Place Your Wagers

Interest rates set to fall in Canada ? Will they or won't they?

investors bet slowing growth will keep the Bank of Canada from raising borrowing costs again this year. ``Increasingly the market is sensing that the Bank of Canada will actually have to come off the sidelines and begin cutting rates,'' said Jeffrey Rubin, chief economist at CIBC World Markets Inc. in Toronto. Canada's central bank next meets to set rates on Sept. 6. The rate is the highest since August 2001, and 1 percentage point less than the Federal Reserve's target for the overnight lending rate between banks. Canadian Bonds Gain as Two-Year Yield Falls Below 4 Percent


Also See: Bank of Canada

Interest Rates


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The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight

Friendly fire kills Canadian soldier again. This time along with the Taliban and suicide bombers killing our troops we still have to worry about our allies. In this case NATO. So far our score in Afghanistan is 50% of our soldiers have died at the hands of insurgents and 50% have died from friendly fire. Not a good score.

Another good reason to Bring the Troops Home Now!

Also See:

Afghanistan

War





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Defend Canada From Illegal Aliens

Will David Suzuki become the Lou Dobbs of the Environment? Denouncing the invasion across our border of illegal aliens.Inquiring minds want to know.

A sweeping report card on B.C.'s coastal environment shows industrial pollution is just a trickle of what it once was but new threats loom -from global warming to the aggressive march of alien species.

A tip o' the blog to stolen moments of island time


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Lougheed Spanks Klein

Klein's lack of planning leaves oil development in 'a mess'
Former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed has sharply criticized the government of departing Premier Ralph Klein for failing to properly plan oilsands growth, creating a "mess" that is depriving the province of royalty revenues. The Klein government's strategy to encourage unparalleled investment in the oilsands sparked an overheated economy due to several concurrent projects in the Fort McMurray area, Lougheed said during an interview with The Herald.

Planning was never Ralphs strong suit. Flying by the seat of his pants was.

Klein's legacy: for richer, for poorer
For a politician who many credit with building the most successful economy on the continent, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein is spending his final days in office looking glum. His speeches, once powerful, have been defensive. He is under attack for creating so much of a good thing the province is reeling from labour shortages, inflation and a lack of infrastructure. Even Ralphbucks, a $1.4-billion giveaway to Albertans last year that was supposed to bolster his legacy, was derided in the province as irresponsible.

Klein had only one plan ever, to cut budgets, cut public services etc. in order to slay the momentary fiscal dragon of debt and deficit. A creation of his own government which he inherited from Don Getty.

It was a moment in history that saw provincial governments and the federal government face the same downturn in the economy. Between 1993-1995 the temporary down turn allowed the Neo-Cons to gain strength as 'the new' political ideology of capitalist governments and the ruling parties in Canada. Nowhere moreso than in Alberta under Ralph. It even got coined the Ralph Revolution, though it was more a Reformation.

Ironic since the Lougheed Progressive Conservatives actually were progressive in their day. They saw the Socreds as incapable of dealing with Alberta's need to expand and take advantage of its petro wealth. Thus the Lougheed Party was a creation of classical liberals, Calgary Liberals, Edmonton Liberals, economic liberals, liberals liberals liberals everywhere. The self destruction of the Socreds was hastened with the departure of Prestons daddy; Ernest and his annointment of Lougheed in the backrooms of Calgary.

Lougheed, Edgar Peter from TCE Standard

Lougheed, Edgar Peter, businessman, lawyer, premier of Alberta (b at Calgary 26 July 1928). Born to power, Lougheed came from the fourth generation of Lougheeds in Alberta. Sir James LOUGHEED, his grandfather, was the only Albertan to be knighted and the first Conservative to serve in a federal cabinet. He was instrumental in the creation of Alberta as a province in 1905. His grandson, who would be credited with lifting the province out of political and economic obscurity, shared his passionate concern over provincial control of natural resources and made it a touchstone of his policies when he became premier. Lougheed studied at the University of Alberta, receiving a BA (1951) and LLB (1952). A noted athlete, he played football at university for the Golden Bears and briefly for the Edmonton Eskimos. In 1954 he earned an MBA from Harvard University and was called to the bar the following year. He practised law in Calgary before joining the Mannix Corporation (1956), one of Canada's largest construction firms, rising swiftly up the ranks to vice-president (1959) and then director (1962).

State Capitalism has always been the economic engine of growth in Alberta. Despite all the rhetoric about free trade and free markets. The Socreds were state capitalists and so were the Lougheed PC's. The Wheat Board was founded here in Socred Alberta in cooperation with CCF Saskatchewan. The Socreds and CCF shared a common belief in the economics of distributism and the ideals of a producers cooperative economy.

But they were in power for 35 years and by the end they were stale, old, cranky, incapable of dealing with the boom that was emerging in Alberta in 1971. And so like the Ralph regime, which also is now 35 years old, they were turfed by the young turks around Peter Lougheed.

The Lougheed government saw the growth in government services, expanding the public services, infrastructure, creating State Capitalist enterprizes for Tar Sands development. The Alberta Government eliminated small airlines, buying them up to create their own airline- Pacific Western Airlines, expanding airfields across the province to provide a base for PWA, all needed to get folks up north to the Tar Sands.

Hosptials, schools, universities, seniors homes, subsidies to farmers, cash for cities, roads, etc. all were provided by the paternalistic party of Lougheed. Construction boomed. Diversification was its hope, and its downfall. As the state attempted to fund secondary and tertiary businesses, the economy went into a tail spin. The golden days of Peter Lougheed ended and the province was put on auto-pilot durning the economic crash under lame duck Premier Don Getty.

And though Getty was an oil man, he was the ultimate back room boy. More akin to former lame duck Socred Premier Harry Strom than Lougheed. And he was from Edmonton, though his favorite watering hole was the Petroleum Club in Calgary. His was a remote regime, and though the PC's had no real opposition in the house, his lack of attention and gaffs made the media, the fourth estate, the new opposition. He became a joke.

When in doubt or facing crticism the Getty government tried and true method of gaining votes was to build another hospital, school or seniors home in rural Alberta. And the party reacted, especially those in Calgary, who feard that like the Socreds before them their scandal ridden regime would fall. Enter Ralph Klein.

The Klein government transformed Lougheeds paternalistic state capitalism for the good of the province to a state capitalism that was good for business, in particular the Petro Gang in Calgary. It sold off all its investments in business and ended Lougheeds tradition of diversification . Ideologically it adopted the neo con agenda of the influential University of Calgary Reform Party Think Tank, the NCC and the Fraser Institute.

It was as night and day to the Lougheed utilitarian liberal party. The social and economic conservatives took over under Klein and his role was to mediate between them.

They never had a plan for the province, they had an ideology, and while they share with Lougheed an interest in Free Trade that was as far as it went. Because Lougheed viewed free trade as an issue between states, much like Mulroney did.
The Klein reformists viewed free trade as privatization of the state. Thus any form of state planning or state capitalism was anathema.

It is this reason, this divide between Lougheed the Harvard trained lawyer scion of the Mannix Family corporation, and Klein the media creation, former weatherman and drunk.

In a sense this critique of Klein is personal as much as it a warning to the party whose choices for Leadership post Klein are very much right wing neo-con social conservatives. Not Lougheeds kind of folks.

His view of Klein is also coloured by the fact he is a life long teetotaler. Much to his shame his father lost the family estate, as a drunk. Klein has done the same.


Also See:

Ralph Klein

Alberta

Social Credit

Manning

Lougheed



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Brison Kennedy Debate On QP

Liberal Leadership candidates Scott Brsion and Gerard Kennedy went at it tooth and tongs on CTV's Question Period today. Unfortunately this exciting debate between two Liberal Leadership Candidates is not posted on the CTV website.

So allow me to paraphrase the debate for you.

Kennedy: We should not be in Afghanistan


Brison: I agree






Stunning, enlightening, pithy, edge of your seat debate.

Can't wait till they do it in French.

Oh yes Brison spoke a sentence in broken French, Kennedy was smart enough not to.


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How Not To Deal With The Homeless

File this under 'out of sight out of mind'

Montreal bans sleeping in public places

Effective Friday, Montreal will fine people who sleep in public places overnight

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Whose We?

The screaming mimi of the right whing in Canada; Michael Coren writes in his Sun column this weekend; We should nuke Iran

Whose we? We, as in Canada, do not have nuclear weapons. Of course Mikey means the US. He seems to confuse which side of the border he is living on. What a nutbar. But it just goes to show if you are a right wing columnist in the right wing media that dominates this country, you can say anything.

He stoops to the lowest levels when he uses the appeasement arguement, trying to be a mini Rumsfeld I guess..... The usual suspects will complain. The post-Christian churches, the Marxists, the fellow travelers and fifth columnists. But then, the same sort of people moaned and condemned in 1938. They were clearly wrong then. They would be just as wrong now.

What the heck is post-Christian churches. Huh? All churches are post-christ. And in fact are not Christ based but Pauline.

As for 1938 I am glad he brought that up. For the very allies who could have halted Fascism did not. Not by appeasement but by their blockading aid to the people of Spain during the Spainish Civil War 1936-1939. Which this year is the seventieth anniversary of.

Of course that was because Republican Spain was made up of the masses who were communists, anarchists and socialists. Mikey's pals were of course on the other side they were the Catholic Church and the Fascists.

Germany and Italy had no problem avoiding the allies blockade, and Germany developed the tactics of airwar and Blitzkrieg in Spain, later to be used on the rest of Europe. The blockade was set up not against Germany and Italy but against Canadian and other International voluteers who went to fight in Spain with the International Brigades. It was there to stop guns and material getting to Republican Spain. That was real appeasement in action.

Of course Mickey won't agree. Cause like Jason Kenney he would prefer fascism to communism.




A tip o' the blog to buckdog for this




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Deconstructing International Relations

I found this very interesting article on International Relations. Which at least one blogger has an interest in, and bemoans the lack of political blogs dealing with IR.

So to make up for it a teensy weensy bit read this:

An Immanent Critique of International Relations “It’s the end of the world as we knew it”

International Relations (IR) is a discipline that was originally created to investigate the
scourge of war in terms of its causes, and also possible cures of what was then seen –
and indeed still is – as the malady of the body politic. (Lord Davies, 1919) More
recently, IR has been charged with the investigation of who gets what and under which
conditions. (Ken Booth, 1995) The normative aims are still the same in that the
corollary of the ‘who gets what argument’ is to suggest that iniquitous distribution may
cause conflict, the purpose of the discipline being to suggest ways to avoid it.2
The materialist/utilitarian emphasis present in both normative goals outlined above are
inherently conflictual and this point has been hammered home by realists and
neorealists ad infinatum. More progressive theories in IR, interdependency theory,
world systems, Marxist, neoliberal and so forth are also wedded to the materialist
commitment, and whilst the ‘difference’ of the arguments usually revolves around the
explanatory, the progressive remedial aspect of the theories become bogged down by
an implicit or explicit commitment to the ethic of progress, the state and the market.

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Safe Injection Site Unsafe From Tories

Late Friday afternoon, the begining of the long weekend and Health Minister Tony Clement announces an eleventh hour reprieve for Vancouvers successful Safe Injection Site. An underwhelming announcement given the timing.

A site applauded and reported on at the International AIDS conference in Toronto earlier this month. A conference Clement attended, but he probably missed this workshop.

But the funding for the site only continues until the last day of December 2007, like many other Harpocrite government announcements which end in 2007. Or when they win a majority. When they will shut the site down.

The reason for the limited funding? Well good old Tony gave it in his press release; "Given the need for more facts, I am unable to approve the current request to extend the Vancouver site for another three and a-half years," said Clement.

The need for more facts? Huh? What facts could those be?

Harper has said he would wait for the RCMP report's findings before deciding whether to allow the site to continue with federal approval.Safe injection site should continue, BC criminologists report

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in June 2006 showed drug users who frequented the clinic were more likely to go into detox and other rehabilitation facilities.

Numerous studies have been conducted both by outside researchers and within the Vancouver clinic itself, including a report released last week conducted by the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, which found that "three-quarters of Insite users report the facility has positively changed their injecting behaviour."

According to the peer-reviewed studies on the site, drug users complete an average of 600 injections per day at SIS, staff have treated 453 overdoses with no fatalities, more than 4,000 referrals were made to counselling and other support services, and addicts who inject there are more likely to seek detoxification. The facility has also reduced the number of syringes discarded on the street and curbed needle sharing, which puts a user at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis C. Business groups support safe-injection site

Promise made promise not kept.

Why is Clement fudging on full funding for Insite? Well because the facts are that the Conservatives drug policy is the same as that south of the border; just say no to drugs.

Another priority is youth crime prevention. We are working with Minister Day to keep youth at risk from succumbing to the culture of guns, gangs and drugs.Speech for the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada ...

You see its a conflict between what is good for the health of drug victims, and what is good for victims of crime. The Tories look to making policy for the latter not the former. Despite the facts.

Health Minister Tony Clement said he is delaying a decision on whether Vancouver's controversial safe injection site should remain open, as the Canadian Police Association took a strong stance against the program.

And of course the inherent Tory belief in facts like these.....Debate on "reefer madness" resurfaces

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Private Cops Protect Flaherty

So explain this why is the Finance Department paying out over $1 million dollars to private cops to protect Jim Flaherty the Minister of Finance? What happened to the RCMP who already protect MPs? And what were they protecting? The Budget?

2006-04-01	INITIAL SECURITY	PROTECTION SERVICES	$284,406.00
2006-04-01	INITIAL SECURITY	PROTECTION SERVICES	$320,438.46
2006-04-01	INITIAL SECURITY	PROTECTION SERVICES	$489,342.68

A tip o' the blog to Harper Bizarro and MyBlagh

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