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America has had its housing market ‘correction,’ ours is yet to come

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen at the Economics Club of Washington earlier this month. She is widely expected to raise the Feds main interest rate today, for the first time in nine years.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen at the Economics Club of Washington earlier this month. She is widely expected to raise the Feds main interest rate today, for the first time in nine years. (Susan Walsh/Associated Press)

Let’s look at the unfortunate facts for a moment.

The U.S. Federal Reserve appears ready to raise interest rates slightly today, because it believes an American recovery is well underway. The U.S. economy is now at what economists would call full employment — about five per cent.

Good for them. An American recovery cannot be anything but good for Canada.

And yet.

The Canadian economy is weak enough that Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz is now actually talking about the possibility of going the other way, all the way to negative rates, which means you’d be better off stuffing cash into a mattress.

That would penalize savers and push people to take risks in search of return. (It also means an even lower Canadian dollar; what a difference a few years make.)

The unemployment rate here is now 7.1 per cent.

Americans, having been terrified out of their wastrel-grasshopper lifestyle back in 2008, when it looked as though their financial world was coming to an end, have been trimming back debt and actually saving.

As a result, American household finances haven’t been in this good shape for many years.

But Canadians, addicted to the cocaine of nearly free money, keep setting records for household debt. The average Canadian household now owes $1.64 for every dollar of income.

Canadian debt, to put it plainly, is increasing a lot faster than Canadian incomes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

TD Visa customers’ browsing activities open to ‘surveillance’ by bank

November 30, 2015

TD Visa customers’ browsing activities open to ‘surveillance’ by bank

Bank denies collecting general information about what customers do online

Colin Laughlan's special interest in privacy legislation made him notice the fine print that gives TD Canada Trust Visa cardholders access to clients' online activities.

Colin Laughlan’s special interest in privacy legislation made him notice the fine print that gives TD Canada Trust Visa cardholders access to clients’ online activities. (CBC)

A B.C. man decided to Go Public after discovering Canada’s second-biggest bank can access and collect information on all of its customers’ online activities, even those that aren’t banking-related.

CBC News investigates 

Colin Laughlan is one of thousands of Canadians who had his Visa cards switched from CIBC to TD in 2014 after the Aeroplan rewards program changed banks.

“When I saw this — I really had to read it two or three times to make myself believe I was reading what I was reading,” he said.

He points to two lines in the 66-page Visa cardholder agreement that allows TD to collect details about anything — and everything — customers do online.

Under the privacy section of the cardholder agreement:

“COLLECTING AND USING YOUR INFORMATION — At the time you request to begin a relationship with us and during the course of our relationship, we may collect information including:

Details about your browsing activity on your browser or mobile device.
Your preferences and activities.

Laughlan, from Vancouver, has a background in privacy issues as a former journalist and communications specialist. He said his radar was up when his new TD Visa card and cardholder agreement arrived in the mail.

“I couldn’t see any reason they had to do that sort of surveillance on Canadians and they weren’t being particularly forthright about it. This was slipped into the fine print of the policy and I’m well aware that the vast majority of people don’t read these things,” he said.

Laughlan said it took almost a year before his complaint finally reached TD’s privacy office.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

UN chief warns climate change could have link with terrorism

November 28, 2015

UN chief warns climate change could have link with terrorism

Ban Ki-moon tells CBC’s Margo McDiarmid social disruption could lead to more ‘terrorist fighters’

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in an interview with CBC, said the effects of climate change will lead to social disruption, fuelling the frustration of the young and unemployed, who may then join extremist causes.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says the attacks in Paris can’t overshadow efforts to reach a climate change agreement at next week’s summit. He also warns in an exclusive interview with CBC News of a possible link between climate change and terrorism.

CBC’s Margo McDiarmid spoke to Ban Ki-moon in Malta on Saturday at the Commonwealth summit and he talked about an indirect link between the effects of climate change and the rise of extremist groups.

“He said climate change has a similar effect to terrorism in that climate change can lead to social disruption, it can lead to climate refugees, which in itself can lead to people looking for other answers or joining terrorist groups, especially among young people,” McDiarmid said.

“When we do not address climate change properly it may also affect many people who are frustrated and who are impacted and there is some possibility that these young people who [are] jobless and frustrated may join these foreign terrorist fighters,” the UN chief said.

“There is a concern whether it may overshadow the climate change agreement and I think we have to move on this climate change [agreement],” he added.

French President Francois Hollande was meeting with environmental groups Saturday, pushing for an ambitious global deal to reduce man-made emissions blamed for global warming.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is among leaders attending the Paris talks, has been in Valetta, Malta for the Commonwealth meeting, where he pledged his government would spend $15.3 million over four years to improve the lives of young people in Africa.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

After Paris, there will be no stopping the surveillance state now

November 19, 2015

After Paris, there will be no stopping the surveillance state now

Public surveillance increasing at an ‘accelerating rate,’ researchers say, with Europe leading the way

CCTV footage of three British girls catching a flight to Turkey in February to join ISIS dominated the news media for days and likely contributed to the public thirst for answers. (Metropolitan Police/Associated Press)

An old acquaintance who spent years in Canada’s secret world, where he developed a you-don’t-know-the-half-of-it smile, regularly sends me taunting emails and links.

The general theme is that thanks to all the whinging in the mainstream media about civil liberties, and the cavilling by politicians who disagreed with Stephen Harper about the imminent danger posed by Islamic terrorism to Canadians everywhere, our security agencies are unnecessarily hobbled.

After the mass murders in Paris this week, he passed on an article by the conservative writer Mark Steyn, who wrote that instead of meeting about climate change, “a problem that doesn’t exist,” Western leaders should be doing something about the millions of Muslims who now live in Europe, most of whom “at a certain level either wish or are indifferent to the death of the societies in which they live — modern, pluralist, Western societies.”

My friend the ex-spy — who, like a number of security professionals I’ve met over the years, holds an advanced degree — clearly believes the only sensible remedy is increased powers for state security organs.

And that anyone who refuses to accept that premise, or who wants to debate root causes, is quite simply advocating self-destruction.

John Brennan, the CIA director, used the Paris massacre to make essentially the same point this week, denouncing “a lot of hand-wringing over the government’s role in the effort to try to uncover these terrorists.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

G20 countries spend $450B a year on fossil fuel subsidies, study says

November 12, 2015

G20 countries spend $450B a year on fossil fuel subsidies, study says

Countries promised in 2009 to phase out ‘inefficient’ fossil fuel subsidies — but progress has been slow

The processing facility at the Suncor oilsands operations near Fort McMurray, Alta. A new report from Oil Change International finds that G20 countries are spending $452 billion US a year subsidizing their fossil fuel industries.

G20 countries are spending $452 billion US a year subsidizing their fossil fuel industries and are undermining the world’s effort to combat climate change in the process, according to a new international report by an environmental advocacy group.

“It’s quite a shocking amount. I think we were surprised the scale of the subsidies is so great,” said study co-author Alex Doukas, who is senior campaigner with Oil Change International.

“We’re subsidizing companies to search for new fossil fuel reserves at time when we know that three-quarters of the proven reserves have to stay in the ground if we hope to avoid the worst impacts of climate change,” said Doukas in an interview from Washington.

“So paying companies to find more fossil fuels is folly.”

It’s the first time annual subsidies from all G20 countries have been added up and individually analyzed.

It shows that Canada’s total federal and provincial support for the petroleum industry was close to $2.7 billion US ($3.6 billion Cdn at current exchange rates) in the 2013-14 fiscal year, with federal subsidies accounting for roughly $1.6 billion US of that.

The report says at least another $2.5 billion US of taxpayers’ money also goes to petroleum companies working in other countries through Export Development Canada “and may be significantly higher.”

Canada both a ‘leader and a laggard’

Despite that, the report calls Canada one of the leaders in efforts to end subsidies for fossil fuels — sort of.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Keystone XL may be dead. The oilsands probably aren’t

November 11, 2015

Keystone XL may be dead. The oilsands probably aren’t

Low petroleum prices mean new projects are on pause, but existing production won’t disappear

The oilsands are producing more than two million barrels per day from long-term projects that are very difficult to shut in. The transport network is like a game of whack-a-mole: One access point is knocked down, others pop up.

There is some soul searching going on in the oilpatch this week in the aftermath of the U.S. rejection of Keystone XL. Would a carbon tax have changed things? A gentler hand with the politics? How much of the U.S. decision was connected to increases in their own domestic production?

What they aren’t asking is how to get oilsands product to market. Because it’s getting there, in ways both obvious and unexpected. The oilsands have lots of problems, like low prices and high costs. But right now, market access is pretty far down the list.

Oil is even being floated on barges down the Mississippi, though this barge was hit by a tow boat in September. (The Associated Press)

A slow boat down the Mississippi

“There is sufficient capacity to move all our production,” said Greg Stringham, vice-president of oilsands and markets with Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP). “There hasn’t been any production that has been shut in because of pipeline capacity.”

In the years since Keystone XL was first proposed in 2008, Canadian oil exports to the U.S. have increased by more than a million barrels a day. Rail has picked up some of that slack, maxing out at 165,000 barrels a day in 2014. It was around half that in the most recent quarter.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ontario to increase Syrian refugee targets to help meet Trudeau’s goals, Kathleen Wynne says

October 31, 2015

Ontario to increase Syrian refugee targets to help meet Trudeau’s goals, Kathleen Wynne says

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne says her government will try to expedite the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the province to coincide with Justin Trudeau’s bold commitment to bring in 25,000 refugees by the end of the year.

“We need to align with what the new government is going to do,” Wynne said in an interview with CBC Radio’s The House.

Ontario pledged $10.5 million last month to help deal with the Syrian refugee crisis, and Wynne said then that the province hoped to resettle 10,000 refugees by the end of 2016, including an initial 2,500 by the end of this year.

But the province is now looking at a more ambitious timetable after her meeting this week with prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau at Queen’s Park.

“If we can ramp that up because of assistance from the federal government we will do that,” Wynne told host Chris Hall. “Our ministry is getting ready to do more than the 2,500 if we can. but we just have to see what kind of process we can land on with the federal government.”

At the same time, Wynne acknowledged that there are obstacles, including security precautions, that have to be taken into account and the province is trying to determine whether Ontario needs to put people on the ground in the Middle East to help process families.

“Those are the kinds of questions we will be asking the new government,” she said.

New relationship with the provinces

Trudeau has spoken on the phone to premiers since becoming prime minister-designate, but Kathleen Wynne was the first one he met in person since his election victory on Oct. 19.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bombardier investment launches Quebec into battle with aerospace giants: Don Pittis

October 30, 2015

Bombardier investment launches Quebec into battle with aerospace giants: Don Pittis

Is challenging Boeing and Airbus a savvy investment or a waste of taxpayer cash?

Fred Cromer, president of Bombardier Commercial Aircraft, presents Swiss Airline's new Bombardier CS100 aircraft. But delays in readying the CSeries for passenger service allowed giant competitors Boeing and Airbus to get a head start in selling into the same niche.

Fred Cromer, president of Bombardier Commercial Aircraft, presents Swiss Airline’s new Bombardier CS100 aircraft. But delays in readying the CSeries for passenger service allowed giant competitors Boeing and Airbus to get a head start in selling into the same niche. (Reuters)

In some ways it feels like throwing good money after bad.

The same day that Canada’s leading transport manufacturer, Bombardier, announced $5 billion US in losses, Quebec taxpayers have invested more than $1 billion of their own in the company.

And despite a backlash from many Quebecers who think there are better things to do with a cool billion, the Quebec government may have made a smart investment in its future. But as Bombardier goes head to head with the world’s biggest aircraft makers, there’s no question it is a gamble.

In the short term it is a certainty that keeping Bombardier’s aircraft development program alive will be good for Quebec’s economy, specifically in terms of jobs.

“The government’s stepping in because there’s about 17,000 to 18,000 Bombardier jobs in Quebec,” says McGill University’s Bombardier-watcher Karl Moore. “When you look at the tier-two suppliers, there’s probably about 40,000 people in Quebec who make their living from Bombardier.”

Lots at stake

The CSeries is the biggest commercial airline Bombardier has made. It will have to go head to head with new aircraft just released by Boeing and Airbus that use the same quiet engine. (Bombardier )

But as usual with such investments, if it were merely a question of a few years’ worth of jobs, there might be a cheaper way to inject that money into the Quebec economy. There is much more at stake.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Supreme Court rejects Rio Tinto’s efforts to dismiss Innu class action lawsuit

October 16, 2015

Supreme Court rejects Rio Tinto’s efforts to dismiss Innu class action lawsuit

Innu claim mines have harmed environment and their way of life

The Supreme Court of Canada has refused to end a class action lawsuit filed by two Innu communities against the Iron Ore Co. of Canada and the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway Co.

The country’s highest court dismissed with costs their appeal of a Quebec Court of Appeal ruling. No reasons were provided Thursday as is customary when the court makes such a decision.

The Innu First Nations of Uashat Mak Mani-Utenam (Uashaunnuat) and Matimekush-Lac John claim the IOC, which is majority owned by Rio Tinto, has violated their rights for nearly 60 years and are seeking $900 million in compensation.

The Innu claim the mines and other facilities have ruined the environment, displaced members from their territory and prevented them from practising their traditional way of life.

They also say a 578-kilometre railway between Schefferville and Sept-Iles has opened up their territory to “numerous other destructive development projects.”

‘A great victory’

The allegations have not been proven in court.

“Today’s decision by the Supreme Court is, in fact, a great victory for all First Nations in Canada that are seeking to force companies to respect their rights,” the chiefs of the communities said in a news release.

Uashaunnuat Chief Mike McKenzie said the Supreme Court ruling means Rio Tinto and its subsidiaries will no longer be able to evade its lawsuit, which now reverts to the Quebec Superior Court for trial.

“We are more determined than ever to see it through to the end and, sooner or later, the company will have to answer for what it has done, including its systematic violation of our rights since the 1950s,” he said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trans-Pacific Partnership text won’t be available before election

October 15, 2015

Trans-Pacific Partnership text won’t be available before election

Government officials say haggling by lawyers from 12 countries delaying release of trade agreement

Trade deal details 2:54

Canadians won’t be able to see the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal before they vote.

Government officials told CBC News on Wednesday that the exact wording of the full agreement in principle announced Oct. 5 won’t be finalized until next week.

The federal election is next Monday, Oct. 19.

Twelve countries have signed on to the Pacific Rim free trade deal in principle, although it will require a separate ratification process in each country before it takes effect.

In an interview with CBC News Network’s Power & Politics, Canada’s trade minister said the government was pressing the other 11 countries to release “any form” of the text.

Trade Minister Ed Fast told the Vancouver Board of Trade last Thursday that the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal would be available within days. Now, government officials say it won’t be available until after the election. (CBC News)

“What I did say is that we’re working with our 11 other partners to secure at least a provisional text,” Conservative Ed Fast told CBC’s Rosemary Barton on Wednesday.

“What I’m saying,” Fast said, “I don’t have full control over it but I can tell you we’ve been very, very assertive with our partners explaining to them that Canadians — in the middle of an election — have a right to know what’s in the text.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Central bankers must have the courage to act before a crisis: Don Pittis

October 14, 2015

Central bankers must have the courage to act before a crisis: Don Pittis

Are our bankers-in-chief always condemned to crisis management?

Are central bankers always destined to be too late?

This weekend, two of that august fraternity were strutting their stuff. Former U.S. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke was busy promoting his new book called The Courage to Act. Meanwhile, Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz was giving speeches titled Integrating Financial Stability into Monetary Policy.

And in different ways, the two tread the same ground: how difficult it is to rein in a housing boom before it turns into a crisis.

The title of Bernanke’s book has already been pilloried for its hubris.

Voices had been raised for years that U.S. interest rates were too low and that it was driving house prices too high, distorting the economy. But as Bernanke admitted in an interview that played Tuesday on CBC Radio’s The Current, he didn’t act until it was far too late.

Greater than housing

“It wasn’t until August of 2007 that we began to appreciate that the ramifications of the losses on sub-prime mortgages were going to be much greater than just the housing market,” Bernanke told The Current host Anna Maria Tremonti.

Of course by that time, there was really little the U.S. central bank could do to prevent the bubble from popping, setting off a global financial meltdown and necessitating a multibillion-dollar bailout of the banks that had contributed to the crisis.

Years of low interest rates had allowed consumers to borrow recklessly. After they had access to that money, they used it to overinflate the entire economy, buying consumer goodies and bidding up the price of real estate.

By then, it was too late to raise interest rates. It could have been done several years previously, slowing the boom before it became dangerous. So why didn’t Bernanke, or his predecessor Alan Greenspan, act then?

There may be clues from listening to our own central banker’s speech this week.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Neil Macdonald: Government sensitivity over you hearing about ‘sensitive’ information

October 13, 2015

Neil Macdonald: Government sensitivity over you hearing about ‘sensitive’ information

Deputy minister calls in the RCMP after media leaks at her department

Canadian democracy has, we are told, been maliciously undermined at Citizenship and Immigration, and the department’s top public servant is determined to set things right, on behalf of the Canadian people.

Deputy Minister Anita Biguzs has declared herself “deeply concerned.” What has happened, she says, is an ethical erosion of the very cornerstone of the trust and democratic function of government.

Now, before you go leaping to conclusions, Biguzs was not talking about the prime minister’s political staff overriding the professionals in her department who were choosing which Syrian refugees will be lucky enough to end up in Canada.

Anita Biguzs, deputy minister of citizenship and immigration, has called in the RCMP to investigate leaks from her department to the media. (Citizenship and Immigration Canada)

Nor is she talking about the near-total absence of public transparency in her department, which has made it nearly impossible for a member of the public to reach anything other than a voice mail message. (“If we started taking public calls, we’d never get any work done,” a departmental spokeswoman told me a few weeks ago, with no evident irony.)

No, what has provoked Bigusz’s anger, and determination for a reckoning, is that someone under her command apparently had the gall to tell a journalist — and thereby the Canadian public — about the PMO overriding the professionals in her department.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

North American Union: US/Canadian Generals Discussed Fully Integrating Their Militaries

October 13, 2015

North American Union: US/Canadian Generals Discussed Fully Integrating Their Militaries

us army marching

Ever since the plans for the Trans-Texas Corridor (AKA NAFTA Superhighway) were canceled by the Federal Government and the Texas State Legislature, the theories surrounding the North American Union have largely fallen out of public’s awareness. However, every now and then a story will emerge that suggests that the governments of North America are still quietly conspiring to unite Canada, Mexico, and the US into a superstate, much like the European Union.

The latest revelation of this plan comes from Canada, where it’s been revealed that Chief of the Defence, Staff Gen. Tom Lawson and the former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, once discussed a plan to fully integrate the militaries of the US and Canada. On the surface this doesn’t sound too surprising, since these forces have been frequently deployed together overseas in recent years. And under NORAD, the Air Forces of both nations are already operating under the same command structure for the most part.

However, this plan was supposed to allow personnel from all branches of the military, including our special forces, to be deployed together in the same units under a single unified command outside of Canada. The discussion was held in October of 2013, and the documents that prove it were obtained by an Access to Information request, which is essentially the Canadian counterpart to America’s FOIA.

What’s more alarming about this military integration plan, is that General Dempsey and General Lawson seriously discussed this idea without the knowledge of the US or Canadian governments.

Daniel Proussalidis, a spokesman from the defence minister’s office, said in an email to CBC News Monday the document was not presented to the defence minister and the government has not considered its contents.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

IMF downgrades Canadian growth outlook to 1% for 2015

October 7, 2015

IMF downgrades Canadian growth outlook to 1% for 2015

Risks for the world include low commodities prices, China’s slowdown and rate hikes

The IMF has downgraded its outlook for Canadian growth to one per cent this year because of the impact of lower oil and commodities prices.

It also has revised its expectations for global growth downwards to 3.1 per cent, the lowest since 2009.

In a report Tuesday in advance of the IMF-World Bank annual meetings this week in Lima, Peru, it highlights the downside risks to the world economy from the economic slowdown in China and low prices for commodities.

The recovery it expected earlier in the year has become uneven, it said in its World Economic Outlook with marginal advances in developed economies and slowing in most emerging economies.

“Six years after the world economy emerged from its broadest and deepest postwar recession, the holy grail of robust and synchronized global expansion remains elusive,” said Maurice Obstfeld, IMF director of research.

Growth slower in most nations

“Despite considerable differences in country-specific outlooks, the new forecasts mark down expected near-term growth marginally but nearly across the board.”

It has revised its estimate for Canadian GDP growth downward by half a percentage point from its July forecast to one per cent this year, and to 1.7 per cent in 2016. Last year, the IMF was forecasting 2.2 per cent growth for the Canadian economy.

A side report explores how the sharp decline in commodity pricesover the last three years has hurt economies dependent on commodities, including Canada, Chile and Australia.

“The weak commodity price outlook is estimated to subtract almost one percentage point annually from the average rate of economic growth in commodity exporters over 2015–17 as compared with 2012–14,” the IMF said.

“In exporters of energy commodities, the drag is estimated to be larger: about 2¼ percentage points on average over the same period.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Newfoundland’s oil ripple effect: As prices fall, commuting workers stay home

October 6, 2015

Newfoundland’s oil ripple effect: As prices fall, commuting workers stay home

The big paycheques from Alberta are drying up, and with them the economic good times

It was a tell-tale sign when East Coast Catering of St. John’s laid off 44 workers in September. The company supplies meals and housekeeping services to Newfoundland’s offshore oil rigs, two of which departed this year at the end of their contracts.

‘I am certainly not pushing the panic button, but I think we should have our hand hovering over it.’– Radio host Paddy Daley

“The majority of our business is not directly impacted by the recent drop in oil prices,” East Coast Catering said, but the subtle signs of a downturn are there.

“I am not worried yet. And I am certainly not pushing the panic button, but I think we should have our hand hovering over it,” said Paddy Daley a well known call-in radio host for VOCM in St. John’s.

Newfoundland’s offshore oil industry has been somewhat insulated from the shock of plunging oil prices over the last 16 months, but the long tail of job losses and cancelled contracts so clearly evident in Alberta is beginning to show, especially as the province’s “turnaround workers” come home for good.

Darryl Day worked in Alberta’s hydraulic fracturing industry. He was laid off in June, one of many Newfoundlanders who’ll no longer make the commute to the Alberta oil patch.

For years, thousands of Newfoundlanders commuted back and forth to Alberta’s oil patch, working three or four weeks at a time and bringing home plump paycheques. Many of them aren’t going back this fall.

Darryl Day used to fly from Gander to Alberta and back — 22 days out, 13 days back home. He was recruited at a job fair in Newfoundland six years ago to drive heavy machinery for a hydraulic fracturing company. Those were the “good times.”

“Different companies would run three or four job fairs in Newfoundland a week and they would leave with however many employees,” Day said. “Then if they ran short, they would come back again.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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