UPDATED: It's Happened Again

 

I'm sad to report that, as per my last post, I seem to have fallen victim yet again to the misremembering syndrome.

Now it involves the Gordie Howe Bridge. This is what I had seemed to remember about the Canadian rates:

The problem with those rates is reflected in this story from the Wall Street Journal, which talks about the 'negotiations' leading to a new opening date of the bridge on July 27th (the original date having been nixed by a mad Trump after the Morouns, the family which owns the Ambassador Bridge and a large donor to Trump, complained about the competition it would pose to them). 

A Canadian official said Washington and Ottawa agreed that half of the net profit the bridge generates would go toward a regional development fund. The official added that the bridge authority would need U.S. approval to increase Gordie Howe tolls by 10% or to cut tolls below levels charged by comparable regional crossings—like the privately held Ambassador Bridge, which already connects Detroit to Windsor.

So the problem would seem to have been the disparity in pricing. Here are the Ambassador Bridge rates:

Were my memory working fine, the problem here would be clear: the Canadian rates would have to rise substantially before Uncle Sam permitted it to open, owing to the Morouns' influence and greed. And sadly, that would mean yet another piece of our sovereignty had been surrendered, without even a token fight. 

UPDATE: For the latest in this sickening drama, click here.

Misremembering Things

 

Sometimes I could swear I am living in the world that George Orwell so presciently predicted in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In that world, history was constantly being rewritten, so that a country that had once been an ally but now an enemy meant that it had always been an enemy. Indeed, entire departments were devoted to constant revisioning of the 'facts'.

Not so long ago, I seem to remember that the MOU signed between the feds and Alberta on constructing another pipeline was contingent on two things: finding the required private investment in the project and the development of the Pathways Carbon Capture project, also to be funded by the private sector. Apparently, that was all part of a false memory.

This is the state of things.

The Alberta government's proposal estimates the pipeline would cost $35.2 to $43.7 billion, with the federal and Alberta governments remaining majority owners in the project. That's despite an earlier promise from Prime Minister Mark Carney — enshrined in his government's memorandum of understanding with Alberta — that the pipeline would be privately financed.

However, the private sector, it turns out, had little interest in investing in what will ultimately be a stranded asset.  Chris Severson Baker, executive director of the Pembina Institute, makes this observation:

"There is simply no private company that is interested in taking this level of risk. They don't see a future in that scale of oilsands production in Canada," Severson-Baker said.

That's because countries in Asia, where Smith wants the oil to end up, are quickly transitioning to electric vehicles and green energy, reducing their future demand for climate-warming oil.

In a scenario where countries around the world continue to lower their emissions and follow all the climate policies they have implemented or proposed until now, the IEA now says that oil demand will peak around 2030 before gradually declining. Ergo, the rewriting of history. 

Andrew Coyne offers this:

There is, of course, the famous agreement between the Prime Minister and the Premier of Alberta to allow a “private sector constructed and financed” pipeline to carry heavy oil to the north coast of British Columbia, now revised as an agreement to build an almost entirely government-financed pipeline to the south coast of British Columbia. 

[Cost: an estimated $35.2-billion to $43.7-billion. And by estimated, I mean “probably four times that amount,” when all the bills are paid.]

How did we get here: from governments doing everything they can to stop pipelines from being built, to governments doing everything they can to ensure they are built?

The answer lies in the canniness of the private sector, which was watching closely, ready to play the system as it always does. Quite aware of the politics at work (Trump's trade madness and Alberta's minority threatening separation), that sector bided its time.

Once potential private sponsors figured out that the pipeline must be built, no matter what, they started visibly trying to game the two governments, claiming the terms of the agreement, namely the increased industrial carbon price and Pathways carbon-capture project, made it too costly for them to participate.

Possibly they hoped they would get the subsidy. Instead, the two governments elected to build it themselves, via the federally owned Trans Mountain Corp. – legacy of a previous pipeline bailout – and the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission, thus calling both the companies’ bluff and their own at the same time.

And the carbon capture project? Well, I misremembered again; it will be built, not by the private sector, but mostly by us, the hapless taxpayers. 

As I get older, like most people I fear cognitive decline, even dementia. The fact that I now have so many 'false' memories makes me wonder how much longer I shall be capable of any semblance of clear thinking.

 

 

 

They Will Destroy All That Is Holy

You probably think that the only thing destroying America is the authoritarianism it has embraced, led by an unhinged man and his cadre of opportunistic enablers. And you can be forgiven for that misconception, given that it is shared by most of the world.

No, the real menace to the U.S.A., according to its leader, is something that most believe no longer poses a threat to America's sovereignty (Cuba and Vietnam are hardly rattling sabres these days, and let's face it, China and America need each other)): communism. Aware of the spreading popularity of progressive Democratic candidates who preach anti-American values such as accessible health care and living wages, Trump used his Mount Rushmore speech as a warcry against those who would destroy his country's exceptionalism. 

A shame that history is no longer taught in any meaningful form in Trump's Amerika, isn't it?

Perhaps the following is more emblematic of his country today?

Happy Canada Day

Watching the following should give us all a deeper appreciation of our own country. I can't imagine any of our representatives speaking to the people with such contempt. This is Troy Edwin Nehls, a Texas congressman. To say that he is a Republican is to state the obvious.

Not A Strategy

 

Depending upon who you read/listen to, Prime Minister Carney's sycophantic behaviour toward Don Trump is either odious but necessary in the lead up to CUSMA talks, or something that does nothing to advance our national goals and everything to erode Canadian pride. SPOILER ALERT: I fall into the second camp.

However, those who justify Carney's ostensibly craven deference toward Trump have some good arguments, but also admit there are limits to that approach. Matt Gurney writes:

We saw some examples recently of Carney’s efforts to say and do things publicly that will please the grandiose president. He lauded Trump’s U.S.-Iran deal, calling the Iran war and the deaths it caused on both sides “worth it.” That’s objectively bonkers:...

Carney also went out of his way to swap chairs with Trump at the G7 annual summit last week, as the president found his own chair uncomfortable. These little symbolic acts, in combination with grander offerings — such as the prime minister’s recent overtures to the U.S. during a speech in New York City — are clearly calculated to flatter Trump and please his administration.

And that’s fine. Good, even. None of the above is meant as criticism. Yes, the Iran stuff is unavoidably eye-rolling, but it’s still very clear what Carney is doing, and Canadians know why he’s doing it. We are stuck in a relationship with a very powerful, increasingly erratic neighbour, about whom perhaps the last thing you can predict is that he likes when people bend the knee for him in public. Carney, correctly and probably necessarily, has made peace with swallowing his pride and doing so on matters — from Iran to uncomfortable chairs — that will cost Canada and his dignity as little as possible. And honestly, I thank him for that.

Gurney warns that this kind of abasement can only take one so far, and bending on substantive issues such as CUSMA would alienate many.

Flattering Trump is perceived as a means to an end. If Ottawa starts making painful concessions, Carney runs the risk that his flattery will be seen not as a necessary evil but part of a broader pattern of subordination to the U.S. And that moment could well be the one that breaks the public’s faith in the prime minister.

On the other side of the issue stands Susan Delacourt, who is unsettled by Carney's actions, despite the fact that it has been echoed by some European leaders,

King Charles hosting a state visit for Trump to France’s Emmanuel Macron treating him to a state dinner at the Palace of Versailles after the G7 meetings wrapped up in that country last week.

 But the real expression of worrying deference was found in Carney’s remarks on the agreement to end the U.S.-Iran war, inked only on the eve of the G7 meeting and not even released in full when the Canadian prime minister gave an interview on CNN.

Carney told Kaitlan Collins he had seen the deal and it was a “game-changer.”

“I have to say it’s exceeded my expectations. We’re very pleased with the deal that’s been struck,” Carney told Collins.

That was pretty bold praise for a deal that really isn’t a deal — it’s a memorandum of understanding, which is proving divisive in the U.S. and attracting concern of what it achieved among Middle East experts. 

It is not being well-received by foreign policy experts either. 

[N]ational security expert Wesley Wark has noticed the pattern and posted some blistering criticism over the weekend, under the heading of “Mark Carney’s bad calls on Iran.” Wark outlines why Carney’s description of the deal, not to mention his views on the war itself, are out of line with serious intelligence analysis of the situation.

Like others, Wark is chalking this up to the new normal of overpraising Trump and urges that Canada reconsider falling into that trap. “If the instinct piece is based on some sense that flattering the U.S. president is a good strategy, surely we are well past that,” Wark writes.

It is difficult to see that any of this sycophancy is yielding any results. Trump is still talking about terminating CUSMA, still talking about destroying our car industry, and, to our increasing immediate discomfort, still stopping the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge, which Canada paid for entirely. Will the next Carney manoeuver be to give the Americans half of it?

In his Davos speech, Carney said that nostalgia is not a strategy. One hopes that, before he does more damage to Canada's pride and its prospects, he will come to realize that neither is appeasement.

 

 

 

Why Is This Man Exuberant?

 

Well, he has just become a trillionaire, one of the many reasons Elon Musk must feel chuffed these days. Being a master of the universe is surely a heady experience, one denied to almost everyone on the planet. But this visionary entrepreneur, according to a recent column by Mark McQueen, represents an opportunity for all of us, and should be thus lionized, not villified as he is by many:

I don’t care whether Musk is personally worth $1 billion or $1 trillion — both are tough to fathom. But he didn’t steal that money from his neighbours, like some embezzling tinpot dictator. And by allowing others to invest alongside him, Musk’s actually sharing his unique gifts in a far more tangible way than the world’s most talented opera singer or footballer.

Do you want to guess which group of Canadians probably don’t hate him? The beneficiaries of the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan.

A canny $300 million pre-IPO investment into SpaceX is now worth more than $20 billion to 346,000 Ontario teachers. It’s a windfall that must surely be the single best payday in the history of their plan. For every teacher in the plan, the pension fund has already gained over $35,000 from Musk’s efforts — capital that can be used to enhance future pension benefits or reduce payroll deductions.

Silicon Valley’s much maligned “Bro culture” delivered handsomely for our educators, a sector that’s about 75 per cent female.

Not so fast, says Star letter-writer Tony D'Anrea of Toronto:

Mark McQueen argues that entrepreneurs who amass millions or trillions are good for Canada because their success helps fund teachers’ pensions — 75 per cent female, no less. On first glance, his claim that one man’s towering fortune lifts us all seems a prosperous insight. But it does not follow that every rich person’s singular fortune is a social good.

McQueen treats Elon Musk becoming a trillionaire as a win-win. Instead it’s a zero-sum game. Adam Smith wrote convincingly about how self-interest working cooperatively achieved “the wealth of nations.” There is no proof that the wealth of one man benefits a greater number.

The “rising tide” defence of extreme wealth requires the tide to actually rise. Consider the ledger. Musk spent $250 million helping elect Donald Trump, then ran DOGE, which gutted some of the very programs McQueen credits the wealthy with sustaining. USAID dismantled. Children’s cancer research defunded. The Department of Education abolished. A boon for Canada’s teachers’ pensions is cold comfort in the face of all this gutting of programs. Some of these programs may have even benefitted Canadians down the road. 

The issue is not entrepreneurship but scale. Beyond a certain point, extreme wealth purchases political influence, reshapes public priorities and amplifies one individual’s power over millions. No Musk fortune, no Trump war in Iran, no daily trauma visited on the Cuban people and no unending disruptions of the world order.

A trillion dollars in one pocket is not a social dividend. It’s a bill the rest of the world is paying.

Readers of McQueen’s millionaires’ prosperity gospel should remember: “caveat emptor”.

With great power comes great responsibility, something people of Elon Musk's ilk seem to have conveniently forgotten.

Meet The Enemy

If you have young children or grandchildren, you will know who this lovely lady is. Unfortunately, In Trump's Amerika, she is regarded by some as a treasonous subversive for her advocacy.