Couldn't debate the content? It's OK. Better luck next time.There is no end to the Trudeau Derangement Syndrome.
Couldn't debate the content? It's OK. Better luck next time.There is no end to the Trudeau Derangement Syndrome.
Simple: Don't vote for the idiot nextime.There is no end to the Trudeau Derangement Syndrome.
Simple: Don't vote for the idiot nextime.
Will it replace the manufacturing tax already absorbed in the price?
I'm sure Justin cares about how he'll be remembered, and it governs some of his behavior when the "Private School Trust Fund Do As I Say & Not As I Do & The Rules Are For The Peasants And Not The Liberal Elite Like Me" Trudeau isn't being used as his default. When he's history, hopefully future generations with think of him before they elect someone like him again.
He will get re elected if the Liberals were to call a snap election , the only viable alternative is the Conservatives and they are both directionless and leaderless.From your lips to Gods ear!!
He will get re elected if the Liberals were to call a snap election , the only viable alternative is the Conservatives and they are both directionless and leaderless.
True , but the eastern Canadian Press love his dreamy ness and the population is liberal red through and through .The Liberals are also leaderless and without direction... Right now, it's no more than a beauty contest
There is no end to the Trudeau Derangement Syndrome.
Trudeau unvieling the large business loan program.
Those companies with over $300m in revenue will be ble to apply and Trudeau made is clear this iS NOT A BAILOUT, this is A LOAN.
Yes.
That is ecatly what HArper said in 2009 when he LOANED millions and millions of dollars to GM et al in order to facilitate their closing of Canadian production lines and Canadian auto sector jobs.
Trudeau should remember those loans because he had to forgive them about 12 months ago.
What do you call a loan that doesn't get repaid?
A bailout.
I'm sure Justin cares about how he'll be remembered,
True , but the eastern Canadian Press love his dreamy ness and the population is liberal red through and through .
Don't forget the monly (but sensitive!) tat.That's all he's interested in.. He wants to be part of 'history' and remembered as a popular politician (if there are actually any)
He is dreamy... Nice hair and lots of selfies to prove it
That's all he's interested in.. He wants to be part of 'history' and remembered as a popular politician (if there are actually any)
He is dreamy... Nice hair and lots of selfies to prove it
The additional funding expected today comes amid criticism that the Trudeau government has largely ignored the plight of thousands of Indigenous people who live off-reserve and in urban centres.
Many of them were already among Canada's most vulnerable before the pandemic hit in mid-March — struggling with poverty, homelessness, food insecurity and mental health and addiction issues.
The Congress of Aboriginal People, which represents some 90,000 off-reserve and non-status Indigenous people, has gone to court over what it says is the "inadequate and discriminatory" funding it has received compared to other Indigenous groups......More
National security experts are warning that Canadian businesses struggling with the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic -- and what comes after -- could be easy prey for hostile foreign takeovers.
And there are growing calls for the federal government to come up with a plan to protect companies vital to the Canadian national interest from being acquired by firms tied to authoritarian regimes, including those in the medical supply industry, energy and critical infrastructure.
"We can't split the economy away from national security," said Stephanie Carvin, a national security expert and assistant professor of international relations at the Norman Patterson School of Public Affairs at Carleton University.
"This is what we're seeing with Huawei right now but Huawei isn't the end -- Huawei is the beginning. This is going to be possibly one of the biggest national security challenges that Canada faces for the next decade is trying to figure out how to manage these geo-economic threats."
Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, is currently fighting to be allowed to build parts of the Canadian 5G telecom network. While the federal government is reviewing potential security risks from that, it has repeatedly delayed making a decision on whether to allow the firm to bid on contracts.
In an annual report released on Wednesday, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service highlighted the risk posed by foreign takeovers as a continued danger to Canadian national security.
Specifically, CSIS warned that Canada's "economic wealth, open business and scientific environments, and advanced workforce and infrastructure" posed an enticing target to foreign investors.
The agency said that while many foreign investors are not hostile, those from state-owned enterprises and firms with close ties to governments or intelligence services need to be weighed very carefully.
"Corporate acquisitions by these entities pose potential risks related to vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, control over strategic sectors, espionage and foreign influenced activities, and illegal transfer of technology and expertise," the report stated.
"As difficult as it is to measure, this damage to our collective prosperity is very real."
Conservative MP Ed Fast, who was formerly the international trade minister, pressed the government during a virtual meeting on Thursday to commit to reviewing the Investment Canada Act.
He said the coronavirus pandemic is driving home the need to think more critically about foreign takeovers, particularly when they involve domestic critical infrastructure or supply chains.
“It is never right for Canadian companies to be acquired by hostile foreign interests.”Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, however, would not commit to doing so.
“He raises a very important point that today, at a time when our economy is facing a very difficult situation, Canadian companies are particularly vulnerable and today’s also a time when we have particular reason to pay attention to the sanctity of our supply chains," Freeland said.
“Let me assure the honourable member that our government, informed by the work of our excellent intelligence analysts, is very focused on ensuring the safety and sanctity of Canadian companies and on ensuring they are not acquired inappropriately.”
Fast asked two more times but Freeland did not answer the specific question
As Carvin explained, the concern is that unlike private companies, state-owned enterprises cannot fail because they are backed by governments that will pull out all the plugs to prevent them from suffering the consequences of any bad financial decisions.Trudeau similarly dodged questions from journalists on Thursday about the CSIS report.
“Our national security agencies do excellent work in highlighting risks to our country," he said when asked what steps the government is taking or will take to reduce the risk of Canadian companies being taken over by hostile foreign-owned actors.
“We will always support them and take on their recommendations and make sure that we are doing everything we can to protect Canadians from malicious actors, whether they be foreign or domestic.”
Concerns about foreign takeovers of key Canadian companies gained public attention in 2012 and 2013 when China's state-owned CNOOC Ltd. began its bid to take over the Calgary oil firm Nexen.
In the years since, repeated Chinese efforts to acquire Canadian energy firms have been met with criticism from security experts who warn that allowing state-owned enterprises to take over Canadian businesses endangers both the reliability of critical assets and the very nature of the free market itself.
Many of those, in the case of China, Saudi Arabia and Russia, are diametrically opposed to the rules-based international order that it is in Canada's strategic interest to preserve and protect.
There is also the ever-present fear that the state-owned firms will be used to spy or steal industrial secrets, as American authorities allege Huawei has been doing for years.
Foreign takeovers of Canadian businesses are evaluated under the Investment Canada Act, which weighs the "net benefits" of proposed takeovers with an eye to things like potential jobs versus potential risks.
To weigh those risks, national security agencies like CSIS and the RCMP can share their concerns with the government and when the federal cabinet shares those concerns, it can block takeovers.
Effectively, it forces officials to ask the question: jobs might be created, but at what cost?
That's what happened in 2018 when Chinese-owned CCCC Ltd. tried to take over Aecon, a Canadian construction firm that works on nuclear facilities and telecommunications equipment, among other major public systems.
And it appears to be what led the government to announce last month that it will now keep a closer eye on "all foreign investments by state-owned investors, regardless of their value, or private investors assessed as being closely tied to or subject to direction from foreign governments."
That announcement also said the government will pay closer scrutiny under the Investment Canada Act to any foreign investment in Canadian businesses "related to public health or involved in the supply of critical goods and services to Canadians or to the Government."
"Many Canadian businesses have recently seen their valuations decline as a result of the pandemic, consistent with patterns in other major economies. These sudden declines in valuations could lead to opportunistic investment behaviour," said the announcement.
"This enhanced scrutiny of certain foreign investments under the (Investment Canada Act) will apply until the economy recovers from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic."
Wesley Wark, a visiting professor at the University of Ottawa and a national security expert, said that's a sign the government is realizing it needs to pay closer attention to the threats posed by foreign takeovers in a new, rapidly changing global landscape.
"There is an awakening concern about Canadian economic security and even economic sovereignty, which will be accelerated by the impacts of COVID-19 and challenges around maintaining critical supply chains for health-care supplies," he said.
"There will be increasing focus on preserving Canada's economic security in the midst of a turbulent global economy ... We are already seeing a turn to creating greater economic security around health-care supplies, which will last well beyond COVID-19."
………..continued
Quebec has the heaviest concentration of the total CMHC mortgage deferrals across the country, at 27 per cent, followed by Alberta at 26 per cent and Ontario at 21 per cent.
Here's how the other provinces ranked as a rough percentage of the total deferrals:
B.C.: 7 per cent
Saskatchewan: 5 per cent
New Brunswick: 5 per cent
Manitoba 4 per cent
Nova Scotia: 3 per cent
Newfoundland and Labrador: 2 per cent
P.E.I.: 0
Roughly 12 per cent of mortgage holders have elected to defer payments so far, Evan Siddall, the chief executive officer at Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, told the House of Commons standing committee on finance in Ottawa on Tuesday.....More
Despite warnings from national security experts that Canada needs a strategy to deal with hostile foreign takeover attempts post-coronavirus, Finance Minister Bill Morneau won't say whether the government will consider keeping new rules in place after the economic crisis ends.
In an interview with The West Block's Mercedes Stephenson, Morneau was asked about a warning issued by the federal spy agency CSIS last week on the threat posed by hostile foreign takeovers of key Canadian companies, and what the government is doing to limit that risk.
"We need to make sure we protect our economy for the long term," Morneau said without offering specifics.
He was also asked about calls from experts for the government to craft a strategy to prevent such takeovers by authoritarian countries seeking influence in a post-pandemic world, and whether the government plans to keep recently expanded scrutiny of proposed takeovers after the crisis ends.
Morneau called the expanded measures "critically important" right now but would not commit to keeping or reviewing them into the future.
“We’re not making decisions about long-term structural issues during this time of the economic crisis," he said. "We do have measures that were already in place to review foreign acquisitions before we got into this crisis. Of course, those will continue to need to be considered."
The new measures in question were announced last month.
At the time, the government said it will be keeping a closer eye on “all foreign investments by state-owned investors, regardless of their value, or private investors assessed as being closely tied to or subject to direction from foreign governments.”
That applies as well to any foreign investment in Canadian businesses “related to public health or involved in the supply of critical goods and services to Canadians or to the Government.”
While the announcement said those measures will last "until the economy recovers from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic," there's no timeline for when that could be.
And all the while, countries like China, Russia and Saudi Arabia are aggressively challenging the rules-based international order and seeking expanded shares or ownership of key strategic businesses.
Saudia Arabia, for example, has been buying up shares in Canadian energy firms, while just last week, Canada's TMAC Resources agreed to sell its Hope Bay gold mine project in Nunavut to Shandong Gold Mining, a Chinese state-owned mining company.
China has a major strategic interest in expanding control over the Arctic, which it views as both a key shipping route as the climate warms and as a region to be exploited for resource development.
That gold mine deal will have to get approval under the Investment Canada Act.
But the government has so far given little indication it plans to heed calls for a review of those criteria, which assess the "net benefit" of a deal with respect to factors like jobs created versus potential security risk.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declined to say how his government planned to heed the warnings from CSIS when asked about the matter last week.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland similarly dodged questions about whether she would commit to a review of the Investment Canada Act criteria in light of the need to chart a path forward in a global economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic.
“At a time when our economy is facing a very difficult situation, Canadian companies are particularly vulnerable and today’s also a time when we have particular reason to pay attention to the sanctity of our supply chains,” Freeland said.
“Our government, informed by the work of our excellent intelligence analysts, is very focused on ensuring the safety and sanctity of Canadian companies and on ensuring they are not acquired inappropriately.
“It is never right for Canadian companies to be acquired by hostile foreign interests.”