Oil and gas contributed some $117 billion to Canada’s GDP last year, six times the economic contribution of the Ontario auto industry
What was Canada’s biggest business news story of 2018? According to the pundits at The Canadian Press, it wasn’t the giveaway of Canadian oil to Americans for tens of billions of dollars below world prices, caused by a lack of pipelines from Alberta. It wasn’t the loss of tens of billions more in oil and…
Trying to solve a problem with the wrong solution will inevitably lead to failure
With polls showing the Liberals in a tight contest with the Conservatives, the Trudeau government needed to find a defining issue that will carry them to victory in next October’s election. From the beginning of his mandate, this Prime Minister has made lowering carbon emissions a centerpiece of his government’s raison d’etre. Trudeau promised an approach…
The court decision against the pipeline veered away from objective legal analysis into opinions designed to justify preconceived biases
For the second time in two years, three judges with the Federal Court of Appeal struck down a crucially important oil export pipeline project that had undergone years of regulatory review. The approval of Northern Gateway by the former federal government of Conservative Stephen Harper was struck down in 2016. That was after Enbridge spent…
We need a smart, realistic strategy for negotiations, starting with giving up our dairy supply management system
The importance of the North American Free Trade Agreement to Canada’s economy is staggering. Each day, $2.4 billion worth of goods and services cross the Canada/U.S. border. Some 78 per cent of Canada’s merchandise exports are destined for NAFTA partners. Now, the 23-year-old agreement is under severe threat from a hyper-protectionist American president. Initially, NAFTA…
The B.C. premier and his Green Party puppet master have created a debilitating, ill-conceived mess over the Trans Mountain pipeline
The political discourse surrounding Canada’s oil industry has morphed into a combination of schizophrenia, hypocrisy and fantasy. This debilitating countrywide phenomenon is clearly exemplified at both the federal and provincial levels. But it’s the recent actions of B.C. Premier John Horgan and his puppet master, Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver, that earn my nomination for…
After seven years and billions of dollars, hope for revival of Canada’s oil industry comes down to one extremely troubled project
Canada is endowed with the third largest oil reserves in the world but lack of access to world markets means our oil is sold far below world prices. Each day, this captive market discount hands a $40-million gift to Americans. Adding insult to injury, the discount also drives tens of billions of dollars in Canadian…Justin Trudeau has Canada headed toward another fiscal calamity, through a series of policy decisions that mimic his father’s misguided choices
Like father, like son, the old adage goes. It’s never been truer than in the case of former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and his son Justin, Canada’s current prime minister. The parallels start with an ideological attraction to communism. Pierre was asked for his views on democracy and communism, and stated that a one-party…
The plight of Sears pensioners has once again ignited calls for change but the federal government seems content to sit on its hands
The demise of Sears Canada has seen 16,000 employees lose their jobs. It’s unfortunate, but inevitable, as online giants Amazon and Alibaba transform the retail universe. But what shouldn’t be inevitable is the loss of pension benefits for those employees and another 18,000 Sears retirees. If the 2009 bankruptcy of tech giant Nortel is a…
A look back at 2017 shows far too many instances in Canada where we got it all wrong
For my first column of the New Year, I’ve dipped into my collection of irrational, damaging or downright dumb happenings in 2017. The year saw major breakthroughs in the use of genetically-modified human cells to treat diseases, including retinal dystrophy and blood cancer. Human genetic re-engineering is an emerging science but there has been little…