Canada’s Corrupt Liberal Government

The consensus in Canada is clear to most of us — even irrefutable — that Prime Minister Mark Carney has done very little if anything to make Jewish people in this country feel safer or more content. His contributions to rising antisemitism and divisive behaviour haven’t bothered most of his supporters, however, judging by the popularity polls.

Mark Carney keeps saying he’s running a new government, not just a sequel to the Justin Trudeau years.

This week, Canadians may finally have to admit he’s right. As the door opens to a new Alberta pipeline, Carney closed the door on the Trudeau era.

No one can say they weren’t warned. In his Canada Day video, the prime minister flatly stated that his federal government needed to back off on Trudeau’s climate policy, even as he recalled teenage memories of Alberta’s grievances with Ottawa.

Wishful thinking.

CALGARY — The chief executive of Crown lender Farm Credit Canada (FCC) billed taxpayers more than $182,000 in expenses last year — nearly four times the amount claimed by her predecessor — while simultaneously urging employees to cut travel costs and “tighten the belt.”

(Incognito)

I have long been a cynic about the chances of a second bitumen pipeline being built from Alberta to the West Coast.

After the events and announcements of Thursday, move me up into the category of skeptic.

I don’t trust a word Carney says. He is an alien to me. Others have doubts …

Pipelines faced key challenges in the past. Can Alberta’s overcome them?

Proposals to build new Canadian pipelines have faced multiple challenges over recent years that have seen projects delayed or derailed repeatedly — and those challenges could offer clues into some of the issues developers behind the newly announced project from Alberta to B.C.’s coast will need to tackle.

From financial hurdles, including proving the project can actually make a profit, to consulting with Indigenous communities and navigating environmental regulations and fees, these projects are seldom easy to get started.

For an alleged economic wizard, Prime Minister Mark Carney has been rather underwhelming on the fiscal file since assuming office. In fact, he has appeared outright inept, and the condo bailout in BC demonstrates it in spades. If the actions of the Carney government can’t be attributed to ineptitude, it signals something much worse.

One of the perverse joys of politics is when an elected official looks you in the eye and tells you that the thing going on directly in front of your face is not happening.

This happened twice during Mark Carney’s Oprah giveaway day on Thursday: You get a port! And you get a tunnel! And everybody gets a pipeline, whether or not they want one!

Prime Minister Mark Carney has answered the question of what it’s going to take to build a new oil pipeline in Canada – a gusher of about $60 billion of taxpayer money, for starters.

That’s up to $43.7 billion (minimum estimate $35.2 billion) for a pipeline from Alberta’s oilsands to southern B.C., 90% funded by federal and Alberta taxpayers, with 10% initially and up to 20% eventually coming from the Pembina Pipeline Corporation.

In the early 1980s, I read a book about personal finance that dramatically changed my life — by almost destroying it. I was tripped up by my naivety in not knowing that while strategy is good, strategy well timed is much better. I got the timing part wrong. The apartment was bought with maximum leverage (i.e. debt) and was located near a popular ski resort. Such was my strategy. The five units, converted to condominiums, hit the real estate market just as Pierre Trudeau announced the National Energy Program. Buyers disappeared. The bank that held my rather large mortgage also took possession of a 150-unit condominium project that went bankrupt, completed the construction, and offered three months’ free rent to new tenants. All of my renters left for these greener pastures. I went to the bank manager and screamed at him — literally.