robert_viera

There's another federal government program which subsidizes the construction or expansion of biofuel plants. It's called the ecoAgriculture Biofuels Capital (ecoABC) Initiative. It's a $186-million program, but apparently only 18.6% of that has been allocated: Integrated Grain Processors Co-Operative Inc., Aylmer, Ontario: $3,904,712 North West Terminal Ltd., Unity, Saskatchewan: $5,050,000 Suncor Energy Products Inc., Mooretown, Ontario: $25,000,000 Western Biodiesel Inc., Aldersyde, Alberta: $638,559 Source: http://www4.agr.gc.ca/AAFC-AAC/display-aff...68〈=eng Note that Suncor has delayed the expansion of it's plant from 2009 to 2011. Unlike the ecoENERGY for Biofuels program, contributions in the ecoABC program must be repayed, but only if the plant is making more than $0.20/litre.

The towns and cities that were listed are not necessarily where the plants are actually located. The biggest subsidy listed for Greenfield Ethanol is for their plant in Varennes, Quebec. The Permolex plant is actually in Red Deer, Alberta, not Oakville, Ontario. The Rothsay biodiesel plant is in Montreal, Quebec, not Guelph, Ontario. So it's actually $301.9M in Ontario, $120.4M in Quebec, $43.1M in Alberta, and $8.4M in Saskatchewan. There are more plants (many of which are in western Canada) that have signed contribution agreements with Natural Resources Canada under this subsidy program, a list of which you can see here: http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/transportation/ecoe...nts.cfm?attr=16 Hopefully these will show up on the public disclosure section of Natural Resources Canada's web site in the future, but I'm doubtful now seeing how the 2008-2009 third quarter recipients of this subsidy seem to have disappeared from that web site.

So we're supposed to absorb this tax increase as consumers and employees and rely on the goodwill and generosity of the business owner? Sounds like the business owners would have the choice whether or not to pass-on their tax cut or keep it all for themselves, but the consumers won't have the choice whether to pay the increased tax.

The Chatham plant is one of the plants that's getting the subsidy: GREENFIELD ETHANOL INC. BRAMPTON, ONTARIO, CANADA 2008-11-21 $72,800,000.00

Unless you're an environmental scientist, your claim that the environmental benefits of biofuels are 'a fact' has about the same credibility as the opinion of any lay person. I wonder what this thing called "the economy" is that everyone keeps talking about? From what I can tell, when someone says that something "helps the economy" it means that the minority of folks who control most of the money in our society will benefit. If someone says something "hurts the economy" they mean that the same wealthy minority won't get wealthy quite so fast, or (gasp!) might even get a bit less wealthy. It doesn't matter if the thing that "hurts the economy" benefits our society in other ways, environmentally for example, because it means that the established minority that controls most of the wealth in our society might lose some of that wealth to some upstarts with a better idea. We're all supposed to be so scared of the dire consequences of doing harm to "the economy", but the reality is that changes that disrupt established industries can often lead to great strides for society. So when you hear people scaremongering about dire consequences to "the economy", just remember that as long as humans have problems to solve, and needs and wants to be met, there will continue to be jobs, though you may get a different boss now and then.

Of course it's all individuals who pay, ultimately. The question is which individuals will pay less and which will pay more. If "tax competitiveness" means that business owners pay less and the people who provide them with their profits (consumers) pay more, I think that's a shift in the wrong direction. We would all be better off if businesses people spent their money improving their business productivity rather than paying lobbyists to help them shift the tax burden onto others.

I don't suppose "tax competitiveness" takes into account the harm that an increased tax burden on individuals does, or the harm caused if government services must be cut (or the deficits that are incurred if they aren't cut)? I guess we can't expect businesses to care about anything that doesn't appear on their balance sheet. If "tax competitiveness" means a race to the bottom where businesses pays less and less tax and individuals pay more and more, I wouldn't be too disappointed if Canada wasn't the most competitive. I'll bet many economists who work for corporations approve of corporate tax cuts. I'm not sure the ones that are concerned with balancing our governments' books are quite as enamoured with them. It wasn't too long ago that Mr. Duncan and Mr. McGuinty didn't think very much of Mr. Flaherty's advice on corporate tax cuts, so it's not just the NDP that have opposed them.

Let's not forget what this program is supposed to be about. It's called ecoENERGY for Biofuels, for a reason. It's supposed to be about moving to energy sources that do less harm to our environment. Unfortunately the environmental merit of biofuels has been called into question,with respect to greenhouse gas reduction. Governments have already guaranteed a market for farmers' corn by requiring a certain percentage of ethanol in gasoline. In fact, there's not enough corn produced in all of Ontario to meet the demand created by the regulations. Why should we subsidize huge corporations like Suncor when governments are struggling to balance the books and any benefit to the environment is in doubt?

The ecoENERGY for Biofuels program is set to give up to $1.5-billion of the taxpayer's money to these companies. Any taxpayer ought to have the right to question how their taxes are spent.

So Ontario consumers will be picking up the tab so that export businesses can sell things cheaper to foreigners? I assume that's what you mean by "competitiveness". Of course, we also have further cuts to corporate taxes with this budget, another Flaherty recommendation. This attempt to improve Ontario's "competitiveness" will also shift more of the tax burden off of business and onto the individual.

Another government shifting the burden of taxes off businesses and on to the consumer. It's sad to see Dalton McGuinty taking Jim Flaherty's advice. I was watching the news last night and the story that aired just before the story about the GST/PST harmonization was about the safety of ski helmets. I recall replacing a bike helmet last year and was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that it was exempt from PST. I guess another downside of harmonization is that the province loses the ability to encourage people to buy certain things by making them PST exempt.

I checked the Natural Resources Canada web site today that I referenced in footnote number 4 of my original post and found that the information regarding grants to recipients of the ecoENERGY for Biofuels operating subsidy seem to have been removed from the public disclosure section of Natural Resources Canada's web site! Here is the information that I found there originally: Does anyone have an idea why this information might have been removed?

The plant is located in the riding of Minister of State (Status of Women) Helena Guergis. Needless to say, many of her constituents are very unhappy about what this plant is putting into the air. I don't think many of them will be impressed that Ms. Guergis' government is cancelling an environmental assessment of the plant so that her government can hand over $32-million of the taxpayer's dollars to the company townspeople hold responsible for emitting odours the town's mayor called "awful", "rancid", and "putrid". 1 1Collingwood ethanol plant stinks: http://www.collingwoodconnection.com/barri.../article/110701

Landfill's waste is tainting water, report warns Facility leaking harmful chemicals 180 years ahead of schedule http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...y/National/home

Notice has been posted on the Canadian Environmental Assessment Registry that the federal environmental assessment of an ethanol plant in Collingwood, Ontario was canceled 12 on March 2 even though the plant faces charges under the provincial Environmental Protection Act. 3 The federal environmental assessment was triggered because the Collingwood Ethanol plant applied for, and apparently is receiving, $32.7-million in operating subsidies from the federal Ministry of Natural Resources under it's ecoENERGY for BioFuels program. 4 From the Notice of Commencement last July: From the Notice of Cancellation: 1 Notice of Cancellation: http://www.ceaa.gc.ca/050/details-eng.cfm?CEAR_ID=40559 2 Notice of Commencement: http://www.ceaa.gc.ca/050/details-eng.cfm?...&ForceNOC=Y 3http://www.collingwoodconnection.com/colli.../article/115576 4http://www2.nrcan.gc.ca/dgc-dposc/index.cf...422&strt=31

Didn't the head of Simcoe County council, Tony Guergis, vote in favour of going ahead with Site 41 after he had promised to fight it while campaigning? Seems to me if you're looking for an electoral alternative, he's the one you should be looking to replace. http://www.simcoe.com/article/41509

Peter Van Loan. Wasn't he the former Minister for Democratic Renewal who tried to give Ontario 1 new seat in the House of Commons for every increase in population of 200,000 while he was going to give Alberta and B.C. 1 new seat for every increase in population of 100,000? Wasn't he the person who called the Premier of Ontario the "small man of confederation" for protesting this disparity? Why would we elect a man premier who was prepared to deny the people of his own province equal democratic representation?

Do you mind that the extra money you might be paying to watch A-Channel will ultimately end up in the pockets of the people who chose to close A-Channel stations and cut local programming? The Minister and the CRTC didn't make the decision to close A-Channel stations and cut local programming, CTVglobemedia did.

Another Conservative MP seems to have a different perspective on this issue than Mr. Brown. The following quote is from the same Hill Times article mentioned in my original post:

This isn't about which channels you can or can't watch on TV, it's about whether you should pay even more for some of the channels you're already watching. It's not about the CRTC either. It's about CTVglobemedia and the other media conglomerates trying to get the government to give them another way to get more revenue from the public even as they cut local programming.

Would you rather have the Thomsons or perhaps the Aspers decide what we get to watch on TV? At least with government bureaucrats there is a bit of public transparency and accountability.

It's no secret that big media conglomerates like CTVglobemedia are in the broadcasting business to make a profit. Their modus operandi is nothing new. They buy up local media outlets and then they reduce costs (e.g. firing local employees) by replacing local content with cheaper national or American content in order to increase their profits. I have to give CTVglobemedia credit for threatening to further eliminate local content and then trying to point the finger of blame at cable/satellite companies and government bureaucrats. Very clever! My local MP certainly has bought into their argument. If the CRTC made a mistake, it was in allowing CTVglobemedia to buy these local stations in the first place.

In an attempt to portray himself as the saviour of local television, Barrie MP Patrick Brown is calling on the CRTC to allow CTVglobemedia (and others) to charge cable and satellite companies fees to carry the signals of television stations who broadcast over the air. The fees would no doubt be passed on to cable and satellite subscribers in the form of higher monthly bills. CTVglobemedia, which owns the local "A" station in Barrie, recently laid-off 24 of the 74 employees of the station and cancelled local programming including "A Morning", "A News This Week" and "Ontario News This Week". Even though most of the shows on "A" are American, CTVglobemedia chose to cut local programming. According to a local union president, CTVglobemedia "threw the local stations under the bus" when times got tough. 1 Now Patrick Brown is siding with CTVglobemedia and asking cable and satellite subscribers to pay additional fees to watch broadcasts that are "freely" available over the air. Of course, these broadcasts are not really free, you pay for them when you purchase goods or services from companies that advertise on these stations. Since advertising rates are based in part on the size of the audience, I wonder how much less CTVglobemedia would be able to charge for advertising on "A" if it's broadcast was not carried by the cable and satellite companies? In an article in The Hill Times 2, Patrick Brown is quoted saying "The value I see in the A Channels is that they are Canadian cultural content; when I turn on the A Channel news they're talking about Canadian news. I don't want to turn to CNN and have no Canadian content, have no local content." I guess Mr. Brown hasn't been watching "A" Channel very closely, because this quote seems to indicate that he isn't aware that "A" Channel regularly uses CNN content in it's news broadcasts. If Mr. Brown wants to save local programming, he should be presenting a petition to CTVglobemedia and not asking cable and satellite subscribers in Barrie to fork over more money to a company like CTVglobemedia that cuts local programming so that subscribers can watch a channel that features mostly American programming and that subscribers already support through it's advertisers. By the way ... the biggest chunk of CTVglobemedia is owned by Canada's richest family, the Thomsons. If the CRTC allows these new fees, the Thomson's will get richer, cable and satellite subscribers will get poorer, and we'll have Patrick Brown, in part, to thank for it. 1http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/ArticleDi....aspx?e=1469969 2MPs across country wonder where local newspaper, television coverage going..., by Harris MacLeod, The Hill Times

I didn't say that Mr. Tory was a scoundrel. I said that he was in charge of his campaigns, so you can't put the blame for his losses on others holding him back. You can read a brief explanation of negative option billing here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Cable#..._Option_Billing Here's an excerpt from a 2002 National Post article: Source: Is Guy Giorno plotting the downfall of Morley Kells? by Robert Benzie and Graham Richardson

Wasn't Mr. Powell the fellow who used his "character, integrity, and honour" to sell the U.S. invasion of Iraq to the world using concocted evidence of weapons of mass destruction at the UN Security Council? As for John Tory, he was in charge of his campaigns for Toronto Mayor, member for Don Valley West, and Member for Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock and of course, the PC Party campaign in 2007. If anyone held Mr. Tory back, it was Mr. Tory. Don't worry though, John Tory will not be forgotten. Anyone who was a Rogers customer when they introduced negative-option billing won't forget Mr. Tory.