GAZ WARS
Ukraine’s Naftogaz CEO accuses Russia of using gas as a geopolitical weapon as energy crisis deepens

Sam Meredith 2 hrs ago


European households face a steep jump in energy bills, with nerves growing ahead of winter as power and gas prices soar.

Speaking to CNBC via video call, Naftogaz CEO Yuriy Vitrenko said Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom was manipulating the region's energy crisis to try to strengthen the case for starting flows via Nord Stream 2.

"It is happening at the moment … Record prices that really hurt the economy of Ukraine [and] not just Ukraine, the whole region basically. If it is not an economic war, what is that?" Vitrenko said.

Provided by CNBC Naftogaz CEO Yuriy Vitrenko.

LONDON — The chief executive of Ukrainian state energy giant Naftogaz has accused Russia's Gazprom of using natural gas as a geopolitical weapon, calling on the U.S. and Germany to take action against Moscow while it awaits regulatory approval for a controversial pipeline project.

It comes shortly after the International Energy Agency, the world's energy watchdog, intervened to call on Russia to send more gas to Europe to alleviate the region's deepening supply crunch.

The IEA's statement on Tuesday was seen as a rare rebuke of the Kremlin and lent further support to the view that Moscow has played a role in Europe's energy crisis — alongside market drivers such as extremely strong commodity prices and low wind output.

European households face a steep jump in energy bills, with nerves growing ahead of winter as power and gas prices soar.

Speaking to CNBC via video call, Naftogaz CEO Yuriy Vitrenko said Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom was manipulating the region's energy crisis to try to strengthen the case for starting flows via Nord Stream 2.

Gazprom did not respond to a CNBC request for comment.

The pipeline is designed to deliver Russian gas directly to Germany via the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine and Poland.

Critics argue the pipeline is not compatible with European climate goals, deepens the region's dependence on Russian energy exports and will most likely strengthen Russian President Vladimir Putin's economic and political influence over the region.

The construction of Nord Stream 2 was completed earlier this month. Germany's energy regulator has since said it now has four months to complete certification of the project after receiving all necessary paperwork for an operating license.

© Provided by CNBC A facility near the starting point of the Nord Stream 2 offshore natural gas pipeline.

Naftogaz's Vitrenko said Gazprom was deliberately withholding gas supplies to Europe, blocking access to the gas transmission system of Ukraine from other Russian companies and blocking exports from Central Asia that could go to Ukraine via Russia.

"This is a very clear sign that they are using gas as a geopolitical weapon at the moment," Vitrenko said.

Kyiv's relations with Russia plummeted in 2014 after Moscow annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine and supported pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donbass region. Ukraine says the seven-year conflict has killed more than 14,000 people.
Germany's warning to Russia

Benchmark European gas prices have skyrocketed more than 250% since January, while benchmark power contracts in France and Germany have both doubled.

EU energy ministers held meetings in Slovenia this week to discuss the bloc's energy policy.

Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to ease long-running concerns about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline during her final visit to Kyiv before leaving office.

Speaking last month alongside Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, Merkel said sanctions may be imposed against Moscow if gas was being used "as a weapon."

Analysts have questioned how Germany or Europe would determine that to be the case.

 Provided by CNBC German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives a joint news conference with Ukrainian President following their talks at the Mariinsky palace in Kiev, on August 22, 2021.

When asked whether Naftogaz had faith Germany would take appropriate action if Russia's Gazprom was deemed to be using gas as a geopolitical weapon, Vitrenko replied: "We already see that Gazprom is using gas as a geopolitical weapon. So, it is not about the future, but we are telling them that Gazprom has been using gas as a geopolitical weapon for years."

"It is happening at the moment … Record prices that really hurt the economy of Ukraine [and] not just Ukraine, the whole region basically. If it is not an economic war, what is that?"

Germany's ministry for economic affairs and energy declined to comment when contacted by CNBC.
U.S. Senate panel to discuss Nord Stream 2

Naftogaz's chief executive said he expects President Joe Biden's administration to immediately reconsider its decision to waive sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, the Gazprom-owned, Swiss-registered company working on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

A further delay to lift the waiver would make such a decision "more and more difficult," Vitrenko said.

Biden's administration concluded in May that Nord Stream 2 AG and its CEO engaged in behavior that warranted sanctions. However, Biden waived the sanctions to allow time to work out a deal and continue building ties with Germany.

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to discuss the matter at a closed-door hearing next week. It comes amid intensifying pressure from some Congress members to drop the waiver and impose sanctions.

"First, you show you are compliant and only then you are allowed basically to operate. That's how it works," Vitrenko said.

"We expect the U.S. government will reconsider their decision and remove this waiver and will impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2. And then … when they see Gazprom has stopped using gas as a geopolitical weapon, when they see that Gazprom and its subsidiary change something so that they are now compliant with European rules, then these sanctions will be removed. That's the logical approach."

"When somebody's in breach, somebody's using gas as a geopolitical weapon, you sanction thi

Childcare plan best hope for boosting Canada's economy
Larysa Harapyn 19 hrs ago

© Provided by Financial Post Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visits children at a daycare in St. John's, N.L. in July. The province struck a deal with Ottawa for a $10-a-day child-care program

National Post’s John Ivison and Financial Post’s Kevin Carmichael talk with Larysa Harapyn of the Financial Post about what’s next for Canada’s political parties after the federal election.

GLOBALIZTION IS FORDISM ABROAD

Vietnam's carmaker VinFast eyes more countries for its European strategy

TURIN (Reuters) - Vietnamese carmaker VinFast could add other markets in 2023 to expand its European strategy beyond a planned debut in Germany, France and the Netherlands next year.

© Reuters/Nguyen Huy Kham FILE PHOTO: 

Workers at Vinfast's auto plant on the occasion of its opening ceremony in Hai Phong city

The company, a unit of Vingroup JSC Vietnam's largest conglomerate which some have called "Vietnam's answer to Tesla", will debut in Europe next year with two battery electric SUVs models, the midsized VF e35 and the seven-seater VF e36, both designed by Italy's Pininfarina.

The two models launch in Vietnam, North America and Europe around mid-2022, after an unveiling planned later this year.

VinFast became Vietnam's first fully fledged domestic car manufacturer when its first gasoline-powered models built under its own badge hit the streets in 2019.

VinFast's B2B Sales Vice President Emiel Hendriksen said on Thursday it was also looking at Italy, Scandinavia, Switzerland and Austria for a second step in its European strategy.

"We're considering those countries for 2023," he said during a presentation at Pininfarina headquarters in Turin.

VinFast will initially rely on a direct distribution model in Germany, France and the Netherlands, based on property showrooms, but could later consider an agency-model for sales in other countries, Hendriksen said.

The company sold about 30,000 vehicles domestically last year and had set a target of selling 15,000 electric vehicles in 2022, although its representatives did not provide detailed forecasts for the European market on Thursday.

Earlier this year sources said parent Vingroup JSC was considering an U.S. initial public offering (IPO) of its car unit that could value VinFast at about $60 billion, though an initial second-quarter deadline for the deal mentioned by one of the sources was delayed.

VinFast Europe CEO Bich Tran said any IPO decision was up to the company's headquarters in Vietnam.

"Our European plans are independent from any IPO. We're carrying on with our plans, everything in Europe is moving as planned," she said.

(Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari, editing by David Evans)

CO-OP

Canada's Federated Co-operatives looks to sell oil-producing business, keep refinery

By Rod Nickel 20 hrs ago

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Canada's Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL) put its oil production business up for sale this week, according to a marketing document obtained by Reuters, but the co-op said it plans to keep its Saskatchewan refinery.

FCL spokesperson Cam Zimmer did not comment on the reason for offering to sell the production business but said the co-op is committed to owning its Regina, Saskatchewan refinery long-term.

FCL, which made C$7.9 billion in sales last year from energy, crop supplies and food, is offering to sell its crude unit, which includes a production base of 3,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, mostly liquids, and 550,000 hectares of land across Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, according to the document issued on Monday by Bank of Montreal.

The bank is handling the sale.

Also for sale is FCL's stake in a carbon capture project at Weyburn, Saskatchewan operated by Whitecap Resources.

The assets may be worth C$80 million to C$100 million ($79.07 million), an industry source said.

In May, FCL said it planned to cut an undisclosed number of jobs at the refinery, after pandemic lockdowns hit its energy revenues in 2020.

More than half of FCL's revenue came from energy last year, according to its annual report.

($1 = 1.2647 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg; Editing by David Gregorio)

Oilpatch expects new emissions targets ahead of major climate conference

Geoffrey Morgan 2 days ago

© Provided by Financial Post A pump jack near Granum, Alberta, May 6, 2020.


CALGARY — The Canadian oilpatch expects a freshly re-elected federal government will move ahead with new emissions targets in a matter of months as Ottawa prepares for a major climate-change conference in November.

“We don’t want to be sitting back and having things happen to us,” said Brian Schmidt, president and CEO of Tamarack Valley Energy Ltd., adding the industry plans to reach out to officials in Ottawa on expected policies such as methane reduction targets. “How do we work together on what kind of commitments we’re going to make in November?”

After Monday’s federal election returned the Liberals to a minority government, oil and gas executives and policy analysts said they believe new greenhouse gas targets are likely to be enacted to coincide with the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) global climate summit in Glasgow, U.K., in November.

Companies are now re-reading the Liberal platform — which included increasing methane emission reductions targets from 45 per cent to 75 per cent and new interim CO2 emissions targets by 2025 — to understand what’s coming in an effort to engage with Ottawa.

Schmidt said the oil and gas industry had a productive relationship with Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan, and expects to work “collaboratively” again since “oil and gas was not a central part of any party’s platform.”

“I suspect that if we get the right players in the right ministries, they will see us as collaboratively working with them to move the industry in the right direction here, including emissions reductions and investment,” he said.

In years past, Canadian federal and provincial governments have announced emissions reduction policies immediately ahead of major conferences in an effort to draw accolades during the summits — and the same approach is expected before planes depart for Scotland.

“If we’re going to see larger changes or new flags being pointed, it’s likely to be around November, when COP26 takes place,” said Marla Orenstein, director of the natural resources sector at the Canada West Foundation.

“That is when, I suspect the current government would like to come out strong and appear on the world stage with — hopefully achievable, hopefully implementable — strong climate policy,” she said.

Orenstein said the Liberals campaigned largely on the same suite of climate-change policies that they had already begun implementing while in power, although the party did add interim emissions reductions targets for the energy industry on the campaign trail.

“The results have given us continuity — more of the same— with what came before and I think we can assume that the policies themselves are going to follow,” she said, noting that the balance of power in Parliament is a near replica of what it was before the election was called.

Tristan Goodman, president of the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada (EPAC), which represents small- and mid-sized oil and gas producers, said the industry is expecting a few “minor changes” in federal policy, including the interim targets and additional methane reduction targets.

“We have a fairly good understanding in the energy business where the government is moving. We don’t expect significant change from the consistent policy agenda on climate,” Goodman said.

But some energy executives believe climate policy and energy policy in the country has not been stable — and don’t expect predictability even after Monday’s election gave the Liberals a minority government with an almost identical seat count as the 2019 vote.

“What we do need is we need stability and certainty of policy. We do not have that in Canada — we do not, it’s fluctuating all over the place,” said Grant Fagerheim, president and CEO of Whitecap Resources Inc., which produces 117,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Fagerheim said Canada’s long-term emissions targets have changed multiple times in recent years — most recently on July 12 to an up to 45 per cent cut below 2005 emissions — with little consultation with the industry. “The goal posts move with no consultation,” he said.

Environmental groups have pointed to the fact that all major parties campaigned on platforms with serious climate change policies and, as a result, the incoming government should take bolder action on emissions policies targeted at the oil and gas business.

“The Liberal Party’s commitment to bring in measures to significantly lower emissions from sectors that release the most greenhouse gas emissions — oil and gas and transportation — is critical to achieving Canada’s climate goals,” Pembina Institute executive director Linda Coady said in a release Monday.

She noted that those commitments include a 75 per cent reduction in methane emissions below 2012 levels and a target that all light-duty vehicles sold in Canada be zero-emissions by 2035.

“Full and timely implementation of these measures, monitoring progress, and maintaining full transparency in reporting on milestones are essential next steps,” Coady said.

“The federal government has a responsibility to advance the industries that create economic prosperity for Canadians,” Mark Scholz, CEO of the Canadian Association of Energy Contractors, said in a release Tuesday. “Our energy industry is committed to lowering emissions by investing in clean technologies and increasing energy efficiency while providing high-value jobs and resource revenues.”

• Email: gmorgan@nationalpost.com | Twitter: geoffreymorgan

_____________________________________________________________

MISSED THE MEMO: KEEP IT IN THE GROUND
ConocoPhillips bets $23 billion on U.S. shale oil as rivals retreat
By Sabrina Valle and Arunima Kumar 2 days ago

© Reuters/Brendan McDermid FILE PHOTO: ConocoPhillips Chairman and CEO Lance rings the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange

HOUSTON (Reuters) - ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Ryan Lance on Monday doubled down on U.S. shale and the world's continued demand for oil with his second blockbuster acquisition in less than a year.


His $9.5 billion purchase of Royal Dutch Shell's West Texas properties, nine months after closing a $13.3 billion deal for Concho Resources, puts the company's future squarely in shale after exiting Canada's oil sands, U.S. offshore and British North Sea fields.

The strategy depends on a world thirsty for cheap oil and Conoco's ability to extract it with less carbon emissions. While Shell, BP and Equinor quit shale for renewable fuels, Lance argues oil and gas will not be soon supplanted.

"We don't believe the existential threat to this business is right around the corner," he told analysts in June.

With Shell's assets, Conoco gets more than 10 years of output and rewards shareholders willing to stick with fossil fuels, said Lance.

"We're going to create a lot more value over the next 10 years and beyond with this acquisition," Lance told analysts on Tuesday, promising to deliver higher returns for shareholders than paying a one-time dividend.

Lance, who became CEO in 2012, joins Chevron and Exxon Mobil in rejecting the shift to solar, wind and batteries embraced by European oil majors. Shareholders want the company to focus on its strengths, he said.

"This is what we're good at. This is what we do really really well," Lance said, referring to generating strong cash flow from modest investments in new oil and gas. The deal increases capital spending by $1 billion per year, but will add $10 billion to free cash flow and shareholder payouts over a decade.

Shell's more efficient assets will help Conoco reduce its carbon emissions per unit of production by as much as half its 2016 levels by 2030, he said.

But the acquisition does not sit well with environmentalists, who this year pushed Conoco to address customers' emissions from using its fuels. In May, 58% of shareholders voted in favor of a non-binding petition to set reduction targets including from products.

"Buying fossil fuel assets is exactly the opposite of what investors actually want," Mark van Baal, founder of Dutch advocacy group Follow This, said in a phone interview. "Eventually he will have to listen," he said.

(Reporting by Sabrina Valle; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Shell exits Permian with $9.5 billion Texas shale sale to ConocoPhillips
By David French and Jessica Resnick-Ault 3 days ago

(Reuters) -Royal Dutch Shell said on Monday it would sell its Permian Basin assets to ConocoPhillips for $9.5 billion in cash, an exit from the largest U.S. oilfield for the energy major shifting its focus to the clean energy transition.

For ConocoPhillips, it is the second sizable acquisition in a year in the heart of the U.S. shale industry, as American and European producers diverge in whether to focus on hydrocarbons going forward.

Like all of the world's largest oil companies, Shell is under pressure from investors to reduce fossil-fuel investments to help reduce global carbon emissions and fight climate change.

Europeans such as Shell and BP PLC have set targets to slowly move away from crude production while investing in non-fossil energy sources like solar and wind power, while U.S. producers including Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp are doubling down on hydrocarbons.

Through the deal, ConocoPhillips sides with the latter, but concurrently announced it would tighten its targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, an acknowledgement of heightened focus on climate considerations.

ConocoPhillips is acquiring around 225,000 net acres, as well as over 600 miles of associated infrastructure, according to its statement announcing the transaction. This builds on its existing portfolio of 750,000 net acres in the Permian.

U.S. shale producers have used mergers and acquisitions to boost their size to compete against the largest operators and lower production costs through economies of scale.

To help pay for the deal, ConocoPhillips will hike its own divestment targets by 2023 to between $4 billion and $5 billion, up from between $2 billion and $3 billion.

VALUE

For Shell, selling the Permian assets will leave its U.S. oil and gas production almost entirely in the offshore Gulf of Mexico, where it is the largest single producer. It sold its Appalachian gas assets last year.

The sale was announced on the same day Shell disclosed damage to offshore transfer facilities from Hurricane Ida will cut production from the area into early next year.

"We have had a once in a 20-30 year storm that has been impactful, but we continue to believe this is a very valuable position," Wael Sawan, the company's director of upstream, told Reuters.

Sawan said the company would continue to invest in its top oil and gas assets globally, and while it had looked at options which would have retained and boosted its Permian acreage in recent years, it was decided the position did not have sufficient scale for Shell to continue to operate it.

"This sale came up for us as a very compelling value proposition," Sawan said.

U.S. will continue to account for around one-third of Shell's global spending, as it focuses on its Gulf position as well as petrochemicals and renewables.

Shell will return $7 billion of the proceeds to shareholders as dividends on top of existing commitments, with the rest going to pay down debt, it said. Conoco also announced it would increase quarterly cash payments to shareholders by 7% from Dec. 1.

Reuters first reported in June that Shell had put up for sale its assets in the Permian, the shale formation stretching across Texas and New Mexico that accounts for around 40% of U.S. oil production.

Morgan Stanley and Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co advised Shell, with Goldman Sachs supporting ConocoPhillips. Legal advice for the seller and buyer came from Norton Rose Fulbright and Baker Botts respectively.

(Reporting by David French and Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York; Additional Reporting by Sabrina Valle in Houston and Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by David Gregorio and Stephen Coates)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

VW culture to blame for silence over emissions scandal, ex-manager says in trial

BRAUNSCHWEIG (Reuters) - A former Volkswagen manager, who is on trial over the carmaker's emissions-cheating scandal, blamed company culture on Thursday for his and others' silence on the matter, but said he would have acted differently had he known the consequences.

© Reuters/Michele Tantussi FILE PHOTO: VW logo

Hanno Jelden, who prosecutors said was in charge of the development of the illegal software at the heart of the scheme, attributed the long silence over the software malfunction in part to Volkswagen's company culture, which he described as one where problems were to be solved quickly rather than analysed.

Jelden said at an earlier hearing that he informed superiors about the software that sparked the so-called "Dieselgate" scandal, but was pressured to keep quiet.

Volkswagen admitted in 2015 to cheating U.S. diesel engine tests, sparking the biggest crisis in its history and costing the carmaker more than 32 billion euros ($37.7 billion) in vehicle refits, fines and legal costs so far.

"I never made a secret out of this function [of the software]," Jelden said in a courtroom in the city of Braunschweig, where the trial is being held. "If I had known the legal consequences this could have, I would never have let it happen."

The company has previously said the software function which ultimately disabled the car's emission filter was designed for another purpose, namely to reduce unpleasant noise from the engine, a defense Jelden repeated on Thursday.

"The function really was developed to improve the acoustics," Jelden said, calling the approval process for the function a "huge mistake."

The trial of four current and former Volkswagen managers and engineers began last Thursday with all four accused of failing to raise the issue, and instead, seeking to maximise profits for the carmaker and, in turn, their performance bonuses, according to Braunschweig prosecutors.

The defendants either claim they did not know about the manipulation or had informed their superiors about it, judicial sources said.

(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Nigeria-born designer Joy Meribe opens Milan Fashion Week


MILAN (AP) — Nigeria-born designer Joy Meribe opened Milan Fashion Week on Wednesday with her debut runway collection, a concrete success for a movement to promote diversity in Italian fashion just a year after launching

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Italian National Fashion Chamber tapped Meribe to open six days of womenswear previews for Spring-Summer 2022 after her inaugural collection for the “We are Made in Italy” initiative last year found commercial success.

“Beyond whatever video, proclamation or manifesto that we make, the real test is whether clients buy your products. Joy passed that exam,’’ said Italian-Haitian designer Stella Jean, who helped launch the initiative in the summer of 2020, asking the question, “Do Black Lives Matter in Italian Fashion?” inspired by the U.S. movement and following racists gaffes by major Italian fashion houses.

“It wouldn’t have been so quick, if there wasn’t an acceleration from the United States,’’ said Jean, who basked in the early achievement in the front row alongside Italy-based U.S.-born designer Edward Buchanan and Afro Fashion Week Milano founder Michelle Ngonmo.

Meribe broke down in tears after the show as she thanked the fashion chamber and the movement’s founders for getting her to the runway.

The collection featured tiered and ruffled skirts and jackets with built-in capes that were both regal, as seen in an off-shoulder dress sweeping the ground, and hip, including a mini day-dresses and shoulder-baring tunic. Textiles were an explosion of bright yellow against an aqua blue, with tropic prints featuring thatched cottages against flourishing banana trees, which Meribe said was meant to celebrate a return to more normality.

“We have passed from a dark moment, and I wanted to create something full of hope and light, the joy of restarting,’’ she said backstage.

The initiative that launched Meribe opened its second edition this fashion week, an all-female group of designers working in Italy with roots in Togo, Morocco, Haiti, Cuba and India, following last year’s “Fab Five” inaugural class of all African-born designers.

“There is movement happening,’’ said Buchanan, the American designer behind the Sansovino 6 label. “Of course everything takes time, but it takes somehow an industry to get used to the idea that these are talents like any other.”

To point, they have created a database of more than 3,000 fashion professionals with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds living in Italy, including designers, merchandisers, photographers and stylists, with the aim of putting to rest the notion that diverse talents weren’t available in Italy.

In this year's “Fab Five” class, Judith Borsetto created a line of shoes and hosiery with embroidered details for her Judith Saint Jermain label, recalling her birth name in Haiti before she was adopted by an Italian family at age 4. Zineb Hazim designed a line of business wear for abaja-wearing Muslim women, using European plaids on the long garments, which were double-sided to extend a business traveler's wardrobe.

Fallylah Nyny Ryke Goungou sourced woven fabrics from her native Togo in western Africa for looks inspired by her love of Japan and know-how in her adopted Italy. Romy Calzado, a former textile designer born in Cuba, created a collection with honeycomb graphic elements on fabrics with anti-viral properties, while Sheetal Shah, originally from India, designed an all-denim collection from textiles treated to resist water and wear longer.

But even while marking progress on diversity being made in the industry, organizers said that a racist incident at a four-star hotel in Milan aimed at this year’s “Fab Five” underlined the work still ahead.

Ngonmo said that she was checking into the hotel with the five women when the desk clerks rudely dismissed routine requests by paying guests, indicating that they didn't belong there. She posted the incident on social media and later spoke with management, who apologized and fired the workers responsible.

“They dehumanized us, taking away our humanity and treating us like animals. It is really, really bad,’’ Ngonmo said.

Jean said the incident “is the proof that everything we are doing today, more than ever, needs to be done. It is a necessity.”

Colleen Barry, The Associated Press

PODCAST

Uncovering Canada's role in supporting slavery in the Caribbean

Gabriel Friedman 2 days ago

Toronto made headlines recently when its city council announced it would change the name of Dundas street, which cuts through the heart of the city, because of its namesake Henry Dundas’ connection to slavery.

© Provided by Financial Post Toronto made headlines recently when its city council announced it would change the name of Dundas street, which cuts through the heart of the city, because of its namesake Henry Dundas’ connection to slavery.

This week, on Down to Business, Padraic Scanlan, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, who is cross-appointed to the Centre for Diaspora & Transnational Studies, explained Dundas’ role in delaying the abolition of the slave trade.

© Wikimedia Commons Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville PC and Baron Dunira 

(28 April 1742 – 28 May 1811) was a Scottish lawyer and politician.

Scanlan’s new book ‘Slave Empire’, explores how the early economy of pre-federation Canada was shaped by the sugar and cotton industries in the Caribbean and the U.S. South, which used enslaved people for labour.

It’s a wide ranging interview on a sensitive topic, with a focus on this country’s economic history, but it’s especially relevant today as many Canadians reconsider the legacy of people such as Dundas and some of the unsettling chapters of this country’s past.

Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Stitcher and YouTube where you can also subscribe to get new episodes every Wednesday morning.

Review: Padraic X. Scanlan, Slave Empire (2020)

ON MAY 22, 2021 BY BUCKY

Scholars, up until the 1930s, have seen the abolition of slavery as the major turning point in the  history of the British Empire, the keystone of British Liberalism, and the foundational contribution Britain has made to the world. This is a view that is still endorsed by politicians today. It is a view that requires significant modification, however, as Padraic Scanlan argues in Slave Empire. Scanlan’s major contribution to the scholarship is to juxtapose the attitudes of the antislavery campaigners against the attitudes of the enslaved people themselves. Though they abhorred slavery, the abolitionists still endorsed a racialised view of the world, viewing Africans as inferior and uncivilised. They believed that Britain could play a positive role in ‘civilising’ the world — a particular kind of civilisation which, to them, meant low wage capitalism and a reinforced class structure modelled on Georgian, and later Victorian, capitalist, Christian society. As Scanlan shows through an examination of their arguments, the abolitionists still believed in white supremacy. Their version of antislavery was therefore different to the antislavery demanded by enslaved people.

Scanlan tackles a large swathe of history, beginning in the eighteenth century with the onset of the abolition movement, and ending after the American Civil War in the 1860s. The first few chapters offer a broad and accessible introduction to the history of plantation slavery, touching on almost every facet of life in the West Indies and assuming nothing of the reader. It is an excellent summary of what the reader needs to know: the slave trade fed sugar, cotton, and coffee plantations in the Caribbean. White men went out, claimed land and bought slaves, and got rich. Many died trying. Plantation slavery was abhorred by some, initially the Quakers, before slowly becoming a pressing issue for much of the rest of British society. 

The rest of the book juxtaposes the actions of enslaved people against the campaigns of the abolition movements. When the enslaved people revolted against those who claimed to own them, abolitionists and slaveholders wrestled for control over the narrative of what the revolutions meant. The abolitionists saw the Haitian Revolution, for example, as a ‘proof-of-concept’, showing how an enslaved society might be reformed into a free society, with a strict class structure and the continuation of cash crop production. Many argued that abolition, and later emancipation, should come gradually to allow time for the enslaved people to become ‘civilised’ — i.e., willing to work for low wages. When enslaved people rebelled again in the 1800s in British territories, this was seen as a setback for the abolitionists, for they feared that it would make the enslaved people appear as if they were not ready for freedom. Indeed, they wanted to view enslaved people as the perfect victims: noble, tragic, and primitive. Enslaved people trying to gain freedom for themselves and on their own terms, just like they did in Haiti, disturbed this image.

In trying to control the narrative and promote their own view of enslaved people, the abolitionists reinforced the image of Africans that had been crafted by the slaveholders. This resulted in the perpetuation of white supremacy — in Scanlan’s words, “antislavery activists imagined an empire without slavery or the slave trade but could not imagine an empire without unchecked capital and subordinate African labour”; the act to abolish the slave trade “did not abandon the control and white supremacy of the era of slavery, but channelled it towards a new project of ‘civilisation’ and economic transformation”. Antislavery eventually became a justification for further colonial expansion in Africa, and the basis for new forms of exploitation in the East, based on indentured servitude and low wages. Scanlan’s argument is moving, persuasive, and incredibly important.

One of the key faults of the abolition movement was their insistence on measuring the success of antislavery through its ability to produce profits for plantation production. When it turned out that free labour did not work better for plantation production — an economic system that had been built around slavery, and to which slavery was essential — it hindered the spread of antislavery across the southern US states on the same terms. The failure of the emancipation ‘experiment’ was blamed on the former slaves, and explained in racist terms, contributing to new forms of scientific racism. Scanlan unfortunately doesn’t get into why the abolitionists relied upon economic arguments — the book would have been enriched by a consultation of the scholarship that does tackle this question. There is an assumption that this is an argument that abolitionists really believed, rather than a pragmatic argument aimed at a particular audience with the aim of persuasion (at least at first). It’s very difficult to understand the arguments of abolitionists independently of the arguments made by slaveholders, and more could have been done to explore the significance of this dialogue between the two sides.

An underlying subtext to this book is a critique of capitalism and free trade. To Scanlan, “in the Caribbean, the growth of plantation slavery was capitalism at its most raw”. Our own modern institutions are built on the legacy of slavery: “capitalism and liberalism emphasise ‘freedom’ — for individuals and for markets — but were built on human bondage”. The book is not an overt critique of capitalism — many of the digs are subtle. The main issue is that Scanlan doesn’t define what he means by capitalism, or even free trade, so much of this remains quite vague. It will likely energise left wing readers. We should remember, however, that just because the capitalism of today has its foundations in slavery, it is still fundamentally different — the key difference being that we have generally accepted the principle that for free trade to truly be free, labour must be free, too. Today’s capitalism must be criticised on its own merits and failures.

In the same vein, the politicians and public of today are warned against revering the abolitionists. These figures are criticised for their insistence on the reforming power of low wages, and for their own critical view of the working poor, who many considered to be feckless and lazy. The main problem here is that I doubt many of the politicians who are likely to see abolition as the saving grace of the British Empire are likely to care that the abolitionists endorsed Victorian class structure (indeed, some politicians in Britain seem to admire Victorian class structures). The more agreeable point that Scanlan hints at is that, just as we should not judge historical figures too harshly by the standards of our time, we should also not overly praise historical figures who turned out to be on the right side of history for some issues (if not others).

The main strength of this book is its ability to weave together historical narrative and rigorous historical analysis. The retelling of the rebellions is engaging, and the debates in parliament, which could go on for days and days, are outlined with palpable tension. By placing the enslaved people at the centre, Scanlan is able to show how they were themselves the key drivers of change; that they did, indeed, have interests similar but distinct to those of the abolitionists. He draws on a broad array of abolitionist literature to make his case compelling — they were, of course, not a monolith, and Scanlan is able to distinguish the abolitionists at the fringes, whose arguments against slavery were more emotive and robust, and those in parliament, who had the undesirable job of finding a compromise with slavery’s supporters. Importantly, the book bridges the gap between the two versions of empire that students are taught about — first, the empire of the West, centred on the Americas, and in particular the West Indies, and second, the empire of the East, centred on India, southeast Asia, and Africa. It convincingly links slavery to the ‘civilising mission’ (later grossly epitomised by Rudyard Kipling’s White Man’s Burden) through the movement to abolish slavery.

Padraic X. Scanlan, Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain (London: Robinson, 2020), pp. 464.

Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain eBook : Scanlan, Padraic X.: Amazon.ca: Kindle Store*

IDEOLOGY VS EMPIRICISM

Amid COVID surge, states that cut benefits still see no hiring boost

By Howard Schneider

© Reuters/MIKE BLAKE FILE PHOTO: A help wanted sign is posted at a

 taco stand in Solana Beach, California, U.S., July 17, 2017

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The August slowdown in U.S. job creation hit harder in states that pulled the plug early on enhanced federal unemployment benefits, places where an intense summertime surge of coronavirus cases may have held back the hoped-for job growth.

New state-level data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the group of mostly Republican led states that dropped a $300 weekly unemployment benefit over the summer added jobs in August at less than half the pace of states that retained the benefits.

Graphic: Job growth and unemployment insurance, 

https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ECONOMY/UNEMPLOYMENT/lbpgnglorvq/chart.png

Elected leaders in those states argued the payments, in place since spring of 2020 to help families through the pandemic, were discouraging people from work and holding back an economic recovery that seemed to be gathering steam earlier this year when the impact of vaccines was taking hold and coronavirus cases were falling.

But some of those same states, notably Florida and Texas, are also hotbeds of opposition to government health mandates like mask wearing, and the surge of infections there in July and August appeared to dent hiring across the sorts of "close contact" businesses that have suffered most during the health crisis and had begun to recover quickly.

Overall employment in the leisure and hospitality fell about 0.5% in the 26 states that ended benefits, and rose 1% elsewhere.

Graphic: Leisure and hospitality jobs, 

https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-ECONOMY/PAYMENTS/xmvjoknlbpr/chart.png

In Florida, where the weekly average of new cases per 100,000 residents jumped from less than 50 in June to more than 700 in August, employment in the sector declined by 4,000 after rising steadily this year.

In Texas, where new infections per 100,000 hit a low of fewer than 30 in June only to surge above 400 through August, the sector dropped 25,000 jobs after six months of steady growth. Georgia, which also saw a dramatic rise in infections, lost nearly 7,000 jobs in the sector.

By contrast California and New York, where the outbreaks driven by the coronavirus Delta variant have been more muted and health controls have tended to be more strict, added around 33,000 and 7,000 jobs in the sector respectively.

The data feed into a debate about how the end of pandemic unemployment benefits will impact the economy - whether it will motivate people to take jobs or leave them strapped for cash amid a new viral wave and difficulties with issues like finding child care.

The benefits ended nationally in early September, and some economists have noted that the hand off from those public payments to private income may not come fast enough to avoid a hit to the overall economy.

While the Delta variant wave of infections may be peaking, the economy's weak August job growth of just 235,000 was viewed by many analysts as evidence of the risks the pandemic still poses to the recovery.

Economists analyzing the unemployment issue have seen little evidence yet that cutting off the benefits has provided a clear boost to local labor markets, in part because of difficulties separating the influence of the payments from larger shifts in the labor force, or of the potentially offsetting damage done by the pandemic.

Goldman Sachs analysts, looking at individual level data, have found that the end of the payments did increase the probability of someone moving from unemployment to a job, and expect the national expiration of the extra unemployment insurance to lead to the addition of an extra 1.3 million jobs by the end of the year.

"The behavioral response to UI-benefit expiration remains highly uncertain due to the unprecedented size of the benefit swings and the highly unusual economic and health situation," Goldman economist Joseph Briggs wrote on Friday.

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Dan Burns, William Maclean)