Thursday, November 01, 2007

Flaherty Saves Oil Patch


See the sky is not falling. Instead the boys in the Petro Towers in Calgary are hearing the sounds of pennies from heaven falling into their laps.

Oilsands stocks rallied yesterday on a US$4.15 jump in crude prices and optimism that Ottawa's surprise corporate tax cut could rescue producers from Alberta's oil and gas royalty increases.

Oilsands companies with long-term oilsands plans will be among the biggest beneficiaries of corporate tax changes proposed by Jim Flaherty, the Federal Finance Minister, on Tuesday, Andrew Potter, oil-and-gas analyst at UBS Securities Canada Inc., said in a research note.

The three most influential movers on the TSX were oilsands companies. EnCana Inc. jumped $2.96 to close at $66.10, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. rose $3.46 to close at $78.56, and Suncor Energy Inc. was up $3.79 to close at $103.45. Crude prices jumped as high as US$94.74 a barrel, a record price when not adjusting for inflation, on a report showing that inventories in the United States are at a two-year low. Crude for December delivery closed at US$94.53, up US$4.15.

As the old adage goes what the government taketh away the government gives to them that has.

Personal income taxes are being positively impacted in two ways -- by cutting the lowest rate by a half-percentage point, and by raising the "basic personal amount" that someone can earn without paying any tax.

The two measures together will produce an average saving of about $275 a year for most working Canadians.

Better than nothing, but still less that the price of a Tim's coffee per day.

BIG BUSINESS WINS

Big corporations, on the other hand, are in for significant tax reductions over the next five years as the federal rate drops to 15% from more than 22% today.

By 2012, the total cost to the treasury of giving corporations such a break is expected to be just over $14 billion, or almost 50% more than all of Flaherty's tax cuts for individual Canadian taxpayers over the very same period of time.


SEE:

Tax Cuts For The Rich Burden You and Me

Tax Fairness For The Rich


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Harper the Mad Dog


‘‘We will choose our time when we will decide to put this government down -- it will not be tomorrow,’’ Dion said to reporters.

Oops I think he meant 'bring down the government', unless he is ticked off about what they have done to poor Kyoto, his pet cause...Or maybe he actually meant it, perhaps he thinks the government is a Mad Dog....but then why let it suffer if that's the case.

Asks the Toronto Star Liberaltorial;

At what point does Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion take a stand and say: "No More! It is time to change this government"?

That's a question well worth asking after Dion and his Liberal MPs abstained yesterday from voting in the House of Commons on the minority Conservative government's tax-slashing mini-budget. And it is one worth considering in light of Dion's earlier willingness to give tacit approval to the Conservative throne speech and other measures, such as a get-tough-on-crime agenda and a weak environmental plan, while at the same time the Liberals insist they oppose much of what Prime Minister Stephen Harper proposes to do.

Is there a line across which Harper cannot go without the Liberals bringing down this government?

Nope apparently not.


The Liberals are a party in defeat and disintegration. Not even in the dark days of Trudeau as opposition leader or the days of exile under Chretien has the Natural Ruling Party been a house as badly divided as it is today. They smell defeat at every turn. They dread an election. And so they will prop up the Harper government and take their lumps.

Waiting, waiting, for an issue on which to take a stand. And what issue will that be they have retreated on Afghanistan, Kyoto, Childcare, Income Trusts. They have no principles left on which to take that valiant last stand. Each time the Harpocrites toss an issue out the Liberals will lead the charge of the light brigade.

And even if they did find 'the' issue to defeat the government, Dion will find himself alone then in the field of battle, as the party continues it's internal night of the long knives.

The Liberals have no platform, no agenda, no policies that the Harpocrites cannot steal and use against them and they have the cash to do it.

Finance watchers say it's likely Ottawa is sitting on more surplus cash than it's admitting and, if the economy stays hot, it will be able to offer more goodies, including a tax cut in a spring budget expected to set the stage for the next federal election.

TheLiberals elected a leader while failing to conclude Party Renewal leaving them to abandon the ship of state for the life boats. And now the various factions paddle in different directions.

Which of course is good for Jack Layton and the NDP who are now the Official Opposition.


The image “http://www.ndp.ca/xfer/html/2007-10-12/LiberalWarningHeader-en.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.



SEE:

Liberals Favorite Tax Cut


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Martha, Henry, and Ed

Common sense from the common folks. And one thing you don't do is threaten Albertans with "we will get up and leave", cause you will get told "git up and go", "we can do it ourselves". It's an Alberta attitude of self reliance that the right wing likes to lay claim to, except when the shoe is on the other foot.

More Albertans support Premier Ed Stelmach's royalties strategy than do not, but his plan has fallen short of many people's expectations and may have created a "lose-lose" situation for the rookie Tory leader, a new poll indicates.

As the debate simmers, the online poll conducted by Leger Marketing shows most Albertans -- 61 per cent -- believe the oil and gas industry overinflated the negative consequences that higher royalties would have on the sector.

"The program fell short for many Albertans," Tremblay said.

The poll indicates many Albertans are skeptical of industry warnings, with six in 10 respondents agreeing the oil and gas industry overinflated the negative fallout from higher royalties. And just 38 per cent of people polled believe the new royalty regime will create job losses in Alberta, while 46 per cent do not.

As for the threat that the oilpatch will withdraw investment, about one-third agreed, but slightly more than half didn't buy it -- although the numbers show more Calgarians remain concerned than people in other areas of the province.

Only 28 per cent of Albertans agreed Stelmach's decision will have a negative effect on them or their families, either through work or through investments, while 52 per cent disagreed.

However, only 37 per cent of the people surveyed said Stelmach's decision will have a positive effect on them or their family through improved government spending on programs or infrastrastructure, while 39 per cent do not.

The poll of 804 Albertans, fielded from Friday to this Monday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.



Also see Enlightened Savage for his take on this poll.

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Return Of The Work Camps II

An excellent article from the Guardian on Fort McMurray reminds us that homelessness is not just an urban issue for Calgary and Edmonton but a way of life for construction workers, the folks who did not protest at the Leg last week. Work Camps have returned to Alberta, not unlike the old Relief Camps for unemployed workers during the dirty Thirties or the internment camps of WWI which built the Banff and Jasper national parks. The difference is of course these camps are full of volunteer wage slaves.

For many, purpose-built work camps provide the best solution, and are often the only option for the blue-collar workers needed to build the sites. The work camps are small towns in their own right - Suncor's Borealis camp, the largest such facility in North America, sleeps 7,500, as does CNRL's Horizon camp - but with few of a small town's compensations. The only plus is a negligible commute. It's a short walk from Syncrude's Mildred Lake camp to the refinery. The long, low trailers are surrounded by barbed wire and sandwiched between, on one side, belching silver towers and pipes, and on the other a highway and seas of mined-out sand. Inside the trailers, men in dressing gowns wander down interminable, hospital-bare hallways; the rooms are cells, maybe 7ft by 14ft, furnished with a small single bed. Men - it is usually men, though there are some women, in separate facilities - can spend anything from a few days to years living in these rooms. A Somali cab driver who worked as a security guard at one of the camps told me they all developed coughs. "And their faces started to look like they were made of rubber."


H/T to Galloping Beaver


SEE:

The Other Alberta Boom

Padrone Me Is This Alberta

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Vue Covers My CBC Campaign

Got an email from a reporter from Vue Weekly last week and did a phone interview with him about my Hey CBC Ezra Does Not Speak For Me campaign. Let a thousand flowers bloom as they say.

And in this week's edition they published this;

CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED AGAINST CBC RIGHT-WING 'FLACK'

MURRAY SINCLAIR / murray@vueweekly.com


Recall campaigns, in use in some US states, British Columbia and once in Alberta, are usually aimed at removing politicians from office between elections.
But one local activist has started a similar type of campaign online to get rid of a conservative pundit from a CBC Newsworld show.

Eugene Plawiuk told Vue it’s “extremely disrespectful” that Ezra Levant is used as Alberta’s representative by veteran broadcaster Don Newman for a cross-Canada regional panel on his afternoon Politics show.

“There’s a constant use of Ezra, as if he knows anything,” charged Plawiuk, a self-described “unabashed left-winger.”
“He doesn’t deserve to be on as a pundit from Alberta. It makes us look like right-wing nut bars.”

Levant, who has been a lawyer, columnist and an activist in conservative groups and parties, made the news recently when he stopped publishing his Western Standard magazine in favour of an online format.

Plawiuk said that Levant, who didn’t return repeated interview requests for this story, wrongfully believes that Albertans are “genetically” disposed against Liberals and for the Conservatives.

“Levant also deliberately refuses to make any reference to the NDP in this province, which happens to have four sitting MLAs, and has been a force in provincial and federal politics since the founding of the CCF in Calgary,” Plawiuk’s website charges.

In a past entry, he charged that the “Conservative Broadcasting Corporation,” when “reporting on news from Alberta for political comments ... is sucking up to the right wing rump of the right wing with Levant.

He “is not a journalist, but a public-relations flack for the right,” Plawiuk added.

In September, Plawiuk wrote to CBC ombudsman Vince Carlin that he’s “tired of the right-wing bias shown by Ezra Levant,” who he says does not reflect the reality of politics in Alberta.

“Get someone else to comment on Alberta politics, or at least balance him out with someone who is not part of the extreme right.”

Carlin replied that he forwarded Plawiuk’s concerns to the producer of Politics, but the activist answered back that nobody on the show was listening to him, as Levant kept on appearing as a talking head.

CBC spokesman Jeff Keay didn’t respond directly to Plawiuk’s campaign, but said generally “Don [Newman] has a broad range of people on the show.”

Jim Thompson of the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting said his group hasn’t done any content analysis to determine whether the CBC is providing a diversity of voices. He said Alberta MPs, who are all Conservative, would likely say the CBC is left-wing, but he wouldn’t comment on whether the CBC was using Levant to battle this perspective.

Plawiuk said he “wouldn’t be as ticked” if Levant was appearing on a non-public network that wasn’t supported by tax dollars, an arrangement he noted the conservative pundit dislikes despite appearing regularly on the CBC.

The activist started his anti-Levant campaign in late October by sending out emails on the listservs of the NDP and other progressive groups, while his blog is linked to several other leftist and non-ideological websites.

He doesn’t know how many in cyberspace have heeded his request to email the CBC and ask for Levant’s removal as Newman’s only Alberta voice, but a number of people have told him they’ve done so, including one who created an online logo stating “Hey CBC, Ezra Levant does not speak for me!” for use in the campaign.

The activist denied that he’s advocating censorship, and said his campaign speaks to a bigger issue that goes beyond cyberspace.

Alberta is changing politically, said Plawiuk, citing the thousands of newcomers coming into the province, the decline of the Reform movement and the departure of conservative standard-bearer Ralph Klein from the premier’s chair.
“Nobody talks about the Ralph revolution anymore,” he said. “They talk about the Ralph failure.”

Plawiuk suggested in one email to the CBC that “there are other more ‘expert’ folks you could use, or at least to give balance and have on along with Ezra,” citing as examples local blogger Ken Chapman and the Parkland Institute’s Ricardo Acuña.

The activist told Vue that Edmonton Journal legislature reporter Graham Thompson or someone from the Calgary Herald or that city’s CBC would be acceptable in place of Levant, who he charged “blusters on with half-facts and innuendo.”

He said even Edmonton Sun columnist Neil Waugh would be a more insightful voice on the right, as would Link Byfield of the defunct Alberta Report magazine, given his long experience with the conservative cause..

Associating Levant with a “small voice from Calgary,” Plawiuk said there was a regional dimension to his campaign, charging that Newman’s show was turning down Edmonton voices in favour of what he called Canada’s most Americanized city.

Friends of Canadian Broadcasting spokesman Thompson said CBC cutbacks have gutted regional programming, which has “certainly affected the diversity of perspective that the CBC has been able to offer its audience” in his mind. V


Interesting that Friends of Canadian Broadcasting doesn't do content analysis. That's not what they say on their web site. And their actions say otherwise. However I guess what they don't do is look at specific programs. Though Don's show has slipped in some American spin which should concern them.

FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting is an independent, Canada-wide, non-partisan voluntary organization whose mission is to defend and enhance the quality and quantity of Canadian programming in the Canadian audio-visual system. FRIENDS is not affiliated with any broadcaster or political party.

FRIENDS relies upon individuals for donations to finance its watchdog role, public policy initiatives, public opinion leadership and research activities directed at our priorities.

Looks like CBC's top-ranked managers, specifically president and CEO Robert Rabinovitch and CBC-TV executive vice-president Richard Stursberg, have been stung by Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.

A fundraising letter sent recently to Friends' members – who number 66,000 dues-paying households – attacks the duo for their "incompetence, neglect and recklessness" and "appallingly deficient vision."


The spokesperson for CBC says Don has a broad representation from Alberta which of course is a lie. His regular, as in frequent, guest commentator on things Albertan is Ezra.

Keep sending those cards, letters, and emails to CBC. And please cc me at
eugene-at-union-dot-org-dot-za


See:


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Diminished Expectations

They won't be discussing royalties, or homelessness, or the environment, or crumbling infrastructure. Nope, the Tired Old Tories are holding a short pre-election fall sitting of the legislature to deal with this..... Speeding tickets, smoking ban top fall legislative agenda



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This Is News?


Paris Hilton throws tantrum in Toronto

And it only gets sillier...
The amateur porn star allegedly threw a temper tantrum when she saw posters of her porn film debut A Night In Paris, being advertised in the Toronto Adult Movie store, "You guys can't use my image in a porn store," a woman said to be Hilton was heard saying, according to CTV. "I'm going to call my lawyer and sue the (expletive) out of this place. I really want them down because they're mean and this is not right. I'm really serious, this is disgusting. And I want the other ones too or I'm calling the (expletive) cops." Listen to the exchange here.

It seems everyone is throwing tantrums these days......

Turkish Temper Tantrum

China Throws a Temper Tantrum

A temper tantrum for a rate cut


SEE:

Paris Discovers Jesus In Jail



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