Christmas Week: It's a Wonderful Post

The Day is fast approaching ...




It's just an economy:

Canada‘s economy unexpectedly shrank by 0.1 per cent in October, the first monthly decline since February, partly because of a U.S. auto strike that hit manufacturing, Statistics Canada data indicated on Monday.

Analysts in a Reuters poll had forecast a gain of 0.1 per cent following a 0.1 per cent advance in September. Goods-producing industries posted a 0.5 per cent loss while service sectors were essentially unchanged.

October’s growth figures were the latest in a string of disappointing data that analysts say could put pressure on the Bank of Canada to mull a rate cut.

**

Finance Minister Bill Morneau also suggested in separate broadcast interviews that the country's economic track will have a bearing on how the Liberals steer their government's budget in the coming years.

On CTV's Question Period, Morneau warned his Conservative critics to avoid the "irresponsible" claims when private sector economists project growth, which the fiscal update estimated at 1.7 per cent this year and 1.6 per cent in 2020.

The projections would make Canada's the second-fastest-growing economy among G7 countries, behind only the United States.

"I think it's a little bit irresponsible of the Conservatives to be making people more anxious," Morneau said in the CTV interview.

Well, about that: 

The economy shed 71,200 jobs last month, while the jobless rate jumped to 5.9 per cent, up from 5.5 per cent in October.

**

Canada’s annual inflation rate rose 2.2% as expected in November on the back of higher energy prices, Statistics Canada said on Wednesday, but analysts noted a surprise increase in core measures that could make it harder for the Bank of Canada to ease rates.

**

" ... The Parliamentary Budget Office downgraded its outlook for the Canadian economy on Thursday and now expects deficits to be a cumulative $9.5 billion larger by the end of 2025 than it had previously forecast. The government agency, whose baseline estimates were used by political parties to cost their 2019 election platforms, said lower tax revenues and higher operating costs were the primary cause of the wider fiscal gap.”

**

Morneau boasted about economic growth that will likely see Canada come second in the G7 next year; about historically low unemployment numbers, and wage growth that is outpacing inflation.

The finance minister wants Canadians to know that he and his colleagues are good fiscal managers who will continue to reduce the net debt to GDP ratio to make sure the economy is “strong and resilient” in the event of a downturn.

That all sounds like recession talk to me.

Are we surprised coming from a puppet government that cannot tell who or what is the middle-class?


Also:

Two billion people had been pulled out of poverty since I was a young child. What happened? It was globalization, which is much maligned today. It was free trade, despised on the right and the left. It was property rights and the rule of law. It was the culture of entrepreneurship that brought your ancestors to this great country, that pulled two billion of your brothers and sisters out of poverty. That is the essence of how capitalism saves lives.

Perhaps some perspective is needed.

North Korea is a communist dictatorship whose chief tyrant is not only the fattest man in a country of starving people but is also wasting resources on weapons that will wipe his country out.




Alberta-bound:

After seven carbon tax-free months, Albertans face the prospect of once again having to pay a premium on greenhouse gas-emitting fuels starting Jan. 1.

The federal government is imposing the tax on Alberta after the UCP repealed the previous NDP government’s carbon tax as their first act in office. The tax is meant to combat climate change by discouraging the use of carbon products.

Alberta will join Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick among provinces paying a federal carbon tax due to their refusal to implement their own carbon pollution pricing programs. The province is currently awaiting a decision from the Alberta Court of Appeal on their challenge of the federal tax.

(Sidebar: that's called tyranny.)

**

DP Energy has already won approval for one solar park in southeast Calgary and is now pushing for a second in the Shepard Industrial park. Combined, the two would be one of the largest photovoltaic solar farms in Canada generating more than 60 MW of electricity, enough for 14,000 homes.

The company, based in Ireland, easily won approval at a public hearing at city hall in March. The hearing — to redesignate 64 hectares of contaminated land to allow for a power generating facility — lasted 11 minutes.

Now, about that:

Now, I'm not blaming snow alone for the lost productivity. Solar panels operate perfectly well in northern climates--assuming you have good exposure and many sunny days a year. But days are shorter in the dead of winter, which means fewer hours of daylight when the panels can do their thing.  

**

It's your money to waste, DP Energy.




If people will not agree to organ donors on drivers' licenses, why would they agree on tax forms?:

Conservative MP Len Webber drew the first spot in the private member’s bill lottery held this month. The lottery happens at the opening of every Parliament and dictates the order in which private member’s bills are heard. Because they don’t come from the government, the bills often don’t pass through the House of Commons, but going early in the process can be a major boost. 

Webber’s bill would add a question to Canadians’ tax forms asking them whether they would be willing to be organ donors. 

“Right on your income tax form there will be a question there about whether you would be willing to donate your organs upon death,” he said. “There are two things in life that are certain; death and taxes, so I thought I would tackle the tax form.”

No, you're just rubbing it in. 




If anyone thinks this is about public safety, I would like to interest that person in a bridge I no longer want:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to allow municipal governments like Toronto’s to “ban” handguns will be a big story in 2020, not that it will have any impact on rising, violent, urban street crime.

Rather, it demonstrates how politicians will stubbornly cling to a bad and ineffective idea in order to be seen as combating gun crime without confronting the problem, the criminals who use them.

In a year-end interview with the Canadian Press, Trudeau said he won’t allow premiers who oppose handgun bans (like Ontario’s Doug Ford) to stop municipal governments that want them — like Mayor John Tory and Toronto council.

That suggests Trudeau is prepared to intrude into an area of provincial jurisdiction, which will have the effect of punishing legal gun owners, as opposed to criminals who use illegal guns.

LeBron James must be incapable of feeling shame:

Toronto Wolfpack rugby star Sonny Bill Williams on Sunday became the latest athlete to speak out against China, in a tweet voicing his support for the persecuted Uyghur ethnic group.

The move risks drawing the wrath of the communist state, which has retaliated firmly against NBA and English Premier League soccer teams whose staff or players have criticized Chinese policy.

This China:

The Chinese embassy is taking a swing at "some Canadian politicians" over what it describes as "erroneous remarks" about the relationship between the two countries and the cases of two Canadians detained in China.

** 

Song Hong Ryon looks like any other young woman in South Korea. But three years after her arrival from China, the half-North Korean, half-Chinese 19-year-old has made only two South Korean-born friends and says she’s often been hurt by little things, like when people ask if she’s from China because of her accent.

“I’ve agonized about it a lot by myself,” she said.

Song’s mother fled North Korea in the late 1990s in search of food and work in China, like tens of thousands of other North Korean women did to avoid a famine at home. Many women ended up being sold to poor Chinese farmers as brides, before fleeing again and moving to South Korea, which considers the North part of its territory and therefore embraces North Korean refugees.

Many of the children of these marriages, if they’re able to reunite with their mothers in the South, are alienated and frustrated as they struggle to navigate a strange culture, cut off from friends and many of their relatives.

Do you see what happens when you don't finish a war?