The Moving Political Landscape

Often, Canadians chose the "pragmatic" candidate who swore up and down that he was a fiscal candidate and refused to touch anything social or political.

What the voter ended up with was a member of Parliament who was neither fiscally nor socially conservative.

Unwilling to accept that that the aphorism of insanity and repetition was true, Canadians kept doing the very thing that ended up with an unsuitable candidate.

Now, we have an electorate that thinks things are free and a government happy to let them think that.

Will Pierre Poillievre be the wrench in the machinery sorely in need of sabotage?

The frustrated and fatigued electorate may wish it, and it may even be true, but it would not be the first time that an attractive candidate said something that someone wanted to hear and did not deliver.

What we do have at the moment is the most incompetent and morally horrid government that will milk the population for every dime before leaving on a midnight plane:

The Bank of Canada yesterday warned of “bumps along the way” to beating inflation. Another increase in the 3.25 percent prime Bank rate is due October 26, the sixth hike this year: “We’ll take the next decisions with the information we have in front of us at the time.”

Don't worry. It's not the finance minister's job to worry about stuff like that:

Adjusting interest rates is “not my job,” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said yesterday. Her remarks followed another increase in the Bank of Canada rate to the highest level since 2008: “What is the trigger point for when you decide to do something?”

Destroying the golden goose:

Other countries are successfully exporting LNG to Europe and Asia. Australia, the largest LNG exporter though its natural gas production is only about four-fifths ours, has annual LNG capacity of over 85 million tons. Qatar and the United States follow with 77 and 74 million tons, respectively. And many more LNG plants are either under construction or have been approved by governments around the world. The United States, which isn’t that much closer to Europe or Asia than we are, operates eight LNG export terminals, with four more under construction and another 11 approved but not yet being built.

LNG is a big business that can generate billions of dollars of GDP for a country. Each ton of exported LNG is worth, according to this week’s spot prices, US$830 when sold to Japan and US$1,800 when sold to the European Union. For Australia, LNG exports add up to over AU$50 billion, almost 2.5 per cent of the country’s GDP.

So, what have we achieved in Canada? A big fat zero. We do have one plant being built by LNG Canada in Kitimat, B.C. with capacity to export 14 million tons a year starting in 2025. But that’s a far cry from the many LNG proposals that have fallen by the wayside in the past 15 years. Natural Resources Canada reports that 13 west coast and five east coast proposals have been made over the years totalling 216 million tons.

Not all proposals would have gone ahead but some certainly would have if not for the federal and Quebec governments discouragement of resource development. Petronas, for example, withdrew its $23 billion B.C. project in 2017 because of low gas prices and high political risk. Prices have recovered but even so no large replacement projects are being constructed. In 2021, Quebec rejected the $14 billion Saguenay LNG terminal that would have exported Alberta natural gas. A good argument can be made that its veto usurped federal constitutional powers over both international and interprovincial trade.

If he gets his @$$ kicked, this article will come back to haunt him:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told his federal Liberal cabinet Wednesday that he is staying on to fight in the next election, the Star has learned.

But Chrystia and Ian Scott aren't sticking around.

Wherefore?