At Least It's Not Dubai Ports

Ontario Pension Plan to Buy NY Ports Waiting to hear Lou Dobbs start screaming over this one. Will he or won't he? Place your wagers. After all a bunch of Ontario Teachers are far less a threat then Muslims. Unless they are Muslim teachers.

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BUSY YEAR FOR PORT DEALS:FEBRUARY United Arab Emirates-based Dubai Ports World bought Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. for US$6.8-billion. It was forced to sell its six major U.S. ports.JULYGoldman Sachs bought Associated British Ports Holdings PLC, the U.K.'s largest port operator, for (ps)2.8-billion.SEPTEMBER A Macquarie Bank fund said it would buy a 40% stake in Hanjin Shipping's six overseas terminals whose assets are estimated to be worth US$870-million.OCTOBER Macquarie Infrastructure Partners announced plans to buy Canada's Halterm Income Fund for about $173-million. Halterm's main asset is a container terminal and cargo handling facility in the port of Halifax.

Photograph by : Mark Wilson, Getty Images)

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Tories Hot Air Plan The Facts

Report confirms Tory's green goals unreachable

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's goal of slashing Canada's greenhouse gases in half by 2050 will be out of reach by the time industries are forced to deliver concrete reductions through regulation, suggests a new federal government report submitted to the United Nations. ''This is the first time (the Conservative government) has shown the numbers that confirm that we'll see no reductions and pretty significant increases until 2020,'' said Clare Demerse, a climate-change policy analyst at the Pembina Institute. ''This is supposed to be (a) demonstrable progress (report), but this is a demonstration of lack of progress.''

Well no surprise there. But here is a surprising admission from the folks who keep saying nothing got done for thirteen years.

Although it acknowledged previous programs and initiatives slowed down the growth in greenhouse gas emissions driven by a stronger economy, energy exports and the increasing population, the report offered few details about new measures to be launched in the future.

Right the Alberta boom and the contribution of smokestack industries increased our Greenhouse gases but some of the Liberal programs actually were effective. Until they were cut by the Tories. And more cuts are on the way. Even though these programs ARE effective by the Tories own admission. And that was also concided in the Federal Environmental report from the Auditor Generals office.

It's the Tories not so Hidden Agenda; to slash and burn all Liberal programs they disagree with ideologically, regardless of whether they are 'effective'.

Ottawa planning more cuts to climate-change programs

The Conservative government is planning a second wave of cuts to climate-change programs and is asking public servants to help manage the “fallout” by explaining why their positions should disappear.

Government officials who manage the programs in various government departments were told this week that climate-change programs extended by one year in April will not be renewed.

The officials are being asked to compile information as to who would most likely be affected and what their public reaction would be.

The project is being described internally as “government-wide” and The Globe and Mail was able to confirm that at least two departments, Natural Resources Canada and Agriculture Canada, were submitting reports this week.

See:

Ambrose

Envrionment

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The Budget Item Flaherty Forgot

Jim Flaherty in his Fall Fiscal Update forgot to mention this expense.....

Ottawa has earmarked an extra $515 million for Canada's military mission in Afghanistan in the next bookkeeping year, keeping it on track, by one outside estimate, to reach a cost of about $9 billion by the end of the current Canadian commitment in 2009.


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Afghanistan






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Alberta Tories Battle Weather

Its -20 below and its voting day in Alberta for the man who would replace Ralph. Will it affect the polling turn out. You bet. And it makes it better for Dinning than his opponents like Morton and Oberg who are relying on the rural vote.

Cold weather may affect turnout

A political science professor said Saturday's forecast of temperatures no higher than -20 C could hurt turnout at the polling stations.

Roger Epp of the University of Alberta said thousands of Progressive Conservative memberships have been sold to the province's rural residents, but frigid temperatures could make getting those voters to the polls a challenge.

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Conservative Leadership Race

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Bottom Feeders

It looks like Iceland and the small handful of bottom feeding nations that use dragger and bottom trawlers won a victory at the UN this week. However I am pleased to say it was without the help of Canada.

Trawling moratorium ends up dead in the water
While New Zealand, the Pacific Island States, the United States, Brazil, India, South Africa, Germany and even previously reluctant Spain and Canada supported stronger action, the desire to achieve a consensus meant Iceland's interests won out over common sense and the science, Fuller said.

Canada at the UN: Don Quixote on the High Seas

The call for a moratorium on high seas dragging has merely brought to the fore a contradiction in Canadian fisheries policy. While on the international stage Canada has consistently adopted a progressive position and pushed for stronger multilateral conservation instruments, domestically the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has not wavered in its support for the destructive practice of dragging. Despite the incontrovertible evidence that dragging destroys critical fish habitat — in flagrant violation of the Fisheries Act — the Department has steadfastly stood behind the practice and the powerful economic interests that benefit from it.

The reasons for this are complex and part of an unresolved domestic debate about how we should be conducting our fisheries within our 200-mile jurisdictional limit. The debate has faded away since we imposed our own Atlantic groundfish moratorium and sold off our industrial groundfish dragger fleet but it will return with a vengeance if and when our cod stocks on the East Coast do recover.

Who was behind Canada's reluctance to support the international accord, well pressure from our domestic trawling industry, the fish packing companies. They were worried that if the UN declaration passed they would be next in line for being banned from using dragging in our domestic waters.

The Fisheries Council of Canada said the resolution “respects the environment and the people who work in the industry.”

Patrick McGuinness, the council's president, said: “Blunt instruments such as across the board bans do not work and, in this instance, would result in the perverse outcome of benefiting flag-of-convenience vessels that disregard all regulations.”

“Responsible fishing nations, such as Canada, will use the resolution to bring forward precautionary and targeted regulations that will govern their fishing vessels when they encounter sensitive areas such as seamounts, concentrations of deep sea corrals, etc.”

Canada has a fleet of bottom trawlers operating within Canadian waters. Its concern has been that a moratorium on the high seas could later be expanded to cover areas within national jurisdiction.

Ottawa opposes moratorium on bottom dragging

John Risley, founder of Clearwater Seafoods, raised a stir in the scientific community when he said recently in St. John’s, N.L., that there is no proof bottom trawling damages the marine environment.

Mr. Risley said he wasn’t against a moratorium on trawling in sensitive areas of the ocean but said it would be of no use because it couldn’t be enforced.

Ms. Fuller said it’s ironic that Mr. Risley "has funded studies of his hydraulic clam dredging that have come out saying there is a severe impact. Those are published scientific studies."

Ms. Fuller, who has worked with DFO, said she was shocked when a member of the Canadian delegation to the UN talks said Mr. Risley had to be given the benefit of the doubt.

"His comments made me realize how deep this industrial lobby is embedded in DFO."

This week Canada's beleagured shrimp fishery met to consider its future in the face of declining shrimp prices thanks to international competition from the Chinese and Vietnamese fishing industry and the impact of EU tarriffs.
And shrimpers use draggers and bottom trawlers.

It appears that Canada's big fishing industry had the ear of Ottawa in particular the ear of the PM the quy who once called Atlantic Canada a basketcase. And thus they had the support of Loyola Hearn.

Adrift on the oceans issue: It’s time to get serious

Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn, a Newfoundlander, accepted the warning of the Worm report and shares the Atlantic Canada coastal feeling that something grim is happening. Except that, for him, Canada is already involved in all kinds of initiatives to make things right.

This left him squirming to explain why Canada, then, refused to endorse the UN’s proposed ban on trawling in international waters. The answer, according to my Ottawa informants, is that on the trawler issue, he’s being dictated to by the Prime Minister’s Office. This is apparently a common thing in Ottawa. Even the hapless Rona Ambrose, environment minister, apparently is not as bumbling in real life as she looks when she’s reading the prime minister’s script.

However in an interesting article by Jim Meek in the Chronicle Herald points out all is not lost and that this might be an opportunity to actually reform both our domestic trawling operations as well as those on the high seas. But that would actually mean listening to the fishermen not the big industry players.

IT’S TIME to implement Kip’s Laws for saving the international fishery from man-made extinction.

This is crucial now – after the United Nations turned thumbs down on Thursday to a temporary ban on high-seas trawling.

In a compromise brokered by Canada and Australia, the world’s fishing nations agreed instead to closely monitor their fleets and to protect sensitive marine areas.

But nothing’s safe in or on the water yet, as Kip Smith would tell you.

Kip is a former trawlerman from Wood Islands, Prince Edward Island. And we’ve been exchanging e-mails since last Saturday, when I endorsed Canada’s position on high-seas dragging. (Let it continue, but more carefully.)

In fairness to Kip, I have to say that he dances with the angels on this issue. He favoured a temporary UN ban on high-seas trawling, and said so in a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

But as a guy who fished for 20 years, and dragged the bottom for six, Smith also has some practical notions about how to trawl better – and to police the effort.

He tells Harper that conventional "rock-hopper gear" tears through thousands of miles of ocean floor. He’s done it; he’s seen it happen.

But "mid-water trawl gear CAN be used to effectively capture shrimp, cod and other groundfish."

Smith told me the better gear does less harm to the sea bottom, and "to itself." (He’s found common ground for the trawler industry and environmentalists, right there.)

Kip also says scallop trawling is OK on sandy or gravelly bottom. (Again, this is sensible, unless you want to pay $100 a pound for scallops harvested by divers.)

And I figure the UN should take advice from this one sensible man, as it tries to work out this new deal on high-seas fishing.

I’m not pretending this new agreement is perfect.

It places a lot of trust in regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) to conserve resources and protect marine habitat.

Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn even trotted out the odd example of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO), an organization without bragging rights.

Canadian officials insist NAFO is now getting better at its job. But the historic record shows it presided over the collapse of groundfish stocks on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks.

In general, I guess I’d say that Canada can claim a sort of victory this week, but it better stop short of gloating.

It was important to protect the trawling sector – an estimated 40 per cent of the world’s fisheries employ "bottom impact gear."

And trawling still keeps more than 14,000 people employed in Atlantic Canada and Eastern Quebec.

So finding better, Kip-like ways to fish is the key here – rather than stopping the industry in its tracks.

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Fishing

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Read Between The Lines

Liquified Natural Gas is creating a storm of controversy between the Canadian and US governments. While it appears to be an issue of protecting the environment, in reality it is about East Coast competition. The proposed LNG refinery being built in Maine would be in competition with those being built in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Read between the lines.

LNG: The Great Divide The United States says Canada will be violating international laws by refusing to allow liquefied natural gas tankers through Head Harbour Canada says LNG tankers in Head Harbour are environmentally dangerous, potential threats and just plain not wanted

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LNG

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Business As Usual

This needs no comment. Except to say it confims this; Sweatshop Secrets of Success

Multinationals have poor record in fulfilling social duties

Many multinationals have failed to properly fulfill their social responsibilities in China, with some overtly violating local laws and regulations, according to a survey by Southern Weekly.

Tracking 126 multinationals over a 12-month period, the newspaper observed four kinds of typical malpractice: refusing to set-up internal labor unions, poor environmental practice, failing to deliver quality services and providing substandard products.

A few were guilty of bribing government officials or the management of other companies, said the weekly, without identifying their names.

In a breakdown, it said that 58 companies, or 46 percent of the companies surveyed, had refused to comply with the law requiring the establishment of labor unions while another 20, or 15.9 percent, had seriously damaged the local environment.

Thirty-seven companies, or 29.4 percent of the polled, provided substandard services or commodities to Chinese consumers with 19 of them the objects of repeated complaints.

The newspaper said that all the 126 companies surveyed are "Fortune 500" companies who have posted "outstanding" financial results in sales revenue, export volume and pre-tax profits.

The newspaper said that the survey was based on public information provided by government authorities, consumer associations, labor unions and media reports.

The newspaper said it had verified the information with the companies.

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China Needs Free Unions

China

Capitalism

Unions


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Privatizing Health Care

Canada's first private ER to begin service So what will our Federal Health Minister do about this. Probably about as much as the last one did. Nada, nothing, ok well maybe send a letter to the Premier of B.C. full of thunder and bluster. Buts thats it.

Welcome to two tier health care. Wait we already have two tier privatized health care in Canada. Its called Lasik laser eye surgery. And it is not without risks. Though you wouldn't know it from the TV ads you see. And it is draining the healthcare system of Opthamologists and optometrists who are now going into private practice.


Eye disease prompts Toronto cataract surgery centre to close
TASS has affected about 137 eye centres across North America in the past 18 months. It is often difficult to determine the source.

Unreported laser surgery risks.

Have you been for laser eye surgery yet? It's the latest and greatest for people who don't mind flexing the plastic to get rid of glasses, especially aging boomers who want to look a whole lot younger. A huge industry has developed in just a few years. Over a million Americans and up to 100,000 Canadians underwent laser surgery last year.
Harmless? Not according to the Food and Drug Administration in the US. Definitely not for risk-takers, they say. The carefree growth of the industry ended last spring when investigators began to report that up to 50% of laser surgery patients experience abnormalities of night vision. Soon horror stories began to hit the press. Like most quick fixes, laser surgery isn't necessarily either. Caveat emptor. Buyer beware.
Dr. Gordon Guyatt, a co-founder of the progressive-minded Medical Reform Group, says there's another risk that doesn't get as much reporting. Ultimately what may be more of a threat is what the laser surgery industry does to public health care in Canada. If fees are high enough for private eye surgery, doctors - trained at public expense - will opt for doing these surgeries instead of the publicly funded work they would otherwise do, producing "fewer ophthalmologists to perform emergency procedures, as well as longer waiting lists," according to last year's Ontario Medical Review. Your aging parents - like a close neighbour of mine - must wait a year for cataract removal so someone younger and wealthier can buy elective laser surgery.

Early 1960s	Lasers are first used in surgery.
1974	Russian ophthalmologist Svyatoslav Fyodorov establishes The Moscow Eye Microsurgery Centre. Dr. Fyodorov announces a surgical cure for myopia -- the radial keratotomy ("RK"). The procedure involves reshaping the eye through cuts around the periphery of the cornea, which results in its flattening. At its peak, Dr. Fyodorov's clinics turn out a surgically corrected eye every 19 seconds through a special assembly line process.
Late 1970s	IBM develops heatless laser etching with the excimer laser.
1980	The National Eye Institute issues a public warning about RK, calling it "experimental."
Early 1980's	The U.S. military conducts studies into improving the vision of military troops through RK. Ultimately, the Department of Defense bans RK as a procedure.
1983	Dr. Stephen Trokel, an ophthalmologist and physicist, publishes landmark article following years of experiments using the excimer laser on corneal tissue. Article marks the beginning of the laser refractive surgery era.
1987	Ophthalmologist Marguerite McDonald performs the first photorefractive keratectomy ("PRK") in a human patient.
1989	Lucio Buratto of Milan, Italy, uses the excimer laser to remove tissue from the underside of a cap cut from the cornea. American ophthalmologists Stephen Slade and Steve Brint travel to Italy to observe Buratto's technique.
1991	Drs. Brint and Slade perform the first laser assisted in-situ keratomileusis ("LASIK") in the U.S.
2001	1.35 million LASIK procedures performed, a 40 percent increase over the previous year.
2002	U.S. Department of Defense actively promotes laser eye surgery for military combat personnel.
2010	Goal of refractive surgeons to have 90 percent of patients who need vision correction to achieve 20/10 vision, through newest laser techniques.

See:

Medicare

Privatization


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Tories Full Of Fiscal Hot Air

One thing we have learned from the Harper government is that they are good at vast generalities and short on details. They build up the public with promises of pending announcements and finally when the time comes well there is not much to see. Such was the case with their Clean Air Act. And they did it again this week with Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's fiscal update.

In fact what Flaherty announced is nothing more than a plan to pay down Canada's debt without paying for any other new social programs and with cuts to existing spending. In other words stay the course.

The federal surplus will not be reduced by changing the EI program where most of it comes from. EI Surpluses will be used against the debt. Provinces will be expected to pick up expenditures in infratstructure, education, health care, etc. based on existing transfer payments from the Feds.

In other words nothing was announced that was not announced in their Spring budget. Jim Flaherty isn't a finance wiz he is the Wizard of Oz.

Policy Commitment

Canada’s New Government announced in Budget 2006 that it would work with the provinces and territories to further lower the welfare wall by implementing a Working Income Tax Benefit (WITB) to make work pay for low- and modest-income Canadians. The Government will implement the WITB in Budget 2007.

But experts say there wasn't much new in the plan, and that it provides a road map on tackling debt but not much beyond that.

"The first thing we have to realize is that nothing has changed in this commitment vis-a-vis the federal government," TD Bank's chief economist Don Drummond told Canada AM.

"The commitment is still to pay down $3 billion a year -- so how do they get to zero by 2021? Well, they're adding in the provinces, which will also be in a net debt position," he said.

"But the kicker is that they're adding in the surpluses -- the net asset positions of the Canada and Quebec pension plans -- so this is not a concept that Canadians are really used to hearing about."

This means the federal government by 2021 will still carry a debt burden of 10 per cent of the economy, said Drummond, while the provinces will have a debt burden of 5 per cent.

"So there's 15 per cent -- but low and behold Canada and Quebec pension plans in that year will have a net asset position of 15 per cent."

If you do the math, Drummond said, paying down the debt by $3 billion a year means it will still be at $436 billion in 15 years.

"So it doesn't go down that much. But of course the economy is growing and they're always taking the debt as a proportion of the economy. So it's the economic growth that's really making the debt burden relative to the economy shrink."

OTTAWA -- Don't start spending the income tax savings announced this week by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty just yet.

After a quick crunching of the numbers, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says Flaherty's modest offerings in Thursday's fall fiscal update basically level out Liberal income-tax cuts he reversed last spring.

"It's a wash," said the group's federal director, John Williamson. "The rhetoric is they're cutting taxes, but the actual end result is either no significant change for taxpayers, or they're slightly worse off."

The Liberals announced reductions in the lowest income-tax rate last year -- shortly before Paul Martin's minority government fell.

Flaherty's budget last spring reversed those income-tax cuts, and brought in a one-point reduction to the GST.

Ottawa planning more cuts to climate-change programs

The Conservative government is planning a second wave of cuts to climate-change programs and is asking public servants to help manage the “fallout” by explaining why their positions should disappear.

Government officials who manage the programs in various government departments were told this week that climate-change programs extended by one year in April will not be renewed.

The officials are being asked to compile information as to who would most likely be affected and what their public reaction would be.

The project is being described internally as “government-wide” and The Globe and Mail was able to confirm that at least two departments, Natural Resources Canada and Agriculture Canada, were submitting reports this week.

See:

Our Republican Finance Minister

Harmonizing the GST

Flaherty

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Silence Is Golden

Alberta Tories mute on Quebec question As my mother says if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all.


See:

PQ Pulls BQ Strings

Dion Ghost Writer

Quebec A Nation Pro and Con

Four Little Words

Quebec

Conservative Leadership Race

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