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Stephen Harper has announced Canada will approve the sale of energy giant Nexen to a Chinese state-owned oil company, CNOOC. Also Harper allowed Malaysia's national oil company Petronas to buy Progress Energy Resources, a purchase that will accelerate production and export of shale gas from Northern B.C.
Those who follow the business press closely, and listen attentively to corporate economic commentators, are still mainly in the dark about "who is actually getting what" in the business world.
Some very interesting information does turns up. A current New York Times series entitled "The United States of Subsidies," covers business subsidies handed out by U.S. local governments. It cost $80 billion to attract and keep companies in local communities, the NYT estimated.
By-elections can be meaningful events or routine affairs, foreshadow major change, or be of little consequence. In 2007, Thomas Mulcair won a seat that had been Liberal for decades, Outremont, in a by-election. It was a first sign of what became the orange wave in 2011, carrying 59 NDP members to victory. More often, by-election fights are quickly forgotten, except by the combatants.
The Harper government thinks negotiating and signing various deals with all kinds of countries shows it is fulfilling its economic mandate. Nothing could be further from the truth. What are erroneously described as trade agreements or, worse -- free trade agreements -- end up limiting Canada’s ability to develop and create products and services for Canadians that people in other countries might use as well.
If you want to trade, you need a product or service, a market, and money to put the deal together. All the commercial agreements in the world are no substitute for having something other people want enough to buy.
Jim Flaherty and Stephen Harper are worried about America heading off towards the "fiscal cliff". They do not seem ashamed that Conservatives' spending cuts propel Canada in the same direction.
Most agree the U.S. must address impending increases in taxes and cuts to spending in order to prevent a further fall into recession. The fiscal cliff looms because spending cuts and tax increases are scheduled to happen automatically before January (when the old Congress is replaced) unless the President and the lame duck Congress can agree to act.
The road to the White House is raise, and spend, more money than your opponent.
Barack Obama won re-election despite reported spending of nearly $400 million by the Republican campaign to defeat him. Fully 80 per cent of individual contributions to the Romney campaign were large individual contributions.
In 1936, the British economist John Maynard Keynes published his celebrated General Theory, a book that provided a scientific basis for understanding the Great Depression, the worldwide slump lasting from 1929 until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Only recently has the International Monetary Fund realized his research insights apply to today's world economic mess centred in a stagnating Europe, and a slow growth U.S. The IMF rediscovery of Keynes has not yet registered with the Harper government, which continues to mislead Canadians about what to do about the sluggish economy.
There is nothing like a leadership contest to fire up a political party. Choosing a new leader can redefine a party, help it change the public mood, and romp to power. That is what happened when the Liberals elected Pierre Trudeau leader in 1968, and the federal party has been trying ever since to do it again.
Currently, three Liberal parties (each with its own identity and history) are running simultaneous leadership contests: in Quebec, Ontario, and federally. As a result, the Liberals suffer from political organizing overload -- campaigns in Ontario and Quebec have practical problems getting campaign workers, and finding financial backing with a federal leadership contest occurring at the same time.
When CAW President Ken Lewenza took the podium at the Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers (CEP) convention in Quebec City Monday morning, the 1,000-plus delegates knew they were about to hear why a merger between CEP and CAW makes sense. What delegates did not know was they were about to hear a trade unionist lay out the union movement creed -- justice for workers -- with enough power and conviction to convince any of those wondering how to vote on the merger to vote yes.
In launching his leadership campaign Justin Trudeau pledged that his policies would be based on evidence, saying: "It may seem revolutionary in today’s Ottawa, but instead of inventing the facts to justify the policies, we will create policy based on facts." For Trudeau the "ideology" we need to face todays challenges is: "Hard, scientific facts, and data."
This is not a bad start for someone who is routinely dismissed as a lightweight on policy. Honesty and integrity in policy making would make a refreshing difference to public life in Canada and elsewhere.