Panglossian Notes

I wonder how we ensure our claim?

It seems that some Canadian bloggers maybe waking up to the oil & natural gas (O&G) potential in the high arctic.

The article in the To Star referenced at the cathiefromcanada blog doesn't really go into to many details about the rather large O&G potential in the north. Nor for that matter some of the other interesting things that have been happening while the government of Canada's view was almost solely focused south of 60º.

The Star article makes a guess that PM Harper's comments in the Common's foyer regarding the US ambassador's statement about sovereignty in the north are likely just good PR bluster.

I guess I tend to agree.

I'll bet most Canadians haven't heard of: Pat Broe from Denver. But they might in the future, eh. He's the guy that bought the old Hudson Bay port facility in Churchhill Manitoba for $7 in 1997. Wonder whether he paid for it with USD or CAD.

With natural gas prices seeming to be ever on the rise (even through there are day to day drops in price the trend is up), high arctic projects are starting to look better and better. CERI has updated its report on the Melville Island's Drake Point and Hecla natural gas fields for example.

I think PetroCan has the main interest in these fields. Discovered in the hay day of northern O&G exploration and likely heavily subsidized by Canadian taxpayers either through "super depletion" or the famous Petroleum Incentive Program (PIP) which itself was part of the Alberta hated NEP.

To give a view of what things look like from the to of the world have a peek at this map. It helps to put some things into focus, I hope. PM Harpers is talking about putting a military style harbour facility in Iqaluit - which is a 100 or so miles down the Frobisher Bay from the Davis Strait.

Iqaluit likely made some sense during WWII and part of the "cold war", the former as an airport in ferrying planes to Britain and the latter as a fuel station and radar center, put now who knows. Its the capital of Nunavut but really there is very little economic activity with the city other than government or birth right organization supported.

The US has 2 coast guard icebreakers which are stationed, I think, in Seattle.

If the arctic file heats up, want to bet that they will be stationed closer to the action.

What is that famous Northwest Passage anyways.

It of course has been a number of things but again, thanks to Athropolis, here is a map showing the concept over time.

Notice that until the permanent sea ice actually does melt the passage cuts south of Victoria Island and goes right pass Cambridge Bay - very close to Gjoa Haven also (I think Amundsen ship is still there in the harbour just sunk). Now if you are close to Cambridge bay you are close to Bathurst Inlet which is a natural deep sea harbour.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Nunavut, Politics

Follow up from else where

Just a couple of pictures of ice breakers in the spring in Iqaluit.

Never sure what Harper maybe about with his "armed breakers".

If the ice doesn't go out of Iqaluit by the end of June the breakers are always there. Sea lift starts in July after all, eh.

Then the beautifies, of course, are needed to re-supply Grise, Nanasivik for fuel no more, eh.

We do have a presents in the Arctic. It is the Inuit.

The Rangers are there - ever wonder why so many Inuit can be full/active members of the Legion and don't need to dig up some poor rotted ancestor to have the prevelge of drinking in the Arctic

Because the Inuit do active service all the time with the Rangers.

Whatever, eh, just a couple of pictures to prove the red hulled ships are in Iqaluit in the spring (you try to define spring in the arctic). I think the pictures are from late June 2003 or so. The middle picture is just one of those accidents that ends up looking quite nice, though it is also a great shot of the Iqaluit garbage dump burning - the old days, eh for you Northerners.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Nunavut

Boy this tax stuff is tricky,eh!

This morning, as would now seem to be customary in this election campaign, the various party leaders made statements which were carried lived on TV. I presume this approach is to ensure that the jest of the statement will be carried over and over again on the 24 hour news channels through out the day.

The CPCs statement this morning had Stephen Harper providing an example of the benefit the proposed GST reductions would provide to new home buyers. He picked a house valued at $200,000 for his example. Thus he got to say that in year one of the GST reduction plan a new house purchaser would save $2,000 (1% of $200,000). Further, sometime over the next 5 years, this savings would be $4,000 once the other one percentage point was knocked off the GST rate.

However, the savings as stated aren't quite correct. Currently new house buyers are eligible for a 2.52% rebate on the purchase price up to, I think, $450,000. After $450,000 nothing.

So the $2,000 saving will actually only be $1,280 and the $4,000 savings will only be $2,560. The difference is because the new home buyer rebate will be appropriately adjusted downward to 2.16% with a 6.0% GST rate and to 1.8% with a 5% GST rate.

Although I've not been haunting the media outlets for follow up no one has mentioned this small distortion.

Interesting,maybe?

Technorati Tags: Canada, Politics, Stupidity

My First note in awhile!

So the election is now 5 days away. Me, I voted last Friday as soon as the advance polls opened. I admit I have systematically avoided any articles, media assessments and blog commenting on this particular election since early December, until the beginning of this week.

I also avoided any TV coverage but did pick up what seem to be the main direction of the campaign from CBC radio news coverage.

At the beginning of the campaign I did considered some Harper announcements: here and here.

Since Monday I've read quite a few blogs commenting on the Conservative Party of Canada's (CPC) platform -"Stand Up for Canada" - and have now read it once.

I know the Liberal Party's policy proposals, I think. They were mainly contained in "The Plan for Growth and Prosperity" which was part of the November 14th of Fiscal Update delivered by Minister Goodale but also followed from the 2005 federal Budget and the various Bills pasted in late June.

Other than Minister Goodale's documents PM PM summarized Canada's coming challenges in a September 21st speech. I'm not sure what Harper thinks are the challenges the country faces other than the sponsorship scandal from the Chretien era.

Here is a summary of the 10 main points from the the Toronto Star:

1. Canada must invest heavily in child care and education, from early childhood to university and beyond, to produce a more highly skilled and innovative workforce.

2. We must welcome skilled immigrants who can fill jobs vacated by older workers.

3. We must upgrade language training and credentials recognition to compete with other countries for immigrants.

4. We must invest heavily in Canada's cities to turn them into world-class magnets that attract the best and brightest from places like China and India, and that attract foreign investment.

5. We must encourage private sector investment and job growth in innovative sectors.

6. We must capitalize on our comparative advantage in supplying energy to a resource-hungry world.

7. We must provide world-class health care to an aging population.

8. We must stake out our claims to the North, and its untapped resources.

9. Canadians must strive to be good global citizens by promoting growth and development, thwarting terror, battling climate change, curbing pandemics and challenging those who disrupt international peace. These trans-boundary issues affect us all, as our ties to the rest of the world become ever tighter.

10. And Canadians must do it all in a fiscally responsible way through balanced budgets, and a gradual paring down of the national debt. We do not want to saddle future generations with a crippling bill.

The Toronto Star
PM's clear vision of Canada's future
Sept. 21, 2005

The whole speech is here if any care to have a quick look before it goes next Tuesday maybe.

Although I generally agree with the 10 points as a pretty good assessment of what is likely needed in the coming years to ensure and maybe improve the county's standard of living, I was never convinced that PM PM had the talent to lead the country there.

My reading of the CPCs platform doesn't indicate as grand a vision. But if Harper gets in time will tell, I guess. So far the policies he has outlined as his party's preferred course of action seems parochial.

Harper's comments from yesterday, elaborated on today, about having checks on a government formed by the CPCs power because of Senate, judicial and senior civil servant appointments made by past government's are, to me, a disturbing indication of his mind set.

Senators are generally appointed along party lines but judges and senior civil servants no.

Why would he insult the judicial branch of government with an attack on their neutrality? And what was he thinking with his comment about senior civil servants?

Maybe he was trying to assure reasonable knowledgeable individuals that because our form of democracy - a parliamentary system - has no clear cut "checks and balances" or separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government not to worry so much about any CPC legislative initiatives.

The civil servant comment, maybe something similar to Mulroney. I think Mulroney ended up being less suspicious. As I recall Mulroney made a few changes, he brought Stanley Hart in to be Deputy Minister of Finance and got rid of Ed Clark (this was rumored to honour a promise to Peter Loughheed to axe the civil servant most identified with the National Energy Program).

Technorati Tags: Canada, Politics

Testing trackback

This is a quick test of the trackback function in "ecto".