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Tony Hladun

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  1. I'm surprised no one here has said anything. Is it a case of China wanting to know what their worst enemy is thinking? Is it payment for something? How about some conspiracy theories.
  2. The past is the past. The developed world wanted ever increasing living standards and the rest of the world wanted to be like the developed countries. I'm talking about today and looking at what is best for Canada in the reality of today. Righteous poverty won't sell to Canadians.
  3. It's the world, mainly the large emitters, that determine global CO2 emissions. What Canada does has no significant impact on global events. Today globally we use more oil than ever...101 million barrels a day. What Canada can decide is whether it wishes to face the future as a rich or poor nation. We're facing catastrophic events and we need resources to deal with them. By crippling our economy we only make matters worse for ourselves and we save nothing. So we need to look at what other countries are actually DOING, not preaching about, and act accordingly. For example, we should commit to match the annual percentage reduction of GHG emissions of the USA, China and India. We should commit to do our share but we should not shoot ourselves in both feet.
  4. There are three factors that have stifled growth: 1. We're a federation of provinces with populations ranging from 145k to 14 million. Besides Ontario and Quebec the other provinces don't count and are treated like colonies. Capital investment is sucked to the middle. 2. Toronto is close to Detroit and not just by proximity. Canada pours money into a dying auto industry and the international car companies milk the largess. Immigration buoys the Ontario economy but mainly with low paying jobs. 3. Quebec always has to get a special deal. In their defence, French culture isn't about cut-throat competition, but capital is drained into projects to get Quebec votes. So Canada is a very economically dysfunctional country. Equalization is supposed to make everyone equal, but when everyone is equal then everyone is poor. When Federal Liberals came in I remember one year where the reduction of capital investment in Alberta due to Liberal policies equaled the total annual capital investment in Quebec. Lastly, we're now a joke in the eyes of the rest of the world so there's little outside investment. We've committed to carbon reduction which is a high-cost endeavour. The floods in Nova Scotia may be caused by global warming, but that is because the world is using a record 101 million barrels of oil a day and not by Fort McMurray. The world has to solve global warming, but I'm afraid that's not going to happen. So a strong economy is our best defense to deal with catastrophe and transition. Righteous poverty won't get us anywhere.
  5. Trudeau escapes to Kyiv because it's safer there. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
  6. CdnFox, you raised the point on how magnamus Ontario was so I pointed out that Ontario has been in the trough for a long time. As I mentioned above the resources do belong to AB. At this point rave on, I'm done.
  7. No, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/natural-resources-transfer-acts-1930
  8. CdnFox, before you tell us too much on how Ontario has suffered remember that Ottawa played a huge role in building the nuclear reactors in Ontario that now allow you to crow about low carbon. Read page 14 of this document https://canteach.candu.org/Content Library/19930101.pdf. Now Ottawa is pouring billions of dollars into Ontario for EV's. The chances of Ontario competing in the global EV market is just a hope and a dream. But lets say everyone in Ontario gets a free EV, where will the electricity you need come from? Will Ottawa build you more nuclear plants?
  9. The problem is including resource revenues in Equalization calculations. Resources belong to AB (and BC, SK, NL) and so to include them as Equalization capacity (a totally arbitrary calculation), even at the 50% level, is punitive. Yes the personal tax structure at the federal level is the same, but that's not the point. And now with the Feds taking the money they want AB to kill its main industry as well. An analogy of what the draining payments of Equalization are like would be to have ON add the capital gains in Toronto property to their calculation and then see what happens. The resource provinces are being treated as colonies and their wealth is being stripped by the central Canada power axis.
  10. It's been a few days and I've given this some thought. To be clear, I believe in inequality. here's why I do. As I said, if everyone is equal then everyone is poor. What happens then, and communist countries have shown this over and over again, is corruption takes over. There is no market discipline...no rules to the game. In the end the poor just get more poor because no one has the incentive to create wealth because it must be just stolen. Venezuela has oil riches greater than Canada and just look at what socialism (equality) has done to them. With inequality, a few people/companies create wealth. Poor people who work hard succeed and gain wealth as well. The leader of Singapore said they have two resources, people and hard work, and with that they have become successful. So making Alberta poor with Equalization will not make Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes rich...we will all just be poor. I have a saying that goes; if you want people to have nothing then you give them everything and if you want them to have everything then you give them nothing.
  11. You need to understand the difference between control and exploitation versus letting people and provinces excel at their strengths.
  12. Three things to consider: Canada is an Ontario/Quebec axis of power with the rest of the provinces treated as colonies. We're not a confederation any more. (Maybe we never were.) The concepts of equality (Equalization, wokeism and socialism) try to make everyone equal. When everyone is equal history has taught us that then everyone is poor. Socialism is intellectually very attractive but it has just one fault...it doesn't work. We're lazy and we want.
  13. When the CBC shows us a house buyer it's a young immigrant family with four children. Those are probably not the norm. Someone who buys a $700k house is probably selling a $700k house that's paid for. I used to joke with my neighbour that we should make ourselves billionaires...we'd sell our houses to each other for a billion dollars and then we could go around saying we're each worth a billion dollars. The price of a house is really an admission ticket to a certain wealth strata. Yes there aren't enough cheap houses but that's in Toronto and Vancouver. There are plenty of places in Canada where house prices are much more reasonable, but people need to be willing to live there. In 1974 I left Toronto because houses cost $50k and as a graduate engineer I only made $10k. So my wife and I moved to Calgary and bought a house for $27k. If we're not going to an office why do we need to be in a major city? But governments need to recognize this and help build smaller communities. The real measure of housing health is not the price but it is the number of houses sold. There will always be corporate and government transfers that pay whatever is necessary. When sales are few this has an effect of propping up prices. All that said, the price of an average house is 40% of the average family income divided by the interest rate. The near zero interest rates (and QE) have created horrific asset bubbles. Governments that wring their hands and say how they'll fix it are actually the creators of this problem. In the meantime we're sliding on ice and when the mortgages need to be renewed, then we'll find out what will really happen.
  14. Today Conservative ideology does not appeal to voters. People want something for nothing and that is how they vote. A while back I posted this video with a few suggestions for Conservatives. This approach might not get them elected, nothing might, but at least they can have responsibility and integrity.
  15. A friend sent me the following and it's an excellent explanation of why the left/socialism does, and continuously hasn't, worked.
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