Monday Post

The thing with throwing taxpayer money at a problem is that, sooner or later, the money will run out, the opportunity to either innovate or otherwise turn the business around has been squandered and the stupidity of the ruling government can no longer be hidden from the public. Canada has a history of bailing out failed businesses (and equally crushing them) and entrenching the power of fat, greedy and corrupt unions that vote according to their fat tummies (pick an instance). Now, it's the end of the road.

Just before Christmas:

Hundreds of workers walked off the job and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed "deep disappointment" after General Motors Co on Monday announced the closure of its Oshawa plant, catching governments and employees by surprise.

(Sidebar: yeah, I'll bet he did.)

Canadian officials, briefed on the plan on Sunday, promised to aid those affected by the December 2019 closure, part of a wider restructuring plan that will cut production of slow-selling models and slash its North American workforce.

GM said the closure affects 2,973 assembly line jobs in the Ontario city, out of a Canadian workforce of 8,150.

Choke on it.


Also - good:

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says the closure of the General Motors plant in Oshawa, Ont., is “done” and there’s nothing the government can do to change the automaker’s plan.

Ford says he asked GM in a phone call on Sunday whether there was anything the province could do to keep the plant open, and was told it could not.

He says instead, the province will immediately bolster unemployment insurance and retraining measures to help the nearly 3,000 workers who will lose their jobs.

This isn't a major victory, CBC hookers:

Unlike his predecessors as premier of Ontario, Doug Ford is not providing the media with a daily itinerary of his public events. So CBC News sought and obtained Ford's appointment schedule, using the province's freedom of information laws.

Seeing as one could just as easily look up the schedule on Queen's Park website, this is looking very much like making a mountain out of a molehill.




In other gong-show news:

Senators are to resume a special sitting today to examine a back-to-work bill that would force an end to rotating strikes at Canada Post as the walkouts enter their sixth week.

Patronising is putting it mildly, sir. Justin is being his usual @$$hole self:

If the prime minister had been speaking to a grade five class in Ontario, or some other province where oil isn’t part of the local lifeblood, his remarks might have made sense. But he was speaking Calgary, centre of the Canadian energy business. It’s a fair guess his audience contained quite a few executives who have spent a lifetime finding, extracting and shipping oil and gas. Their job requires a high level of expertise in negotiating the hoops and high jumps set up for them by regulators at various levels of government, which are regularly changed as new figures arrive on the federal and provincial stage.

Oh, sure. Come on in. Why not?:

The Syrian refugee who spent seven months living in limbo at a Malaysia airport has announced on social media that he is on his way to Canada. 

Why don't I have a good feeling about this?:

A Chinese scientist has rocked the world of genetics with claims Monday that he used gene-editing technology to alter the DNA of embryos that have now produced twin girls. The experiment to try to make the babies resistant to HIV infection has been widely condemned as unethical, and underlines the controversy surrounding this cutting-edge science.

Alberta and Ontario may engage in a beer war:

The Alberta government is opening a new front in the Canadian beer war by targeting Ontario for what it says are its unfair trade barriers to Alberta suds and other alcoholic products.