Time to Nationalize CN

CN has reported a record number of accidents, Duh Oh, this past year.

Number of CN derailments jumped in 2005: report CN derailments rise 35 per cent

As I have reported here, it's because CN our once national railway was privatised.
It is fast becoming a North American monopoly and it sacrificing public and worker safety for the bottom line. Under the direction of its American CEO. Earlier this week, CN reported a record profit of $1.56-billion for 2005.

According to a Globe and Mail report Monday, railway mega-merger speculation may be back on the agenda. Regulatory concerns prevented a merger between Canadian National Railway Co. and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. in 2000. But CPR President Robert Ritchie told reporters that after a six-year hiatus, the CN-BN pairing could re-emerge, or another combination involving CN, reports the Globe. Ritchie added that CPR's philosophy is to work as a network industry and not isolate itself into two systems, which would probably be the end result of further consolidation. That would produce too much angst on the part of customers, which would lead to negative regulation, he told reporters.
Numerous co-operative agreements between railways have been signed in recent months on shared trackage, with aim to ease congestion. The big question is whether regulators could in future scenarios be persuaded that mergers would clear the way for railways to reduce freight rates and improve service.One theory holds that freight rates would fall in a more efficient freight network with fewer territorial players.

CN is still looking at swallowing up more of it's competitors south of the border. Which will not reduce freight rates, contrary to popular opinion, and given its past practice will only mean further speed ups, reduced staffing and more accidents as CN pushes just in time delivery for the bottom line.

Julian calls for public inquiry into Canada's rail safety

Burnaby - Peter Julian, MP (Burnaby-New Westminster) and NDP Transportation Critic, called on Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon to exercise his power under the Railway Safety Act

and conduct an inquiry into the safety of Canada’s railways.

“The former Liberal government’s last attempt to deal with this matter was to ask CN to develop its own proposals,” Mr. Julian said. “With a significant increase in accidents and fatalities, the Conservative government should take meaningful action now.”

Railway safety track records have been steadily declining in recent years. Between 2000-2004 there were 11.67 accidents per million train-miles, by 2005 the number of accidents increased to 13.04. Fatalities have also increased significantly.

“We know that many derailments in BC and Alberta have been linked to the length of trains,” Mr. Julian said. ”We also know that there have been a number of violations of the Railway Safety Act, some of which railway operators have readily admitted to. The Conservative government must urgently and immediately take up the responsibility for the public’s safety from their Liberal predecessors.”

Privatization, deregulation, self regulation, all the neo-conservative solutions that the Liberals introduced in the ninties as they Reinvented Government have failed. The privatization of CN has put public safety at risk, lead to massive layoffs, and put public money into private pockets. Its time to put CN back under workers and community control to renationalize it. After all its making money now, rather than losing it as it did relying on taxpayer subsidization.




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Canada Out of Afghanistan

A new poll shows that Canadians who have not been consulted on our troops going to Afghanistan are opposed to further excursions by our military to do America's dirty work.

I like this headline from Reuters Poll shows Canadians oppose Afghanistan mission which is far stronger than this whimpy one from CTV
Most Cdns. uneasy about Afghan mission: poll

America's invasion of Afghanistan was a detour on the way to Iraq. It was an after thought, as quick as they got in they got out. Rolling on to Bhagdad their real objective, cause Georgie Porgie was gonna kick some Saddam ass for threatening his daddy.

But in spite of Canadian opposition to our continued involvement in Afghanistan, the Harpocrite government in Ottawa is going to continue to put our troops in harms way. Without any democratic debate in the Parliment. Just doing what the Liberals did. Feds pledge Afghan commitment, NORAD expansion

And why are we doing this, Gordon O'Connor Defense Industry Lobbyist and Minister of Defense tells his Defense Industry pals yesterday;

Where Are We Now? Staying the Course in Afghanistan

Two weeks ago, I attended my first NATO Ministerial Meeting. I told my Alliance counterparts that Canada remains committed to NATO and that we'll be a strong and engaged partner, particularly in Afghanistan.

We've never been a nation that shies away from its responsibilities. We will shoulder the burden. We will stay the course in Afghanistan.

Together with troops from other countries, the Canadian Forces are making a real impact in Afghanistan. All over the country, buildings are being rebuilt. Refugees are returning home. Marketplaces are bustling. And little girls once again attend schools.

Yep little girls get to go to school in newly liberated Afghanistan still dressed like this.






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Disisng Canada's CEO's

I like it. I like it a lot. Todays column in the Ottawa Sun. The Sun of all places. Dissing Thomas Acquino and his private club of Canada's wealthiest and self indulgent elite. The Canadian Council of CEO's. Michael Harris spares no punches. How to run Canada into the ground




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What Debate?

So is there going to be a debate on the Third Way which is still a mote in Ralphs eye?

Medicare advocates stage protest at legislature
Opponents of Alberta's proposed 'third way' health care system protested on the steps of the legislature Thursday on the first working day of the spring session. Even before the protest got underway, health minister Iris Evans was confronted by demonstrators who grilled her about the 'third way.' Klein has declined to release any details of his proposed health reforms, though he has indicated it will involve a role for private and public medicine. Evans ensured the protestors that the government isn't planning to do away with public medicine. "I want you to just hear that at the start but then come and we will talk."

Talk about what? There is no bill there is no legislation. And Evans maternal patting of protestors on the head is disingenuous.

Evans sees private health services within a year

Pay for faster health access, Evans says

Yeah let's talk about that Iris. As I said here the Third Way will not be debated in public, in the legislature. It will be snuck in the back way through orders in Cabinet.

EDITORIAL: Lots of questions
Edmonton Sun, Canada - 9 Feb 2006
Near the end of her editorial board meeting with the Sun yesterday, Health Minister Iris Evans was asked about the timeline for implementing the government's so-called Third Way health-care reforms. Evans said she hoped the changes would be in place within a year.

I have to agree with this guy about the whole Third Way legislation discussion which isn't happening.

We need more medical doctors and fewer spin doctors when it comes to health reform.
– Paul Hinman is Alberta Alliance leader and MLA for Cardston-Taber-Warner

I know, I know frightening when even the right wing rump party challenges the PC's, Party of Calgary, about its intentions.



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Coal=Cancer

Ya gotta love King Ralph here he is saying that Alberta will Cure Cancer. Cure Cancer. Let me repeat that folks Cure Cancer.

I know people refer to the current oil boom as the Alberta Miracle but this is taking that miracle business a little to literally.

And then King Ralph goes and says in the same breath that we are going to expand our extraction of Coal and make sure we export it and use it more.

Ahem Coal causes cancer, it's from the sulpher dioxide byproduct of incomplete combustion.

Oh yeah he said clean coal. But there is no clean coal being used in Alberta or anywhere in Canada or North America for that fact.

Melchin told the audience that his province is eager to develop clean coal technology and it's working with Texas on a zero-emission coal-fired plant, which is expected to start generating electricity in the United States by 2012.Melchin pushes clean coal in Ontario

Aha this must be the wink, wink, secret new energy source George Bush has been talking about. Bush: Energy technology breakthroughs imminent

So I guess we are going to cure cancer in Alberta with clean coal. And that would be a miracle.

This is clearly Klein's swan song his legacy sitting of the Alberta Legislature.Praise Klein and maybe he will quit Which must be why he has these goofy notions of Curing Cancer and Creating Clean Coal. Yep it really is time this goofus retired.

Half of Albertans want Klein to retire soon; a party poll was reported saying 30 per cent of members cite his departure as key to renewal



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Wishful Thinking

The headline reads;

Alta. backs away from privatized health-care system

Throne speech focuses on cutting wait times, slashing cancer rate

EDMONTON -- The Alberta government signalled Wednesday that it's backing away from any plans to privatize health care

But the photo attached tells the real story.

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TANSTAAFV

TANSTAAFV-There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Vote.

Same Sex Marriage and Missile Defense, two issues that will now face the Canadian parliment as Free Votes. Be still my beating heart. Parliment will now have the Conservatives allow its MPs free votes,though how it intends to force the other parties not to whip their votes well thats a horse of a different colour. And the difference between a Whipped vote and Free Vote is......nada, nothing, zippo.

In the past sitting of the Parilment the Conservatives voted en block on issues, no significant variance amongst them. Ok one or two voted for SSM and then Stronach crossed the floor, because of the shunning that such Free Voters got from the rest of the party apparatchiks. But on Bil C-48 they voted as one,it was a budget bill after all, which is why Stronach left . On other less contentious and media watched issues everyone on that side of the house in the Official Opposition voted as the one. See How'd They Vote?"

So then what is this sacred cow the Conservatives have embraced this oh holy of holies the Free Vote? It is the last vestige of the Refrom Party that dwells in the Conservative Party, sort of like the vestigious reptilian portion of our brain. Once upon a time it was about the Reform Party doing politics differently, being a Party that allowed its MP's to vote on behalf of their constituents following their consulting with their constiuents. The last MP to do so was Chuck Cadman, who remained the last Reformer standing on principles. The rest moved to political pragmatism and expediency to gain power. Chuck's constinuency has elected an NDP member to replace him, not a Conservative!

In todays Conservative autarchy the Free Vote is, as the Bard said, much 'ado about nothing.'


With apologies to Robert Heinlein who wrote : TANSTAAFL (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) One way or other, what you get, you pay for.


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This Wasn't An Election Promise

Tories to re-open missile defence debate So now that the Harpocrites are going to ressurect this dead issue, will it be long before we are sending troops to Iraq? Hey they wanted to do that to, despite their protests to the contrary during the election. Now where did I put that Conservative election campaign policy guide the Blue Book. Oh yeah here it is, hmmm let's see.....Nope not here. Unlike the Red Book where Liberals broke promises, the Conservatives are keeping promises they didn't make.

OTTAWA (CP) - Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor says he's willing to reopen the controversial debate on ballistic missile defence if the United States extends another invitation.

However, the minority Conservative government would eventually put the question before the Commons and since all three opposition parties have opposed the idea in the past, the concept is likely dead before it starts.

"It would really, ultimately, be up to a vote in Parliament," the minister told reporters Thursday.

His comments came as a former Pentagon official was in Toronto urging Canada to spurn missile defence and instead lead an international charge against space weapons.

Phil Coyle, an assistant secretary of defence and senior weapons tester at the U.S. Department of Defence from 1994 to 2001, said missile defence is seductive but unworkable.

"All you get is a scarecrow defence."

And to think some Blogging Tories pooh-poohed me when I predicted this because Derek Burney one of Harpers key post election advisors has been outspoken in his promotion of BMD/US Canadian joint Missle Defense.


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Teachers Win Right To Free Speech

The 'democratic' state reveals its true authoritarian nature when it comes to mediating labour struggles. It is ALWAYS on the side of the employer. Now the B.C. Teachers union has won a landmark Free Speech case. The howls will arise on the right, you know those folks who are currently eating everything Danish, and defending the right to publish stupid cartoons. They will complain about activist judges, blah, blah. But the point here is that when the State is your employer you have to watch out for them gagging your right to free speech as has occurred in right wing Alberta. In B.C. this case is a victory for workers against the State. B.C. teachers can talk shop with parents, government disappointed
VICTORIA (CP) -- B.C. teachers are legally entitled to talk shop with parents despite a court challenge by their employer. The Supreme Court of Canada refused Thursday to hear an appeal of an earlier B.C. Court of Appeal ruling that allowed teachers to talk to parents about their concerns during parent-teacher interviews.




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Third Way MIA

King Ralphs mauch touted 'Third Way' in Medicare reform is still MIA. It wasn't in his TV Inofmercial the other night and yesterday it was absent, MIA in fact, from the Throne Speech.

“This session, government will take steps to improve access, sustainability, choice, innovation and efficiency in Alberta’s health-care system,” said the speech.Despite its references to offering choice and innovation in health care, it provided no details of Klein’s proposed “third way,” which could open the door to private health insurers and for-profit hospitals offering services now covered by medicare.

Guess after all this time, all those focus groups, all the studies, all the reviews, after Bill 11 , after King Ralphs Grand Tour touting his reforms, this new bill has yet to be written!

Klein conceded yesterday the legislation has yet to be drafted, but he still hopes to push ahead after some form of consultation with Albertans."Hopefully it will be done this spring, but I am waiting to see what the legislation will look like."

You would think these guys would have it prepared. But of course not. In Alberta everyone knows the real legislation is done in cabinet, by decree. Where the government doesn't have to face the discomfort of democarcy and Question Period. And of course mass disapproval and the disapproval of the masses.

What is the Third Way?

February 23: Vigil in Support of Public Medicare 12:15 pm Front steps of the Alberta Legislature building Vigils on the steps of the Leg will be every Monday evening at 7:15 pm and Wednesday afternoon at 12:15 pm while the Legislature is in session.

Copyright © 2006 Friends of Medicare.

This is what the rest of Canada is going to have to get used to soon, with the Harperites now in power in Ottawa, Alberta.

Here is the Alberta version of Accountable Government.

When answering a question on health care from New Democratic Party Leader Brian Mason, Klein said he’s been inundated with requests for more money from Alberta’s regional health authorities.
How much money are they asking for? Well....
KLEIN: “Without going through the whole list, the total is $100.6 billion — $100.6 billion this year alone — and they (New Democrats) have no solution other than to spend, spend, and spend more.”
$100.6 billion? That’s 10 times the size of the entire health budget!
Klein repeated the $100.6 billion figure five more times — a figure he puzzlingly used to browbeat and berate the New Democrats, as if they want to spend $100 billion more on health care.
Oops — he later dropped the figure to $10.6 billion.
Double oops — after Question Period he dropped the figure yet again to $1.6 billion.
Klein said he made a mistake. He did the math himself on what the health authorities are requesting and came up with the wrong number — twice.

Wow that sounds just like an anwser those guys in Ottawa that just got turfed used to give in QP.. Will Klein Share Chretiens Fate?






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Ouch

Klein needs vision where his money and mouth are
Globe and Mail, Canada - 1 hour ago
By DEBORAH YEDLIN. CALGARY -- Ralph Klein is looking more and more like the second coming of another Alberta premier -- Don Getty.

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Harpers Broken Promises: Accountability

Democracy Watch has issued a press release documenting five, count em five, broken promises by Temp PM Harpocrite on Accountability. And after they gave the Conservatives the thumbs up as having the best policy during the election. Well that was then this is now. Remember that the Harpocrite failed to pledge he would keep his promises when asked during the French language debate. Now we know why. It wasn't that his french was that poor.


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The Soviet Union Capitalism's Bulwark

As Herr Doctor Marx pointed out over a hundred years ago, capitalism relies on, no, demands a huge army of the unemployed in order to discipline the working class. As industrialization expanded it transformed the countryside and its citizens into city dwelling proletarians.

Abounding in the ghettos of Europe were the poor, the victims of the loss of the commons through enclosures, those who had suffered from the privatization of the land. In order to deal with the mass unemployment England and other European countries expanded their dominance over the Atlantic in search of new lands to ship thier poor too.

This is the real story of Mayflower, not a glorious history of dissidents looking for a new land, but the export of the poor and criminalized to the new world. North America as penal colony, as we know Australia was used. See my review of the Many Headed Hydra for more on this.

In that same context the Soviet Union and its annexed colonies in Eastern Europeand Communist China played a similar form of buffer for European and Asia-Pacific capitalism.

By creating isolationist economic and political autarchies surplus labour was kept out of the global market. And while these countries produced goods, they imported more than they exported, and they did not export their prison populations.

This was exposed with the unification of Germany. The East German basket case economy nestled next to the Booming West Germany. All that fell apart with unification as East Germany has become one large Free Enterprize Zone, a European Malaquidora in competion with Germany and other EU countries.


And in the Third World, these countries allowed for the booming economies of the G8 by keeping their workers and poor contained in soverign nation states, who imported goods and exported captial. Often as hot money.

Today none of these buffers exist any longer. And the move of the mulititude, as Hardt and Negri call it, the unemployed, the mass of labour now threatens the working class in the advanced industrial countries not as immigrant or emigre labour but through the use of outsourcing. Outsourcing is the harsh discipline of capitalism it plays the same role as unemployment does, and the source of it is the old Soviet Union and other developing countries who are now shipping their poor out around the world looking for work, while importing work into their own nation states.

Here is an interesting take on this;

The Global Labor Threat

By Thomas Palley*

TomPaine
September 29, 2005

If the United States were to add two billion low-wage workers, you'd expect that wages would fall across the board, right? Well, there is a famous theorem in international economics - the Stolper-Samuelson theorem - that says when a rich capital-abundant country (such as the United States) trades with a poor labor-abundant country (such as China), wages in the rich country fall and profits go up. The theorem's economic logic is simple. Free trade is tantamount to a massive increase in the rich country's labor supply, since the products made by poor country workers can now be imported. Additionally, demand for workers in the rich country falls as rich country firms abandon labor-intensive production to the poor country. The net result is an effective increase in labor supply and a decrease in labor demand in the rich country, and wages fall.

The relevance of the Stolper-Samuelson theorem is clear. For the last two decades, US policy makers, from both major political parties, have worked assiduously to create a global market place in which goods and capital are free to move. Over the same period, two and a half billion people in China, India, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have discarded economic isolationism and joined the global economy. Now, these two tectonic shifts are coming together in the form of a "super-sized" Stolper-Samuelson effect, and they stand to have depressing consequences for American workers.

Much attention has been devoted to the adverse impacts of the US trade deficit, particularly with China. And the US government has been rightly criticized for failing to apply adequate pressure to get China to remedy its unfair and illegal trading practices. However, no one in Washington is talking about the deeper question of what happens to wages when two billion people from low-wage countries join the global labor market.

Such an event is unprecedented in history. In the past, countries joined the international economy through a slow evolutionary process. Initially, they would export a few goods in which they specialized and had natural competitive advantage. Thereafter, countries would gradually deepen their involvement in international trade. The process was one of gradual integration, and production was largely immobile across countries.

Globalization has changed this by accelerating the process of international integration. It has also made capital, technology and methods of production mobile, marking a watershed with the past. The new order is exemplified by China's recent experiences. In fewer than two decades, China has become a global manufacturing powerhouse through massive foreign direct investment and technology transfer. The impact of this transformation on the US economy is seen in the trade deficit, the loss of manufacturing jobs and downward pressure on wages. Whereas classical free trade connected goods markets across countries, globalization creates a global labor market and moves jobs. Previously trade arbitraged goods prices, now it also arbitrages wages through job shifting.

With the emergence of China, India and Eastern Europe, the dam of Socialism that held back two billion workers has been removed. If two swimming pools are joined, the water level will eventually equalize. That is what is happening with globalization. Manufacturing has already been placed in competition across countries, with dire consequences for manufacturing workers. The internet promises to do the same for previously un-tradable services, and higher-paid knowledge workers will start feeling similar effects. Not since the industrial revolution has there been a transformation of this magnitude, and that revolution took one hundred and fifty years to complete.

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Alberta's Boom = Ontario's Bust

I found this interesting post I thought I would share.

It explains why the U.S. will pay more attention to us in the declining years of the Bush administration. Not because of the friendlier relations promised by the newly elected Harper regime in Ottawa, but because of Alberta Crude. Bush made that clear in his State of the Union address on America's need for energy security.

We have here what many are calling a perfect economic storm, with demand, price, and political instability in the Middle East - our low-cost competitor - all lining up to produce a gusher of energy revenues. A decade ago our biggest customer, the U.S., didn't take Alberta seriously as a major source of oil. Now, George W. Bush is on a crusade to wean America off its addiction to foreign oil from "unstable" sources. "It creates a national security issue when we're held hostage for energy by foreign nations that may not like us," he warned. In fact, Alberta and its bottomless oilsands seem like the perfect solution to Washington's search for energy security.
Securing the future Edmonton Sun, Canada - 22 Feb 2006 By PAUL STANWAY

And thanks to Canada's Petro-Dollar economy the Alberta Boom means a Bust for Ontario. Which will put the Harper in tough tight spot. Inceasing unemployment in Ontario, a freeze or decline in Federal civil service jobs, will adversely affect his ability to win a Majority government. Ironically thanks to the success of Alberta which is his parties largest base.

And the loss of the manufacturing base in Ontario is what drove Buzz Hargrove mad during the election. He could see this coming. Watch him and the CLC go into concession bargaining mode as their industrial based unions decline in membership by attrition.

What will keep Buzz out of politics is his and CAW's need to organize the exapanding Japanese car manufacturing base, and the secondary car parts manufacturing sector like Stronach's Magna which are non-union.

Sid Ryans backing off from CUPE's wildcat strike over the pension issue is an indication of the economic weakness that even the public service unions now face in manufacturing based Ontario. Concession averts strikePension reform will pass, but government promises reviewUnion claims victory even though legislation unchanged

And Harpers promises benefit the financial and investor sector in Canada far more than they do working Canadians and their families. And they do little for non-working, unemployed or retired Canadians. Which will be largely in Ontario.

The Psychology of the Canadian Petro-dollar

Gary Dorsch

Editor, Global Money Trends magazine

Mr Dorsch worked on the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for nine years as the chief Financial Futures Analyst for three clearing firms, Oppenheimer Rouse Futures Inc, GH Miller and Company, and a commodity fund at the LNS Financial Group.

After the price of US light crude oil jumped above the psychological $40 per barrel level in 2004, global investors began to take a harder look at the underground oil deposits around northeastern Alberta, Canada that hold about 1.6 trillion barrels of oil, the largest lode of hydrocarbons on Earth. Soon after, Canada's "Loonie" was anointed as the heir of the British pound, and bestowed the coveted position as the world's Petro-currency. And over the past 12-months, US crude oil futures have traded in the same direction as Canada's Petro-dollar about 74% of the time.

Long regarded as a "commodity currency" the demand for the Loonie is increasingly linked to the direction of energy, gold and base metal shares. Nearly half of the market capitalization of the benchmark Toronto Stock Exchange index is linked to the energy and materials sectors. Canadian exports, led by the energy sector, surged to a record $C41.3 billion in December 2005, up 3.9% from November, despite a Canadian dollar that is gyrating at highest level since the early 1990's.

Canada's trade surplus with the United States hit a record $C11.6 billion in December, as energy exports jumped 11.2% to a record high of $C9.3 billion, led by a surge in natural gas shipments. Total exports advanced to a record high of $C423.6 billion in 2005, compared with $C408.9 billion in 2004. Imports also hit a record high, rising 8.8% to $C413.8 billion. Canadian exports rose even as the Loonie climbed from an average 77 US-cents in 2004 to 83 US-cents in 2005.

Geologists estimate that anywhere from 175 to 330 billion barrels of the molasses-like crude in Canada's oil sands region are recoverable. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, possesses 262 billion barrels of proven reserves. Over the next decade, nearly two dozen companies from Canada, the United States, France and China are planning an estimated $100 billion in oil sands projects, and few countries can match growth on that scale. Longer term, there's only really one rival and that's Saudi Arabia.

Current production in the Oil Sands region is about one million barrels a day, about half of which goes to the US by pipeline. Production is forecast to rise to 2 million barrels a day by 2010 and possibly 3.9 million a day by 2015. The Saudis can pump oil at a cost of $2 to $3 a barrel, but converting the molasses-like sands of Alberta into useable crude requires substantial manpower, technology and energy. After adding capital costs, shipping and depreciation, sands producers need per-barrel global prices above the $C18-to-$23 level.

The USA guzzles more than 21 million barrels a day, about 62% of which is imported. Daily US demand is projected to climb to 23 million barrels by 2010, while domestic production falls. So the US is looking to its friendly neighbor to the north to help satisfy its thirst for oil, and reduce its reliance on the Persian Gulf oil kingdoms, unstable Nigeria, and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Crude oil prices command a high premium due to the instability of the countries that produce it.

However, Canada is a safe haven and reliable supplier of energy for its southern neighbor. The United States imported 2.3 million barrels per day of crude and refined products from Canada last year, a million barrels more per day than from Riyadh, exceeding imports from the Saudis every year since 1999. Canada is America's single biggest supplier of foreign oil, providing 17% of all US oil imports.

But cash rich Beijing is also eyeing direct investments in Canadian oil sands projects, and might want to ship increasing amounts of oil to China in the future at the expense of United States. Former Canadian natural resources minister John McCallum foresaw China taking as much as 400,000 bpd, or 25% of the oil currently being shipped to America.

But total trade volume between Canada and China is only $30 billion compared with $500 billion between Canada and the United States. And much to the dismay of Beijing, Canada's newly elected Conservative leader Stephen Harper is expected to pursue much closer ties with the US, in contrast to former Liberal leader Martin, who played the China energy card in trade disputes with the US.

Exports of commodities account for roughly 13.5% of Canada's C$1.1 trillion economy, the world's eighth largest. Nearly 34% of Canada's exports are energy-related, and metals are roughly 15 percent. For better or worse, the psychology of the foreign currency market is fixated on the price of crude oil, gold, and base metals when setting the price of the Canadian dollar, against the Japanese yen and US dollar, and by default the Chinese yuan. As a result, the Canadian dollar is expected to remain strong for a long time, wrecking havoc on manufacturers in Ontario.

A sizeable economic gap is developing between resource-rich provinces in Alberta, British Columbia, and Newfoundland, riding the wave created by the resource boom, versus central Canada's manufacturing base, in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick. Manufacturers are getting hammered by a flood of cheap Chinese imports, made cheaper by a strong Loonie. British Columbian exports of lumber could also drop from a US housing slowdown. However, Canada as a whole is expected to grow 3% in 2006, just a bit stronger than the 2.9% pace in 2005.

For Canada's manufacturing sector, more than half of which is located in Ontario. January was a brutal month, with an estimated 41,600 factory jobs lost, the biggest one-month drop in 15 years. Ontario saw 33,000 manufacturing jobs disappear last month, taking the province's total cuts to 93,000 since the end of 2002, just before the Loonie began its 37% appreciation against the US dollar.

Canada's factory sector employs 2.13 million people, and started cutting about 145,000 payroll positions over the past 12 months. But the government employed 42,800 more people in January, including temporary staff hired for Canada's Jan. 23rd federal election, and natural resource companies hired another 12,300 workers.

Ironically, the US dollar has tumbled from about 1.40 Canadian dollars to just below 1.15 Canadian dollars while interest rate differentials have moved decidedly in the US dollar's favor by 350 basis points. In this rare situation, the enormous flow of foreign capital into Canada's resource-rich capital markets has overpowered the influence of short-term interest differentials between the two currencies.

Four quarter-point rate hikes by the Bank of Canada to 3.50% over the past six months went un-opposed by the Bank of Japan, providing additional incentives for Japanese "carry traders" to bid the Petro-dollar 23.8% higher to as high as 104-yen last year. Canadian and Detroit car manufacturers are feeling the heat from a weaker yen, while others succumb to a weaker Chinese yuan. Canada's economy is in danger of losing more of its manufacturing base, while transitioning to a service sector economy, which accounts for two-thirds of output.

In addition to a booming resource sector, the Loonie was the only currency among the big-7 industrialized economies to enjoy both trade and budget surpluses. In 2000, there was a budget surplus of more than 2% of GDP, rising to 4% by 2001. Since then, annual budget surpluses have been shrinking and almost disappeared in fiscal 2005, leaving less money to pay down the $C500 billion federal debt.

There was a potential for a $13.4 billion surplus in fiscal 2006, but the newly elected conservative government promised to use up most of the projected surpluses for tax cuts and different spending priorities. PM Harper aims cut to dividend taxes, offer accelerated capital-tax elimination for businesses, corporate tax rate reductions by 2010, and allow Canadian investors to defer capital gains tax so long as they are replacing one taxable asset with another. And that's the icing on the cake for happy investors in the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Canadian "Petro-dollar."

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Internationalism, Free Trade and Mutual Aid

In researching Isolationism and Internationalism I came across this interesting article. I think my friends on the Libertarian Left ;

Porcupine-Larry Gambone's Blog

Brad Spangler

Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism

The Kn@ppster

Freeman Libertarian Critter

will appreciate the irony of it.

Is there any real scientific basis for the concept of internationalism apart from the strictly sociological approach? Economically, the consequences of internationalism are obvious and have already been hinted at. The main concept is that of an international solidarity expressed in practice through worldwide division of labor: free trade is the principal point in the program of internationalism. This also agrees with the latest ideas and theories in the field of natural science. Concord, solidarity, and mutual help are the most important means of enabling animal species to survive. All species capable of grasping this fact manage better in the struggle for existence than those which rely upon their own strength alone: the wolf, which hunts in a pack, has a greater chance of survival than the lion, which hunts alone. Kropotkin¹² has fully illustrated this idea with examples from animal life and has also applied it to the social field in his book Mutual Aid (1902).

Christian Lange – Nobel Lecture*, December 13, 1921

* Dr. Lange delivered this lecture at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo. This translation is based on the Norwegian text in Les Prix Nobel en 1921-1922. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1901-1925, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972


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Who Will Fund Hamas

So if Canada joins the U.S. and Israel and doesn't fund the new Hamas government in Palestine, who will? Well who do you think.

Iran offers to fund Hamas government, says report

Saudis won't sign on to US isolation of Hamas

This kind of Isolationism is a political failure as history shows. While it may suit Israel's geopolitical agenda for the region, it is not a bandwagon that Canada should join. It ultimately alienates the world from the U.S. and its allies. And it economically makes no sense.

A VIEW FROM THE ARAB WORLD: A historical verge, or back to Algeria in 1992? — Rami G Khouri

If the US follows Israel by isolating and sanctioning Hamas and punishing the Palestinians for electing it, the potential consequences are grim: the government in Palestine could collapse and chaos might reign again; most Arabs (and people throughout the entire world) would deem the US totally unreliable and non-credible in its talk of promoting democracy

And while Temp PM Harpocrite's macho stand on Hamas may sell well to the Israel lobby in Canada, see here and here, it puts in jeporady even the miniscule developing civil society in Palestine

Cutting Aid to Palestine Could Lead to Humanitarian Emergency

Stephen Harper said Canadian aid to Palestinians is now under review, and development groups working in the region worry that any freezing or cut in aid could have a destabilizing effect.

Reem Bahdi knows exactly what a cut in aid would do to Palestine. The University of Windsor law professor directs the Judicial Independence and Human Dignity Initiative, a project that promotes the teaching and training of the Palestinian judiciary on human rights issues. "It could lead to a breakdown of law and escalating violence," says Ms. Bahdi.

In November last year the project received $4.5 million from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). This year, the training program was all set to kick off, until Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced at the start of this month that aid to Palestine will be reviewed after Hamas' election to power. Now Ms. Bahdi's project is in limbo. Last week she was informed that funding has been suspended pending a review.

"The news was deflating, but I am confident that the right decision will be made because this project is important to the long term stability in the region," she says.

The West Bank and Gaza stand to lose $25 million in annual funding from Canada, including another $37 million announced by former Prime Minister Paul Martin last year, unless Hamas renounces violence and repeals an article in its charter calling for the destruction of Israel. More than half the Palestinian population lives below the poverty line and is largely dependent on financial aid from the international community.

When Mr. Harper said earlier this month that Canadian aid to Palestine will be reviewed in the wake of Hamas' election victory, his statement echoed similar announcements made by the U.S., Britain and some major donor countries whose combined sum of aid to the Palestinians amounts to $1 billion (US) a year. Now there is concern amongst some Canadian non-governmental organizations that if the government eventually decides to cut aid, ordinary Palestinians and not Hamas, will be affected.

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David Irving Redux

Ah the voice of reason, and a reason not to make David Irving a martyr.

Roman Halter, 78, Holocaust survivor

He wanted to go to jail, otherwise he would not have gone to Austria. He incites the rightwing in order for them to do his dirty work, to propagate hate. I hope he comes out and the world ignores him, we don't need people like him screaming lies and hatred. When people like Irving deny the Holocaust it's such a lie. I saw it, I experienced it.

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Dubai Got Special Deal

There are always two sides to a story, the public and the secret.

DP World agreed to disclose internal records to US

WASHINGTON - Under a secretive agreement with the Bush administration, Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates promised to cooperate with US investigations as a condition of its takeover of operations at six major American ports, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The US government chose not to impose other, routine restrictions.

In approving the $6.8 billion (Ð5.73 billion) purchase, the administration chose not to require state-owned Dubai Ports World to keep copies of its business records on US soil, where they would be subject to orders by American courts. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate requests by the government.

Though apparently Bush knew nothing about it. Deal on ports approved without Bush's knowledge With the Bushies awarding their friends in Dubai a favorable set of conditions, the apparent amnesia of King George II is not a sign of pending Alzheimers rather it is of course that old ruse of plausible deniability. In case they got caught. Which they did.
Bush insists Dubai firm is safe to run US ports

"If there was any chance that this transaction would jeopardize the security of the United States, it would not go forward." - President Bush, on Tuesday.

Wait a minute how can he say that if he didn't know anything about it? Hmmm Dubya, Dubai. Sound alot alike. Do ya think maybe he thought he was getting the contract?

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Chickens Have Teeth!!!

Oh my gawd we've gotta all become vegans now!

Mutant Chicken Grows Alligatorlike Teeth
But a chicken's underlying ability to grow teeth derives from a common ancestor with alligators--archosaurs--that is more recent than the one linking birds and mammals. Nevertheless, the underlying genetic mechanism that produces teeth in mice, alligators and mutant chickens remains the same.

Think of it giant killer chickens.They Walked Like Men

What's also interesting in this article is this:

Working late in the developmental biology lab one night, Matthew Harris of the University of Wisconsin noticed that the beak of a mutant chicken embryo he was examining had fallen off. Upon closer examination of the snubbed beak, he found tiny bumps and protuberances along its edge that looked like teeth--alligator teeth to be specific. The accidental discovery revealed that chickens retain the ability to grow teeth, even though birds lost this feature long ago. The finding also resurrected the controversial theory of one of the founders of comparative anatomy, Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hillaire. In the early 19th century, Saint-Hillaire observed that developing parrots have tiny bumps on their beaks that resemble teeth, something he ascribed to modern animals deriving from more basic primitive forms. But due to his developing battles with Georges Cuvier over evolution, the finding was forgotten until Harris, a graduate student, rediscovered it nearly 200 years later.

So much for Creationism or Intelligent Design this means Chicken Have Teeth. Duck and cover Colonel, duck and cover.



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Another Prehistoric Woman

The male bias in science presumes that the humnaoid fossils we find are male.

The fact is that now more often than not they are found to be women continues to be revealed as in the case of Our Lady of Flores and now in China with the Jinniushan fossil.

Women built the ancient cities in the era of agriculture, and in earlier eras built, lived and died in the dwelling places such as caves. Cave art, ceremonial and ritual areas have been defined in terms of men, as hunter gathers rather than as being the social realm of women.

In one famous case a shamans staff with notches in it was mistakenly identified by Mircea Eliade, the historian of religion and author of Shamanism, as being a male warrior shamans power stick. It was later found that the notches coincided with the lunar cycle, and womens mensturation cycles, it was in fact a woman shamans magick wand.

(See: William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality, and the Origins of Culture New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981)

Such is the case today with the revelation that Jinniushan was a woman.

Based on what they had, scientists' best guess was that brain size was increasing relative to body size during the Pleistocene. The Jinniushan specimen bears this out: her brain was large for her body size, even though she was larger-bodied than more primitive peoples. In fact, the lady from Jinniushan is the biggest woman yet found from the Pleistocene, weighing in at an estimated 173 pounds or so and standing some five feet tall. This led some researchers to classify her as a male specimen, but the shape of her pelvis suggests differently. "If we use modern sexing criteria, it looks clearly female," Rosenberg says. The size and apparent strength of the Jinniushan woman may have been an adaptation to a cold climate.

The reassessment of the sex of ancient humanoid fossils and the increasing number of them being female could lead one to suspect that the idea of ancient matriarchical origins of society is not so far fetched as some male chauvinist detractors claim.




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