Category Archives: Economy

Jul 23 2014
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Economy, Environment

Economy and environment are not mutually exclusive

 

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For many, if not most, New Brunswick’s peripatetic Green Party Leader David Coon whistles past the graveyard of the province’s economy when he insists that we, in this struggling part of Canada, must strive to break our addiction to fossil fuels.

It’s no good, he says – a rum thing that can only bring us and our our planet more misery. In one of his blog posts in early June, he wrote, “The Green Party will create new jobs in a new economy, powered by. . .green buildings, renewable energy, local food, information technology, smart grid, electric vehicles, local business, public transit, health education, and sustainable farming and forestry; this is the Green Party’s vision of our future, not the old pollution-based economy the other parties are trying to resuscitate.”

Last week, he reiterated his message while campaigning in the province in what is certainly another doomed stab at political relevance, come September’s general election. 

But is he as defiantly deluded as his detractors claim?

Traditionalists – a group that includes most of us – contend that economic development simply can’t proceed in any meaningful way without the heavy use of oil and gas. After all, that’s how we built our job-generating, tax-producing industries under the long shadows of our various industrial revolutions. 

How else would we have invented plastic bottles, plasma TVs, rayon? Without the cheap, accessible energy afforded by fossil fuels the world would be devoid of super-conducting metals, which give us the integrated circuits that power our smart phones. 

By God, how would we cope?

The corollary argument, of course, is that true environmental stewardship is anathema to economic development, both practically and on principle. It requires a degree of tree-hugging and hair-shirt-wearing that stifles innovation and turns entire segments of the populace into Whole Earth Catalogue readers.

If these mantras hold true, then one would guess that the richest, most successful economies the world necessarily post the worst track records on the environment.

Well, dear reader, guess again.

The ninth most-affluent nation on Earth is Switzerland. It also happens to be the greenest country on the planet. Luxembourg is the second-wealthiest nation, and the also the second-most environmentally circumspect.

According to recent economic research aggregated by the popular website, top10thebest.com, “Switzerland, a rich nation in the European continent, is among the most prosperous countries in the world. It boasts (a) diverse and stable economy, and it has managed to maintain its excellent record in terms of. . .GDP. What makes Switzerland one of the wealthiest countries is its extensive sources of income, such as agriculture, tourism and banking. It is also known as the leading exporter and maker of the finest watches, and well-off individuals consider the country as a financial haven to increase their money.”

Meanwhile, swissworld.org reports, “At the end of 2009 the (country’s) Federal Council decided to continue with the SwissEnergy Action Plan until 2020. SwissEnergy is the main national platform for economical and intelligent energy use and the use of renewable energy. Energy-saving measures are implemented by SwissEnergy in partnership with the cantons, municipalities, business and environmental organisations.”

As for Luxembourg, top10thebest.com says that nation “is among the most prosperous countries (and) also recognized as a tax heaven. In fact, several billionaires from other parts of the world choose to live in this nation to free themselves of expensive taxes in their native countries. . .The sources of income (in) Luxembourg include telecommunications and steel.”

And yet, referencing a 2010 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development report, a Wikipedia entry states, “Despite its growing GDP and population, Luxembourg has made progress in decoupling environmental pressures from economic growth and has developed a National Plan for Sustainable Development. The annual vehicle tax is now calculated as a function of CO2 emissions. A National Plan for Energy Efficiency has been introduced, together with economic incentives targeted at the construction industry. A national body has been created to provide information and advice on energy savings and renewable energy.”

All of which suggests that Mr. Coon is on to something. We who think him deluded may, in fact, be the deranged ones.

 

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Jul 11 2014
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Economy, Trade

Want more jobs? Drop the trade barriers

 

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Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall is proving that oil is not the only commodity in which the west is awash these days. Some pretty nifty ideas are also in long supply in Big Sky country where Maritimers go to, among pother things, retire their debts.  

Consider Mr. Wall’s concept of a “Canada Free Trade Zone”, in which goods, services, people, skills and professions move effortlessly across provincial borders, goosing the national economy by as much as $50 billion a year.

According to a report in the Globe and Mail this week, British Columbia and Alberta Premiers Christy Clark and Dave Hancock think it’s a grand idea and signed a letter to that effect, “urging their counterparts” in other provinces “to agree to modernizing the 20-year-old Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) when their meet in Charlottetown in August for the Council of the Federation.” 

As Mr. Wall tells the Globe, “AIT is pretty anemic as a trade agreement. . .We start from the premise that everything is open.”

Evidently, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island Premiers Stephen McNeil and Robert Ghiz are enthusiastic. And while there’s no official word on New Brunswick Premier David Alward’s sentiments, the chances are excellent that Mr. Energy East Pipeline will endorse anything that threatens to enrich Canada’s second-least populous province, where 750,000 souls shoulder an annual public deficit of $500 million and a long-term, structural debt of $12 billion.

In fact, dismantling inter-provincial trade barriers in this country has been an ongoing home improvement project for provincial premiers since at least 1995, when the AIT first came into effect to “reduce barriers to the movement of persons, goods, services and investments within Canada.”

Effectively, according to an Industry Canada blurb, the agreement establishes “general rules which prevent governments from erecting new trade barriers and which require the reduction of existing ones in areas covered under the Agreement; specific obligations in 10 economic sectors – such as government purchasing, labour mobility and investment – which cover a significant amount of economic activity in Canada; the streamlining and harmonization of regulations and standards (e.g. transportation, consumer protection); a formal dispute resolution mechanism that is accessible to individuals and businesses as well as governments; and commitments to further liberalize trade through continuing negotiations and specified work programs.”

The problem is, as Mr. Wall observes, it’s worn out and obsolete. Recent international trade agreements provide foreigners, in many cases, with readier access to Canadian markets than Canadians, themselves, enjoy.

In an interview with the Halifax Chronicle-Herald last year, Corinne Pohlmann, vice-president of national affairs for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said a study her Halifax office conducted “indicated that nearly half of all small business owners want apprenticeship changes. . .It seems ironic that we are approaching a trade deal with the European Union while we have so much regulatory variation between our own provinces and territories. . .All these often conflicting restrictions on interprovincial trade and movement of skilled workers and products must seem petty when viewed from outside Canada.”

They do, indeed. Still, there is precedent for enlightenment in this country. There is, for example, the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) between Alberta and British Columbia. 

Signed in 2006, its purported benefits include the scaleable opportunities (in terms of both GDP growth and job creation) possible in a fluid marketplace of nearly eight million people and an economy of more than $400 billion.

Moreover, says the Agreement, “A tradesperson such as a plumber or a welder, or a professional such as an architect or a nurse, can move to Alberta from British Columbia or vice versa and have his or her certification recognized in the new province of residence. . .Duplicate business registration and reporting requirements as well as residency requirements have been removed.”

Meanwhile, “Allowing goods, services, capital and labour to flow more freely across the Alberta-BC border (boosts) trade, makes it easier for businesses to expand into the other province, and lower costs for businesses and taxpayers. . .Open procurement policies with low thresholds help ensure that people get the best value for tax dollars. They also create more opportunities for businesses to bid on public contracts at dollar levels where small and medium-sized enterprises are able to compete.”

Perhaps, this time, Mr. Wall’s modest proposal is an idea whose time has come. 

 

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Jun 25 2014
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Business, Economy, Employment, Politics

Bring us your tired, yearning to work

 

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Through no fault of their own, 50 million people around the world are rootless and stateless. The victims of wars and warlords, dictators and economic dissolution, they wander the Earth as refugees, as unwilling nomads, and in numbers not recorded since the end of the second, great, European conflagration of the 20th Century.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government – once a beacon of light in the United Nation’s Human Development Index – plays a crass round of poker in which it chooses those immigrants it wants, those it will merely tolerate and those it would rather wash its hands of entirely. 

The latest incarnation of this game of drones is the new regime governing the nation’s Temporary Foreign Workers Program.

Employment Minister Jason Kenney says he’s doing Canadians a favour by restricting the number of international grunts businesses in this country can hire and installing punitive fines on  those who flout the fresh regulations. 

As CTV reports: “Under the new rules, employers in places with high unemployment rates won’t be allowed to hire temporary foreign workers in the lowest wage and skills groups in the accommodation, food service and retail sectors. Companies will also be required to re-apply each year to have low-wage TFW’s, instead of every two years. The cost of that will rise to $1,000 per employee, up from $275.”

Mr. Kenney justifies his decision in typically bellicose terms: “As opposed to being a last resort, in too many cases it’s (the TWF) become a first or only resort. . .That is unacceptable. I don’t care how tight the local labour market is, you shouldn’t be setting up a business and spending money on capital for a business if you don’t have the human capital to staff it.”

Don’t you just love the way these guys talk? 

Human beings become “human capital”, commodities that governments can and do rate and rank according to their own political exigencies and circumstances. 

At the same time, the minister in charge of labour markets doesn’t give a fig about the condition of labour markets if giving a fig means annoying a partisan base of low-end citizen workers/voters who, once their pogey runs down, can’t find sufficient numbers of mc-jobs to qualify them for another, ritualistic term of government-sanctioned, fully funded couch potatodom. How exquisitely NDP of him.

All this from a government who thinks it perfectly reasonable to lecture Atlantic Canadian provinces on their habitual use of Employment Insurance to actually sustain a labour market that backstops at least four, bone-fide seasonal industries (fishing, forestry, tourism, and agriculture).

In fact, on this subject in this country, almost no one looks good. Abuses of the system are systemic and rampant. And no government – Tory or Grit – has ever figured out a compelling, convincing, comprehensive, rational fix. 

But why should they bother? After all, no one in this country gets elected by insisting that low-wage foreign workers are only here because native-born and naturalized citizens don’t possess the skills that commercial enterprises actually need.

Have you ever worked a naan oven at 5 am in the morning? I didn’t think so. 

On the other hand, too many employers in this country work these people like virtual slaves; gaming the system at every opportunity to feather their marginal nests. As there are no federal oversights, no provincial or municipal protections that practically apply, what else would we as fine, upstanding Canucks expect?

Today, according to the Canadian Council for Refugees, “the number of migrant workers in Canada has increased by 70 per cent in the last five years. Canada has been shifting towards a reliance on migrant labour. In 2008, for the first time, the number of temporary foreign workers in Canada exceeded the total number of permanent residents admitted in the same year. At the end of 2012, the gap had grown: There were 338,189 temporary foreign workers in Canada on December 1, 2012, compared to 257,515 new permanent residents.”

Rather than revile these people publicly, we should embrace them as essential contributors to our society. Or, have we become too hardened to the plight of the world’s rootless that we have forgotten our own history?

 

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Jun 24 2014
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Culture, Economy

On culture, New Brunswick is getting it right

 

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When the leaders of New Brunswick’s major political parties agree, it’s either cause for celebration or reason to head for the hills. After all, what are the odds that three public office holders of markedly dissimilar ideological pedigrees could be thoroughly right about a single issue on which they concur?

Generally, at least some degree of politically calculated equivocation imbues opposition response to an official announcement. But when it comes to developing the cultural sector in this province, Messrs. David Alward, Brian Gallant and Dominic Cardy truly are three musketeers in silk ties and summer suits.

For the sake one of the few sectors in this benighted neck of the woods that actually generates more insight than acrimony, let’s hope they stay that way.

Conservative Premier David Award is correct when he says – as he did last week – that “creativity is at the root of our growth as province and a people.” Would that more of this particular commodity sloshed around in the local economy. 

Still, it’s heartening to hear that his new and improved cultural policy, which updates an earlier iteration from 2002, reflects his government’s commitment to “provide the support to allow our creators to flourish.”

Given that the premier’s triumphant return to power in the fall is far from assured, it’s equally encouraging to hear Liberal tourism, heritage and culture critic Brian Kenny – presumably channelling his boss Mr. Gallant – state that “any time that we can give them (cultural entrepreneurs and workers) a helping hand and help them move forward is positive.” 

Indeed, enthused NDP Leader Dominic Cardy, “We’re happy to give this plan our support. Let’s make sure that the follow-through is there. . .Keep. . .supporting the arts and culture community.”  

For now, the plan is to pour an “additional $3 million” into this segment of the economy to, among other things, “increase operational funding for professional arts organizations; operating grants to New Brunswick’s key cultural institutions; funding for. . .professional artists, through the New Brunswick Arts Board; (and) funding for enhanced First Nations engagement processes as (these) relate to archaeological resources.”

The policy would also establish a Community Cultural Places program. . .“for organized and arms-length built heritage advocacy and. . .community museums.” It would “provide funding for activities related to community commemorations of historic events.” And it would reinstate and expand the “touring and presenting program for New Brunswick arts organizations and presenters.” 

We can, of course, argue whether three million bucks is enough to reach these goals. We can even debate whether the province can afford this comparatively modest sum, given the horrendous short- and long-term fiscal challenges it faces. 

What should be irrefutable, however, is the remarkable contribution that cultural industries make to the national and regional economies of this country.

Study after study – notably those by Statistics Canada and the Conference Board of Canada – have settled the case: The arts sector is the little engine the could, would and does, year after year, decade after decade.

“Our results demonstrate that culture is an indispensable part of the Canadian economy, permeating and adding value across the entire (spectrum). GDP from the culture sector amounted to more than $33 billion, on average, between 1996 and 2001. Similarly, the culture sector employed more than half-a-million workers, on average, over the same period. (Moreover) employment in the culture sector grew faster than that of the overall economy during this period.”

That’s an excerpt from a seminal 2004 study by StatsCan researcher Vik Singh. Four years later, the Conference Board added its own authoritative voice to the discussion: “Increasingly, countries around the world, as well as cities and regions, are recognizing the pervasive role that a dynamic culture sector plays as a magnet for talent, an enhancer of economic performance, and a catalyst for prosperity.”

The reason is simple: Talented, innovative, entrepreneurial people abhor a vacuum. If a community’s public spaces have nothing to offer beyond cinder blocks, parking lots, big-box stores and off-ramps, then business leaders won’t come. And, more importantly, if some do, they won’t stay. 

That’s something on which we can all agree and, now, our ritualistically fractious and partisan political leaders apparently do.

 

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Jun 19 2014
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Economy

Running to the end of our rope

 

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In the race to nowhere, few places in Canada perform better than dear, old, fusty New Brunswick. In fact, when it comes to crossing the line that separates progress from perdition, ours is the Kenyan marathoner of provinces.

Don’t let a recent forecast from the Conference Board of Canada (CBC) fool you, either. That august body now predicts that New Brunswick’s economy is preparing to mount a turnaround, of sorts, this year.

Here’s the quote from the organization that’s setting certain politicos and pundits in the province all a twitter: “New investment is boosting the forestry sector. . .The provincial labour market, which has been hemorrhaging jobs over the last four years, is beginning to recover. Along with an improved investment outlook, consumer demand should pick up, allowing real GDP to advance by a modest 1.1 per cent this year.”

Note the preferred diction: The Board said “modest” growth, not “buoyant” or “great guns” or “blistering” or “spectacular” or even “moderate”. Other jurisdictions showing similar expansionary tendencies include the Czech Republic and Portugal.

Still, it was enough to encourage Blaine Higgs, the province’s minister of finance, who told the Saint JohnTelegraph-Journal, “We do see those same economic trends that are starting to turn. We bottomed out a few months ago. We saw the trends start to flatten out and start to shift upwards.”

Of course, that’s what GDP trends do; they. . .well, trend. The direction they take depends on the level of capital investment governments and/or the private sector pour into the economy, export performance and consumer spending. 

Fortunately, these indicators have been improving. But for how long?

New Brunswick’s ups and downs are nothing new. Still, over the years, we’ve grown inured to, even complacent with, certain conditions in our broad, social mosaic that contribute both directly and indirectly to our persistent economic vulnerability.

We have, for example, a real chip on our shoulder about what we think we have a right to receive from our various levels of government. Our ecosystems of entitlement are spectacularly intertwined and breathtakingly intricate. This has, in no mean way, pushed our long term public debt to an absurd $12 billion and our annual deficit to an effectively permanent $500 million.

Then, naturally, when governments start taking away our toys and begin cutting our playtime, we complain bitterly about the quality of political leadership, a habit of mind that inevitably leads to Premier David Alward’s ignoble showing in a recent Angus Reid Global poll on his popularity, compared with others in his class across Canada: second to last, at 29 per cent, behind Greg Selinger of Manitoba (26 per cent).

That level of acrimony reflects how stunningly distrustful we have become; how wary we have grown over the years of governments as faithful economic stewards. The consequences are almost tediously predictable.

A difficult, yet worthy, proposition four years ago to sell the province’s power utility and settle, in one fell swoop, $4 billion in longterm debt, mutates into a ridiculous debate over corporate patriation and sends the reigning Liberals into the wilderness.

The victorious Tories fare hardly better during their first term as they work to warm public attitudes toward hydraulic fracturing in the nascent shale gas industry – an industry that could one day employ hundreds of people and contribute millions of dollars to the economy and to provincial coffers in the form of taxes and royalties.

The issue literally blows up by the side of the road as protestors, echoing the views of many New Brunswickers, insist that the government can’t be trusted to mitigate the risks of the drilling technologies.

Meanwhile, we chug along, stupefyingly oblivious to the fact that we are now the proud owners of the highest outmigration rate among young people in Canada and one of the highest adult illiteracy rates in North America.

Oddly enough, New Brusnwick is also home to one of the highest concentrations of successful mentoring agencies in the country. 

Perhaps, then there’s hope. It may yet be within our means to turn the tide of this perennial race to nowhere.

 

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Jun 18 2014
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Economy, Municipal Affairs

Recharging Hub City’s economic battery pack

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The CEO of Metro Moncton’s newest development agency says there isn’t really anything wrong with the name of the old one, apart from the fact that it is now entirely irrelevant.

“We changed our governance model, the funding model,” Ben Champoux told the Times & Transcript’s Cole Hobson last week. “We changed the structure of the board, we changed absolutely everything. We changed the mandate of the organization, we changed the area of focus, we changed the organizational structure of the operation.  we changed all new roles and responsibilities and job titles and the last thing that had not changed was the name.”

Until, that is, just the other day when the 3+ Corporation assumed its place in the local cosmos. And by all accounts, the tri-city area’s business movers and shakers couldn’t be more relieved.

When Enterprise Greater Moncton did its job boosting the community and brokering business opportunities it did it well. In recent years, though, the organization faced too many uphill battles to provide a consistent and convincing voice for progressive economic development in the region.

What makes the 3+ Corporation’s advisers, employees and supporters think they can boldly go where EGM did not or could not go before has to do with a year-long process of productive naval gazing that culminated in a full-court summit this winter.

It’s fair to say that keeping the channels of communication open was the overriding preoccupation of the 2014 “One Region, one Vision” conferenece, which convened at the warm oasis of the city’s Delta Beausejour Hotel on the frigid night, morning and afternoon of January 16 and 17. There, 340 heavy hitters, representing all socio-economic segments of the Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe area (population: 138,000) gathered to ponder their fortunes together if not, explicitly, to avert catastrophe.

“The whole point of the summit (is) to be proactive,” Champoux explained at the time. “Greater Moncton has been on the upswing for many years. But we just can’t rest on our laurels. In this sense, alone, we were just blown away by the community. We had leaders from every walk of life – business, politics, education, culture – demonstrating the maturity and wisdom to say, ‘Let’s not wait until we are against the wall; let’s come together and celebrate our success and, most importantly, let’s redefine who we are today where we want to be 20-25 years from now and figure out how are we going to get there.’”

Functionally, though, Robert Irving, chair of 3+ Corporation’s Economic Leadership Committee and co-CEO of J.D. Irving, Limited, said it best last week when he told a business crowd at the organization’s rebranding announcement that “the greater Moncton area needs to start operating as a single economic unit. . .Today, we are on a journey. It’s not going to be easy, but we’re going to roll up our sleeves, we’re going to revitalize our region by coming together.”

It’s tempting for some to dismiss such sentiments as wishful thinking. Except, in Moncton, wishful thinking has a happy tendency of coming true. After all, the municipal area has lost its raison d’etre on more than one occasion, and fought back purposefully to regain and, indeed, fortify its position as a driver of Maritime prosperity.

In fact, business development organizations are only as strong as is their community’s desire to see them succeed. That’s why, from time to time, it’s necessary for them to start over. And, as starting over is part of Moncton’s civic DNA, there’s every reason to expect that the 3+ Corporation will hurdle the obstacles that too often blocked its predecessor organization. 

Certainly, the signs from on high (read: city halls) are encouraging. 

Moncton Mayor George LeBlanc noted the focus on job creation, skills development and attracting new business. Riverview Mayor Ann Seamans reiterated the commitment to work together. And Dieppe Mayor Yvon Lapierre emphasized that the “combination of factors make it such that it’s going to be a much stronger organization than we’ve seen in the past.”

With any luck, it’ll be a more relevant one. Then again, Metro Moncton makes its own luck. 

 

Jun 13 2014
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Economy, Employment

For once, the feds abandon Voodoo economics 

 

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In a stunningly sensible – and, therefore, utterly unexpected – move for the federal government, the Department of Employment and Immigration has announced plans to restore the integrity of its jobs data, which have been about as reliable as a help wanted ad on a social media website.

One day after the Globe and Mail broke a story about an internal memo to Employment Minister Jason Kenney that practically bragged about all the money the department was saving by eschewing Statistics Canada’s pricey research services in favour of a private contractor’s scans of popular, online classified platforms, the red-faced cabinet member told the House of Commons, in effect, “um. . .never mind.”

To be precise, he said, “The government will be launching two significant, robust, new labour market information studies (by Statistics Canada). Of them, on will be a quarterly study on job vacancies and the other a robust annual survey on wage rates, just as experts have asked us to do.”

One of those experts is Don Drummond, a former chief economist at TD Bank who chaired the 2009 Advisory Panel on Labour Market Information and thinks that empirical evidence is not such a bad tool to deploy when crafting policy on something as crucially important to national well-being as employment.

Prior to the announcement yesterday, Mr. Drummond had a few choice words for a government that enjoys creating panels and striking task forces just as long as it doesn’t have to listen to them, especially when their findings are ideologically inconvenient. “Things are getting done in the opposite direction” he told the Globe. “Normally, you create an information infrastructure and that informs policy. But here we’ve had dramatic changes in policy with the temporary foreign worker program and the Canada Job Grant, while we are undermining the lousy information infrastructure we already have.”

It’s anyone’s guess what Mr. Kenney means when he refers to his new surveys as “robust” (not once, mind you, but twice). Surely, though, anything is better than counting the number of times Kijiji posts the same job to its listings, and calling that bone fide data. 

According to reports, the new job-vacancy survey is expected to cost about $8 million annually surveying 100,000 employers across the country, while the $6-million wage survey will followup with greater detail.

The investments will effectively restore the department’s total annual budget of around $81 million for “Learning and Labour Market Information” – a fact which still  didn’t stop NDP MP Nathan Cullen from observing, “They (the Conservative government) do make themselves ignorant purposefully.”

Regrettably, he has a point. This is not a political culture that tolerates dissent or criticism. In fact, it’s not a huge fan of facts when said facts contradict even a sliver of its worldview or run counter to its spending and program priorities.

Canada’s crime rate, particularly for violent offences, is at a 40-year ebb. 

So, naturally, logic dictates throwing more people in jail for longer and for lesser crimes. That’ll justify building more prisons and passing along at least some of the cost to the provinces if only to keep the federal account book nice and sanitary.

Oil and gas exploration and development is an inherently risky business, fraught with all manner of threats to soil, air and water. 

So, naturally, official policy stipulates fewer and easier environmental rules and regulations – not more and tougher ones – to lubricate the great, big job-generating machines out west (where, let’s face it kids, everybody in their right minds ought to work, live and play).

Climate change is real, or so says virtually every top scientist in the world. The cost of its economic depredations may be counted in the trillions of dollars on a planetary scale, possibly within as few as two generations.

So, naturally, as Prime Minister Harper recently emoted, no country in the world would sacrifice the short-term opportunity to get people working – in our case, due to Alberta’s oil sands – by imposing emission standards that are designed to avert a global catastrophe. 

After all, what’s the sense in worrying about the future, when the here and now is all we’ve ever cared about thanks to our what’s-for-lunch attention spans?

Still, we may now rest assured that the good folks over at Employment and Immigration have finally seen the light: Good data means good policy. Evidence is cool. Science is hot. 

Until, of course, the tea leaf lady darkens Ottawa’s doorstep once again. 

 

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Jun 12 2014
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Climate, Economy, Energy

Climate change is real. But do the feds care?

 

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Senior federal Tories no longer deny, as more than a few once did, encroaching climate change. Their thinking on the issue has evolved. Now, they accept it, almost willingly, as a cost of doing business in the 21st Century.

With all the bellicosity that this proposition implies, Prime Minister Stephen Harper thumbed his nose at U.S. President Barack Obama this week, suggesting that the latter’s effort to enforce new emission standards for power plants was disingenuous.

“No matter what they say, no country is going to take actions that are going to deliberately destroy jobs and growth in their country,” he said during a joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott in Ottawa. “We are just a little more frank about that.”

Moreover, he added, “the measures outlined by President Obama, as important as they are, do not go nearly as far in the electricity sector as the actions Canada has already taken ahead of the United States in that particular sector.”

Finally, he said, “It’s not that we don’t seek to deal with climate change, but we seek to deal with it in a way that will protect and enhance our ability to create jobs and growth. . .Frankly, every single country in the world (feels the same way).”

Now, who’s being disingenuous?

Canada’s official government position on climate change is virtually non-existent. The feds do not maintain, let alone enforce, regulations governing greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas industry for a very good reason: They are terrified of angering their pals in Big Petrol. 

According to a report in the Globe and Mail last year, the World Resources Institute stated that in 2010 this country’s carbon footprint was the tenth-largest in the world. “On a per-capita basis, Canada is 17th; among the G20, Canada trails only Australia and the United States,” the item noted.

As for Canada’s putative lead over the United States in regulating the electricity sector, Simon Dyer of the Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank based in British Columbia, begs to differ. In a blog post on June 4, he wrote:

“While Canada did introduce federal coal regulations in 2012, the regulations have a long phase-in period that allows some of Canada’s coal plants to operate clear through the middle of the century, without any greenhouse gas controls whatsoever.”

Mr. Dyer observes that this “timid response” guarantees that meaningful drops in greenhouse gas emissions won’t appear until 2030. In this context, he writes, “The U.S. proposal is far more effective at reducing greenhouse gases from electricity generation in the short term, compared to business as usual. Analysis suggests the EPA rules would reduce power sector emissions by an estimated 23 per cent below business as usual by 2025, compared to five per cent from Canada’s federal regulations (according to Environment Canada’s own numbers).”

Apart from this, Pembina estimates that, between 2005 and 2020, tar sands expansion will have rendered preposterous Canada’s faint-hearted promise to the international community to cut its greenhouse gas production by 17 per cent.

“Environment Canada estimates that Canada will only be ‘halfway’ to meeting its 2020 target in 2020 – meaning that we’re on track to miss the 2020 target by 113 million tonnes, or double the current emissions of British Columbia,” wrote Clare Demerse, Pembina’s former director of federal policy, on the Institute’s website last year. “To date, the federal government has not published any plan or proposal to close that gap.”

Under the circumstances, how can any political leader in Ottawa claim with a straight face that the government has a plan for mitigating the effects of the nation’s increasingly rapacious fossil fuel industry?

Energy Minister Joe Oliver is practically apoplectic over the possibility that Alberta oil will forever languish where it does no one any good. In a recent speech, he described the black gold as “landlocked”, costing the national economy billions of dollars a year in lost revenue.

Meanwhile, Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq is ritually fond of stating that the federal government’s emissions policy demonstrates how she and her Conservative confederates are “standing up for Canadian jobs,” as if no clean, sustainable alternative is even worth considering.

Fair enough. But if certain federal Tories no longer deny the existence of climate change, neither should they deny the other truth: They couldn’t care less.

 

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Jun 11 2014
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Economy, Society

Seeing the forest in our urban trees

 

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The TD bank complex in downtown Toronto is the product of a procedural imagination, a throwback to the so-called international style of architecture that eschews all forms of ornamentation, especially those afforded by Mother Nature, herself.

How brilliantly ironic, then, that one of that institution’s senior officials, having for too long tolerated the glass and steel that frames his working life, now declares that trees are a city’s true salvation. 

But, then, that’s Craig Alexander for you. The senior vice-present and chief economist of Canada’s second-largest bank with a current market capitalization of $102 billion has been plunking away in the minor keys of capitalism for years, hoping to provoke more innovative and socially redeeming uses for the filthy lucre that makes the world go round. 

This time, he’s latched onto trees. 

“Urban forests play a much greater role than just beautifying the scenery,” he writes in a recent special report entitled, “Urban forests: the value of trees in the city of Toronto.” In fact, the “green space. . . is a critical factor in environmental condition, human health and the overall quality of life.”

According to Mr. Alexander’s research, 10 million trees from 116 different species comprise Hog Town’s urban forest, covering 30 per cent of the city. That’s about 16,000 trees per square kilometre, or four for every man, woman and child.       

What’s more, they’re worth a fortune. If you were to chop them all down and start over, you’d need to spend about $700 per tree or $7 billion in total to reforest places like the Don Valley, Highland Creek and Rouge River watersheds.

But why do that? “Beyond their value as a commodity,” Mr. Alexander asserts, “urban forests help ease the burden of managing snow, rain and other wet-weather flow by intercepting falling precipitation in their canopy, increasing the amount of water absorbed into the ground, and reducing soil erosion.”

And that’s not all. Trees generate oxygen, absorb carbon dioxide and scrub the air of other pollutants. In fact, each year, Toronto’s forest gobbles up 25 per cent of the city’s industrial emissions. That’s about equivalent to the exhaust from a million automobiles. “The amount of air pollution bated by Toronto’s urban forest generates an annual savings of $19 million  – just under $2 per tree,” Mr. Alexander notes.

Then, there is the efficacious effect trees have on property values, as they help moderate the micro-climates of leafy neighbourhoods and yield energy savings to homeowners. All in all, Mr. Alexander writes, “The City of Toronto’s urban forest. . .provides an additional $80 million of environmental benefits and cost savings each year. . .The annual maintenance cost of a tree is roughly $4.20. For every dollar spent on maintenance, trees return $3.20 to the community. . .Trees located in areas where it is difficult for them to grow – such as street(s) – return about $1.35 of benefits for  every dollar spent.”

So, the bottom line is, as this banker quips, “keeping the green on our streets, keeps the green in our wallets.”

Still, whenever I read one of Mr. Alexander’s informative, cheerfully written reports, I get the impression he’s talking about something bigger than just the subject on which he’s focussing. 

Two years ago, he authored a widely-quoted study on the long-term benefits of investing public money in structured, universally accessible early childhood education. His argument followed a familiar train: “High quality early childhood education (ECE) has widespread and long-lasting effects – not only for children, but for parents and the economy as a whole. . .For every dollar invested, analysis shows the return ranges from roughly $1.5 to almost $3, with the benefit ratio for disadvantaged children being in the double digits.”

There is a certain, hopeful subtext in all of this – the notion that our lives in this country needn’t be proscribed by the procedural manipulations of capital markets, and the cookie-cutter thinking these inevitably produce.

Sometimes, by dint of real imagination, we do spend money on the right things precisely to improve our lot and that of our neighbour. 

We do see the forest for the trees.

 

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May 30 2014
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Economy, Politics

Keeping our own economic promises

 

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The premiers of Canada’s least economically promising provinces display a marvelous esprit de corps, becoming a cheerful band of battle-ready brothers, when their mutual enemies in Fat City rattle their swords.

So it was this week when New Brunswick’s David Alward, Nova Scotia’s Stephen McNeil, Prince Edward Island’s Robert Ghiz and Newfoundland and Labrador’s Tom Marshall emerged from the semi-regular gabfest they dub rather self-importantly, Council of Atlantic Premiers, with agreements to, in effect, throw down the gauntlet on Ottawa’s front yard.

Having agreed to harmonize apprenticeship programs across the region (finally), they raised their voices en mass and called for Ottawa to stop pushing its immigration and jobs-protection agendas in the absence of any credible research or consultation on the subjects. 

Referring to a pending report he and his provincial counterparts commissioned on the impact of federal changes to the Employment Insurance system in the Atlantic region, Premier Ghiz told the Telegraph-Journal, “What this is really about is the Atlantic provinces putting together evidence-based research to take to the federal government that will indicate how the EI changes have negatively affected our region based on the seasonal industries that we have.”

Added Premier Alward: “It’s not just about EI. We can talk about any other changes. When they impactt regions, when they impact provinces, there needs to be a level of consultation before.”

Indeed, said Premier McNeil, the federal government must stop functioning as if it were in a partnership with only itself. “There needs to be a broader consultation between governments. The national government needs to make the provinces part of the decision making that has a huge impact on the regions or programs that are affecting regions.”

Well said, and bully for all of them. Now what? 

It’s true; since snatching power from the wobbly, scandal-riddled Liberals, federal Conservatives have displayed a dreadful lack of respect for the provinces, and not just the ones that hug the East Coast. Our region has, however, always seemed to earn special contempt from the callow, black-hearted, centre-obsessed boys and girls who populate the Prime Minister’s Office. 

Government of Canada reforms to EI seem almost deliberately crafted to cause the most inconvenience and disruption possible in the Atlantic provinces, where seasonality is, alas, one of the defining characteristics of the labour market.

Meanwhile, Employment Minister Jason Kenney’s ban on temporary foreign workers in the restaurant trade will hit the region’s tourist trade disproportionately hard, as the industry draws from an immigrant labour pool that is, alongside all the other evaporating ones, shrinking.

Still, Atlantic Canada’s premiers have complained about these and other slights for years and largely to no avail. Lamentably for Mr. McNeil, et. al, this is not a national government that feels any compelling need, whatsoever, to make the provinces part of its decision making. 

In fact, the federal Tories sometimes leave the impression that if they could shut down this messy Confederation of ours and run the whole show from glass towers impressively arranged along the banks of the Rideau Canal, everyone would be much happier. 

Poorer, for sure; but happier.

In fact, a more profitable use of our regional premiers’ time and energy – given the central government’s utter intractability – would be a full-sail vision quest, the purpose of which would be to translate their periodic displays of unity and filial bonding against a common foe into pragmatic commitments to formal socio-economic cooperation in the region itself.

Atlantic Canada’s real enemy doesn’t dress in blue pinstripes and speak with an Ottawa Valley accent. 

Our real enemy is our own parochial notion that our sputtering engines of growth are somehow stronger functioning apart from one another than they are operating in concert, together. 

Our nemesis is our pride, which cleaves to centuries’ old commercial conventions, long past their best before dates, that helps maintain an ossified culture of inter-provincial barriers against the movement of trade, people and skills.

In this regard, the Atlantic premiers’ decision to take the handcuffs off apprentices   is right and correct. 

But what more can this battle-ready band of brothers do for themselves, for the people they represent, for the region whose economic promise is not yet kept?

 

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