cannuck

Having known an Mi6 agent VERY well, I would tend to agree with this statement.

Dougie: it is definitely lazy, chickenshit and greedy. Sorry to have to point out: you are a perfect example. The money you make created not one single job, as no wealth was created (you bought your stocks as you have said AFTER the IPO, so the money was already at risk and working from the real investors). Once Canadians start to give a flying purple fuck about anyone but themselves personally, then the solutions can be put in place. For that to happen, they need to understand how the world and economies actually work. Then DO something about other than, 'I got mine, so fuck you".

I have worked with ironworkers in Ft. Mac who are on 28 on, 4 off cycle of 12s. That gives them $230k for a year. NOW you know why they get passed over. For someone with basically no training, few skills and little repsonsibility, that is ridiculous

Sorry to generalize: but your attitude is shared between left and right: cut off your news to spite your face. We decided we were too important to work for a living, and we could all live off of speculation, so just gave our jobs and business to China who don't share such high and mighty dillusions. In the real world, long term, your/our success and sustainability economically means being competitive producers and traders. As far as dictatorship goes: careful what you wish for. Socialist style government is one way to get there. (granted, not the only). It can start with the erosion of personal rights, freedoms and responsibility when socialists give that power to the state, and at some point the state can simply do WTF it wants (think of SNC case, for a good example)

I don't understand all of the animosity towards China. The "right" seems to despise China because they are successful and we sit here with far more resources per capita than ANY other country and we are just scraping by. We have been awash in a sea of cheap gas for more than a decade now, and anyone who has a half a clue realizes that China needs a HELL of a lot of gas, but it needs to get there as LNG (that in Asia is priced against a factor of petroleum energy equivalence) thus worth orders of magnitude more than it is worth in a pipeline in Canada. All you need to do is build an LNG plant, buy cheap gas out of the pipeline at North American prices, liquify it, ship it to China a make a crapload of cash. So, where was the "right wing" business community of Canada for the last decade when this opportunity was first there? We are too lazy/stupid/'chickenshit to get off of our ass and do it, so why bitch about the Chinese doing what simply has to be done???? The animosity from the left side is even more peculiar. China is the real deal, a Communist dictatorship that has the sense to not only tolerate, but promote private business. We spend all of our effort virtue signalling, importing everyone else's trash and problems, subsidizing everyone and everything out there, racking up stunning amounts of debt, but Chico simply sends their people to work and watches them make gazillion$$$.

We had far more exotic opportunities to get into and out of trouble.Usually went relatively undetected except when the C Pro C came knocking at the door. The Meatheads were pretty good about it, as if they pushed the issue, you old man could be upon charges. BTW: my "helicpotered" son-in-law did go backpacking in Afghanistan. Has the citation, medals, etc. to show for it. You wouldn't believe some of the places on this planet and situations our baby has been in and out of (we also consider ourselves a LOT more protective parents than mine were) and seems to manage on her own (to be clear, her first words were not "Mama" but some variation of "I effing well do it myself"). Not every millenial kid is a basket case.

I heard he was going to run for the Liberals in one of the Hogtown downtown ridings.

Thanks for reminding...I had forgotten that. Notice that Trudeau government didn't bother following that law. Not sure if they had to be convicted in Canada, or was conviction in the other 3 countries adequate?

I could not imagine what Harper did or did not know, but EVERYONE in several industries knew full well just how SNC did business and no department of Justice stepped in until the Gadaffi stuff surfaced, and it was IIRC 3 other countries that DID prosecute SNC.

The only surprise is that Canadian voters are collectively so stupid they will probably re-elect the criminals who enabled SNC at the Federal, provincial and municipal level over and over and over again.

Yeah, same thing happened as far out as Peterborough. My Mother retired there, and the city moved in - so she moved out - to Saskatoon area. Said those were the best years of her life (being close to grandkids and great grands - but also returning to her Mennonite roots - her Dad Amish from PA).

Our ancestral homes were Dunnville and Port Colborne, I was borne in Welland, raised in several locations on or near Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, all smaller towns until moving out to Southern MB with parents. Wife is from MB (Selkirk settler family), and we have lived in small towns, Winnipeg and the far North before CAREFULLY choosing to raise kids in close proximity to Saskatoon SK. My sister lived in Hamilton and Grimsby before downsizing to Binbrook. I have family and friends all over the province (including GTA) and my wife had lived on both coasts before we met. I have also traveled extensively on business for a half century all over Canada (and much of the world), so my opinions about Toronto are not abstract. I would never live there, much less inflict such a horrible fate upon my children. AB was on our short list, but I did not particularly like the flavour of either Edmonton nor Calgary, and we wanted to live close enough to a University with every possible faculty so kids to live at home when going there. Both AB big cities were simply too big to fit our profile of things we wanted. We needed to be outside of a city, but with easy and quick access to facilities, so 250,000 was our limit to be near. Our youngest now lives in Edmonton, but they (also extensive world travelers) are trying to get back to Saskatoon. The Guess Who got it right (Runnin' Back to Saskatoon), pretty much my/our theme song. I agree with J4, though. Most large cities, while very diverse and dynamic are cliquey - essentially assemblies of ghettos.

good link. I certainly agree.

EXACTLY why I like Max: he has at least been blessed with a pair of cojones whereas Dimples has yet to grow or show any. Also, Max will gladly tell you what he believes and believes in, whereas tweedledee seems spellbound. Only thing I can say is that NOBODY could be as stupid as tweedleDUMB, but Canadians elected that mindless fool (and a cabinet befitting) so maybe they can only vote for people of no substance and intellect.

It is refreshing to see/read some of what is going on in Quebec politics. The national media is so Toronto-centric that Montreal is only grudgingly admitted as being part of Canada. We are, though, cut off from our French bretheren by the very francophone extremism that DOES now exist within the province. QOC's post is one of those rare, and to me most welcome attempts to reach across the Ottawa river past the Rideau Canal. Because of the language barrier, I see more of and know far more about local politics in LA or Boston than Montreal, and that to me is a failure of Canada as a nation. One of the BIG reasons for the rift, though, is the development of the institutions of the Government of Canada to pander to Quebec - at the expense of the ROC. It is these misguided efforts to "hold Canada together" that are the greatest element of what may eventually tear it apart. In a lifetime of involvement with Federal politics and bureaucrats in Canada and its embassies around the world, I am painfully aware of just how extreme that sentiment and effort...let me just call it the Federal drive to put "Quebec of Canada" in virtually everything that wears very thin my tolerance for the federation. Quebec seems susceptible to a sharp left movement in its politics mostly because it IS organized to exist largely as a dependent state. Quebec business turns to Ottawa for endless "special privilege" as does the province itself - and the ROC validates this by continuing to grant such special privileges to Quebec of the ROC. Take a close look how interprovincial trade protectionism exists within la belle province, and many, many other circumstances and one can see that the path to power in the province is to be in political spheres of influence. When government is the master instead of the servant, you will see that movements want and NEED to be in political power to validate and execute their agenda.

If the news media in this country had even the tiniest bit of integrity, they would blast the Trudeau government hard on this one. My guess: you will only read about it here (or maybe in Yurp)

Sadly, I really like Max, and blame the CPC for this situation, not him. THEY turned their back on him leaving him to turn his on them. Canada will pay the price for that, and the very large price may well be re-electing the most idiotic and incompetent individual to ever run for office in this country.

My wife and I spent nearly two years looking for the best place in the world to live and raise a family. Southern Ontario (where I was borne) never came close to making on any list. Prairies were always there for Canada (WI for USA, several in EU, only one in N Africa was Maroc but Toronto???? Not the "engine" of Canada, more like the anal sphincter.)

That is quite disturbing. I will discuss with my Chinese business partner, who toes the party line and is my source of "official" policy information. No, not a communist, VERY much a capitalist, but a realist and above all, Chinese (which means a lot more than it seems to suggest). Thanks for posting.

Let's see how serious and open minded the participants in this thread can be. Here is a link about one of my personal heroes. This is a guy who is extremely capable technically and about as honest as honest can be (hallmark of a great engineer). I have known of him for 40-odd years since one of my best friends built his first design, and found many ways to improve it. My buddy is a Swedish engineer (also internationally reknown) who gave the younger engineer some good advice that I imagine contributed to his future successes. I will leave it to those who read the article to comment, but IMHO, this is about the most honest, thorough and accurate summation of the subject you will find. forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/09/09/a-cool-headed-climate-conversation-with-aerospace-legend-burt-rutan/#2a1c00cf7e03

You bring me to think of this in a far different way. I don't know if you ever had much to do with NYC in the '60s or '70s, but I can vividly recall the level of gun crimes, and crime in general. It made Somalia seem like a nice beach resort. Rudy didn't clean that mess up by controlling the guns, he did it by controlling the criminals. We really CAN learn from our Southern neighbours. The problems in Toronto are largely due to street gangs (most of whom are there due to really stupid and inept immigration policies not just from the present, but for many administrations past...and here is where Dougie's comments about liberal/Liberals being entrenched in the bureaucracy are spot on).

Dougie, you're no fun at all. I can't disagree with you, try as I might.

To begin with "Scientific" American is not exactly what one would call a respected scientific journal. Articles tend to be sensationalized editorial pieces rather than balanced and objective. This is a perfect example. The writer, as one can tell by the endless technical errors, is certainly not familiar with petroleum industry or chemistry. As I told you in an earlier post, the Athabasca sands have very little associated gas and virtually no CO2. You would produce CO2 by burning the oil, but in only a slightly higher amount (due to C/H ratio) than any other crude. Where they ARE correct is that the current methods of extraction FOR SAGD NOT FOR MINING (which are the projects they quote) involved in situ heating, which today is done mostly by burning natural gas. Everyone knows how expensive and inefficient this method is, but that is the technology that is for the time in use. There are many, many far more environmentally and resource use friendly technologies under development. If our collective head wasn't so far up or collective ass on the subject, common sense and good engineering practice would mean using a nuclear plant to generate electricity to do in situ EMF (RF) heating of the reservoir. Russians do it a fair bit, so not like we have to re-invent the wheel. One glaring error in the article - to the point of pure stupidity - is that "all that carbon has to be removed from the bitumen, etc." Absolute bullshit. In the mineable areas (the really large projects) oil sands are trucked to an upgrader that simply (OK, not so simple, but not that complex either) adds hydrogen to improve the H/C ratio and fracture the long C-C bonds to make shorter, lighter, saturated molecules (light crude called "Syncrude" or "synthetic crude"). Yes, there IS petcoke made at the cracker (petroleum coke, mostly carbon) as it is essential for the steelmaking industry where it is made into electrodes and also combined with iron, NOT burned) When it IS burned (power, cement) it is about 15% higher in CO2 emissions than other fuels. If there IS a really stupid thing being done with the Athabasca sands (and there IS) it is allowing dilbit to be shipped. Dilluted Bitumen is a very wasteful way of shipping and takes the first step in the value added chain to the other end of the pipeline (or rail line in some cases). Doing this puts a heavy element into a pipeline, dilluted with a very light element. Spills of those result in a heavy bit going to the bottom of water, and very, very slowly degrading and an extremely light fraction spreading far and wide. Also, in shipping presenting an extreme fire/explosion hazard as well. By opposing pipelines, eco freaks force shipment into railroads, which have a HORRIBLE safety record (remember Lac Megantic?? I believe more deaths from that one incident than ALL pipeline deaths in the history of the entire North American petroleum industry). I am getting to the stage watching the opposition to Athabasca and pipelines to really believe that the impetus behind such efforts is purely economic, and the environmental movement schill it without any idea WTF they are speaking about.

sorry, I missed that. will go back, read and comment

Um...no, they are not. It is true that several years ago, when China was developing in exactly the same way everyone else did, they did exactly what everyone else did at that stage and built a lot of coal fired power plants. Beijing becoming the most polluted city on the planet pointed out to them that there were environmental consequences to doing what we did, they did and everyone else did, so they moved on long ago. You can NOT build a new coal fired plant, and as gas infrastructure spreads, intermediate solution to the problem is not to convert older plants, but to replace them with gas fired generation capacity...until their nuclear power programme gets into high gear. The DO, however, use a lot of coal, but it is broken down for use as synfuel and also as feedstocks for other petrochem processes.