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Feds giving 13 billion dollars subsidy to Volkswagon EV battery plant


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Just now, blackbird said:

OK, I was mistaken on that point.  But you don't seem to understand how Canada works if you think natives can blockade railways and have a valid claim.  Many native rights activists claim traditional territory is theirs.  But that is complete nonsense.  As Dougie pointed out the most of the land belongs to the Crown.  Aboriginals claims of traditional territory does not mean anything.  That is just a bargaining ploy.  You seem to think they own the land.  Don't know what kind of education you had or where you learned that.  It is rubbish.

in fairness, the Indians did not have a concept of property rights by the European definitiom

being nomadic peoples, their concept was access to all

so rather than coming to take your property from you

the Indians would rather assert something like they could hunt & fish on your land, unmolested

of you tried to stop them, then they might go use force, such as a blockade

 

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17 minutes ago, blackbird said:

OK, I was mistaken on that point.  But you don't seem to understand how Canada works if you think natives can blockade railways and have a valid claim.  Many native rights activists claim traditional territory is theirs.  But that is complete nonsense.  As Dougie pointed out the most of the land belongs to the Crown.  Aboriginals claims of traditional territory does not mean anything.  That is just a bargaining ploy.  You seem to think they own the land.  Don't know what kind of education you had or where you learned that.  It is rubbish.

Really???

Seems they can do what they want, when they want and how they want. Their actions prove it LOL

You really need a lesson in indigenous rights.

According to Dougie???  Old data.

"The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed that Aboriginal title gives the holder the right to use, control, and manage the land and the right to the economic benefits of the land and its resources"

https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/principles-principes.html

?"while representing 4.9% of the total population, Indigenous peoples hold around 626 000 km² or 6.3% of the total landmass of Canada."

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/fc2b28b3-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/fc2b28b3-en

""Most federally administered land is in the Canadian territories (Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon), and is administered on behalf of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada; "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_ownership_in_Canada

Wet'suwet'en law is recognized by Canada's highest court, and authority over the nation's land lies with the hereditary chiefs.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/12/02/news/canadas-supreme-court-recognizes-wetsuweten-law-coastal-gaslink

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21 minutes ago, blackbird said:

 As Dougie pointed out the most of the land belongs to the Crown. 

but in theory, the Indians are the Crown's stalwart allies

the British Crown protected its Indian allies from the American republic

particularly in the Ohio Valley

this then incited the American  colonists to fight the War of Independence

so that the American republic would own the land

the British ( Canadian ) position is that the Crown owns the land on behalf of the Loyalists

and the Indians are the Loyalists too therein

hence why the Grand River Mohawk warriors saved Canada from the Americans upon Queenston Heights

to wit, God save the King & HM Mohawk warriors

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12 minutes ago, ExFlyer said:

Wet'suwet'en law is recognized by Canada's highest court, and authority over the nation's land lies with the hereditary chiefs.

Contrary to what you claim, the Supreme Court did not say they own the land they claim as "traditional territory".  The only land they have a chance of claiming is theirs is if they can prove they lived and used a particular piece of land.  They claim thousands of square kilometers as "traditional territory".  They have no proof, no occupancy, and nothing to give any credence and the courts did not give them that land.  Your claim is a general claim that is fiction.

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1 hour ago, blackbird said:

Contrary to what you claim, the Supreme Court did not say they own the land they claim as "traditional territory".  The only land they have a chance of claiming is theirs is if they can prove they lived and used a particular piece of land.  They claim thousands of square kilometers as "traditional territory".  They have no proof, no occupancy, and nothing to give any credence and the courts did not give them that land.  Your claim is a general claim that is fiction.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Nothing general.

Back to your topic

"the new plant will create 3,000 direct jobs and 30,000 indirect jobs. "

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/everyone-wanted-this-trudeau-defends-132b-in-subsidies-for-vw-battery-plant-175638810.html

Edited by ExFlyer
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I don't like it either, but that's how things work.

Only the stupidest, blindest and the outright liars could comment that's the fault of liberals and leftists, VW is playing countries off against each other just like most corporate interests do with large investments.

At least we're being told these are subsidies, we aren't paying a full $13 billion out of gov't funds, most of it will cost us future tax revenue not cash out of pocket like a lot of people seem to think. We could also gut labour laws, give free land, loosen child labour laws and deny flat outright that it was subsidizing like some Goober State we had to compete against for the plant.

Justin's Daddy would've used the $13 billion to open a public corporation battery plant that employed the same workers, returned profits to the public and forced the corporations to compete against it. But Oh No! that's communism like PetroCanada was, we can't do that, its bad mmmkay?

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6 hours ago, ExFlyer said:

While it is easy tor throw out assertions like "cost taxpayers about 1.6 million dollars per job to create 8,000 jobs" what is overlooked in those statements is that the community and city which this plant is being developed regains life.

You can't think of a cheaper way to bring life to a town of under 14k people than thirteen billion bucks? This is almost a million dollars for every man, woman and child in St. Thomas.

And note it is "up to" 8,000 jobs, no guarantee it won't be 2,000.

\

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7 minutes ago, Aristides said:

Like it or not, we are in competition with the US and others for these new technologies. 

It'll cost $7B to build the plant. Why don't we just build the damn plant ourselves and save $6B? At least that way we can be sure it won't be closed down as soon as the time is up and Volkswagon gets a better offer elsewhere.

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3 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

You can't think of a cheaper way to bring life to a town of under 14k people than thirteen billion bucks? This is almost a million dollars for every man, woman and child in St. Thomas.

And note it is "up to" 8,000 jobs, no guarantee it won't be 2,000.

\

I think the key was also the up to 30,000  indirect jobs.

Complain and whine all you want, that is the way governments of all stripes, federal and provincial and municipal, do to get business to help the local economies. This is not new and certainly not exclusive to this government.

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1 minute ago, I am Groot said:

It'll cost $7B to build the plant. Why don't we just build the damn plant ourselves and save $6B? At least that way we can be sure it won't be closed down as soon as the time is up and Volkswagon gets a better offer elsewhere.

VW is putting 7 billion of its own into this plant. 

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1 hour ago, ExFlyer said:

I think the key was also the up to 30,000  indirect jobs.

Complain and whine all you want, that is the way governments of all stripes, federal and provincial and municipal, do to get business to help the local economies. This is not new and certainly not exclusive to this government.

$13 billion is by far and away the most money any Canadian government has ever spent on buying some jobs off a company - 3000 btw not 8000.  It's the worst kind of corporate welfare.

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5 hours ago, blackbird said:

But you don't seem to understand how Canada works if you think natives can blockade railways and have a valid claim. 

I'm afraid its you who's out of touch there.  In fact it's a very successful tactic and often results in a claim moving forward.

If you want to say it SHOULDNT be - that's probably pretty defensible.  If you're saying it should CHANGE - sure,  right with you.

But - as of now it absolutely is the case and the courts have done much to back that up.  It is the way of things at the moment.

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43 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

I'm afraid its you who's out of touch there.  In fact it's a very successful tactic and often results in a claim moving forward.

If you want to say it SHOULDNT be - that's probably pretty defensible.  If you're saying it should CHANGE - sure,  right with you.

But - as of now it absolutely is the case and the courts have done much to back that up.  It is the way of things at the moment.

So what you're saying is illegal actions are rewarded in Canada.  I don't think the railway blockades achieved anything for the blockaders.  

"Rail lines across Canada have been paralysed for almost two weeks after being blockaded by indigenous protesters and their supporters.

The blockades were put in place in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en First Nation hereditary chiefs who oppose a natural gas pipeline in their traditional territory in the province of British Columbia (BC)."

The Wet'suwet'en conflict disrupting Canada's rail system - BBC News

The pipeline is around two-thirds completed now.  The protesters failed to stop the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline project.  Blockading the railways failed to stop it.  A terrorist attack at the worksite destroyed tens of millions of dollars worth of machinery but did not stop the project.  It is going ahead.

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1 hour ago, I am Groot said:

$13 billion is by far and away the most money any Canadian government has ever spent on buying some jobs off a company - 3000 btw not 8000.  It's the worst kind of corporate welfare.

Not really. Do you think that the energy industry only supports people who work on the oil rigs?

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2 hours ago, blackbird said:

So what you're saying is illegal actions are rewarded in Canada. 

Have you MET our prime minister?

2 hours ago, blackbird said:

 

I don't think the railway blockades achieved anything for the blockaders.  

You're free to live in ignorance

2 hours ago, blackbird said:

"Rail lines across Canada have been paralysed for almost two weeks after being blockaded by indigenous protesters and their supporters.

The blockades were put in place in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en First Nation hereditary chiefs who oppose a natural gas pipeline in their traditional territory in the province of British Columbia (BC)."

The Wet'suwet'en conflict disrupting Canada's rail system - BBC News

The pipeline is around two-thirds completed now.  The protesters failed to stop the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline project.  Blockading the railways failed to stop it.  A terrorist attack at the worksite destroyed tens of millions of dollars worth of machinery but did not stop the project.  It is going ahead.

They were forced to do new deals with many first nations to make that happen AND the project was delayed by ages AND they did force it's route to be changed a number of times and forced it to be massively overbudget

Likewise the TMP in the south was ALSO delayed by many years, still isn't complete, is massively over budget and again first nations had to be give extremely larger compensation.

And a third pipeline that was planned for the north was cancelled entirely.

So - they got more money, delayed everythnig and drove costs up to discourage other projects, and got one cancelled. They also won court battles along the way which improved their barganing power for future projects.

And - the two out of three being built were both announced well over a decade ago. Meanwhile, how many new projects have you heard announced? None? Hmmm.

Even mines and such have been tremendously affected.

You don't need to have complete victory across the board to still have won  a lot.

Sorry bud - the first nations have vastly improved their power with such activities.

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2 hours ago, CdnFox said:

They were forced to do new deals with many first nations to make that happen AND the project was delayed by ages AND they did force it's route to be changed a number of times and forced it to be massively overbudget

Do you have any proof that such a thing happened as a result of the rail blockades?  Any links giving details?

 

2 hours ago, CdnFox said:

And a third pipeline that was planned for the north was cancelled entirely.

What pipeline was that?

The Northern Gateway Pipeline project was cancelled seven years ago by Trudeau because of his war on climate change.  Nothing to do with rail blockades.

2 hours ago, CdnFox said:

You don't need to have complete victory across the board to still have won  a lot.

I was talking about the rail blockades when I said they didn't have any effect.   Do you have any links to show the blockades affected anything?

You seem to be just throwing in everything but the kitchen sink claiming they the blockades had something to do with it.

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24 minutes ago, blackbird said:

Do you have any proof that such a thing happened as a result of the rail blockades?  Any links giving details?

Yes, it's in the bible.

Do your own research. Those were a lot of examples i gave you. Shoulnd't be too hard but i'm not spending that much time looking up links i doubt you'll read.

24 minutes ago, blackbird said:

 

What pipeline was that?

The Northern Gateway Pipeline project was cancelled seven years ago by Trudeau because of his war on climate change.  Nothing to do with rail blockades.

Of course it had to do with first nations protests and blocades. northern gateway was his attempt to appease them by saying we wanted two but we'll take one (the southern one).  Seriously - its to fight climate change that he cancelled it and then he turned around and BOUGHT one to push through? Surely even you can see that doesn't fit a 'climate change' agenda.

24 minutes ago, blackbird said:

I was talking about the rail blockades when I said they didn't have any effect.   Do you have any links to show the blockades affected anything?

Sure but honestly you're not worth my time to look it up for you. But a small amount of research will show it did have an impact on gov't policy.

24 minutes ago, blackbird said:

You seem to be just throwing in everything but the kitchen sink claiming they the blockades had something to do with it.

It's all part and parcel.  If you were to take any one protest in isolation it's effect is relatively minimal, but when you add them together over time it begins to have a serious impact on gov't policy and on private sector policy.  And there is often  a more direct result as well - Teck resources backed out of a massive new mine directly as a result of the blockades you're referring to.

 

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According to Le Devoir, all kerosene sales for airline flights within Quebec are exempt from this surcharge.

======

People like Justin Trudeau say they "care/understand" about ordinary people. Bulllshit.

The method to defeat Trudeau Jnr (and the federal Liberals) is their hypocrisy.

I don't know Singh but at least he seems honest.

Trudeau Snr also had a knack for telling the truth.

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33 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Yes, it's in the bible.

Do your own research. Those were a lot of examples i gave you. Shoulnd't be too hard but i'm not spending that much time looking up links i doubt you'll read.

Of course it had to do with first nations protests and blocades. northern gateway was his attempt to appease them by saying we wanted two but we'll take one (the southern one).  Seriously - its to fight climate change that he cancelled it and then he turned around and BOUGHT one to push through? Surely even you can see that doesn't fit a 'climate change' agenda.

Sure but honestly you're not worth my time to look it up for you. But a small amount of research will show it did have an impact on gov't policy.

It's all part and parcel.  If you were to take any one protest in isolation it's effect is relatively minimal, but when you add them together over time it begins to have a serious impact on gov't policy and on private sector policy.  And there is often  a more direct result as well - Teck resources backed out of a massive new mine directly as a result of the blockades you're referring to.

 

So in effect you now admit you have no links or proof of all your claims.   Just what I thought.  All speculation.

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2 minutes ago, blackbird said:

So in effect you now admit you have no links or proof of all your claims.   Just what I thought.  All speculation.

SO in actuality i have noted i have plenty- you're just not worth the effort.  And - i gave you a very specific example so you'd have somewhere to start.

So what you're admitting is you CHOOSE to remain ignorant about this and KNOW that the facts are out there but don't want to take the 10 seconds necessary to start looking on your own because then you'd have to admit you were wrong.

And you expect ANYONE to take you seriously about anything after this little exercise in self -delusion? Pathetic

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So there are a number of factors at play here

First lets set the record straight that tax breaks that phase out over a few years are not the same as cash payments therefore the taxpayers are not really paying anything  It’s pretty hilarious that Conservatives aka the Corporate Welfare Party would even have a concern  

Second this is not a factory making TVs or toasters. Countries around the world are racing to become the next EV / battery / renewable energy superpower. Perhaps superpower is a too strong a word this is the industry that will soon become more strategically and geopolitically important than oil and right now no country has a solid claim on it yet but everything is up for grabs. Nearly everything you can think of that currently runs off fossil fuels is going to run off some sort of renewable energy, this is much bigger than just EVs. 
 

Canada is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this trend so long as we don’t f-ck it up like we have in the past.
 

First the opportunity: We are one of the few countries in the entire world with ALL of the critical / rare earth minerals required for renewable battery production - we have some of the world’s largest reserves. Meanwhile the other such countries mostly are brutal dictatorships like China and Russia so we have an advantage in that we are a democracy with a better human rights record and well positioned with the current emerging trend for western countries to “friend-shore” and move away from repressive regimes. We also have a highly skilled and highly edited workforce and advanced manufacturing base so unlike other nations,  literally an entire EV and other renewable products and virtually all of their components from bumper to bumper could hypothetically be designed, mined, manufactured and assembled here. There’s also some expectation/ hope that Canada is better positioned than many other countries for industry to do these things in an ethical and environmentally responsible way (that last one is a big “TBD” in views - money always corrupts and industry always pollutes)  

China actually dominates the world market in these materials right now because the western world has been asleep at the switch for the last few decades investing in imaginary things like patenting music notes and complex stock buy-back schemes China has not only been exploiting its own resources and actually making things but buying up control of critical minerals all over the world including in Canada. It is absolutely scary how much control over global supply of just about everything we’ve allowed China to amass in just the last 2 or 3 decades.  A big part if this great race towards EV and renewable energy technology is de-chinafying the world, or at least our portion of it  Even countries without the natural resources like Germany still want to get a piece of the manufacturing part of it.   

Anyway the point is there’s a great race among nations to get these new industries with their high paying jobs and strategic importance up ASAP before they’re lured elsewhere and Canada has good reason to be in the running.   Unlike the ridiculous “oil superpower” claims people made about the tarsands when we were in reality just the global oil industry’s b-tch, we could actually be q global leader or at least a western leader in renewable energy  

Now the challenge: Canada has always been blessed with an abundance of natural resources but unfortunately when it comes to benefiting from these resources we have a long and ongoing history of just preferring to be an exploited colonial b-tch with low ambition, nothing more than “hewers of wood and drawers of water” whose sole purpose and duty is to supply raw materials to the Empire (first British then American) resources to be used for the primary for benefit and glory of the Empire not ourselves  Even in Biden’s recent speech to parliament he let slip that he expects Canadians to just be nothing the dumb dirt shovelers who supply Americas advanced industries with the critical minerals :

 

Biden may have triggered some cringes in Canadian political circles when he appeared to suggest the value-added transformation jobs from this future sector would go to the U.S.

He cast it as an ideal partnership: Canada would extract the minerals, Americans would build things with them.

"You guys – we don't have the minerals to mine, you can mine them," he said. "You don't want to produce, I mean, turn them into product."

 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/critical-minerals-biden-trudeau-1.6790933

 

Clearly the US wants Canadians to go on playing the role of the dumb colonial dirt shovelers who supply American high-paying advanced industries while we pat ourselves on the back and say “hooray we got some more dump truck driver jobs!” just like we already do with our other natural resources and so much of our branch-plant manufacturing. And mark my words there will be no shortage of Canadian fifth columnists in private sector and government who will be tempted to go along by the low hanging fruit and quick buck from being a colonial stooge and a big fish in a small pond. They are already in place and are part of a status quo that dates back to the earliest European explorers. 
 

So in summary I support his investment conditionally on the basis that it is in fact an investment not only in the environment, fighting climate change etc but a chance to shatter the paradigm of Canada being the world’s natural resource b-tch and actually being a true world leader and actual “energy superpower”. All of which I admit is greatly out of character for the typical worrywart Canadian who historically prefers to dream small, maintain the status quo and finds comfort in being unremarkable and middle-of-the-pack. But hopefully that’s a generational thing that is it’s like changing, now that the people in charge are increasingly those who have no recollection of ever singing God Save the Queen in their Canadian school and events or seeing the Union Jack over their Canadian institutions and have no concept of Canada as anyone’s loyal colony or “little brother” 

Edited by BeaverFever
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On 4/21/2023 at 7:13 PM, I am Groot said:

$13 billion is by far and away the most money any Canadian government has ever spent on buying some jobs off a company - 3000 btw not 8000.  It's the worst kind of corporate welfare.

How much did Harper give to bail out the auto makers?  I think, in total, it was more.

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1 hour ago, ExFlyer said:

How much did Harper give to bail out the auto makers?  I think, in total, it was more.

No, it was less by far, only about 1.3 billion - and harper got shares from the automaker to offset that which were sold later. Ontario put in more money because of course that's where the cars are built.  But even together it was only like 4 billion.

I think the oil and gas industries would be a better example, if we're going to call a tax break a 'subsidy' then they ceratinly get more than 13 billion.  but - that's an entire industry employing literally hundreds of thousands of people and producing massive tax revenues in subsidies for the provinces that have  oil.

But in fairness that was actual money.  MOST of this is basically a tax break, with about 1 billion in actual money being given to the auto maker if i understand the details, 700 million for the plant and then some extra expenditures here and there.

So - in terms of cash dollars being handed out it's comparable. But as i noted harper got shares in the companies to offset that, while justin will be giving up 12 billion or so in tax revenues.

Now you could argue that if you didn't give the tax break they woudlnt' come at all and you'd lose 100 percent of the tax revenues and that's not untrue.  it's not like we're actually handing over THAT part of it.

this doesn't sound like a great deal on the face ot it - it feels like we could have negotiated something better. 12 billion in tax breaks and a billion in cash is a HELL of a lot for one lousy factory.  But it would take a deep dive to really work that out.

I think dividing the total tax break over time into the number of workers is kind of silly to be honest. And even if it's not a great deal, it's probably a net benefit.

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On 4/21/2023 at 12:10 PM, blackbird said:

That's because we have a lot of ignorant, uneducated people in Canada that support extremists and radicals. 

Yes.  You're one of the clearest examples possible.  

Tell us more about what the Bible says...please.

?

Edited by Moonbox
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