's New Investment Strategies - Prisons

Libyan torture prison built by Canadians

It just takes a big accident, a trouble maker to break the law and headlines reveal a nefarious underground story that the media has left out of the eyes of the public.  Yesterday, it was the horrific crash that killed 11 temporary immigrants.  Today it is the Ghadaffi abetting woman in Mexico who worked for SNC Lavalin.  Yes, Canadian companies are finding profits in amoral ways and influencing the politics of Canada.  CBC News ran an article on this company here and I've gathered some comments from people in the know.

Quinton denied reports that SNC-Lavalin was concealing the project.

"It is one of the thousands of projects we work on yearly, not all of which are announced by press release."

Quinton pointed out the project is mentioned in SNC-Lavalin's upcoming annual report for 2010.

"We are proud to be able to deliver such a necessary project and hope that it will become a model for others in the region. What would be the alternative to building a state-of-the-art facility according to the standards of human rights?"

What follows are quotes taken from readers' comments.  They said it so well and many are more informed than I, so here goes.  No attribution given out of respect to their privacy.  You can look it up from the link above.

SNC Lavalin is also one of the many corporations that have Direct input into Canadian politics, through their involvement on the NorthAmerican Security & Prosperity Partnership ; NAFTA , along with Power Corp.

This odious propaganda about free trade around the world will bring democracy just keeps getting exposed for the lie it is, it is all about capitalism and ensuring a small % of citizens have the largest % of influence.

Capitalism is the nemesis of Democracy

 it should be remembered that all jails are built by governments to be used to detain its citizens. The more people detained, the more likely that the government is repressive. When a government starts passing legislation that imposes stiff sentences for minor social 'misbehaviour', takes the imposition of sentences out of the hands of judges, and concentrates the financial supports on punishment rather than rehabilitative programs, then we have the beginning of tyranny.

 As an engineer I am disgusted that SNC Lavalin would put aside any ethical concerns in favour of doing business with a long lasting brutal dictator. It's one thing to build an airport which one can argue doesn't affect people in a negative way, but building a prison for Ghadaffi is helping to build more repressive infrastructure to imprison people who dare complain about their own lack of human rights. And the assertion that the prison meets human rights standards? Give me a break- beatings, torture, murder can happen anywhere a dictator wants it to, even in a "human rights approved prison". So much for professional standards and ethics. I hope the Libyan people burn that prison down.

If SNC didn't get the contract some other foreign company would have gladly accepted it. Libyan Airlines also uses several CRJ900 aircraft from Bombardier so do we condemn them as well? (was this an inducement to win the contract?)

  The difference between Gadhafi and Kim could probably be summed up by paraphrasing the famous old Cold War saying as, "He may be a bastard, but he's a rehabilitated bastard" (referring to Gadhafi).

Having said that, I personally think it's reprehensible that SNC would be involved in helping Gadhafi upgrade his security infrastructure, "rehabilitated" or not. I realize SNC is an engineering company, and engineers tend to be less squeamish about ethics than other people concerning business deals. Still, I think SNC should rightly be feeling some heat over this particular contract.
 Takeaways - Harper's government can be proud of its fascistic methods for wealth creation and its ability to twist a despicable enterprise into a positive.  Beware of the company they keep.
I look at these people and they appear like you and me, but deep down, there is no morality or ethics in them.  How did this happen?  And why did we let it happen?

Temporary Immigration in Canada is Wrong

The census of 2012 discloses that Immigration is being used to provide cheap labour for businesses and industry, to drive down wages, distort population mobility figures and shuts out Canadians willing to work.  Eventually, there's a plan to dispose of the EI in the long run to further cheat Canadian workers out of a right they earned.  Canada Immigration Blog notices when this changed and what it means.

Until recently, Canadian immigration policy targeted economic immigrants (permanent residents) to fuel our country’s growth. However, in the past few years a significant shift has taken place. Starting in 2006, and for every year since, Canada has admitted more temporary foreign workers than economic immigrants. We are now choosing to fill labour shortages with guest workers ahead of permanent residents. This change in direction will have consequences.

A whole new cottage industry of pseudo immigration facilitators are charging fees to work the system and grease the wheels of accessing entry employment.  See Red Seal home page.  Does this look like some kind of agency you'd think you would trust?  Why are they allowed to capitalize on a government agency that should be above board?  Here's another one called Abhinav that also pushes for skilled workers needed in the west.

Lawyers are using misrepresentation to put fear into employers who might break government rules.  Here's an example on this site:

More and more businesses in Canada are hiring foreign workers.  In fact, the number of temporary foreign workers has ballooned in recent years to the point where they now outnumber new permanent residents.  There are many reasons for this trend, including a rapidly aging labour force, skills shortages for specific sectors of the economy, as well as federal government policy which has increasingly prioritized temporary foreign workers over permanent residence applications.

And just out today, Jason Kenny said that the companies themselves will be doing the recruiting of new hires for temporary work.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney told Sun News Network on Thursday one of the biggest changes will be to "invite businesses to go overseas, recruit the people who they think will work well in their companies, give them those job offers, and then we'll bring them in (to Canada) on a super-fast basis."  Sun News

The new temporary hires may well be going to the tar sands for all we know or to work at the Tim Horton's where people don't want to work for minimum wage.  But who's to tell?  And how fair will that be to temporary immigrants that run into difficulties with their employers, or are injured?


After a horrific accident that killed 11 temporary workers, we learn the dark side of life for temporary workers.

"Canada and the agricultural industry are quick to dispose of migrant workers who get injured in the course of their employment,” she said.

“Workers are soon sent back to the ... south, and in our experience, are unable to find work with their injury and largely unable to pay for private medical care. It's an inhumane and unjust way for Canada to treat people who get injured putting food on our tables.”

Everything this government does lacks class.  It turns its back on Canadian joblessness.  Uses up the temporary workers like expendables as if saying "there's more where you came from".  It farms out its responsibilities to govern by good policies and taking ownership of responsibility to simply handing it over to the ruling class of big money.

What's Missing from the Long Form Census According to Former Statistician

There is a need for an improved Consumer Price Index that updates weights more frequently, has a wider coverage of commodities and does a better job in dealing with quality changes.
from Munir Sheikh, former chief statistician of Canada New Directions for Intelligent Government in Canada

•    Canada does not have an ongoing wealth survey. This is surprising since a number of issues the country faces today require information on wealth holdings at the household level. The debate on the adequacy of pensionsNew Directions for Intelligent Government in Canada

is taking place without the knowledge about personal asset levels of Canadians at the time of their retirement. The impact of the financial and eco- nomic crisis cannot be fully examined without an understanding of changes to household wealth.
•    The Drummond Report, prepared for the Council of Labour Market Ministers, highlighted serious labour market data gaps and urged the government to act expeditiously in view of the weak labour market that exists today following the financial and economic crisis (Drummond, 2009).
•    With globalization, trade data have not kept up. There are weaknesses in data for trade volumes, because of inter-industry and intra-industry trade, and trade prices, particularly import prices.
•    Service sector data, particularly service prices, need improvement.

•  Data on aboriginal populations are particularly weak. This is especially true of populations on reserves where the only source of data for reserves which participate was the census. Even that source is now largely gone
with the cancellation of the long form census.

All About the Boreal Forest and What Tar Sands Destroy

This is by far the most captivating visual presentation on what we are destroying by oil greed.  Because Canada is so large, PMO can sit in Ottawa and only talk economic action plans.  How a person can watch this video and not care deeply about the damage done to nature is hard to fathom.



As for clean up that will happen after a spill, well forget that.

More than 1,000 barrels of oil spewed into the Yellowstone River after Exxon Mobile's Silvertip pipeline burst during heavy flooding in the region in July. By August, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer said samples taken from the region didn't show any elevated levels of chemicals that would persist in the environment. Officials had said Silvertip wasn't carrying tar sands oil at the time, but it does on occasion -- just, conveniently enough, not when the pipeline ripped open. By the end of the year, Exxon was boring holes far below the riverbed as engineers worked on repairs. The Billings Gazette, in its comments on the attorney general's statements, noted quietly this week that less than 1 percent of the total amount of oil spilled from Silvertip was ever recovered, however. Does that mean there's still about 1,000 barrels of oil floating around somewhere?

Tar sands oil sinks, so it will not be fished out of the rivers, never, ever.  Only 1% was recovered two years later.

Americans Livid Over TransCanada Lies

If an individual lies, it's pathological.  When industry lies, it's criminal.  And foolish.  TransCanada promised to source 75% of its steel for pipelines from the US.  Instead, it came from India.

 Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) accused the foreign company TransCanada of misleading the American public that the pipeline would be built with American steel.

Doyle submitted an amendment that challenged TransCanada to certify its claim that 75 percent of the pipe comes from North America is actually true. Discussing his amendment, Doyle expressed his frustration about his attempts to get a straight answer from the tar sands company about where the steel for the 1700-mile pipe was made. Doyle found that the Indian company Welspun Corp appears to be the pipeline supplier, using its Little Rock facilities to store India-manufactured pipe and steel. “I don’t believe there’s a lick of US or Canada steel in this pipeline,” Doyle said:

I’m asking for a bit of truth in advertising here. It’s been my frustration throughout this debate. We hear a lot of claims about the pipeline and I just want to be honest with the American people. My amendment just says this: TransCanada has told us they have made every effort to source as much steel through North American mills as they can. I’m simply asking them to certify that claim. Through my little amateur investigation, I don’t believe there’s a lick of US or Canada steel in this pipeline. But I would love to be proved wrong.

This says volumes about how TransCanada is a black mark in business dealings.  Currently, their Utah tar sands have been halted for being dishonest about how they would be cleaning up the tar mess.  Apparently, the compound turns carcinogenic and fluid when mixed with tar, further enhancing its capability to morph into a run off and uncontrolled toxic compound.

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