Skip to main content

Harper forms his new cabinet

No real surprise here, any new government is constrained by regional representation.  For Quebec, which sent five conservatives to the Ottawa parliament, four made the cut to minister, which is high.  But then Quebec is about 1/5 of Canada’s total population.  The entire cabinet (28) dictates (unfortunately) this level of representation.  Some look really smart, others have been given position where they can do little harm.

It is too early to say how this cabinet will perform; the big jobs remain in the hands of Haprer’s trusted lieutenants, so continuity should be the name of the game here.  The budget (which led to the May 2, election) will be presented to parliament for its approval, and with a 12 seat majority should pass easily.  The conservative nature of this budget (with target to reduce the Federal government deficit by 2015/16) will probably be well received by most Canadians and is especially relevant given Canada’s economic strength.  The Federal government should be looking at diminishing its presence in the economy, as the private sector expands.

Harper is a smart operator, facing a new (and very inexperienced) opposition formed by the NDP – now a “Quebec” party with 60 of its 103 members elected in the province.

One action that left many Canadians surprised was the reappointment of all three “ex-senators” which had resigned to run for parliament.  This has created some comments in the press – since the idea that a resignation from the Senate is a permanent affaire, and not a 30 day holiday, it also jeopardizes the concept of separation of the two chambers.  Finally, to my personal disgust, Ms Bev Oda was retained, she which lied to parliament, and was caught, a first in Canadian parliamentary history, which may be a sign that Harper’s belief in Canada’s democratic institutions is skin deep, and will be ignored when it is convenient.

On the economic front, not much news fit to print over the past few days, aside from Canada's TIC report, wholesale sales numbers were out this morning, not much excitement there in terms of trend or direction...

Popular posts from this blog

Ok so I lied...a little (revised)

When we began looking at farming in 2013/14 as something we both wanted to do as a "second career" we invested time and money to understand what sector of farming was profitable.  A few things emerged, First, high-quality, source-proven, organic farm products consistently have much higher profit margins.  Secondly, transformation accounted for nearly 80% of total profits, and production and distribution accounted for 20% of profits: Farmers and retailers have low profit margins and the middle bits make all the money. A profitable farm operation needs to be involved in the transformation of its produce.  The low-hanging fruits: cheese and butter.  Milk, generates a profit margin of 5% to 8%, depending on milk quality.  Transformed into cheese and butter, and the profit margin rises to 40% (Taking into account all costs).  Second:  20% of a steer carcass is ground beef quality.  The price is low, because (a) a high percentage of the carcass, and (b)...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spray painting Taylor Swift G650 aircraft (updated)

 First, a bit of paint will not harm anyone.  These climate activities are going to learn two things in the next few days:  (1) Trespassing at an airport is a felony almost anywhere in the world.  That means criminal prosecution.   (2) removing paint from an aircraft is expensive.   So these climate activists are about to find out the reach of the British criminal system and it will not be pleasant, the UK has very strict laws about that, I would be surprised if cleaning the aircraft of all the paint will cost less than $100,000.     I am sure that when they planned (premeditation) this little show they had a very valid logic to doing this.  Tonight, they are probably realizing the depth of their troubles.   I understand that in the UK it's a minimum one-year jail sentence.    Also, good luck travelling with a criminal trespass charge against you.  I am relatively certain that the airline industry will ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Janet Yellen from China supporter to Hawk...

There is rarely serious news in the world these days, it seems that most newspapers are filled with headlines and little else, and then Ms Yellen went to China.  Secretary Yellen has long been known in the Biden administration as the voice of moderation when dealing with China, yet as her trip which concluded yesterday a hawk was born:  She warned the Chinese against dumping goods in the United States.    fighting words! The American administration is very concerned about the lack of Chinese domestic consumption.   Even before the COVID-19 epidemic, there were already the beginning signs of a slowdown, automobile sales were off.   China is facing domestic deflation (a clear sign of collapsing demand) China imports few consumer goods, they import raw materials and intermediary goods.   It seems that the American administration is concerned that the Chinese administration will dump consumer goods abroad to keep its manufacturing machinery ...
Post a Comment
Read more