Canada and the UAE

A much-debated editorial article in Gulf News, a publication from the UAE has provided me much amusement this New Years Eve. It seems that when they decided to run the article the preparers decided to try to cram as much criticism of Harper and his government (relevant or not) into as few paragraphs as possible. The blatant errors and hypocrisy amused me.Harper would have to have invented a time

MP Bob Sopuck: Right Wing Scientist?

The Toronto Star has an interesting article on Bob Sopuck, the new Conservative MP from Manitoba. I strongly recommend the article as it seems to give an unbiased look at his environmental credentials and background.What caught my eye however, was the fact that he attended and graduated from Cornell University. That name may not be as familiar to you as Harvard or Yale, but it is an Ivy League

Confused on Potash

Another win for the cement-heads. The whole farrago about strategic resources, net benefit to Canada, head office jobs, the hollowing out of this great country and all the other economic nationalist mumbo-jumbo – swallowed whole by the not-so-Conservative senior management. Potash is off. It’s in the national interest. Well, yes, the shareholders may have had their rights “restricted” (one might wonder what it means to be a shareholder at all if you’re not allowed to sell your shares, but that’s just the kind of debating trick that free-market fundamentalists like to spring on the unsuspecting).

For an example (conveniently close to hand) of what passes for middle-of-the-road thinking on this issue, here are Adam Daifallah and Dov Zigler in the Post (Nov 6):

First of all, regardless of who “owns” Potash Corp.’s shares, most of its earnings are kept in Potash Corp. and reinvested in Saskatchewan. During the first six months of 2010, Potash Corp. retained earnings of CDN$862.9-million but only paid a dividend of CDN$59.3-million. These earnings stay in Potash Corp. and aren’t sent to the shareholders.

If a global firm were to buy Potash Corp., that earnings stream would get retained somewhere other than in Canada. Essentially, the BHP Billiton buyout would have paid off Potash Corp.’s international shareholder base to stop retaining Potash Corp.’s earnings in its largely Canadian potash activities. Instead, the cash flow would have accrued to BHP and largely been reinvested in BHP’s global mining plans.

Of course, that is the whole purpose of investment: for investors to reap the profits. And if they are foreigners, then, yes, the profits go out of the country. If this is objectionable why allow foreigners to invest in Canada all? Why do we allow Starbucks to sell coffee and Apple iPhones when these earnings streams are flowing out of the country? Shouldn’t we just make everybody buy from Tim Horton’s and RIM and keep all that money in our local communities?

For some reason foreigners, rapacious and, well, foreign, as they may be, don’t share these attitudes. Fortunately for us. So, for example, a couple of Canadian pension funds just acquired a high-speed rail link in the UK (actually the only high-speed rail link; but don’t laugh - we don’t have any). Presumably, the point is to export the profit stream back to Canada for the benefit of their retirees. Following the logic of economic nationalists, this should not be allowed.

Ironically, Canada is a direct beneficiary of open investment: it owns more of the rest of the world than the rest of the world owns of Canada. Yet here we are at a time of rising protectionist sentiment and looming competitive devaluations, gumming up the works with investment regulations that do nothing except cater to local superstitions (in addition to the great work we are doing at the WTO with the defence of dairy quotas).

Whatever his other qualities, though, the PM can still do the political math. The choice was to risk some (or possibly all) of the 13 Tory seats Saskatchewan or losing the support of fiscal conservatives. Since there are no fiscal conservatives in Canada this is pretty much a no-brainer.

The full cost of sick days

You have to wonder how much of Rob Ford’s winning margin was directly due to the garbage strike last summer. If there is a backlash feel to this result it is not unusual. The right often wins after a period of serious misgovernance and waste from the left or centre-left. A few notable examples (from major to minor): Jimmy Carter followed by Ronald Reagan, James Callaghan followed by Margaret Thatcher, Bob Rae followed by Mike Harris, and now David Miller followed by Rob Ford. Maybe the lesson is that while it is all very well and good to be right wing the deciding factor is the temperature of the middle-of-the-road electorate. When they get ticked off heads roll.

Hopefully the unions will soon start to feel the heat. Dalton can’t be feeling too happy about this either.

Vote Ford

The shortest and simplest reason to vote for the big guy comes from a final comparison of the Toronto mayoralty candidates in Saturday’s National Post (not available online). The bottom of the page lists the endorsements for each candidate: CUPE, CAW etc for Pantalone; Carpenter’s Union, Central Ontario Building Trades, etc for Smitherman.

For Ford: no union support.

A non-union mayor in this city is way overdue. Time for a change.