Cry Me A River

Canada's Banking Cartel is crying about politicians bashing them, cry me a river.

At a time when the federal finance minister is asking Canada's big banks to justify a raft of ATM banking fees, Canada's second-largest bank is reporting its first quarterly profit of more than $1 billion.

Bank of Nova Scotia reported Tuesday morning a first quarter profit that smashed all expectations at $1.01 billion, or $1.01 a share, up almost 20 per cent from $844 million, or 84 cents a share, a year ago.

Last week Canada's largest bank, Royal Bank of Canada, posted first-quarter net earnings of $1.5 billion or $1.14 per diluted share, a 27.6-per-cent increase from the same quarter last year

Let us review the facts; ATM fees are set by a cartel of Canada's six banks. Not credit unions or foreign banks. The Banking Cartel owns Interac, it implemented ATM's as a way of closing branches and reducing front line staff.

Credit Cards, Visa and MasterCard, are owned by the same Banking Cartel. They set the interest charges and fees for the use of credit cards.

Bank fees themselves are then charged on top of this. For instance the banks charge you a service fee for having an account, and for any cheques used, or for any ATM withdrawls, and for use of their credit cards.

So when they claim that they need to charge you ATM fees for withdrawing money from their branch and not your own, well thats a little white lie. Since the cartel owns Interac, the fact is they have colluded in a monopolistic fashion to set fees.

That would be illegal in the United Sates. It is not illegal in Canada.

So you get charged for your ATM withdrawal three times, once when you use an ATM that is not your bank, next a charge by your bank for doing so and then they charge you a monthly service charge for having done so. Sounds like usury to me.

The Finance Committee will be reviewing Banking operations later this month, they need to look at all service charges as well as ATM fees. And they need to look at the impact of the Banking Cartels in operating Interac and the Credit Card business.

It has been a long standing libertarian tradition to oppose cartels and monopolies especially in the banking industry. A fact most conservatives forget, including the ones who claim to be libertarians.

See

Banks

Monopoly

Service Charges

ATM

Bank Profits

Credit Cards


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Harpers Alberta Green Plan

Polluters could pay into fund rather than cut emissions under Tory plan

While this article focuses on how Harpers Green plan is really just the Liberals Green Plan with a new cover, the reality is that even that plan was a Made In Alberta Plan, a sop to the Oil Industry.

It is polluter pays and intensity based. Just what the Big Oil Boys in Calgary ordered.

And like the Liberal Plan intensity based regulations will simply see our Greenhouse gas emissions increase, like they did under the Liberals.

Proving Harpers point that Canada cannot and will not meet it's Kyoto obligations. Because Big Oil won't let us.

What the Liberals could not do in thirteen years, the Conservatives have not done in 13 months. And will not be able to do with their Made In Alberta Hot Air plan.

Alberta is the only province in the country with legislation to reduce greenhouse gases, but it is based on intensity -- not absolute reduction targets.

The province is still negotiating with industry over its greenhouse gas emissions intensity targets, but a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has said industry is looking at a target that would cut emissions intensity by 12%.

Stelmach said his government is pushing for more.

CAPP says few companies could meet the 12% target, but the proposal is "affordable" as long as the penalty is in the range of $15 per tonne of emissions.

A 1000 mw coal-fired power plant produces about six million tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Stelmach said he wants targets in place by July 1.

"I know industry wants to do its part and will do its part," Stelmach said. "If they don't come to the table, we'll make sure it happens. We will get it done."

He said he's confident Alberta and Ottawa are on the same page on emissions intensity targets, but stressed there needs to be a single regulator of the protocols

However, the premier maintained Alberta has invested heavily in emissions-cutting technology.

"This approach has already produced ... a 16 per cent reduction in emissions intensity from 1992 levels," said Stelmach.

Calgary-Northwest MLA Greg Melchin, who served as energy minister from 2004 to 2006, said Alberta imposes some of the tightest environmental standards among the world's major energy producers.

NDP environment critic Nathan Cullen was less generous toward Stelnach's complaints. "He's doing an apples and oranges comparison that's not going to pass muster," he told Macleans.ca. "Alberta's emissions have gone up 39% since 1990, the most of any province. He can claim whatever intensity-based games he likes; that's a business as usual scenario.

Premier Ed Stelmach is defending Alberta's record on greenhouse gas emissions, saying the province has reduced emissions intensity, a measure that takes economic growth into account.

The 16 per cent drop in emissions intensity since 1990 shows progress on the environment file that has not hurt the economy, particularly the energy sector, Stelmach said Wednesday.

Emissions intensity is based on a formula that takes economic growth into consideration. The overall production of greenhouse gases in Alberta has steadily climbed and shows no signs of levelling off.

Total greenhouse gas emissions in Alberta have increased by 39.4 per cent from 168.17 megatons in 1990 to 234.51 megatons in 2004, according to Environment Canada.

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Oilsands Rip Off

Here is a damning confession from Alberta's CEO, Ed Stelmach. Our provincial royalty rate is so low that the Feds make more money off the Tarsands then the people of Alberta!

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach has urged caution on a Commons committee report that suggests more federal involvement in the oil sands and a reduction in tax benefits for producers.

"Everyone forgets that over the next 20-year period, about $51-billion, 41 per cent of the income, flows to the federal government," he said yesterday.

"They actually make more on the oil sands than we do.

And if that isn't bad enough the panel appointed to look at Alberta's royalty scheme is made up of the same Calgary Petroleum Club boys that got us in this mess in the first place.Critics skeptical of board chosen to review Alberta's petroleum royalties


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Tarsands To Go Nuclear

The Greening of Alberta's Tar Sands will result in a green glow of radiation.

So along with Greenhouse Gas emissions there will be more destruction of the Athabasca water basin when it is used to cool a nuke plant planned for the Tarsands.

Nuke plants require vast amounts of water as coolant, the result is hot water returned to mix with the original source water.

Henuset and Hank Swartout - founder and executive chairman of Precision Drilling Corporation - are co-directors of Energy Alberta Corporation. The new firm has an exclusivity agreement with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to develop nuclear power in Alberta. Later this year in early 2008, AECL and Energy Alberta hope to file an application with the Alberta Energy & Utilities Board for a permit to construct a 750 megawatt generating plant.

The partnership estimates that a two-reactor nuclear plant over its 50-year lifetime would be 15% less expensive than its natural gas equivalent (including capital and decommissioning expenses as well as operating costs). Crucially important in Henuset's view, the long-term price of uranium to fuel those reactors is more likely to remain stable than natural gas. "Nuclear power is a natural hedge against rising gas prices," he states. His firm's nuclear-versus-gas cost projection assumes an Alberta gas price of $7.04 per gigajoule in the year 2015, which the former oilman considers highly conservative.

Energy Alberta is well aware that its project faces high hurdles. Because these power stations are large, big sums of money must be raised. In fact, nuclear power ranks as the most capital-intensive form of electricity generation, although its operating costs are correspondingly low. Time is another factor. The period required to win regulatory approval and construct a nuclear facility is estimated to be 10 years. Further, there are rival forms of power generation, notably coke and coal gasification (see accompanying article).

Perhaps most formidable of all, North Americans have lived inside a "no-nuke" bubble for several decades; hostility toward the technology among many people is deeply emotional as well as intellectual. In response, Henuset points out that uranium-fueled power continues to develop rapidly elsewhere in the industrialized world.

And the folks behind the push to go nuclear are none other than the Alberta PC party. The same folks who brought you the unplanned, unorganized, rapid expansion of the Tarsands. And though they ousted Ralph Klein for his failure to plan for the boom, they have elected Steady Eddie Stelmach in his place who promises more of the same.

David McColl: Why An Energy Economist Helped Oust Ralph Klein

A fair amount of technical and economic analysis of these issues has already been done by the Alberta Energy Research Institute, the Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy and other organizations. McColl himself has researched and co-authored studies on the oilsands development, nuclear options and related subjects for the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) and Energy Alberta Corporation.

What's still missing, the Calgary consultant maintains, is any meaningful political response. McColl, who holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Waterloo and a master's in economics from the University of Alberta, has been president of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives' youth wing for more than two years. From that post, he helped instigate the party leadership review which led to the ouster of Ralph Klein as the province's premier. "Many Albertans had a discouraging sense of public policy drift, even paralysis, at the Cabinet level," says the 26-year-old economist.

Also See:

Nuke The Tar Sands

Dion Pro Nuke

Cutting Your Nose

Energy

CANDU

Peak Oil

Tar Sands



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Return Of the Work Camps

Ah shades of the dirty thirties in Alberta......Company wants to set up work camp near Calgary

Back then they were called Relief Camps for unemployed single men. We would call them internment or concentration camps today. Return Of Internment Camps

However this work camp will be for new temporary workers imported to work in Alberta and then kicked out after two years.

Padrone Me Is This Alberta

Forward into the past, backwards into the future.

See

Temporary Workers

Labour

Unions

NAFTA

AFL



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Tories Crush Whistleblower

The Conservative Government in Ottawa likes to regale us with tales of how much they are doing for Aboriginal people in Canada. They tell us that accountability and health care are their big priorities.

In fact they have colluded with Big Oil and the Alberta Government to attack a Whistle blowing doctor.

A doctor who works in one of Canada's poorest first nations regions, on the edge of the Tarsands.

The unplanned, unorganized, rapid expansion the Tarsands, is an ecological threat to the North, to Saskatchewan and to the whole of Canada.

So much for the Conservatives concern for health, first nations, the environment, and protecting whistle blowers. Thats four out of their six priorities.

Health Canada officials have filed a complaint against Dr. John O'Connor.

O'Connor alerted the media last year to what he believed was a disproportionately high incidence of colon, liver, blood and bile-duct cancers in patients who live in Fort Chipewyan, a small community downstream from major petroleum refineries.

In filing the complaint against O'Connor with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, Health Canada did not explain the action, but said the doctor was causing undue alarm.

Meanwhile, physicians who work alongside O'Connor in Fort Chipewyan believe officials are targeting their colleague because his comments potentially threaten billions of dollars of investment in the province's oilsands.

Dr. Michel Sauvé, who heads the intensive care unit in Fort McMurray where O'Connor is based — he flies in to Fort Chipewyan on Tuesdays and Wednesdays — said doctors who identify potential public health problems should be protected rather than punished.

"Obviously, we need some whistleblower protection, some laws that will banish these kinds of repressive censorship. Punishing and trying to single out a physician to shut him up is not in the public interest," he said.

See:

Aboriginal

Oilsands


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Still Waiting On Wait Times 2

Wait Times reduction is a major priority for the Harper government, right?

Wrong! Gatineau women wait up to 5 months for breast cancer test

And Gatineau is in the governments backyard.

See:

Still Waiting On Wait Times 1

Medicare

Healthcare


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Making Good On Liberal Promises

Once again the Harper government makes good on Liberal promises.

During the announcement, the government also said it will spend $14 million on 775 projects for seniors under the New Horizons for Seniors Program, which was launched in 2004.

And none of the Seniors groups even mentioned Income Splitting as a priority!

CARP wants changes to the clawback on the Guaranteed Income Supplement, Cutler said.

Under current rules, Cutler said, if a senior receives any other income on top of the GIS, he or she loses 50 cents on each dollar from the supplement, which is aimed at very low-income seniors.

CARP doesn't want that rule to kick in for the first $5,000 of extra income a GIS recipient gets. That would encourage seniors to find part-time work, Cutler said.

See:

Pension Plans

Income Splitting

Pensions

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Kill The Wabbit

Canmore residents asked about wiping out bunnies



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Why Bugs Bunny?

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Criminal Capitalism Business As Usual

Yesterday the Chairman of RIM, makers of the Blackberry stepped down as the company was caught up in the scandal of back dating shares. This was prior to any actions taken by the SEC, against RIM, which is looking into the back dating scandal.

No indication was given if they gave shares to deceased members of the board however.

Once again this in not a quirk of the boom times or an oversight, it is another company caught playing fast and loose with accounting loopholes in order to avoid taxes. Business as usual.

Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) will search for a new chairman of its board after CEO Jim Balsillie stepped down from the job Monday, taking blame for his role in a stock-option scam that will cost the company US$250 million in restated earnings.

RIM, which makes the BlackBerry smartphone, will restate its annual earnings statements for fiscal years 2004, 2005 and 2006, and its statement for the first quarter of 2007. The changes could also affect its second and third quarter statements for 2007, which are not yet filed, since RIM's internal audit is not complete.

See

CEO

Stock Options

Corporate Crime

White Collar Crime

Criminal Capitalism

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