Wednesday, October 31, 2018

LNG: And The Opposition Has Started...

The Green Party and David Suzuki trying to stir up the controversy despite First Nations' blessinfg of this project. 

Commemorative Two Dollar Coin - The End of WW1

For a small nation of eight million people then, Canada punched well above its weight and was a significant and well respected force on the world stage during the First World War.  More than 650,000 Canadians served during the First World War, along with more than 12,000 from Newfoundland and Labrador (later to join Canada).

https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/royal-canadian-mint-commemorates-the-100th-anniversary-of-the-end-of-the-first-world-war-with-2-armistice-circulation-coin-697584261.html

Thursday, October 25, 2018

Bank of Canada Interest Rate Hike? Why, How?

How the BoC sees the world is beyond many of us. 

For those in the same real estate boat, with mortgage renewals due, the sooner the better to make your choices.  Two year fixed here.

https://business.financialpost.com/investing/david-rosenberg-things-arent-nearly-rosy-as-the-bank-of-canada-believes#comments-area

Canada's Former Finance Minister: A Voice of Reason

From a BNN interview today...

How competition is being killed in Canada through proposed carbon taxes, lack of pipelines as it relates to the very significant oil and gas industry and the depreciation practices in the USA that are attracting more foreign investment and capital expenditures.

Link to interview to be posted later...


ETFs: Not Yet RRSP Time, But Never Too Early To Start Thinking

ETFs have emerged as a popular method of personal investing at a substantially lower cost.  Basically, rather than invest in a mutual fund and pay a nameless fund manager in a tall office tower (approximately 2.0% of your valuein the mutual fund) every year - whether a good or a bad year - an investor could buy a static group of stocks (based around a theme, an industry, size of companies, geography, etc) and pay around ~0.5% simply for the administration of the fund. 

Here are some things to think about when reviewing the THOUSANDS of ETFs available.

https://business.financialpost.com/investing/investing-pro/not-all-etfs-are-created-equal-heres-what-investors-need-to-know

This Liberal Government Says It Is For Veterans, Yet Also Does Not Have Enough to Pay What They Are Asking For - Here is What the "Progress" on Bill C-12 Says...

https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=E&billId=8166461&View=8

Editd excerpt: "Bill C-12 amends the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act to, among other things...
increase the percentage in the formula used to calculate the earnings loss benefit;
specify when a disability award becomes payable and clarify the formula used to calculate the amount of a disability award; 
increase the amounts of a disability award; and
increase the amount of a death benefit."

In addition, it contains transitional provisions that provide, among other things, that the Minister of Veterans Affairs must pay, to a person who received a disability award or a death benefit under that Act before April 1, 2017, an amount that represents the increase in the amount of the disability award or the death benefit, as the case may be."




Thursday, October 11, 2018

One View of Climate Change

According to former MIT professor Richard Lindzen, one of the world’s leading climate-science skeptics,

“...a complex multifactor system,” can be summed up by one variable — changes in global average temperature — which is primarily influenced by just one variable, carbon dioxide emissions, is “an extraordinary pair of claims based on reasoning that borders on magical thinking.” He added: “An implausible conjecture backed by false evidence and repeated incessantly has become politically correct ‘knowledge,’ and is used to promote the overturn of industrial civilization.”

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/terence-corcoran-carbon-tax-lovers-and-liberals-celebrate-a-trade-warmonger

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Halifax, Football and Thanksgiving - October 28th Is The Next Day for CFL Expansion Team

Momentum continues.  The Down Home - "Atlantic" Kitchen Party will be a co-hosted event this year at Edmonton's Grey Cup, showing a step closer to "Schooner" football out east and the CFL's 10th team (the scheduling gods are smiling).

https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/video/what-s-the-latest-on-the-cfl-s-possible-expansion-to-halifax~1508553

USMCA: Is it Really Fun To Stay In This USMCA? Details Of the Dairy Industry Now Emerging and the Farmers Don't Like It!

"The pact, which also includes Mexico, will give the U.S. greater access to Canada’s protected dairy market, eliminate the nation’s new milk-pricing system and restrict the sector’s ability to export. While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to compensate farmers to cushion the blow, industry groups say past experience has shown that aid packages amount to a “pittance,” and the government won’t be able to cover the financial hit the industry is poised to take."


https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/agriculture/dairy-farmers-doubtful-trudeaus-aid-pledge-will-help-as-industry-faces-1-billion-in-yearly-losses

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

As If The Trans Mountain PIpeline Could Not Become Worse - It Becomes More Vague: Liberals Throw Out Any and All Timelines On the Project The Liberals Purchased (With Our Tax Dollars)

With all the legal, enviromental and initial financial resoruces in hand (up until the recent Supreme Court decision to which it should never have been escalated and at least backing from the previous owner) this Liberal government chooses to forego appealing any Supreme Court decisions surrounding the Trans Canada pipeline and after three years of governing, NOW wants to sit down and "consult" with those parties that have claimed they were not consulted properly. 

This is not a case of speaking with a few dissidents.  No, in fact, "the government will re-initiate consultations with all 117 indigenous groups impacted by the project". 

"The minister was asked during the press conference on how he can hold consultations when it looks like the government has already decided to build the pipeline expansion, which it bought from Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd. earlier this year for C$4.5 billion ($3.5 billion). He said the government wouldn’t cap the length of indigenous consultation, and approach it with an “open mind and good faith". 

Having spent C$4.5B in taxes, the Liberals are in no way motivated to see this initiative through.

This leaves cannabis legalization as the only thing the Liberal government has accomplished in its term.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-03/canada-won-t-appeal-pipeline-ruling-relaunches-consultation

LNG and Bill C-69: It Has Already Started - Liberals Looking For Ways To Kill Recent LNG Announcement

"Additionally, Bill C-69 requires consideration of how a project will impact Canada’s climate change obligations. However, it does not specify whether this assessment would include upstream or downstream greenhouse-gas emissions. Nor indicate how carbon pricing should be considered. Importantly, courts have yet to confirm the federal government’s jurisdiction under the constitution to regulate GHGs."

https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/ottawas-new-environmental-assessment-law-is-set-to-trample-all-over-provincial-rights

Cracks in the Vancouver Housing Market: 40% Decrease in Sales

http://business.financialpost.com/real-estate/real-estate-board-reports-metro-vancouver-home-sales-down-sharply

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

New LNG Pipeline: Let the "Have Not Been Consulted" Playbook Begin...Again

Although NAFTA (or now, USMCA...saying it to that infamous 70s tune) was an important and attention grabbing deal that had to be completed in some way, the Liberals have not pounded their chest on this one?

Why?

Is it because: the Liberals are masters of delaying (into the next election, like Trans Mountain), ii) the passive-aggressive tactics the Liberals use allow them to say words and appear "pro-pipeline" or in this case "pro-LNG"; however, there actions are sabotage appeasing also the protesters (at least letting the protesters think they have won...for now), or iii) the ad hoc and erratic "consultation process" has not been determined on this huge economic opportunity (waiting to see how the protest movement and environmental extremists are going to spin this one and mobilize). 

Who knows.  The fact that this has not been given the attention or been the lightning rod as much as Trans Mountain leads me to believe this is as far as LNG is going to go. 

I hope I am wrong.

https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/update-3-massive-canada-lng-project-gets-green-light-as-asia-demand-for-fuel-booms