Immigration

In a 2005 study, Statscan reported that “Canada's population is ageing fast and senior citizens would outnumber children in about a decade, according to new population projections.”

This alarming projection isn’t news to any of us as this phenomenon of population aging has already been well documented by the media. However, what we often fail to appreciate is the lack of action on the part of current and past governments to deal with this issue, the only major achievement being the CPP reform under Martin.

What I am getting to, of course, is immigration.

At the moment, we are at a crossroad. The working population is about to dramatically drop, while data shows that the level of immigration has remained relatively constant, climbing only slightly from around 200 to 230 thousand per year. The combination of these two factors makes a labour shortage ten to fifteen years from now inevitable, which will have dire consequences on our economy and quality of life.

The only solution to this imminent crisis is to substantially increase our immigration levels, but as I said, nothing is being done. Unfortunately, we only have a few years left to steer ourselves back on course before the disaster becomes inevitable. A few politicians have already raised the flag, including ex-Liberal leadership candidate Maurizio Bevilacqua who pledged to double immigration levels to half a million per year, but their voices are being muffled by louder issues such as global warming and the war in Afghanistan.

It’s also important to recognize that the solution goes farther than sending a notice to our immigration officials telling them to let in a few more hundred thousand people every year. Even now, at the height of our oil boom, many new Canadians are having difficulties finding work. And while this can be attributed to a variety of sources, the main responsibility lies with Federal government, which makes the lives of many immigrants nightmarish by refusing to recognize their credentials.

We all understand that the only way to curb the imminent labour shortage is to increase immigration levels, yet this would become extremely undesirable in the short term if Federal government’s refusal to recognize foreign credentials made it impossible for those new immigrants to find work. The government must recognize this and take prompt action, because time really is counted.

Bang For The Buck

There have recently been a number of prominent journalists and politicians who have claimed that it is impossible for Canada to meet its Kyoto targets without triggering a deep recession or buying credits from countries like Russia whose decrease in emissions are due solely to economic downturn.

What they say is partly true. Canada’s national emissions have increased so dramatically over the last ten years that it would be impossible to get them down to six percent below 1990 levels by 2012 without hurting the country’s economy. This is simply unquestionable, and anybody who claims otherwise is either a fool or some kind of economics whiz who can create money by magic.

This being the case, there is still nothing preventing us from meeting our targets without giving away billions to Putin’s friends or killing our economy. All we need to do is to finally realise that this problem of Global Warming is indeed Global, and that it therefore makes no difference in what countries the reductions are made.

Our western capitalist mentality always makes you believe that everything is achievable with hard work, dedication and passion; if you want it, you can get it. And although some people’s long hours of work don’t materialise into anything substantial out of bad luck, this is still a good mindset have.

The trouble is that people too often assume that the work, dedication and passion must not only come from oneself but also directed towards oneself. In other words: you do the work for yourself to youself. This makes sense is cases where there is only one party involved such as personal studies, businesses or careers, etc. Take for example a university student studying in preparation for a final exam, he is studying for himself (he benefits from a good grade) and to himself (the studying is directed towards his brain, which is gaining more knowledge and capacity).

On the other hand, when more and more parties start coming in and when the both the work and payoff involve more than one party, that assumption can change.

Imagine a running team involving twelve extremely skilled athletes, whose overall score is determined by its members’ average time running the 100 meters. One afternoon, the coach comes into the dressing room and announces to his players that they are underperforming and that they must work harder to get their average times down, or face demotion to a lower tier. The team members are then faced with a number of choices: they can decide to spent more time and money training, even though only a few wealthy members will be able to afford that, or they can get the same result by simply getting those same wealthy members to buy decent pairs of running shoes for the two runners on the team who can’t afford them.

If those wealthy members were to follow the traditional mindset, they would each start spending resources on themselves. This is an understandable choice, as the wealthy members would feel that their money ought to be used for their own benefit. But because their score is shared with the whole team, and therefore reliant on the performance of the worse-off members, they would benefit just as much from buying those members new shoes as from buying more training hours. This is the mistake that Canada and other wealthy countries are making with regards to climate change.

Instead of buying poorer countries new pairs of shoes by cleaning up their mess, industrialised countries are following the old mindset and opting to spend their resources on additional training for themselves –cleaning up their own backyard. This is totally irrational, because while industrialised countries are by no means totally green, they are much more so than developing countries, and are therefore much more expensive to clean.

At the moment, our government is offering tax subsidies for home owners who retrofit their homes to make them more energy efficient. In other words, the government will forfeit a few thousand dollars to let home owners put up some solar panels and additional insulation which will take 10 to 20 tons of Co2 off the atmosphere every year. This obviously doesn’t harm the environment, but wouldn’t those few thousand dollars be better spend subsidising a group of Amazonian farmers so that they can buy fertiliser and stop releasing a few thousand tons of Co2 into the atmosphere every few years by burning forest to make farmland?

Both strategies work, but when resources are scarce, it’s wise to aim for the best possible bang for the buck.

Smart Move

The recently passed private members bill tabled by Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez’s, which forces the government to reach its Kyoto targets, could do a lot of damage to the Conservative party if properly exploited by the Liberals. If the right steps are taken, they can succeed both in painting the government as insincere on the environment, and more importantly, unwilling to respect the Canadian law.

In the bill, it is stated that the government must come to the Commons with a plan no more than 60 days after the bill’s adoption by the Senate. This leaves it with a little more than 50 days to prepare its plan, which it has already indicated it will not do.

On the day that government’s plan is due, the Liberals should make a bold move and table their environmental plan, which does meet the Kyoto targets, and have the other parties vote on it. The Conservatives would then have to choose between supporting the Kyoto accord that they spent so much time ridiculing, or ignoring the will of parliament, which adopted Rodriguez’s. At the same time, the NDP and Bloc would also be stuck between a rock and a hard place as they would have to choose between killing a plan that meets Kyoto or implementing a Liberal green strategy.

In all situations, the Liberals would stand to win, presuming of course, that their plan really is concrete and viable... at least that's what my political instinct tells me!

Tergiversations coûteuses

Hier après-midi, le secrétaire-général de l’OTAN a exprimé son désir de voir le Canada maintenir sa présence en Afghanistan jusqu’à ce que « le travail soit accompli », même si cela l’obligeait à reculer la date de retour des troupes fixé à Fevrier 2009 par la Chambre des Communes.

Cette déclaration n’est que la plus récente péripétie de la saga qu’est devenue la mission canadienne en Afghanistan. La liste d’offensives ratées, de pertes évitables et de scandales importants n’en finit plus, et le gouvernement en est le principal responsable.

Maintenant que l’OTAN exprime clairement le souhait de voir le Canada prolonger sa mission indéfiniment, il incombe au gouvernement de prendre une décision et d’en informer les Canadiens et autres pays membres. Mais au lieu d’assumer cette responsabilité, il continue à tergiverser et à laisser planer le doûte. D’un côté, Stephen Harper affirme que la mission ne sera pas prolongée sans l’accord de la Chambre, et de l’autre, le Ministre de la Défense approuve l’achat coûteux de 200 tanks Léopard II qui ne seront disponibles que dans le courant de l’année 2009. Allez savoir!

Cette attitude irresponsable risque de nous coûter cher, car elle rend improbable qu’un autre pays membre prenne la relève des Forces candiennes. En effet, plus nous approchons de février 2009, moins les partenaires de l’OTAN auront de temps pour faire approuver l’envoi de leurs militaires par leur parlement et pour préparer leurs armées. Il viendra ainsi un moment où le prolongement de la mission deviendra inévitable sans quoi la région replongera dans le chaos.

Notre participation devait initialement se terminer en 2006, puis le gouvernement conservateur à fait adopter un prolongement de la mission jusqu’en février 2009 sans débat en Chambre. Avec chaque nouvelle offensive, le coût financier et humain de la mission s’élève. L’OTAN est un partenariat, et tous ses membres se doivent d’y contribuer plus ou moins également. Le Canada a déja contribué plus que sa part à cette mission et il a le droit d’exiger que d’autres membres prennent sa relève. Si l’inaction de notre gouvernement rendait l’arrivée de cette relève impossible, nous n’aurions que nous-mêmes à blâmer en voyant revenir des cerceuils de soldats morts passé février 2009.

Bill Graham Has Resigned

I guess this is more of a news article than a blog post, but this is an important story.

Bill Graham, Liberal MP for Toronto Center has just announced his retirement from politics. Aside from marking the end of the political career of a very special Canadian and perfect gentleman, his departure, along with that of fellow MPs Lucienne Robillard and has announced she will not run in the next election, marks the end of an era for the Liberal party, as well a new beginning under Dion.

Graham served both as Minister of Defense and of Foreign Affairs, as well acting as interim Leader of the Liberal Party and Leader of the Oppostition during the period between the last election and the December convention. Aside from Irwin Cotler, who is also expected to step aside at the next election, he and Robillard are the last Liberal heavyweights left over from the Chretien years.

Though his departure will clearly represent a loss for the House of Commons, in a way, it will do some good to the Liberal party, which will resemble even less the old party which Canadians grew to hate. To add to the drama, Bob Rae will likely make his entry into the House in the next few months as he has won the nomination for Graham’s riding, which is a Liberal stronghold.

Stuck Between Two Centuries

Yesterday afternoon, our International Trade Minister David Emerson and his Indian counterpart announced a trade agreement between the two countries which will guarantee fair legal treatment for each other's investors. Whatever that may mean, this type of agreement is generally regarded as a stepping stone for an eventual free-trade deal. So who knows, in five to ten years, we might have free-trade with India (I can already hear the NDP screaming).

This agreement follows a major free-trade deal which we signed last June 7 with the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland), and to add to the buzz, there are negotiations being currently undertaken towards a free-trade deal with South-Korea. So wake up people; borders are disappearing and trade is increasing. Meet... globalisation.

We’ve all heard of this fancy phenomenon called globalisation and we’ve all got a rough idea of what it means and entails: more trade, less tariffs, more outsourcing, more communication and the list goes on. But while we may all know about it and understand it and while our International Trade Ministry may be taking steps to keep up with it, our monetary policy is still years behind and our whole business sector seems to be complacently watching it hit us.

We all seem to assume that globalisation will only affect us in terms of job losses and money leaks; that it is simply about Canadian firms investing and moving operations abroad. This is all true, but globalisation also means the reverse. It also means foreign companies investing in and moving to Canada, foreign workers resettling in Canada and foreign capital coming to Canada.

Just look at the banking sector. Ten years ago, there was only the “Big Five”, which had a total monopoly over the whole Canadian banking world that allowed them to comfortably sit on their market share and gauge consumers by charging ridiculously high fees while paying no interest on their personal savings. Today, we’ve got new foreign players such as the Dutch giant ING, who are attacking the “Big Five” right in their home turf and forcing them start competing for business.

The clear winner from this new situation is the Canadian consumer, who can’t be taken for granted anymore and who is now being offered more and more options and benefits. The clear losers, of course are the big Canadian banks, who are now facing competition in what is the only market they have access to because of their small size (compared to giants from other countries). Now, you’d think that the government would have adjusted its monetary policy and let Canadian banks merge so as to make them competitive on the international stage thus allowing them to compensate losses at home with gains abroad, but our government is still living in the 20^th century and assuming that letting banks merge would ultimately hurt Canadian consumers. Of course, our big banks merging would have absolutely not effect on the consumers because of the foreign competition which would force them to keep competing for their business.

Another example would be our mining giants (or what we think are giants), which all seem to be disappearing into foreign hands. Instead to giving them the tools to be aggressive on the foreign takeover market through smart tax policy and less merger regulation, the government has been content with letting them stick to the home market until they grow big enough to become takeover prey. Remember Inco and Falconbridge? One of the reasons that they didn’t merge was become they feared our Competition Bureau would put its foot down. And more recently, we saw Flaherty’s failed budget bill on “double dipping” and “offshore tax deductions” which precipitated the bidding war for Alcan.

One could advocate that Canada should close its borders to foreign takeovers and encourage its companies to stick to the domestic market. That model was very much in style during the last century, and is still adopted by a number of countries. Today, most economists would advocate that Canada should open its borders to foreign takeovers while also giving its companies the tools to make foreign takeovers. That model is theoretically much more adapted to the reality of globalisation.

At the moment, Canada is stuck between the two and suffering from it. Our borders are open and our firms are going like hotcakes, but they aren’t being given the tools to engage in merging and buying abroad. We should really stop now, because this can only lead to troubles.

Think Twice

I’m really getting fed up by all the militaristic macho patriotic junk that I’ve getting from the papers and an alarming number of parliamentarians. They all seem to regard our strong and proud military as the proof of our country’s greatness and as an essential part of our Canadian identity.

I know that this debate has been going on for ever since confederation, so there’s no use in expanding on this topic any more. Instead, I’m simply going to treat you to a few numbers and pictures and let you draw your own conclusions.

This is a Boeing C-17 Globemaster 3 airlifter, which is sold at the friendly price of $202.3 million USD apiece. National Defence has just acquired four of those, which amounted to a little less that a billion USD once maintenance and repair were included. They use to simply rent a fleet whenever our SWAT team needed a lift, but that was simply considered inadequate for a military as great and powerful as ours.

This is one of the four infamous Victoria-class submarines that we bought used from the UK at a friendly price of £244m, which is around $600m CAD. Unfortunately, they are all in so bad shape that the cost of the repairs which will have to be undertaken to make them battle ready is estimated to be comparable to their initial price. So if we add another $600m CAD to make the subs water-tight and battle ready, we’re up to 1.2g CAD.

And just in case you weren't impressed yet, here’s an image of one of the two “Future Carriers” that are being developed for the Royal Navy at an estimated cost of £3.6 - £3.9 billion, or $8 - 9 billion CAD.

Now, for a change of scenery, here’s the tallest skyscraper in the world, Taipei 101, which is known to the world and provides the rapidly expanding city with an additional 412,500 m² of floor area. The total cost of the project came to around $1.6 billion USD, which is a little more than the total cost of our four Victoria-Class submarines and about half of the price of a single “Future Carrier”.

Here’s an MRI scanner. They cost around 3-4 million CAD. We are at a shortage of those, which is really a problem when one considers how significant and life-saving they can be.

Here’s a small child in Ethiopia getting his first vaccinations. They cost less than a dollar per child. In other words, a billion CAD less than four used British submarines.

It makes you think twice, doesn’t it.