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The Economy Premier?

Posted by Joanne on 2 September 2010, 1:25 pm

Not content to merely be known as the ‘Education Premier’, Dalton McGuinty has now taken to giving advice to the Bank of Canada – Ontario premier urges Bank of Canada not to hike interest rate.

He actually has the gall to talk about the need for ‘prudence’(!):

“It points to the need for continuing prudence,” he said.

“Try as we might, we cannot completely uncouple ourselves from the American economy. They’re our single largest trading partner and consumer confidence — American consumer confidence — is a powerful factor in determining the health and vitality of our own economy here.”

McGuinty made the remarks from a Toronto elementary school where he was promoting a new expense for Ontario: full-day kindergarten for four- and five-year-olds.

The self-described education premier announced plans last fall to forge ahead with the costly project despite the economic downturn and warnings of a record-setting deficit.

The program, which is expected to cost $1.5 billion a year once fully implemented, is being slowly phased in over five years, starting with 600 schools this fall.

Ontario is also seeing higher inflation than other provinces, largely due to the July 1 implementation of the new harmonized sales tax.

Consumer prices in Ontario rose 2.9 per cent in July — the largest year-over-year hike among the provinces — with the HST accounting for about 1.3 per cent of that increase. Canada’s annual inflation rate rose by eight-tenths of a point to 1.8 per cent, according to Statistics Canada…

Is it possible that Dalton McGuinty is finally beginning to wake up to the possible nightmarish consequences of his many disastrous policies?

Nah, he’s just hoping he can get away with it.

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Friday Update

Does Dalton have a backbone?: Sun Editorial

Filed under Arrogance, Big Green, Culture of Conceit, Dalton Days, Dalton McGuinty, Flicking politicians, Follow the money, HST, Hypocrisy, Incompetence, Just trust Dalton, Lemmings love Fiberals, Lemmings love taxes, Liberal arrogance, Ontario economy, Premier Hudak in 2011, Socialism, Unions, Your tax-dollars, eHealth, economy, education, scandals.
41 Comments

Jim Flaherty wins key fight against bank tax

Posted by Joanne on 5 June 2010, 9:01 am

I like my headline better than the Globe’s.

In any case, kudos to Jim Flaherty and Finance Ministers of the other G20 countries (eg. Japan, Australia)  that held strong to the notion of not punishing good performance and competent management:

…The decision to make the bank tax voluntary for G20 members is essentially what Canada, through Mr. Flaherty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, have argued in recent weeks as the two men blitzed key the world for face-to-face meetings with key G20 members including the E.U., China and India...

This whole controversy was a “distraction from core issues” as Flaherty noted.  Now they can get on with more important business:

…In their communique, the ministers called for strong measures to improve the transparency, regulation and supervision of hedge funds, credit rating agencies, compensation practices and OTC (over the counter) derivatives…

Is it possible that even TD might have some positive commentary regarding the current Canadian Government now? That would be such a novelty.

And how about you Mr. Ziffy?  And reaction?

Or are you preoccupied with visions of  the Ghost of Liberal Victories Past?

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Update

On the Bank Tax, Its Canada 1 – Europe 0 – ChuckerCanuk

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Sunday Update

Bank tax doesn’t get to the root of problem – Angelo Persichilli, Star:

…the proposed tax addresses the consequences of potential mismanagement or abuse by financial institutions of the sort that they committed two years ago, but it doesn’t address the cause.

The real problem is the lack of rules that allows banks to operate the most vital public service in a very private and monopolistic way.…

…New technologies have unleashed the creativity of many greedy and unscrupulous people who have transformed the stock market into the world’s biggest unlegislated gambling operation at the expense of millions of genuine and small investors.

With the push of a button, these high-tech gamblers are able to make money in Canada if a plane crashes in Poland, generate profits in New York if there is a bomb in Nigeria, or make us pay more for our gas if there is an earthquake in Indonesia. That’s not the traditional rule of supply and demand — it’s cheating by creating a reduction of supply that doesn’t exist and, by default, an increase in demand that never materializes.

Talking about implementing a tax on banks to fix the problems we have now is like selling umbrellas to fight tsunamis...

Exactly. In fact I think it would have exasperated the problem by providing a ‘get out of jail free’ card to offending institutions.

How we all got screwed – Lorrie Goldstein, Sun:

...here’s a scaled-down version of Lewis’ marvellous book.

Basically, a bunch of uber-greedy U.S. investment banks packaged crappy mortgage loans into crappy mortgage bonds, then repackaged the crappiest of those into even crappier bonds, and then sold the whole sorry mess to institutional investors around the world.

This with the blessing of the major U.S. bond rating agencies, who didn’t know or didn’t care the stuff was crap.

Not only was it crap, it was leveraged crap — meaning it was largely financed with debt — making the eventual losses exponentially worse.

Finally, these money houses shorted the crap they were selling — basically taking out bets it would turn to crap, even as they were telling investors it was gold.

These mortgage bonds were crap because they were underpinned by “subprime” mortgage loans given to people who didn’t have a hope in hell of ever paying them back, once their delayed interest payments started to kick in after the first few years…

The Canadian media on Stephen Harper and the global bank tax – Stephen Taylor (H/T Sammy)

Filed under Accountability, Canadian economy, Global economic crisis, Goldstein, Greed, International news, International politics, MSM bias, Media Watch, Michael Ignatieff, Socialism, economy.
42 Comments

Was Stephane Dion just ahead of his time?

Posted by Joanne on 21 March 2010, 9:04 am

Electricity prices and associated costs will soon be skyrocketing in Ontario. No doubt about that.

According to a recent column by the Star’s Tyler Hamilton (Why paying more for electricity is good for you), the new strategy is to deliberately increase ‘dirty’ power costs to force consumers to use less:

…How do jurisdictions with more expensive electricity cope? It’s simple: they use less of it. That’s the remarkable thing about higher prices. It’s an efficient way to squeeze waste out of the system.

“People would be surprised at how powerful that pricing lever is, and frankly how little the price increase needs to be to deal with climate change,” says Heintzman.

Homeowners, businesses, governments and industrial facilities will be motivated to offset rising costs by doing a better job of managing their energy use and investing in energy-reducing retrofits...

So basically you will be forced to go green and you will like it.

And remember Dion’s Green Shift where some of the money derived from the carbon tax would be diverted into maintaining ‘social justice’? Well it seems that Dion was ahead of his time:

…Some will need help. A new $650-million industrial efficiency program designed by the Ontario Power Authority is an example of how government can ease the transition. The program, open to 60 of Ontario’s largest industrial players, will pay up to 70 per cent of the cost of an energy-saving project. Each project aims to reduce energy use by 30 per cent.

Likewise, there are both federal and provincial programs to help homeowners lower their bills through energy retrofits in advance of rising energy prices. The trick is to make sure low-income and fixed-income consumers get support through rebates and changes to the tax structure.

If it all sounds eerily familiar to the Green Shift plan proposed by Stéphane Dion, former leader of the federal Liberal party, that’s because it is.

Dion’s failure to sell the plan doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good idea. It means he failed to communicate it properly or the population, confused by opposition fear-mongering, just wasn’t ready for it…

So are we ready now to have power costs and taxes jacked up so that we can be forced to save Mother Earth and appease our social conscience as a bonus? This is a left-wing dream scenario and it is about to happen.

And what was the problem when Dion tried this? Was it the message that Canadians were against or was it the messenger? Or both?

And why would we be ready to accept it now as we try to recover from the recession?

Of course that would assume that we had a choice.

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Related

No payoff in off-peak power conservation – Star (re: ‘Smart’ meters)

And from the general realm of Environmental Propaganda:

Time to fight back against oilsands propaganda – Sun

‘No facts, please. We’re British’ – Edmonton Journal

North and Booker on Amazongate: A billion dollar cash cow – Watts up with that? (H/T Bruce)

Filed under AGW, Big Environment, Big Green, Carbon Shaft, Climategate, Dalton McGuinty, Energy, Flicking politicians, Follow the money, Global Warming, Goldstein, Green Shaft, HST, Just trust Dalton, Lemmings love taxes, Nanny State, Premier Hudak in 2011, Socialism, Stephane Dion, Your tax-dollars, climate change, democracy, economy, environmentalists, grassroots power.
32 Comments

Obama’s cousin says kill the bill

Posted by Joanne on 20 March 2010, 5:49 pm

This just posted from today’s Tea Party rally in Washington.

Dr. Milton R. Wolf explains more here.

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“…10 years of tax increases and 10 years of Medicare cuts just to pay for six years of supposed benefits.”

And why do I care? Because the health of their economic recovery impacts ours.

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Related

Canada v. U.S.? Neither is best – Liberal MP Dr. Keith Martin (H/T Dr. Roy):

…So, which countries do have the best health-care systems?

Of the world’s top 20, 17 are European (Finland, Sweden, Norway …). They all share similar traits: all have mixed systems that combine both public and private providers, everyone is covered, no one is hurt financially when they fall ill, and there is widespread use of new information technologies to improve efficiency and reduce both medical errors and cost. None has the litigious environment that wastes so much money and poisons the efficient provision of care.

All spend less on health care per person than either Canada or the U.S. and patients are treated based solely on medical need. Iceland, for example, has the lowest infant mortality rate in the world yet spends $3,319 per person per year on health care costs. Japan, which has the third-lowest infant mortality rate and highest life expectancy, spends only $2,581 per person.

Each of these countries also experiences significantly shorter, or no, wait times.

By focusing on the timely and efficient delivery of the best possible care, while adhering strictly to the principle that no citizen will go without health care because of an inability to pay, these countries are providing models that both Canada and the United States could adapt to our own domestic needs…

David Frum: A nation in hock – Full Comment, Post:

…The mood in the recession-wracked United States is already tense enough. What happens, though, when recovery comes — and incomes continue to be squeezed? When Americans return to work — only to discover that they are working to repay the nation’s debts, not to improve their own personal standard of living?

Look for an even tenser decade ahead, made tenser still by any added costs of Barack Obama’s vast new social welfare program.

Jon Voight At Tea Party Rally: “Founders Were Envisioning A Very Small Government” – Drew Grant, Mediaite

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Sunday Update

To my American Friends, Kill the Bill! – Hunter

Flaherty urges U.S. to ensure health care competition – National Post:

…Contrary to popular belief, Canada doesn’t have completely government-funded health care, said Mr. Flaherty, who waded into the U.S. health care debate in response a question from the audience at the luncheon event hosted by the Canadian Association of New York.

Instead, about one-third of Canada’s annual health care bill, including things, for example, such as most laboratory services, is covered by private funds, he said. “It’s not 100% government.”

While Canada offers wonderful acute care coverage, the downside is people might have to wait longer for less urgent care like a hip replacement and the system is expensive – and keeping costs under control in Canada is getting more challenging, he said…


Sunday’s vote on health care still a cliffhanger – Seattle Times

A House, and a nation, are divided on health care – Gazette

Do the Math — Obamacare Would Increase Deficits by $59 Billion – Fox News

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Good luck, my friends.

Filed under Barack Obama, Canada-U.S. Relations, Health care, U.S. politics, economy.
8 Comments

But can we wish away Al Gore?

Posted by Joanne on 2 March 2010, 7:54 am

There is no shortage of point-by-point criticisms of Al Gore’s New York Times Op-ed, We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change.

My first thought after reading his steaming pile of rhetoric was why did he set himself up for the inevitable drudging?   Or does he actually believe that we’re that stupid?

And how is it that the alarmists can continue to hold him up as some kind of prophet and still keep a straight face while they warn us all of impending doom?

Anyway, here are some of the better fisks that I’ve come across. If you find more please let share them in comments. Thanks.

Al’s latest global-warming whopper – Alan Reynolds, New York Post

Al Gore’s weird, disconnected op-ed on climate change – Rick Moran, American Thinker

Al Gore Comes Out of Hiding and Gets a Fisking – Bluegrass Pundit

EXCLUSIVE: Inhofe Blasts Gore Over Climategate – Connie Hair, Human Events

But in response to Gore’s statement that “what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption”,   Bill Kristol said it most succinctly:

“Redemption comes from God, not Gore.”

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Related

More inconvenient news for the global warming alarmists:

UN’s climate link to hurricanes in doubt – Times Online

Cyclone climate link rejected – The Australian

El Nino killed Costa Rican toad, not global warming – Oneindia

British scientist in climate row admits ‘awful’ emails – Sydney Morning Herald

‘The Acceleration of Disbelief,’ Starring ‘Floor Mat’ Al Gore - Big Journalism (this is a must-read)

So is this one: Climategate: ‘a lot of common data’ – Phil Jones exposes AGW dominoes to Commons committee – Gerald Warner, Telegraph:

...And oh, yes – one further interesting fact emerged from yesterday’s Select Committee grilling. Professor Edward Acton, the Vice-Chancellor of the “University” of East Anglia, now thinks more money should be devoted to researching the Mediaeval Warm Period. So apparently it exists after all.

Who knew?

*   *   *   *

Local ‘Green Energy’ issues:

Wind farm faces opposition – Guelph Mercury article via Windaction

Ontario power risk – Parker Gallant, Full Comment

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*   *   *   *

Wednesday Update

Welcome Jack’s Newswatch readers!  And please check out Crux of the Matter – Trust Conservative gov’t timetable to refute AGW.

Peter Foster: Climate snow jobs – FP Comment

Wind power the worst kind of mirage – Henk Tennekes, FP

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Friday – Saturday Update

Waiting to hear ‘we’re sorry’ – John Robson, Ottawa Citizen

Blowing away taxpayers – Michael Trebilcock, Financial Post

Filed under AGW, Al Gore, Arrogance, Big Environment, Big Green, Carbon Shaft, Climategate, Copenhagen, Dalton McGuinty, Follow the money, Global Warming, Ontario economy, Propaganda, Science/tech, UN, Wind farms, Your tax-dollars, climate change, economy, environment, environmentalists, scandals.
45 Comments

Paying a big price for guilt

Posted by Joanne on 17 February 2010, 7:33 am

Lorne Gunter weighs in on Phil Jones’ recent revelations – They’re finally admitting the science isn’t settled. (National Post)

…Haven’t we had it drummed into us ceaselessly that the past decade has been the warmest ever recorded? Prof. Jones’s admission to the BBC then is very significant.

If, instead of bleating for the past 15 years that the sky was about to burst into flame, major climate scientists had been saying the Earth was warming, but not to a statistically significant level, would you have been as worried as you were? Would there have been a Kyoto accord? A Copenhagen summit? Carbon trading schemes? Green taxes? Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth? David Suzuki’s call to throw politicians into jail if they fail to try to stop climate change?

In his BBC interview, Prof. Jones also said that the Middle Ages may have been warmer than now, another key concession given that the CRU has for years denied the existence of the Medieval Warm Period. If the MWP can be made to disappear, then the warming that has occurred since 1900 would be abnormal and something to fear. But if there was an even greater warming 1,000 years ago — before SUVs, coal-fired plants and industrial carbon emissions — then the current warming might be part of a nature cycle and therefore unremarkable…

And yet we see that our Canadian politicians are apparently still clinging to the ‘settled science’ beliefs – at our expense.

Chris Vander Doelen said it so well in the Windsor Star:

…It may have been the most brilliant business plan ever conceived: Identify an element emitted by nearly every human activity there is.

Convince the easily fooled they are committing a sin against the environment by emitting said element, carbon; offer to provide absolution through taxation.

Curiously, only the citizens of developed nations are guilty of this new original sin. Citizens of India, most communist countries and most “developing” dictatorships were to be exempt from seeking absolution for their carbon crimes.

To me, the most important lesson to be learned from climate change and its believers isn’t about the environment at all. It’s about mob behaviour and the politics of fear…

So what’s it going to take to get the news out to Canadian taxpayers that the absolution we seek  may not have a measurable impact on a perceived calamity that even the fear-mongerers can’t agree on?

*   *   *   *

Related

Dalton McGuinty’s back and spending – Christina Blizzard (Sun):

…McGuinty says he wants to make sure the federal government supports green energy initiatives.

“As it (the feds) decides to lend support, for example, to carbon capture in Western Canada, we are asking that it provide comparable levels of support to the green energy revolution taking place here in our province.”

Oh, great. Green energy is the next bright bauble the Liberals are holding up to divert our attention from their out-of-control spending and the 8% tax hike we’ll see on everything when the HST kicks in.

The Green Energy Act will push up the price of electricity. It isn’t just consumers who’ll pay through the nose. Our beleaguered industrial sector that relies on cheap juice to be competitive will take another hit. But the more it costs to turn on the lights, the more money the goverment will rake in to its coffers through the HST. It’s all win-win for them…

Where is the outrage, Ontario?

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[Very important point around the two minute mark.]

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Update:

Olympic carbon offsets for dummies – Sun editorial

Filed under Big Environment, Big Green, Carbon Shaft, Climategate, Dalton McGuinty, David Suzuki, Flicking politicians, Global Warming, Global governance, HST, Kyoto, Michael Ignatieff, Propaganda, Stephen Harper, Your tax-dollars, climate change, economy, environment, environmentalists, grassroots power.
47 Comments

The Asbestos Enablers

Posted by Joanne on 5 February 2010, 7:58 am

Even though Jean Charest and the Federal Conservative government frequently find themselves at odds on environmental issues, they appear to be co-conspirators regarding the export of asbestos as Jeffrey Simpson points out this morning:

…But Mr. Charest said it was up to India to act if it felt asbestos led to health problems. He was accompanied by a representative of an asbestos lobby group that receives money from both the federal and provincial governments; his group, he said, gives information to asbestos users about its possible risks. In other words, caveat emptor! Meantime, it’s business as usual for Quebec’s asbestos exports…

Or is it just the environment that Jean Charest cares about? Not the health of people in developing countries?

And to the Conservative government, how about showing some backbone on this issue? You really don’t have much more to lose in Quebec anyway.

And to Mr. Iffy – Have you finally figured out where you stand?

Hypocrites the lot of you!

*    *    *    *

*   *   *   *

Charest faces questions about export of asbestos during visit to India – Record

UN climate guru on skeptics: “hope that they apply it (asbestos) to their faces every day” - B.C Blue

Charest: Asbestos “is politically part of our history” – B.C. Blue

*   *   *   *

Feb. 12 Update

On hot seat over asbestos – Gazette:

…On the trade mission, the premier was quoted in La Presse as saying “Chrysotile (asbestos) can be used in a safe manner; this is what WHO reports say. It is not a banned substance. It is up to the government of India to put the necessary laws in place.”

In fact, the World Health Organization has said that all types of asbestos, including the type mined in Quebec (chrysotile) cause asbestosis, mesothelioma and cancer of the lung, and recommends against continued use of any form of asbestos. The International Labour Organization adopted a resolution in 2006 urging the elimination of use of all forms of asbestos and of materials containing asbestos…

Filed under Canadian Government, Flicking politicians, Follow the money, Hypocrisy, Iffy, Iggo Waffles, Michael Ignatieff, Quebec politics, Voter cynicism, economy, health.
28 Comments
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