There is a growing global ‘movement’ for “Trump Free” products, which to most people means a boycott of American made products. If you are one of those people you should be thinking about two things: Boycotts Backfire Boycotts usually INCREASE the sale of a particular product because boycotts: are like […]
After the G7 (or G6 + Trump) meeting in Quebec on June 9th 2018, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau became the latest target of the Trump White House’s venom: “There’s a special place in Hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump […]
In yet another unintended consequence of US President Donald Trump’s (and his minions) lack of control, his nasty comments towards Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after the G7 summit in Quebec resulted in a major political boost for both Trudeau and Canada. “There’s a special place in Hell for any […]
Preferential Voting (PR) is a ballot system in which voters number their winning preference rather than just casting a single ballot. For example, instead of just marking their ballot with the single person/party they would like to win, voters list the order in which they would have those on the […]
Support for the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline continues to rise and now has the support of more than 2/3rds of Canadians. Further, another poll released on May 18 2018 shows support for the expansion has also continued its surge in BC, now sitting at more than 60% of BC residents. However, the media has […]
In “The West” we don’t often discuss or even consider Africa. However, over the next 20 years the population of Africa is going to double and we will all be paying attention to that. Without doubt Africa’s population explosion will lead to two things:
What is in question is:
If you live in the United States or Canada and you feel less safe than you did 20 years ago, you are likely either in one of the very few geographic bubbles (like Chicago or rural Alberta) or you are a victim of politicians and social media trying to manipulate your natural fears. The fact is that crime, violent and otherwise is waaaay down.
Below are the Canadian statistics and they roughly concur with the US crime statistics in that crime peaked near the year 1990 and then declined between 30 to 80% in all categories and in nearly all regions. This despite the fact that it is more likely a citizen will report a crime today than they would have 30 years ago.
Last year Chrysler announced the end of nearly all their cars, leaving the Chrysler 300 as the sole survivor. This week Ford announced they same thing by formally heralding the death of the Taurus, Fusion, CMax, and Fiesta leaving only the Mustang and Focus in development. General Motors will follow […]
The video below shows Derek Fildebrandt at the Strathmore on Monday April 23rd, claiming that UCP leader Jason Kenney told him he could not run against a female UCP member:
…What Jason (Kenney) said to me. It’s not about me challenging other incumbents. It was only about me challenging female incumbents… And he said I could run against any other men… I don’t think it serves women well to have effectively affirmative action in politics…
It should be noted that Mr. Fildebrandt is accused of many politically unsettling problems including:
It is well established that even well intentioned government intervention in industry very often ends up causing more problems than it solves. Today one of the issues facing the United States is a loss of jobs in the steel industry and so President Trump claimed this is a National Security Issue and so used his unilateral power to impose a 25% tariff on imports of steel into the United States.
On its face, this seems like a good idea. Simplistically, if decrease the ability of other countries to export their steel to the US will result in the creation of more US steel jobs. However, the world is not a simple place and what actually happened was:
The five points above are well documented oft discussed in the media. The video below however, points out two fascinating unintended consequences that we had not thought of:
Alberta is used to energy shocks and can quickly adjust to the environment, especially an oversupply. BC gets 80% of its gasoline from Alberta which cannot possibly be replaced with tanker trucks from the US… because BC does not have any pipelines their either. Also, yesterday the Premier of Saskatchewan […]
UPDATE: Sept 14 2018 – We just added new TMX articles you will find interesting: How Big Is The Pipe In The Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion? How Big Are the Oil Tankers Heading to BC To Take Oil From Trans Mountain Pipeline? Are Oil Tanker Spills Getting Worse? Spill Statistics […]
Many people, and politicians (which are also people 🙂 ) have suggested that Alberta cut off the oil supply to British Colombia in an effort to punish the BC Premier, John Horgan. While that is one possibility, there are other things that can be done.
Some options are reasonable, some are draconian and some of them are just not possible.
Here are most of the options available to Alberta:
Not Buy Electricity From BC – This is doable and in fact has already started
Below is a list of current serious Facebook legal issues:
The Canadian Federal Government and the Province of BC agreed to join the separate investigations into Facebook user data being sent to AggegateIQ (part of the Cambridge Analytica scandal)