I'll leave it at that.

 

Trudeau’s Canada Loses 71,000 Jobs, Most Since Financial Crisis, Unemployment Jumps to 5.9%
12,782

AP Photo/Evan Vucci
JOHN CARNEY6 Dec 20192,619
1:26


It looks like Donald Trump got the last laugh.

A few days after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught having a laugh at the expense of the U.S. president, the U.S. economy was reported to have added 266,000 jobs in November while Canada lost 71,200 jobs, the biggest monthly loss since the financial crisis, according to Canada’s national statistics agency.


Unemployment in the U.S. fell to 3.5 percent, returning to the 50-year low hit earlier this year. Canadian unemployment jumped to 5.9 percent from 5.5 percent a month earlier.

The diverging economies show that the U.S. has better withstood the global economic slowdown than its neighbor.

The divergence also undermines the notion that Trump’s tariffs have weighed heavily on the U.S. economy. Canada has not imposed tariffs on China, yet its economy is underperforming.

Economists badly over-estimated the strength of the Canadian economy, forecasting a gain of 10,000 jobs and for the unemployment rate to hold steady at 5.5 percent.

Manufacturing jobs fell by 27,500 in Canada but rose by 54,000 in the U.S.

 

Jason Kenney’s election victory speech played to the hurt feelings of Albertans. He said Alberta is captive to the U.S. market because foreign interests have landlocked Alberta oil. He said investment that has fled Canada is “fueling an unprecedented oil boom south of the border.” “In other words,” Kenney said, “we’ve been had.”

Albertans have been had. But it isn’t by special interests outside this country. It’s by Canadian politicians of all stripes who continue to sell a myth, a myth that the reason the oilsands have stopped seeing major new investment is that we don’t have enough pipelines.

What is odd about this myth is that most major players, no matter their stance on whether pipelines projects should proceed or not, want the public to believe it. Whether it’s Alberta’s incoming new premier Kenney, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) or environmental activists 350.org, all tell you that a lack of pipelines is holding back oilsands investment. The truth is that is not what is holding oilsands investment back.

No. It’s that other thing Kenney mentioned: an unprecedented oil boom south of the border. Fracked U.S. oil is attracting the capital. And that is because it is a much better resource to exploit. A review of investment trends in oilsands and fracked oil so far this century explains this.

Bitumen from the oilsands is difficult to produce and process and yields a lot of low value product. On top of that, moving bitumen through pipelines requires expensive light gasoline blended in. Projects to produce bitumen require a huge amount of capital with a long payback and are located a long way from markets in an expensive place to build things with a brutal environment in the winter. Not exactly the ideal crude oil deposit to exploit.

But the thing about the oilsands is that they are massive and we know where they are. In the 2000s the world was thought to be running out of conventional crude and this was reflected in the price of crude as it ramped up from $20 at the start of this century to over $100. It made sense to turn to the oilsands. Investment doubled from $13 billion in 2000 to over $25 billion per year by 2005 and grew from there, until it didn’t.

Oilsands investment declined from a peak of $34 billion in 2014 to $11 billion estimated in 2018. What then stopped the boom?

Fracking unlocked natural gas and oil

Something big started happening in the United States in mid 2011. Fracking techniques that had recently unlocked natural gas deposits were widely applied in areas of known light crude reserves that conventional techniques couldn’t tap. As a result areas like the Bakken in North Dakota and the Permian Basin in Texas saw steep increases in production due to the use of fracking technology.

U.S. crude oil production in July 2011 was 5.6 million barrels per day (MBD). By January 2015 it was 9.3 MBD. By October of last year production was up to 12 MBD and counting.

From 2011 the increase in U.S. oil production has been four times the Canadian growth in the same period. While investment in the oilsands has been dropping off investment in U.S. oil production has continued growing. The United States in now the largest oil producer in the world.

It isn’t lack of pipelines holding back the oilsands; it’s the fact that it isn’t as attractive to invest in oilsands as in U.S. fracked oil. If industry had known how to frack for oil back in the year 2000 that big surge in oilsands investment never would have happened.

Since 2013 no major new oilsands project received a Final Investment Decision (FID) until late last year when Imperial Oil announced it was moving forward with its $2.5 billion Aspen project. That is a pittance relative to a $20 billion investment a few years ago in Imperial Oil’s Athabasca oilsands operation at Kearl Lake, Alta.

Why have no new projects moved forward during that time? Discounts on diluted bitumen were decent from 2014 through 2017 because there was pipeline capacity. Pipelines such as Enbridge Line 3 were expected to be coming; delays weren’t known then. So why no investments announced?

Because industry would rather spend money on quick payout, high quality oil closer to major markets. Can you blame them?

Canadian oil shouldn’t be sold at fire sale prices

Kenney said a lot of other things playing to the crowd. What is true is Alberta and Canada need more pipeline for the production coming from the oilsands investment whose growth has wound down. We shouldn’t be selling at fire sale prices.

But we don’t need all the pipelines under consideration. The combination of Enbridge Line 3, Trans Mountain Expansion and Keystone XL adds close to two million barrels per day (MBD) in pipeline capacity, almost twice as much as CAPP’s forecasted growth in production by 2030. That’s a forecast where industry assumes pipelines are available.

On top of those pipeline projects, Enbridge has identified other opportunities using existing lines of up to another half million barrels per day. So it will be solved. It’s taking time but pipelines do encroach on other people’s property and bring risks, so they need to be considered carefully, frustrating as that is to producers and governments.

More pipelines than required is a waste of capital, an inefficient drag on a struggling industry. That’s because pipeline owners don’t take the risk; pipelines have regulated returns and the new lines have contracts where the oil producers commit to paying for a pipeline whether or not they have crude to ship.

Canadians, especially Albertans, are being played. A good example is Kenney’s crusade for Energy East, a pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick via Quebec. The economics don’t exist. And the Quebec government doesn’t want it. There isn’t enough new crude to fill such a large line and the refinery hardware in Eastern Canada for diluted bitumen is close to non-existent. Still, Kenney and his base love the idea. Economic reality is not a problem for them.

The oilsands golden years lasted about a decade, and they will never come back. While we need a couple of pipeline projects to proceed to get reasonable prices for our oil, all the shouting is just a distraction. It is time to position the Canadian oil sector for slow growth and environmental sense. That’s what real leaders who care about the future would focus on.

Ross Belot National Observer

 

Justin Trudeau Floats the Ideas of Tracking Canadians On Their Cell Phones
Apr 2, 2020
By

Jose Nino


On March 24, 2020, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau said that the use of location tracking technology is not completely off the table to tackle the Wuhan virus.


“I think we recognize that in an emergency situation we need to take certain steps that wouldn’t be taken in a non-emergency situation, but as far as I know that is not a situation we are looking at right now,” he stated.

“But … all options are on the table to do what is necessary to keep Canadians safe.”


The Post Millennial reported that Toronto City Mayor John Tory announced that his city has already enacted similar measures to track city dwellers’ phones.

Tory said to the tech-news site The Logic that cellphone companies were giving him “all the data on the pinging off their network on the weekend” so that they could track where people were gathering.


“[It’s] something we’re doing now… I asked for it, and I’m getting it,” stated Tory.

Tory’s comments contradict the official stance of the city of Toronto, who says it “will not be using cell phone location data.”

“The City of Toronto will not be using cell phone location data, nor does it have such data, to determine where people are not practicing physical distancing. We know the vast majority of people who are not essential or critical workers are staying home to help stop the spread of COVID-19,” said spokesperson Brad Ross in an e-mail statement, according to a Global News report.

In countries like South Korea, phone and credit card data are used to track the movement of people who have contracted the Wuhan virus. If someone was in close contact with another person who caught the disease, a notification was then sent to their phone.


In South Korea, individuals potentially exposed to the disease are quarantined at home and tracked with GPS technology. Fines for leaving their house are roughly $8,000.

Similarly, Israel has also started using cellular data to track individuals who tested positive for the Wuhan virus.

Americans should be thankful they live in a country with robust civil liberties.

In many other countries, times of crisis instantly propel the government to take extreme actions that substantially erode basic freedoms.

 

Trudeau: No Plans for Cellphone Tracking to Fight COVID-19, But ‘All Options’ On the Table​

by Gary Ng – 1 week ago
1414

According to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the federal government has no plans to use cellphone tracking to fight COVID-19—for now.


But Trudeau said, “all options are on the table” to keep Canadians safe, suggesting the idea has not been ruled out.

Singapore and Taiwan have been praised for their efforts in containing the COVID-19 outbreak, as both countries are using cellphone tracking to track and limit the spread of coronavirus. Both nations have schools and businesses open during the coronavirus pandemic.

In Singapore, residents download an app and enable Bluetooth, allowing the government to see location logs and encounters with those tested positive with coronavirus. The government also sends out updates twice a day to citizens via WhatsApp. For those in quarantine, the government sends text messages which residents must click on to prove they are at home.

Taiwan has a similar system in place, with cellphone monitoring for those in quarantine. Officials are alerted when people leave their address or turn off their phones. Those being tracked are called twice a day to ensure their phones aren’t just being left at home.

It’s unclear whether Canadians would give up civil liberties to this extent to help fight COVID-19. But for Singapore with a population of 5.6 million, there’s been only 401 active cases of coronavirus and two deaths.

The Logic reported yesterday the City of Toronto was using cellphone data from telecoms to slow down the COVID-19 outbreak. Telus denied they were contacted by the city, while Rogers similarly said the same.

Brad Ross, chief communications officer for the city, denied the claims on Tuesday morning saying, “The City of Toronto will not be using cell phone location data, nor does it have such data, to determine where people are not practicing physical distancing. We know the vast majority of people who are not essential or critical workers are staying home to help stop the spread of COVID-19.”

Do you think cellphone tracking methods should be used to fight COVID-19 in Canada?

 

Trudeau leaves door open to using smartphone data to track Canadians' compliance with pandemic rules​

Cellphone companies are already sharing data with health authorities around the world
Catharine Tunney · CBC News · Posted: Mar 24, 2020 5:43 PM ET | Last Updated: March 24

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hasn't ruled out using smartphone data to track whether people are complying with public health officials' pleas for them to stay inside to curb the COVID-19 pandemic — a notion that raises some thorny ethical dilemmas regarding public health and privacy rights.

Tracking where the coronavirus will strike next, and convincing people to self-isolate and avoid gatherings, have proven challenging for public health officials around the world. That's prompted some governments to lean on mobile data to keep tabs on infections — even to predict where the virus is heading.

During his daily media briefing today, Trudeau was asked whether Canada would follow the example of those governments and use telecom data to track Canadians' compliance with pandemic measures.

"I think we recognize that in an emergency situation we need to take certain steps that wouldn't be taken in non-emergency situations, but as far as I know that is not a situation we're looking at right now," he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau answers a question about why the government was seeking new spending powers during the COVID-19 pandemic. 1:16
"But as I've said, all options are on the table to do what is necessary to keep Canadians safe in these exceptional times."

Telecommunication companies are now sharing aggregate smartphone data with health authorities in Italy, Germany and Austria to monitor whether people are complying with self-isolation demands to slow the spread of COVID-19.

China, Taiwan and South Korea have taken more invasive measures by using smartphone location pings to trace individuals who have tested positive, or to enforce quarantine orders.

In Israel, the government is being challenged after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the domestic spy agency to sift through cellphone data that was covertly gathered to fight terrorism to retrace the steps of people who have contracted the novel coronavirus.

The issue was thrust into the Canadian spotlight this morning after Toronto Mayor John Tory mused about obtaining cellphone data from wireless companies to locate large gatherings.

As first reported by The Logic, Tory told an online video-conferencing event Monday night, hosted by TechTO, that data collection is "something we're doing now."

"I asked for it, and I'm getting it," he's quoted as telling the local meetup organization. "Because the biggest enemy of fighting this thing is people congregating close together."

A spokesperson later clarified that the mayor was answering a question about ways technology could possibly help fight COVID-19.

"The mayor cited the example of an inquiry he had casually made after someone suggested it not knowing it wasn't proceeding," said Don Peat in a statement to CBC News.

"The City of Toronto is not collecting cellphone location data, nor has it received any such data. The City of Toronto will not be using cellphone location data."

Bell Canada open to sharing information
Canada's Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said the option shouldn't be ruled out of efforts to flatten the caseload curve — the best way to keep the nation's hospitals from being overwhelmed.

"I think there's lots of innovative approaches and they should all be examined, obviously with due respect to privacy, ethics and all of those considerations," she said when asked about data collection.

On Monday, Quebec Premier François Legault publicly floated the idea of tracking the past movements of people who tested positive for COVID-19 through their phones.

Bell Canada has said it's willing to share personal information with governments if called upon.

Dr. Tam on using personal data to slow down COVID-19

Canada's Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam says some provinces have come up with innovative ways to tackle the spread of COVID-19, but the best approach is still for everyone to respect social distancing. 1:10
"We haven't been asked by any governments for this kind of support, but would consider if it helps in the fight against COVID-19 while respecting privacy laws," spokesperson Nathan Gibson said in an email.

Telus said it had not been contacted by the city of Toronto. Rogers did not respond to CBC's requests for comment.

Finding an ethical balance
David Leslie, ethics fellow at the Alan Turing Institute in the U.K., said surveillance in a pandemic climate pits competing values against each other: individual civil liberties and public welfare.

But a balance can be struck between the two, he said.

"When I think about the capacity for us to actually do surveillance for the social good, it kind of brings this sort of tension to the forefront for me, which is this tension between autonomy, privacy, civil liberty and the potential to use our data, use our information for the public welfare," Leslie said from London.

• Trudeau says most premiers don't think Emergencies Act needed yet to cope with COVID-19

• The 'measure of last resort': What is the Emergencies Act and what does it do?

"There's a right and perhaps a wrong way to go about using this, which is to say from a practical ethics standpoint it's very important to think about issues like consent, issues like transparency, in the way that the innovation is developed and then deployed."

David Fraser, a privacy lawyer with McInnes Cooper, said there are significant differences in the accuracy of data passed on by cellphone companies to governments, depending on whether they're sharing identifying information or anonymous aggregate data.

For example, data generated by transit apps can offer a big-picture view of rider trends — but they don't identify passengers.

"Which is different from anything that could tell you Bob is on the bus — or even maybe more troubling from a privacy perspective, but maybe completely justifiable, is Bob was in Mexico last week. Bob is supposed to be in his house. Bob is actually down at the Home Depot. Send the cops to go get Bob," he said.

Legal changes during a crisis
The federal privacy commissioner has said that, during a public health crisis, privacy laws still apply but they shouldn't be a barrier to appropriate information sharing.

"We fully understand the need to use all lawful and proportionate means to address the current health crisis. Legal authorities in this regard are quite broad," said spokesperson Vito Pilieci.

"Still, organizations must ensure there is lawful authority for the sharing of personal information."

Brian Beamish, the information and privacy commissioner of Ontario, said that — where possible — municipal governments should make efforts to use non-identifying information. However, he said in situations where identifying information is required, public health should be the priority. (CBC)
Pilieci said aggregate data collection is allowed, but warned that telecommunication companies and public authorities should be aware of accidentally re-identifying individuals.

Brian Beamish, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, issued his own advice on Tuesday, stressing that in situations where identifying information is required, the interest of public health should be the priority.

But he added that any steps that would have a "dramatic impact on personal privacy" should come with clear rules on how and why the information is collected, how it will be used and how long it will be retained.

Concerns about a 'new normal'
Fraser said that, historically, public health officials have had access to Canadians' private health information without any major trust breaches.

I wouldn't want to see this as the thin edge of the wedge or creating a new normal that will continue to be in place once this whole thing blows over.- Privacy lawyer David Fraser
"Personally, I have a fair amount of confidence in public health officials having access to information that otherwise normal people and the cops don't get access to, for the purposes of doing their jobs related to public health," he said.

"I don't think that they have many ulterior motives."

Still, he said, any sort of emergency legislative changes affecting privacy should be monitored closely for sunset clauses.

"I wouldn't want to see this as the thin edge of the wedge, or creating a new normal that will continue to be in place once this whole thing blows over, whether it's in weeks, months or years," he said.

"I wouldn't want to see some sort of new normal where telcos are required to, in real time, dump tower location information into some central government database with a kind of 'trust us' attitude."

While the Canadian government won't commit either way to cellphone data collection, it's already investing in artificial intelligence tracking linked to COVID-19.

As part of a $192 million investment package, the government announced support for BlueDot, a Toronto-based digital company focused on early warning technology for infectious diseases. It's been billed as one of the first companies in the world to identify the outbreak in Wuhan in late December 2019.

The Public Health Agency of Canada will use its disease analytics platform to monitor the spread of COVID 19, according to a media release. A spokesperson for Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains said privacy remains a top government priority.

BlueDot wasn't available for an interview, but a spokesperson said their technology tracks the spread of cases of the disease and looks at where the hotspots are.

 

A question to my Canadian friends. Is CBC news credible in your opinion?

 

Yes. The Canadian Broadcast Corporation is a very credible and reliable News source

 

I think the question that's probably in every Canadian's mind: Is there still Molson's and Back Bacon in the stores?
Lol

 

What was that beer, Ladoor, labore, Bradore , it was like 10%abv, had a friend used to go across the border and come back with cases of it,

 

Justins father Pierre was a bit of power grabber when he was P.M. During the October crisis (1970) Pierre thought the FLQ was beyond the ability of law enforcement to control.
He declared Martial law and put the Canadian armed forces on city streets. Justin is over reaching here as well.
In Canada the Conservatives and the New Democrats join together to keep him in check.
The left and the right keeping the liberals in check is up side to a minority government.

 

Canadian citizen arrested after trying to sneak into US on stolen fishing boat
By Louis Casiano | Fox News

A Canadian citizen on a stolen fishing boat was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol agents Monday in Maine, American officials said.


Canada's Royal Canadian Mounted Police requested assistance from American law enforcement agencies around 5:30 a.m. to help catch somone who was heading toward U.S. waters in a stolen fishing vessel, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection news release said.

The suspect stole the boat on Grand Manan Island in the Canadian province of New Brunswick and fled toward Maine, CBP said. A fisherman reported seeing the boat in Pigeon Hill Bay in Maine, officials said.


U.S. Border Patrol agents and the Coast Guard arrested a Canadian citizen who allegedly stole a fishing boat and crossed into U.S. waters on Monday. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

A Coast Guard boat crew and border agents caught up with the vessel and found the Canadian citizen, who was not identified. The suspect was handed off to Canadain authorities.

The incident comes as the U.S.-Canadian border remains closed until June 21 to nonessential travel as both nations continue to deal with the coronavirus pandemic

Essential workers are permitted to cross as well as Americans who are returning to America and Canadians returning to Canada.

The border was first shut down in March, as the virus gained a foothold in both countries.

 

If you have visited Brandi's Exotic Show lounge in Vancouver get a covid-19 test.

 

Trudeau Admits ‘Mistake’ as He Faces Third Corruption Scandal


KADRI MOHAMED/AFP via Getty Images
GABRIELLE REYES14 Jul 2020


Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized on Monday for granting a federal aid program to a private organization that has paid his family at least $220,000, Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail reported on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Trudeau faced increasing calls from both sides of the aisle for him to testify before parliament over his involvement in the federal government’s decision to grant a now-canceled $664 million federal contract to We Charity, an organization that has paid his family members on multiple occasions for speaking engagements.


“I made a mistake in not recusing myself immediately from the discussions, given our family’s history, and I’m sincerely sorry about not having done that,” Trudeau said at a press conference.

Both Trudeau and Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau apologized on Monday “for not recusing themselves from a cabinet decision about [the We] contract despite their personal and family ties to the organization. Mr. Trudeau’s family members, including his wife, mother, and brother, have been paid to take part in WE Charity events and Bill Morneau’s daughter is a contract employee there,” the Globe and Mail reported.

The Globe and Mail is “a media partner of WE Charity,” the newspaper disclosed in its article on Tuesday.

The Conservative Party of Canada has asked the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to open a criminal investigation into the incident to determine whether fraud was committed in the government’s granting of the contract to the charity. Conservative members of parliament have demanded Trudeau and Morneau, both members of Canada’s leftist Liberal Party, testify before a parliamentary committee investigating the contract. On July 3, Canada’s ethics commissioner launched an investigation into whether the president violated the nation’s Conflict of Interest Act.

This marks Trudeau’s third ethics investigation since he was elected prime minister in 2015. Trudeau violated the Conflict of Interest Act in both previous instances. The first, in 2017, involved a vacation Trudeau took on a private island owned by the multibillionaire Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslim sect. The second violation occurred last year when Trudeau attempted to protect the engineering company SNC-Lavalin from prosecution in a case that saw a subsidiary of the group “accused of paying bribes to secure contracts in Libya,” the BBC reported.

On July 13, independent research group Angus Reid released a survey that found that “half of Canadians (50%) approved of [Trudeau], while nearly half (48%) disapproved.” The Canadian non-profit says this represents “a slight drop from a high of 55% in May during the height of [the coronavirus pandemic], but [the percentage is] still significantly higher than [Trudeau’s] pre-coronavirus approval rating of 33% in February.”

The company noted that the “intensity of positive versus negative appraisal is striking – twice as many people strongly disapprove (34%) than strongly approve (16%).”

 

2 chainsaw-wielding men covered in blood arrested at Canada beach in frightening video
The men are seen charging at beachgoers before officers arrived
By Stephen Sorace | Fox News

Video


Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com.

Two blood-covered men were arrested in Canada over the weekend after revving chainsaws and marching toward beachgoers in a frightening video.

A witness shared video to social media of beachgoers at Toronto’s Cherry Beach backing away as one of the men calls out “Who hit me?” and pulls the ripcord of a chainsaw.



Police confirmed to the CBC that officers responded Sunday to reports of a large fight just before 10 a.m. at the beach.

Two men involved in the original fight suffered injuries before leaving the scene and returning with weapons, police said.

A second video from the scene shows police arriving and ordering the two men to the ground. As the men are handcuffed, police tell them they will get medical attention.

Both men were charged with assault. Police said the chainsaws were not used to inflict any injuries.

Const. Caroline de Kloet told the outlet that the men’s names are being withheld because they are also considered victims.


Cherry Beach is a lakeside beach park located in Toronto. (Google Earth)

Mayor John Tory told Toronto’s City News that authorities “will redouble efforts” to monitor beach gatherings, which according to the paper have been described as groups of "anti-maskers" who meet in the area for a party after protesting.



“We want to, on one hand, make sure that people are kept safe and that these kind of scary incidents don’t happen but on the other hand, that people are allowed to live their lives and to enjoy themselves without an oppressive, enforcement presence,” Tory said.

 

Wow! That's like a scene out of a B-movie slasher flick!

These men seemed to exhibit no injuries rendering them incapable of wielding chainsaws, yet:
"Const. Caroline de Kloet told the outlet that the men’s names are being withheld because they are also considered victims."

 

Well yeah. See, if you watched the video, at least one of them was bleeding from a head wound.

So, you know, good investigative work means don’t say anything publicly until you get the story straight, eh?

Keep a lid on things and not feed the media. Do the job. That kind of scenario, bud.