Friday, July 28, 2017

Canadian Apathy 1: Even After Voluntarily Providing $10M to Khadr, Liberals Likely to Face 2019 Re-Election

As shocking as it sounds, even after protecting citizenship for known and convicted terrorists and doling out $10M to the Canadian-born Omar Khadr, even on the 4th of July and payment unnecessarily accelerated while Parliament was not even sitting (that is, no chance of debate), this band of self-righteous do-gooders (all "for the middle class", of course), are likely facing another victory in 2019.  If this is happening now in year two of the Liberals' term, what will Canada look like after 2019? God help us....

http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/emerging-polling-trend-suggests-khadr-settlement-may-not-have-hurt-liberals-after-all/wcm/387208e0-45ed-4290-9a7a-922ab463c516

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Liberal Looney Tunes: Where is Premier Wynne - In Her Office? No, the Courthouse in Sudbury


Thanks to bribery charges related to Pat Sorbara, former Deputy Chief of Staff and Gerry Lougheed Jr. involving a by-election in Sudbury (where Andrew Olivier was to stand down and make way for Glenn Thibault....out of the goodness of his heart?) this episode of "Liberal Looney Tunes" will be playing out in a Sudbury courthouse where The Kathleen will be on the stand defending her underhanded, tax everyone incredulously to pay for their pensions and the pensions of those unionist groups that support the reality challenged Liberal way of environment, labour, economics and debt.

How can a party this low be elected? Sadly, with Canadians' empathy to elected officials, the Liberals will likely win the next election.

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/chris-selley-kathleen-wynne-witness-for-the-prosecution/wcm/e11eab81-52cd-415a-901b-b03720afef39

The Justin's Two-Faced, Passive Aggressive Politics Puzzle Is One Piece Closer to Completion

The Federal Liberals, trying to please everyone and spinning every decision and platform mandate into separate responses to please the public at large (like a high school student council), has just received the greatest gift.

Although announcing the Liberals are for two key pipelines thereby appearing pro-economic growth and risking backlash from the environmental crusaders and extremists, now has the piece in hand (well, in BC) to allow the "democracy of Canada to unfold" and kill at least one of these "approved" projects.

This gives the Federal Liberals the perfect situation of washing its hands from this controversial decision - the Liberals look pro-growth, but their provincial counterparts actually kill the pipeline washing away the risk of loss of votes from his environmentally obsessed voter base.

I do remember Jim Carr, Minister of Natural Resources making a comment to a group of Alberta business leaders two days after approving the $7B pipeline project about calling in the military if he needed to (a comment that he apologized for - wait, was that the sound of another Liberal apologizing?).   

Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.  I suspect Jim Carr and his merry band of soft Liberals will not put up the fight.

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-ivison-trudeau-and-new-b-c-premier-come-to-an-agreement-dont-mention-the-pipeline/wcm/3be682af-cc65-44fe-ba1d-943419d4d52f

Canada is a Big Country: Some Perspective on How Green and Sustainable Canada Is

These are the extrapolative and underhanded tactics invoke fear and guilt.  Using simple math and if every Canadian knew more of their country (ex. an appreciation of how big this land mass we know as the best country in the world, despite its problems - some of which have been discussed on this blog), then Canadians would be able to dismiss such comparisons between what Canada does and can do versus say Germany in this example.

The Europeans are associated more with "greener" initiatives; however, their landmasses are MAGNITUDES smaller, their urban footprints are smaller as they typically are living in smaller and older style apartments due to "urban planning" centuries before even ships made to explore the New World were even dreamed of

Groups, as in this article, have taken "apples and oranges" comparisons to the highest degree in misrepresenting the urgency of any environmental situation, even going so far as to creating them. Thank you Peter Foster.

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/peter-foster-protecting-canadians-from-fake-eco-news/wcm/9f02053e-7bd8-45e2-93c0-c80d922a2a08

Natural Born Economic Killers: BC's NDP

With opportunities of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), pipelines and mining available within the borders of its province (not even having to go out of its way to attract these industries), BC could have made its own provincial economy look like Alberta's on steroids during the early 2000s when oil approached US$147/barrel.

But no, succumbing to all things "sustainable", all economic prosperity is bad, anything to do with oil will not happen in the Pacific Time Zone (or in other words, things are different west of those mountains), tens of thousands of job will not come to fruition and future tax bases for the NDP government to invoke their idyllic green agenda will have vanished.

BC obviously did not learn from its neighbour to the east (Alberta).  It looks like two houses (provinces) are going to be burning down soon.

http://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/a-tragedy-for-canada-petronas-cancels-36b-lng-project-as-b-c-jacks-up-demands/wcm/de2567c8-499d-489f-9dec-3826a01c932c

Oops: Your Foolish Ontario Liberals and Waste of Tax Dollars at Work....

Well, there it is. The Kathleen's "vision" all represented on a nice cartoon like diagram.  Simple, idyllic, truthful and easy to understand, right? Who knows how much this study cost (I will do some digging); however, the depiction is out of touch with the simplest of realities - a road grader versus a tractor for farming. Now the updated picture has been doctored and neither grader nor tractor is there.

Here is your Ontario for the future - electric cars, gardens and quiet, carbon free trains all co-existing in the same little neighbourhoods (if someone agrees to "in their backyard").

The question is - who and how is this going to be paid for? I suppose it will be "balanced" budgets where The Kathleen and her Merry Band of Taxing Liberals will borrow more and receive more and more federal handouts.  Somehow, that is "balanced".

http://nationalpost.com/g00/news/canada/ontario-climate-change-report-weirdly-shows-a-highway-grader-destroying-a-farm/wcm/2e4ea165-9b46-4d96-808f-b8f3a6110a31?i10c.referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fnationalpost.com%2Fg00%2F%3Fi10c.referrer%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Ftu9srvbirvvtmjekbmf0aw9uywxwb3n0lmnvbq00.g00.financialpost.com%252Fg00%252F2_YnVzaW5lc3MuZmluYW5jaWFscG9zdC5jb20%25253D_%252FTU9SRVBIRVVTMjEkaHR0cDovL25hdGlvbmFscG9zdC5jb20v_%2524%252F%2524


Sunday, July 23, 2017

Hydro One: Trading Aftermath

Upon announcement of the proposed transaction, Hydro One (TSX:H) shares felt the usual acquiror pain on the first day of trading. However, since then the shares have recovered and are not "basically flat" but are "exactly flat".

Very unusual in trading that such a steady share price has been maintained. What does this mean?

First of all, the dividend for shareholders will be maintained.  That means the business of Hydro One will have to be managed with this in mind. However, this is where things become curious.

Don't forget the Ontario Liberals headed by " The Kathleen" and her Merry Band of Taxing Liberals are also a shareholder. As such, the Ontario government will also receive dividends in addition to the extra delivery charges, carbon taxes etc that are showing on your bill every month.

The Ontario government also controls, sets and allows the prices to be charged for a utility (ie electricity). As a shareholder, will the Kathleen allow a dividend to be forgone for the greater good of Ontarians?  In other words, the Kathleen will allow and approve price increases such that Hydro One (and its Ontario territory) is guaranteed a profit and even further allowed operate without the loss of jobs as most "real" businesses ( publicly listed companies ) have to face when dealing with a "real" income and cash flow statement.

Buy Hydro One for the safety of the dividend because you might as well benefit from the higher rates coming to support this conflict ridden, pseudo - communist operating regime that we see in countries like China and Russia.