Low-income households in UK worse off due to ‘sky-high’ housing costs

The Resolution Foundation has found that ‘sky-high housing costs’ outweigh the relatively low cost of food

Olivia Barber

Yesterday

Left Foot Forward 

Low and middle-income families in the UK are worse off than families in other Western European countries due to ‘sky-high housing costs’, according to a new report by the Resolution Foundation.

The think tank said that while food costs in the UK are 12% cheaper than the average in other developed countries, less well-off Britons were more affected by the cost of housing, which is 44% higher in the UK than the OECD average.

The report found that, after adjusting for the cost of living and housing, poor German families are £2,300 a year, or 21%, better off than poor families in the UK.

The income gap with poor Dutch families is even wider at 39%, while the gap with poor French families is 8%.

The foundation’s report showed that families in the bottom half of income distribution spend 22% of their budget on housing and 17% on food. In contrast, wealthier families spend 13% on housing and 13% on food.

Simon Pittaway, Senior Economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Britain’s recent toxic history of low growth and high inequality has left low-to-middle income families far poorer than their counterparts in Western Europe.

“These damaging income gaps are even worse once we factor in the prices of goods and services that matter most to these families.

“While food and clothing are relatively cheap, the sky-high cost of housing – which accounts for almost a quarter of all spending by lower-income households – makes Britain a particularly pricey country for poorer families.

“Britain’s housing costs crisis is a major driver of child poverty, and contributes to poor families being £2,300 worse off than their German counterparts. The crisis needs to be tackled urgently – from building more affordable homes to providing better support for low-income renters.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

Liverpool FC fans reject rumoured Musk takeover – ‘he’ll ruin us’

What would Bill Shankly do?

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead

11 January, 2025 
Left Foot Forward

Liverpool FC supporters aren’t mincing their words about Elon Musk – the world’s richest man – potentially taking over their club.

As Liverpool is widely considered one of the world’s most left-wing football clubs, it’s not surprising that fury is being vented over the prospect of a “hyper-capitalist clown” – as Nigerian-American political strategist Akin Olla described him – buying the club.

What would Bill Shankly do?

The club’s socialist core goes back to Bill Shankly, Liverpool’s legendary manager from 1959 to 1974. Shankly believed in collective effort, fairness, and humanity. As his famous quote summed up:

“The socialism I believe in isn’t really politics. It is a way of living. It is humanity. I believe the only way to live and to be truly successful is by collective effort, with everyone working for each other, everyone helping each other, and everyone having a share of the rewards at the end of the day. That might be asking a lot, but it’s the way I see football and the way I see life.”

In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais in 2019, the club’s then chief executive Peter Moore said that when the club discusses business, they ask: “What would Shankly have done? What would Bill have said in this situation?”’

A mural in Anfield exemplifies the club’s socialist values and working-class roots.

“I’m just a normal working lad from Liverpool whose dream has come true,” it reads, alongside an image of Trent Alexander-Arnold, who is actively involved with foodbanks and supporting the struggles of the working-class community.

It stands to reason therefore that Liverpool FC supporters weren’t going to let this one lie – the prospect of Elon Musk buying the club.

MAGA (Make America Great Again) mania in Britain reached new heights when the father of the world’s richest man claimed his son is considering a Liverpool FC takeover.

Errol Musk triggered the panic when revealing his family’s apparent long history with the city.

Talking to Times Radio, he said his son is “obviously” keen on buying Liverpool from Fenway Sports Group (FSG), the US multinational which has owned the club since 2010.

“His grandmother was born in Liverpool, and we have relatives in Liverpool, and we were fortunate to know quite a few of the Beatles because they grew up with some of my family. So, we are attached to Liverpool you know.”

Liverpool fans have different thoughts about it.

Reacting to Erroy’s comments, Liverpool Echo readers didn’t hold back. One reader wrote:

“We don’t need Elon Musk to buy Liverpool FC, he’ll ruin us. He’s got too much baggage and it’s all about him. The club will be in his shadow, I’d rather have FSG, and I don’t like them. We’ll lose our integrity and go downhill, he’s not well-liked.”

Another remarked: “I wouldn’t want him anywhere near our club, people talk about FSG not spending money, but you can’t spend money you haven’t got, or you’ll end up like City.”

Another wrote: “Walk on and on and on and on, and don’t stop till you’re as far away from Anfield as possible!”

Writer and presenter James Martin made its views clear on Liverpool.com, arguing that Musk would be a “nightmare at Anfield.”

“Quite simply, Musk and Liverpool are a fundamental clash of ideologies. FSG are clearly ultra-capitalists, so there’s no point pretending they have always been perfectly aligned with the club and the city, but the South African billionaire would be on another level entirely,” he wrote.

Martin also acknowledged that FSG does well in hiring experts.

“From Jurgen Klopp to Michael Edwards, the Americans have picked the best people and broadly let them get on with their jobs.”

But he warned how Musk loves to take control, noting how one of his first actions when he bought Twitter was to slash the workforce by 80 percent and introduce a “verification” system that allows users to pay to amplify themselves, noting how engagements with Musk’s own tweets have more than doubled over the past year.

“Before you know it, Musk would be managing the team himself. If there’s one thing the UK has been reminded of in the last few weeks, it’s that the billionaire loves to talk about things he doesn’t understand, which would not bode well in the slightest,” Martin added.

Sham Jivani, a Liverpool FC fan for over 50 years, was blunt about a Musk takeover:

“I’d stop supporting them,” he told LFF.

Image credit: Liverpool Zone – X screen grab

Multi-millionaire ReformUK MP Rupert Lowe advocates for dismantling NHS and ‘buying own healthcare’

‘I’d like some form of scheme where we buy our own healthcare’, said the multi-millionaire

Olivia Barber 

Today

Left Foot Forward News

Reform MP Rupert Lowe has argued that the public should pay for their own healthcare and advocated for the NHS to be dismantled.

The former Southampton FC chair and multi-millionaire has said he thinks “we should be able to opt out of the NHS” and “have some form of scheme where we buy our own healthcare”.

Speaking on TalkTV, where presenter Jeremy Kyle referred to him as a “my friend” and said, “I could damn well talk to you forever”, Lowe described the NHS as “an animal on the back of productive Britain and it’s killing us”.

Lowe said that “there are a lot of ways you can solve the NHS” and claimed that disassembling and reassembling it was the answer.

Furthermore, the Reform MP argued that pressures on the NHS mean people who can afford private healthcare end up paying twice, once through national insurance and again through private insurance. He once again blamed these pressures on migration.

This is despite the fact that one in five NHS workers are from overseas and are helping to relieve NHS pressures.

Taj Ali, former editor at Tribune, said in a post on X: “Multi-millionaire public schoolboy Rupert Lowe wants to dismantle our NHS. This is what Reform MPs represent.

“Wealthy elites wedded to extreme Thatcherite ideology posing as anti-establishment heroes. They offer you scapegoats not credible solutions.”

Lowe is a non-executive director and has shares in pharmaceutical company, Biopharma Process Systems Ltd.

During the covid-19 pandemic, the firm, which made a £7.9million pre-tax profit in 2021, received £141,741 in furlough money from the government.

On X this morning, Lowe posted a bizarre rant claiming that the NHS should not write letters in languages other than English. He said: “Why is the NHS sending out communication with this leading the letter?

“Funding this foreign translation is NOT the taxpayer’s problem. It should be scrapped.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

UK MP’s second jobs are institutionalised bribery. They should be banned.

'Preventing MPs from selling their souls to the highest bidder is a necessary step in democratising parliament.'

Opinion

Prem Sikka 

10 January, 2025 

Many of our social problems are caused by the disconnection between the people and parliament. People are shunning the ballot-box and feel that MPs don’t represent them. In the July 2024 UK general election only 59.7% of the registered voters actually voted.

The prime duty of MPs, and all legislators, is to serve the people but for many it is a route to riches through second jobs in the form of lucrative corporate directorships and advisory roles. Second jobs are just another name for institutionalised bribery and must be banned.

MPs taking second jobs serve their paymasters by asking questions and securing information for their paymasters, arrange meetings with ministers, providing access to policymakers, thwart threatening legislation and keep unwelcome issues off the political agenda. Conflict of interests is inevitable. Normal people can’t compete in the auction for influence. Citizens writing to MPs are frequently told that they cannot help them because they don’t reside within the MP’s constituency boundary. The same MPs have no qualms about representing corporations and the rich not residing in their constituency, because they pay

The Labour Party’s 2024 election manifesto said that “The absence of rules on second jobs also means some constituents end up with MPs who spend more time on their second job, or lobbying for outside interests, than on representing them”..

An MP’s job is full-time and a demanding one. Compared to median annual wage of £29,664 for workers, MPs receive an annual salary of £91,346 plus the costs of running an office, employing support staff, having somewhere to live in London or their constituency, and travelling between Parliament and their constituency. One in ten MPs also work as local councillors and increase their pay. Too many don’t regard MPs position as a full-time job and chase personal riches.

The register for members’ financial interests after the July 2024 election is still emerging but the past provides some guidance. An analysis by The Economist showed that between 2010 and 2024 MPs spent a collective total of 50,000 hours on second jobs and collected £27m in fees. In addition to the £27m, they also earned £38m from practising law, medicine or consulting. Senior MPs demand premium prices. For example, former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and Health Secretary Matt Hancock demanded £10,000 a day to further the interests of a fake South Korean company.

In the last parliament, around 90 out of 360 Conservative MPs had second jobs, compared to five out of 199 Labour MPs, and two each from the Scottish National Party and Liberal Democrats. The proportions may well change now that Labour is in government.

In general, MPs are required to disclose earnings from outside employment in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. However, the disclosure requirements are weak. For example, those operating through Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) are not required to disclose their share of profits, and shareholdings of less than 15% are not disclosed. In any case, the disclosures do not eliminate conflicts, corporate capture or degradation of democracy.

MPs do not need permission from their constituents to take second jobs and there are no legally enforceable restrictions. The Code of Conduct requires that they “must not provide, or agree to provide, paid parliamentary advice, including undertaking, or agreeing to undertake services as a Parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant”. The rulebook exempted advice on public policy and current affairs; and advice in general terms about how Parliament works. In July 2024, MPs agreed to remove these exemptions, with effect from October 2024. However, it is all open to interpretation.

There is no ban on second jobs and consultancies are easily replaced by paid media work, books, guest appearances at corporate events, lectures and speeches, all intended to enrol MPs to serve corporate interests.

This is especially lucrative for senior MPs. For example, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson collected £4.3m from speeches in the nine months between being ousted from office and standing down as an MP. Ideological enrolment also results in TV shows and columns in newspapers. Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, received £189,300 for four hours work from Direct Bullion for a brand ambassador role in which he praises the role of gold as a tax free investment. His non-MP work generated income of £547,583 in 2024. Former Health Secretary disappeared for weeks from parliament to take part in a TV reality show and collected a fee of £320,000. Another Conservative MP, later a Minister, appeared on a TV reality show and refused to register fee in the Register of Members’ Interests. Lee Anderson, another Reform UK MP, hosts a TV show for payment of £100,000.

Would an MP with a regular newspaper column speak against his/her paymaster for hacking into innocent person’s email or phone? Should they be promoting tax avoidance vehicles or corporate interests? Should they be promoting corporate interests at the expense of their constituents’ welfare?

In line with its election manifesto promise the government has created the Modernisation Committee and on 12 September, it said that it will look at the “tightening of the rules on second jobs for members of the Commons”.

A total ban on second jobs is needed but unlikely as MPs will make exceptions to protect their incomes, which will undermine the spirit of any reforms. Some say that a total ban would encourage high calibre MPs to quit parliament. Well, if they can’t live on £91,346 and represent people then they need a dose of reality and see how normal folks make ends meet. There are plenty of other good people available do that job.

Some argue that it is desirable for MPs to have some experience of business life, and that this improves quality of debates and legislative scrutiny. The evidence for this is scarce. Interestingly, they rarely volunteer to work for charities, hospices, food banks, trade unions and housing associations, possibly because there is no money in it. Even if a small number take-up second jobs, that still undermines confidence in parliament. The argument about business experience is being merely used to camouflage the ride on the gravy train.

Some would like the MPs to continue with second jobs but within “reasonable limits”. Inevitably, there would be haggling over the limits. Some have suggested 10–20 hours a week is a reasonable limit. There is no mechanism for enforcing this limit as the Commons relies upon self-reporting. An hours-based approach takes no account of money, favours, cognitive capture of MPs or the scale of political sales. Such limits will be ineffective in curbing the sale of legislators to the highest bidders.

Some argue that the tenure of an MP is short and after leaving parliament they may return to their professional career. Therefore they should be permitted to continue to practice as a lawyer, architect, surveyor or an accountant. Such arguments may have some validity but are also a fig-leaf for pursuit for private interests.

Allowing MPs to continue with professional careers need not lead to financial enrichment and subservience to corporations and the rich. They should not benefit from such second jobs. All payments received should go to a newly established Foundation for Democracy. This should apply to all income from any second job.

At set intervals, the accumulated funds should be distributed to political parties in accordance with a formula based upon their share of the vote and party membership. This way, MPs can continue with professional careers, broadcasting and other hobbies but won’t receive financial benefits. To prevent any underhanded deals, MPs should be prevented in their post-legislative career from working for these employers for five years after leaving parliament or reeving any financial benefit.

No matter how it is dressed-up, second jobs are about the sale of MPs and political influence. They are nothing to do with serving the people or democracy. Second jobs have normalized corporate capture and corrupt practices and must be banned. Of course those who have got used to self-enrichment will oppose such proposals, but wiser souls know that confidence in parliament can’t be restored with empty gestures. Preventing MPs from selling their souls to the highest bidder is a necessary step in democratising parliament.


Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward.

Image credit: Diliff -Creative Commons

Tory and Reform MPs rake in money from jobs at GB News and other right-wing media outlets

Right-wing MPs are making £££ from media appearances

Olivia Barber 

Today
Left Foot Forward

Reform leader Nigel Farage and fellow Reform MP Lee Anderson made six figure sums as presenters and contributors on the right-wing news channel GB News.

Between July and November last year, Farage made a staggering £219,504 as a presenter on GB News, on top of his £91,346 MP salary.

Farage also earned around £4,000 a month, or £48,000 a year, writing articles for The Telegraph.

But that’s not all. In the last six months, Farage has made a total of £571,585 from outside jobs, including £189,000 for 24 hours’ work as an ambassador for a gold bullion company.

He also made over £8,000 as a ‘social media influencer’ across Youtube, Facebook and X.

GB News paid Anderson £100,000 between March 2023 and March 2024.

Former home secretary Suella Braverman made £25,500 writing articles for The Telegraph between April and December last year. This was in addition to her earning £63,260 for various speaking engagements.

In November and December 2024, the Daily Express paid Tory MP Esther McVey £3690 for writing articles.

Conservative MP Nick Timothy is paid £145,000 a year for just three hours of work per week as a Telegraph columnist.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

A full list of Nigel Farage’s 9 jobs and how much he earns from each one

So much for being a ‘man of the people’.

Basit Mahmood 

Yesterday

Left Foot Forward

It’s been revealed that self-proclaimed man of the people, Nigel Farage, who is the UK’s highest-earning MP, now has nine jobs, meaning that he earns more than any other MP from outside earnings.

On top of his MPs salary of £91,346, Farage is also raking in £571,585 from outside jobs, in less than six months.

Last week, the Guardian reported that Farage made £189,000 last year as a brand ambassador for a gold bullion company.

With the Mirror revealing that the Reform UK leader now has nine jobs, here’s a full list of them and how much the arch Brexiteer is making from each one.Reform UK MP for Clacton – £91,346
Gold Bullion ambassador for Direct Bullion-£189,300 from 24 hours work
TV presenter on GB News-£219,506
Influencer on Facebook/Meta-£2,795
Influencer on X-£5,482
Personalised videos on Cameo-£54,006
Public speaker-£65,379
Journalist at Telegraph-£24,000
Influencer on Youtube/Google-£11,117

So much for being a ‘man of the people’.

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

GERMANY

Signa Prime Administrator Blames Board for €1 Billion of Damages

By Libby Cherry

January 09, 2025 

Hoardings with the Signa logo around the closed Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof shopping center, a Signa Prime Selection AG project, near the main railway station in Munich, Germany, on Friday, March 8, 2024. 

(Michaela Stache/Photographer: Michaela Stache/Bl)

(Bloomberg) -- The administrator of Rene Benko’s bankrupt luxury property unit is asking former supervisory board members to acknowledge their role in causing at least €1 billion ($1.03 billion) of alleged damages by failing to practice proper oversight.

Law firm Abel Rechtsanwälte GmbH claims board members of Signa Prime Selection AG, including former Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, had ignored that the group was materially insolvent by March 2022 — if not earlier, according to a letter seen by Bloomberg. They also signed off on improper loans between Signa companies, the bankruptcy advisors say.

One such transaction related to managers lending on €463 million of proceeds from a capital increase intended to fund the purchase of London’s Selfridges department store.

A legal representative for former Supervisory Board Chair Gusenbauer said the administrator’s request lacked justification. A spokesman for Abel declined to comment. The News magazine first reported the letter.

Signa Prime filed for insolvency at the end of 2023 due to a cash crunch spurred by tumbling valuations and rising interest rates. It held stakes in some of Europe’s most prominent landmarks, including Berlin’s KaDeWe and the Hotel Bauer in Venice.


Creditors, prosecutors and the insolvency administrator have sought legal options to recoup money and clarify one of the largest insolvencies in Austria’s history. Benko, who denies wrongdoing, has been interrogated by officials as part of a separate fraud probe.

There “was clearly no suitable controlling and no suitable financial planning,” the administrators wrote in the letter dated Dec. 20. The deteriorating financial condition and billions of euros of internal loans should have been a “a warning signal for any prudent Supervisory Board member.”

Abel alleges Signa’s financial planning took the form of rudimentary Excel models, which “in no way” met the requirements for a large company.

The transfer of funds between units of the sprawling real estate empire, of which Signa Prime was just one, has been a major point of contention, and may have helped mask the extent of financial difficulties.

Bondholders of another unit, Signa Development Selection, filed a complaint to the public prosecutor’s office in Vienna last year, arguing that hundreds of millions of funds transferred to other Signa units had damaged them and the company, Bloomberg previously reported.

Another transfer between Signa entities included a total of €252 million in loans by Signa Prime to a subsidiary of its largest shareholder Signa Holding in 2023, according to the letter.

Signa Holding’s insolvency administrator is reviewing several transactions and has previously disputed intercompany loans, a spokesman for that unit said by email.

Abel asked supervisory board members to respond by Jan. 20.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

In Hottest Year Ever, US Homes Used a Record Amount of Power to Keep Cool

By Naureen S Malik

January 10, 2025


(Bloomberg) -- While data centers’ energy needs are a growing concern for the grid, the biggest user is more prosaic. Homes use far more energy to keep cool than servers. And amidst the world’s hottest year, residential use hit a record as well in 2024, reflecting the need to get a grip on the sector and keep climate targets within reach.

American household electricity consumption grew at an accelerated clip over the past five years amid hotter and longer summers, data going back to the late 1990s from the US Energy Information Administration show. Cooling season demand spikes are getting bigger and helping homes outpace the growth in the commercial sector, which includes data centers.

Total electricity sales to residential consumers rose to an all-time high of 700.7 billion kilowatt-hours this summer, edging out the previous record of 700.2 billion set in 2022, according to the EIA data.

While the data doesn’t parse out air conditioning use, it’s clear that higher temperatures are a key driver. Typically hot states like Arizona, California and Florida sizzled through their warmest summer on record in 2024. Even typical pleasant places are becoming uncomfortable without air conditioning; Maine and New Hampshire also saw record heat last summer.

“I just got an AC and Mill Valley never needed air conditioning,” said Patty Cook of her home in a redwood-ringed town north of San Francisco. “Now people in my neighborhood are all getting heat pumps. It’s happening in these climates where we haven’t traditionally had to have air conditioning,” the senior vice president focused on flexible power resources at advisory firm ICF International added.


At the same time, people are moving to hotter places. Arizona, Texas and Florida are among the states that experienced double-digit population growth from 2010 to 2020, according to the Census Bureau. In 2020 — the last year with records available — more than two-thirds of US homes had central AC, up from 27% in 1980.

Increasingly hot weather in more places is boosting household energy demand and may ensure it stays ahead of the commercial sector, even as data centers expand their footprint. That race will continue as city-sized data centers come online and compete for energy with households increasingly electrifying everything from cooling systems to vehicles.

While the planet reached record warmth, the most intense heat in the US was in cities. The May-to-September cooling season was the third hottest on record, said Matt Rogers, president of private forecaster Commodity Weather Group.

The covid-19 pandemic sent residential energy use into overdrive in 2020 when much of the American economy shut down and people worked from home at an unprecedented scale. That year, residential electricity sales from May through September totaled a then-record 691 billion kilowatt-hours, outstripping commercial demand by a whopping 22%.

Residential electricity usage continued to grow faster during air conditioning season than the rest of the year. Sales for the cooling season were 6% higher for the past five years versus 2015-2019, higher than the 4% growth in total for all five years, EIA data show. Conversely, electricity sales to the commercial sector rose just 0.2% in both the hot weather months and annually over the last five years.

“Ultimately weather is certainly driving things, but it’s not driving it completely,” said Jon Wellinghoff, a long-time energy regulator and founder of GridPolicy Consulting. For households switching from gas-powered furnaces and cars to heat pumps and EVs, energy demand will actually increase most in the winter. That will strain grid operators, particularly those heavily reliant on solar, because the sun isn’t up as long, Wellinghoff said. He added that more efficient cooling systems could help slow summer growth, though.

"There's going to be tremendous growth in the residential and AI data center sector, but that doesn't mean that it cannot be managed appropriately with the right technology and the right intelligence," Wellinghoff said.

Households and utilities also have more options to meet summer needs, including incentivizing the use of more efficient appliances, rooftop solar, batteries and more distributed supplies located closer to communities.

“It's going to get a lot more chaotic,” Cook said.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

BlackRock launches IBIT spot bitcoin ETF in Canada

By Ivonne Flores Kauffman

January 14, 2025 a


Robert Mitchnick, head of digital assets at BlackRock, talks about the investment company's new Bitcoin ETF on the CBOE Canada platform.

After launching a spot Bitcoin ETF on U.S. markets last year, BlackRock has launched a similar product for the Canadian market.

The iShares Bitcoin ETF, which launched Monday on the CBOE Canada Exchange, trades under the ticker symbol IBIT, and simply invests in its U.S. counterpart but is priced in Canadian dollars and trades on a Canadian exchange.

BlackRock’s Head of Digital Assets Robert Mitchnick says that’s because Canada is a distinct market for investors who want to invest here instead of abroad.
The information you need to know, sent directly to you: Download the BNN Bloomberg App

“It’s about bringing access… to Canadian investors,” Mitchnick said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg Tuesday. “Canada is a market where we feel like there is a significant opportunity.”

BlackRock’s product was one of a dozen that launched in the U.S. last year, but the fund drew $50 billion in assets, far more than most other new entrants, because of its liquidity and the “value proposition” of the product.


“The expertise and track record of the world’s largest ETF manager, combined with the investments made over the years on BlackRock’s digital asset capabilities is a very compelling value proposition,” he noted, adding that the fund has an annual management fee of 0.32 per cent.

With Bitcoin being one of the best performing asset classes in 2024 and poised for more gains in 2025 under the crypto-friendly Trump administration, more and more investors are investing in the digital asset directly.

But Mitchnick says the ETF product still appeals to a broad number of investors.

“We’ve seen this resonate with all manner of investor types,” he said. “It has the potential to be a unique diversifier.”

Unifor members vote to back strike mandate at CPKC if new contract not reached

By The Canadian Press

January 14, 2025

Trains sit idle at a Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) railyard in Smiths Falls, Ont., on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

CALGARY — Workers represented by Unifor at Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railway have voted in favour of strike action if their union cannot reach a new deal with the company.

The union says members voted 99 per cent in support of the strike mandate.

Unifor national president Lana Payne says members are united in their demands for job security and work ownership, fair wages, and improved working conditions.

Unifor Local 101R represents more than 1,200 members who work in mechanical shops, inspecting and maintaining locomotives and freight cars.

Negotiations between the union and the railway are set to resume in Calgary on Jan. 24.

The vote authorizes the union to initiate strike action if a deal is not reached by 12:01 a.m. ET on Jan. 29.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 14, 2025.

Oil Embargo on the U.S. Could Blow Up in Canada's Face

By Andrew Topf - Jan 14, 2025

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith opposes federal threats to impose an oil embargo on the U.S.

Amid federal subsidies for clean energy, Smith has doubled Alberta's oil and gas production capacity in partnership with Enbridge.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has continued to lobby for Alberta’s interests while disparaging federal policies seen as detrimental to the province.


Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is no shrinking violet when it comes to disagreements with the Canadian government over energy policy.

Smith has previously clashed with Ottawa over its carbon tax, and following a weekend visit to President-elect Trump, she did not mince words over Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly’s threat to impose an oil embargo on the US if Trump carries through with 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports.

“Oil and gas is owned by the provinces, principally Alberta, and we won’t stand for that,” Smith told reporters at an online news conference Monday.

Alberta is Canada’s largest oil-producing province, in 2023 producing 84 percent of the country’s crude.

No country is more important than Canada when it comes to US oil imports. In 2023 the nation imported 4.4 million barrels a day, which was around 97 percent of Canada’s total crude oil exports, making it America’s top supplier.

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has said he will slap 25% tariffs on imports coming from Canada and Mexico unless they take measures to control illegal drugs and migrants from crossing their borders.

Joly won’t rule out cutting off the supply of energy to the United States in a tariff war, telling CTV’s Question Period on Sunday that “everything is on the table”. The country is reportedly preparing a list of products against which surtaxes could be levied, should Trump make good on his tariff threat.

Ottawa made similar moves in 2019 during Trump’s first term, the National Post reported, adding more than $16 billion in surtaxes to American imports including steel, aluminum, yogurt, toilet paper and dishwashers.

But Smith said Canada shouldn’t be making empty threats and “it’s not Joly’s call to make,” she said via Global News. According to the Canadian Constitution’s section 92, provinces have exclusive jurisdiction over the exploration, development, conservation, and management of non-renewable natural resources within their borders.

Smith suggested that an oil embargo could blow up in Canada’s face, given that cutting off pipeline supplies through Michigan could choke off key supply to Ontario and Quebec.

Moreover, she said that, if Ottawa moves to cut exports, “they will have a national unity crisis on their on their hands at the same time as having a crisis with our U.S. trade partners.”

More positively, Smith told CTV News “I think oil and gas is going to be key to being able to get a breakthrough once tariffs do come in, getting them off. We maintain a strong partnership on energy. We make the case about how much the Americans benefit from that energy relationship, we demonstrate that we are a good trade partner, that we buy more goods and services from America than any other nation.”

“The bedrock of that tariff-free relationship is energy,” she added, noting that Canada exports heavily discounted Canadian oil to the US, which is then upgraded and sold as a value-added product for a price up to three times higher than the raw crude.

“I just feel like the more we make those arguments, slowly but surely we'll be able to make the case that we should continue to enjoy a tariff-free relationship,” Smith told reporters on the conference call.

Smith said she’s “very concerned” about a leadership vacuum affecting talks with the United States over tariffs. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has resigned and prorogued parliament until March. The Liberal Party of Canada has said that a new leader will be announced on March 9.

Alberta and Ottawa frequently clash over energy policy and this is just the latest spat. Older readers will remember when then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau asked the Western provinces to agree to a voluntary freeze on oil prices amid the 1973 Arab oil embargo. With the embargo driving international oil prices to record highs, and nine days after asking for the price freeze, Trudeau’s government imposed a 40-cent tax on every barrel of oil exported to the United States. Revenues were used to subsidize oil imports for Eastern Canadian refiners. Then-Alberta Premier Lougheed called the decision “the most discriminatory action taken by a federal government against a particular province in the entire history of Confederation.”

The same Liberal government in 1980 introduced the National Energy Program, or NEP. The NEP aimed to reduce the role of foreign companies in the Canadian oil patch, including increasing Canadian ownership of the industry, sharing revenue between the federal and provincial governments, and developing non-conventional sources.

However, it was deeply unpopular in the Western provinces especially Alberta, where it was felt that it interfered with provincial jurisdiction and unfairly deprived Alberta of oil revenue. The program was dismantled in 1985 by the federal Conservative government.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for NEP ALBERTA


Fast-forwarding to present day, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has continued to lobby for Alberta’s interests while disparaging federal policies seen as detrimental to the province.

To wit, Alberta has been battling Ottawa over the carbon tax since it was introduced in 2019. Meant to tax carbon emissions, the levy is applied to homeowners’ natural gas bills, to fossil fuel producers and distributers, and to large industrial emitters through an output-based pricing system. The tax has more than tripled from $20 per tonne of carbon dioxide in 2019 to $65/t in 2023.

Although the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favor of the carbon tax in 2021, the Alberta government continues to challenge it on the grounds that it adds to already high home heating costs, and that it is unconstitutional.

In October 2024, Premier Smith announced the province has applied for a judicial review to be exempted from the carbon tax, with the greater goal of forcing Ottawa to cancel it.

Smith argues the tax places an unfair burden on Albertans, most of whom heat their homes with natural gas. Making matters worse, in 2023 Prime Minister Trudeau announced a three-year carbon tax reprieve on deliveries of heating oil. Smith says this only benefits people living in Atlantic Canada and Quebec, whose populations use heating oil, not natural gas.

Amid the controversy, Smith has doubled down on oil and gas production despite a federal government that has phased out fossil fuel subsidies — with the notable exception of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, bought by Ottawa in 2018 for $4.5 billion but whose costs ballooned to $34 billion — and pivoted towards clean energy including billions in subsidies to EV battery production facilities.

Earlier this month Smith appeared on a video with Enbridge CEO Greg Abel to announce a doubling of oil and gas production.

“Today we've signed a letter of intent with Enbridge to accelerate these growth opportunities and ensure more capacity for oil and gas is available across more than 29,000 kilometers of pipelines in the Enbridge network,” Smith said on the Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC).

“This added capacity objective is critical to Alberta and our most important trading partner, the United States. Alberta's oil directly supports more than 50 US-based refineries with direct investment in more than 20 US states and is essential to affordability, growth, economic prosperity and energy security in the United States and globally. Alberta oil and natural gas is also a reliable and important feedstock for essential products produced in the United States especially in the Midwest states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.”

By Andrew Topf for Oilprice.com

ONTARIO

Doug Ford says he’s strengthening border to ‘send a message’ to Trump

By Jordan Fleguel

BNNBLOOMBERG

January 14, 2025 


Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced increased border measures in an attempt to diverge Trump's plans to hike tariffs on Canadian imports.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he intends to strengthen the province’s border with the U.S. in an effort to “send a message” to Donald Trump that he shares the U.S. president-elect’s security concerns.

“Even well before Trump was elected, all the premiers, myself included, for years have been saying we have to tighten up the border, so that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Ford told BNN Bloomberg in a Tuesday interview.

“We’ll have 200 OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) officers out there working collaboratively with CBSA (Canada Border Services Agency), RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), U.S. border patrol and DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration).”
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Ford said the planned increase to the police presence at the border is intended to stem the flow of drugs, illegal immigrants and guns between the U.S. and Canada, an issue Trump cited when he first threatened to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods on his first day in office.

Ford said that while Ontario is doing its part, he’s urging the federal government to do more to strengthen the border nationwide.


Although the federal Liberals announced last month a commitment to allocate $1.3 billion to bolstering border security, Ford said he’s yet to see a detailed plan for how and where the money will be used.

Ford also said he believes Canada should be meeting its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defence spending obligations of two per cent of annual gross domestic product (GDP) – a threshold it’s hasn’t met since signing a pledge to do so in 2014.

“We can’t continuously just rely on the U.S. to protect our country. We’re part of NATO, we have to fulfil the commitment of two per cent – minimum,” he said.
Trump ‘should be happy’

Ford said Trump “should be happy” that Canada’s provincial leaders are committed to improving safety and security on both side of the Canada-U.S. border and added that he hopes both nations can “work together” on the issue.

In another apparent effort to appease Trump’s trade concerns, Ford said he believes the federal government should match any tariffs the incoming U.S. administration imposes on China in order to protect the Canada-U.S. supply chain, which he said is inextricably linked.

Ford also reiterated the beneficial nature of the U.S.-Canada trade relationship, which remains strained as Trump’s tariff threats could materialize as soon as next week when he officially takes office.

“Eighty-seven per cent of the potash in Saskatchewan goes down to the U.S. to keep their agricultural sector moving. Uranium comes from Saskatchewan and gets processed in Port Hope in Ontario here, it keeps their military moving forward,” he said.

“We have the finest nickel in the entire world, high-grade nickel that people want. Who do we want to give it to? Well, 47 per cent goes down to the U.S…. aluminum coming from Quebec is essential for their manufacturing, so there’s a whole host of products.”

Retaliatory tariffs a last resort

Ford said that as his government prepares for all possibilities if Trump follows through on his tariff threats, the “last thing” he wants to do is levy retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, but he didn’t rule it out.

“I want to ship them more critical minerals, more energy, more of everything, but that’s a tool in our toolbox, and we’ll see what the U.S. does,” he said.

Ford added that while Trump has doubled down on his tariff threats in recent weeks, he hasn’t heard the same enthusiasm for imposing them by other U.S. officials or business leaders.

“I just haven’t heard it from CEOs, to the contrary, some of the largest companies in the world that are based in the U.S. are sending letters to president-elect Trump saying this is not good for either economy,” he said.

“Along with elected officials. I’ve talked to endless Republicans and Democrats – they aren’t saying the same thing. So, let’s see how this rolls out on Jan. 20 and 21.”