Partisan Issues – Fact Based Exploration of Political Issues

Angry About Policy?

Angry About Policy? We try to reduce the emotion and look at the facts.

Energy Industry Got You Worried?

Energy Industry Got You Worried? We cover energy industry from 'oil sands', to nuclear power, to pipelines.

Thinking About US Domination?

Thinking About US Domination? We focus on the Canadian perspective including Britain, Germany, China, Japan and even the US!

Future Tech?

Future Tech? If it involves regulations or government interventions, from solar panels, to autonomous cars, to cyber-crime, we cover it.

2019 Crude Oil By Rail Stretches From Edmonton Past Vancouver 300 Kilometers Into the Pacific Ocean

The numbers of oil tanker rail cars being shipped in 2019 and projected for 2020 and beyond are truly staggering. That got us to thinking about how long a train would they make and the results were quite interesting. If all the rail cars carrying crude oil just in 2019, largely from Western Canada, were connected in a single train they would be over 1400 kilometers. That is 50% longer than the distance from Calgary to Vancouver: a crude oil…

ford volkswagon argo

Which Car Companies Are Partnered Up To Build Autonomous Vehicles

With all the hype surrounding Telsa, Cadillac and Uber‘s autonomous driving technology you can be forgiven for thinking that the auto industry is developing dozens of unconnected standards. In fact most of the major players are not only sharing patents, they are actively partnering with each other. The cost to develop self driving technologies would make in-house development consume a prohibitively long time in the globally competitive world of transportation. Below is a list and description of some of the…

Car Sales China US 2022 Crash autoline video

VIDEO: Why You Won’t See Chinese Cars In The US Until After 2025

Today there are already about 60,000 Chinese manufactured vehicles entering the US and Canadian automobile market each year, some of which may surprise you; Buick Envision ($32,000) Cadillac CT6 Plug-In Hybrid ($75,000) not the standard CT6’s cancelled for US and Canada sales in 2018 Volvo S60 & S90 ($36,000 and $48,000) However, what you don’t see is a single Chinese brand like BYD (serious Telsa competitor), Chery (former Chrysler partner), or Dongfeng (sold 4.1 MILLION cars in China in 2018)…

Where does Canada export Refined Petroleum to

Where Does Canada Export Oil To?

It will come as no surprise to anyone in the oil sector, or involved in the stock market that Canada exports nearly all of its oil to the United States. What may be surprising is some of the secondary markets. For instance, you can see in the graphic below that The Netherlands and France are Canada’s second and third largest export markets for refined oil (i.e. gasoline, diesel…) Click to expand graphic 2017 Exports From Canada Click to expand…

Canadian Exports

What Does Canada Export and Import?

Canada has a dynamic first world economy but still has its primary exports from primary industries: Click to expand graphic 2017 Exports From Canada In contrast to Canada’s raw material exports, Canada imports mostly finished goods: Click to expand graphic 2017 Imports Into Canada The following graph shows Canada’s imports in red and exports in blue from 1995 through 2017: Click to expand graphic Canada’s Imports and Exports From 1995 to 2017 This data came from MIT’s The Observatory…

Trump Kids Puzzles - Everyone is so proud of me - finished puzzles in 6 months but the box says 2 to 4 years

JOKE: Everyone Is So Proud of Donald Trump

Donald Trump holds up kids puzzles and gets applause. “Everyone is so proud of me… I finished the puzzles in 6 months but the box says 2 to 4 years!”

VIDEO: City of Toronto Electric Buses By The Numbers

The City of Toronto has the largest transit system in Canada that includes 2200 buses and they are now testing 10 fully electric units from each of New Flyer (Canada), BYD (China), and Proterra (US) Here are the numbers: 25% more reliable 30% few parts less items to inventory and manage saves money 25% lower maintenance costs 60% quieter which is a big deal for drivers and communities 75% reduction in energy costs $32,000 /bus /year energy savings $70 million…

Dissenting Judges Agree The Canadian Federal Government Has The Right To Apply a Carbon Tax

VIDEO: Ontario & Saskatchewan Agreed In Court That Carbon Taxes Are Both Effective & The Lowest Cost Method of Reducing Greenhouse Gases

It is oft said by those who disapprove of carbon taxes that: Carbon taxes are ineffective Carbon taxes target the wrong people The Canadian Federal Government does not have right to impose a carbon tax All three of these statements are demonstrably incorrect. University of Ottawa Professor of Law and Economics, Stewart Elgie, explains that the dissenting judges in the Saskatchewan and Ontario carbon tax cases are not disagreeing with the principle that the Federal Government has the right to…

hydrogen Toyota Muri vs battery Tesla Model 3 charging cost 2018

Why Hydrogen Will Still Be Next Years Power in the Year 2030

Every year since 2000, notable pundits and real companies have claimed that next year is the Hydrogen’s year. It certainly looks good on television. Real car companies like Honda, Toyota and GM produce a few thousand hydrogen test vehicles (so called FCV’s or Fuel Cell Vehicles) and make slick commercials with pure water dripping out of tail pipes in front of endless green fields: The promise of hydrogen is indeed intoxicating. It is very easy to overlook its massive problems…

Huawei 5G

The Rational Case Against Huawei

There are many that think Huawei is just a puppet of the Chinese government and an equal number that think the Huawei bans and bad talk are nothing more than hype designed to stifle a non-Western competitor. We recently wrote two articles explaining some of Huawei’s background: 10 Short Answers To Why Huawei is so Scary To Western Countries Who Owns Huawei? A Fascinating Story but neither our previous articles nor the political hype have clearly explained why countries should…

What is Short Selling Stocks

VIDEO: What is Short Selling Stocks & How It Can Be A Good Thing For Markets

People typically purchase stocks in a company for two reasons: to make money from an increase in stock price over time to make money from dividends However, there is a third way to make money with stocks… a very risky way called ‘short selling’. What is Short Selling Stocks In Simple Terms? A ‘short’ as it is called in the financial industry is a bet against a companies stock. To short a stock, you ‘borrow’ shares from someone with a…

VIDEO: Reckless US Government Spending / Borrowing Now Causing the Economy to Stall, Giving China The Upper Hand

There are three main factors in our calling for the US economy to stall in the coming months, which will give China the upper hand in trade negotiations: 1 – Government Spending Tax Cuts Stimulation Has Run Its Course The US economy has been booming for the last two years because of historic federal government spending under President Trump: “Trump May Be The Most Fiscally Reckless President In American History. Trump’s behavior on everything and anything having to do with…

Trans Mountain Pipeline Burnaby Westridge Marine Terminal Fish Habitat Offsets 2018

Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Timeline of 2019 Events

UPDATED: July 4 2019 Since the start of the 2019, there have been many important events in the Trans Mountain Pipeline saga and it is easy to get lost. To clarify the issues we have appended the following entries to our master list “Complete Trans Mountain Pipeline and Expansion Timeline from 1947 to 2022” 2019 Jan 15 100 First Nations groups meet in Calgary to discuss purchase of Trans Mountain 2019 Jan 21 Trans Mountain submits report to NEB proposing…

How The China US Trade War Only Serves to Galvanize China’s Resolve, Just Like Apple and Qualcomm

The goal of a trade war is to increase access to some other countries markets. However, we can simplify the logic by reducing down from a country scale to an individual business scale. At the single company scale, Company A withholds a key product or increases price on that product because they want something from Company B, perhaps increased sales effort of some key line. At some point the cost becomes too much for one or both of the parties…

Most Americans Believe Trump Committed Crimes - Democrat vs Republican

VIDEO: The More Threatened Voters Are, The Greater The Likelihood They Will Support A Tyrant

If you are wondering how someone like Donald Trump of the United States, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil get elected to power watch the short video below. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria considers the 2019 Indian elections an notes that about one third of their candidates and federal officials have serious criminal charges against them. He the contrasts this to the United States with President Trump. The majority of Americans believe Trump committed crimes but large numbers…

China US Containers War

VIDEO: Why China Is Like The US In The 1950’s and No Longer Needs Exports To America

From an American perspective, China has a strange confidence the belies and critical weakness that is just below the surface. US President Donald Trump is fond of pointing out that China sells much more to the US than the US sells to China. He believes that this trade imbalance gives him unlimited power to dictate Chinese policy and that belief has lead to the US initiating a trade war. Chinese President Xi Jinping knows that his country has an enormous…