A Pittance! Liberals Have the Gall to Offer a Measly $1.6 Billion to Alberta's Oil Producing Industry....In the Form of Loans!?!?

Just when you think this government could not act any more childish, mean spirited (in a political sense) or just plain idiotic, Justin and his band of reality challenged cohorts never cease to amaze.

As if this $1.6B is going to plug any holes in the already bursting dam (of capital fleeing from an important industry in Canada).  Just a sign of the times...and "sunny ways".

As an aside, and adding insult to injury, MP Sohi is the one appointed to look after this file, one of the most important files currently for Canada (Immigration being the other).  It appears he is so over his head with incompetence in this role, that Jim ("Dude where's my...") Carr had to show up to stand next to Sohi as that was Carr's previous role - to help Sohi with the buzz words of the industry he has not learned yet?.

What is  more ironic, Carr is the Minister of Trade Diversification! The Liberals are doing everything possible to REDUCE diversity of trade especially as it pertains to Alberta's oil sands!

https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/what-is-ottawas-energy-loan-program-and-will-it-actually-help-canadas-battered-oilpatch?video_autoplay=true

Bank of Canada Rates Unchanged: Thank The Liberals For Bungling Canada's Energy Industry and its Contribution to Economic Growth That May be “Materially Weaker”

In the USA, the unemployment rate is closer to 4%, and is not complacent about it.  Here in Canada we are supposed to jump for joy at 6%.  The impacts of pipelines lacking is finally resulting in the rose colour coming off economists' and BoC's glasses.

What's that I hear? I think I hear a sigh of relief from real estate agents and mortgage brokers.

https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/bank-of-canada-holds-interest-rate-at-1-75-per-cent

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-04/falling-car-sales-are-latest-sign-of-rate-hikes-hitting-canada?srnd=premium-canada

Bill C-69 Link to Document

Here is the Summary section...

https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/bill/C-69/third-reading#itemSUMMARY

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

More Anti-USA Liberal Shenanigans: No Invite to the USA For An Ottawa Hosted Summit

Apparently, this is what "like-minded countries" looks like. 

https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/u-s-not-invited-to-canadas-save-the-wto-summit-of-13-like-minded-countries

It is clear the Liberals' strategy heading into the 2019 election is to stir up the anti-American sentiments.  They have nothing else of substance, so stoop to new lows.


http://www.lapresse.ca/affaires/economie/canada/201810/04/01-5199017-le-canada-exclut-les-etats-unis-dun-sommet-sur-lomc.php

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

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

This Just In....Still No NAFTA Deal!

Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland just heading into another meeting again.  Answers to the same ongoing questions later today

Meanwhile, Minister of Trade Diversification Jim "Dude Where's My" Carr (due to recent cabinet shuffle) is invisible. 

Dude Where is Jim Carr?

Just learned, during this tumultuous and precarious week with a NAFTA looming over us and a worthless C$5B pipeline purchase which sends negative signals for foreign investment, Minister of "International" Trade Diversification is in...Singapore?
 
Just saw him on a Bloomberg interview.  Wow he really chows down on those talking points sheets and regurgitates them repeatedly.  This guy does not need TUMS for buzz words. 

The Only One Feeling Relief Today is the ex-Minister of Natural Resources ("Dude, Where is...") Jim Carr

Where oh where is the new Minister of Natural Resources Amarjeet Sohi? Personal day? I suppose Jim Carr is wiping his brow and sighing relief right now!

Shuffle, Shuffle, Shuffle....Where's the Peanut? Trudeau's Anticipated Cabinet Moves Result in...Larger Cabinet With Newly Promoted Ministers Picking Up Important Files For A Year - Less All the Campaign Time Leading Up to October, 2019

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/trudeau-shuffles-cabinet-moving-six-ministers-to-new-portfolios-and-adding-new-positions

If MP Jim Carr will be as silent while Minister of Natural Resources as he was during the lead up to the pipeline expansion fiasco purchase ("I have to catch a plane in five minutes"), we have no hope on the International Trade portfolio.

As expected, Bill Blair was promoted but is now our only answer to border control crisis as Trudeau distances himself, his tweets and the Liberal party away from it.

MP Dominic LeBlanc moves from Fisheries to take on Intergovernmental Affairs and will be the one sent to the lion's den in dealing with Premier Doug Ford.

Campaign time has started. Game on! Let's go Scheer!

"Trade Wars: A New Dope" - Trudeau Now Using Canada's Military History In Response to US Tariffs and "Security Threat"; Stoke the Patriotic Fires Now Justin, But Still No Substance in Your Arguments

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/lawrence-solomon-trudeau-starts-a-trade-war-for-political-points-were-the-casualties

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/trudeau-after-bungling-it-on-trade-and-pipelines-needs-better-advice-fast#comments-area

"..If Canada’s negotiators want to do what’s best for Canada, they should stop posturing before they do more damage to our industries. For starters, they should stop misrepresenting the U.S. position on steel and aluminum tariffs. The U.S. never claimed that Canada represents a national security threat, as Trudeau keeps repeating. To the contrary, the U.S. has specifically said these tariffs are not aimed at any one country: without tariffs to protect American steel and aluminum from foreign suppliers, these industries, which America needs for national defence, would go bankrupt..."
.
"...A decade ago, Canada had a US$78 billion trade surplus with the U.S. That surplus was more than halved to US$32 billion five years ago and it was halved again to US$17 billion last year. Five years from now, our ever-shrinking surplus with the U.S. may start to become an ever-growing deficit, particularly since the U.S. has blown past us as a producer of energy — our main exports to the U.S. We are not only at risk of losing this financial mainstay, with the U.S. no longer needing us for energy security, we are also at risk of becoming strategically unimportant..."

"The Canadian dollar has never been so weak in the face of rising oil prices"

Canada, get used to it...at least until late 2019 election time.

http://business.financialpost.com/investing/why-ottawas-pipeline-gambit-wont-save-the-lagging-loonie

Quarterly GDP Slowing, Real Estate Market Slowing, Loonie Lagging, Pipeline Expansion in Limbo, NAFTA Negotiations Stalling - Trudeau, Morneau, Carr Where Art Thou?

The Liberals borrowing platform and investment thesis just took a punch in the face so far in 2018, with the usual reasons as to "why" and "what" supports such levels of bloated borrowing are no longer there.

Even Bank of Canada's Poloz' aggressive stance on a trend of rate hikes to "combat inflation" and bring some life to the Loonie is now rumoured to be a stall at best.

Where are the "Sunny Ways" now Justin?


http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/newsalert-canadian-economy-grew-at-a-1-3-per-cent-annualized-pace-in-first-quarter-2

No Surprise...C$ Continues Its Slide With One Liberal Gaffe After Another....

Well, You Don't See That On Craigslist Everyday: "For Sale: Stalled Pipeline Project, Protesters Included"

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-18/for-sale-stalled-pipeline-project-angry-protesters-included

@bill_morneau, #TeamTrudeau, @jimcarr_wpg, @jjhorgan

As if A Lack of Action on A Pipeline Expansion and an Uncertain NAFTA Agreement Are Not Enough, Canadian CEOs Are Waking Up to Additional Liberal Taxes: Whose Interests Do Justin, Morneau and the Invisible Jim Carr Have?

"....The chief executive of a large Canadian company said he was at a Vancouver board of trade dinner this week.

“The level of foreign investment has never been so low and continues to fall off a cliff. There is a real, genuine, honest, non-partisan concern that Canada is so completely out of touch with the real world,” he said..."

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-ivison-the-slow-bleeding-of-corporate-canada-is-about-to-get-underway-and-only-morneau-can-stop-it

With All Legal Power, Consultation Results and Environmental Studies At Their Feet, the Liberals Have, Of All Things, "Uncertainty" To Blame

Yes he actually said that.  Full marks for being at least "visible" during this conflicting time between BC and Alberta. A little more rehearsed in his wording (at least not rushing for a flight), but still nothing to say, add or clarify about the pipeline expansion through BC.  With all the power to put this pipeline expansion in motion, Jim Carr blames "Uncertainty".  Huh?!

http://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/scrums/episodes/60946773

Finally Justin, Notley and Horgen Have Met: Why Did This Meeting Not Take Place Six Months Earlier?

“We are going to get the pipeline built. It is a project in the national interest”

It makes for great photo ops and headlines for Justin, but realistically it took the threat of Kinder Morgan pulling out to get these three sides together and for Trudeau to finally and seriously review the government's legal obligations and tools.

Still, Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr is playing the invisible man. @jimcarr_wpg

http://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/carrots-wont-do-with-john-horgan-its-time-for-the-prime-minister-to-use-the-stick

http://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/trudeau-seeks-talks-with-kinder-to-get-pipeline-to-pacific-built

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-15/kinder-gridlock-deepens-as-trudeau-fails-to-ease-provincial-rift

Dude, Where's Jim Carr? Liberals Doing A Commendable Job Of Keeping Canada's Resources Landlocked And Worthless

It's official, 1) Justin and his merry band of Liberals have just shown who their "favourite child (province)" is as well as 2) provinces can now over-ride the Government of Canada on Federal Issues. I'm tired of paying Federal tax - can the province throw that out the window too? Oh wait, Kathleen receives $20 Billion to $25 Billion from the feds annually.

After having APPROVED the pipeline and previously making comments about "military" clearing the way if warranted (later "apologizing" - a lot of apologies in this Liberal government), where oh where is Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr these days?

http://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/kinder-morgan-considering-investing-elsewhere-if-trans-mountain-pipeline-untenable