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Amidst the tidal wave of modern political hypocrisy, it can be hard to identify all the ridiculous acts deserving of scorn. Drinking from a fire hose of about-faces inevitably means Canadians will not savour every drop. The recent proposal from Swiss-headquartered Glencore to take over Vancouver-based Teck Resources is a case in point.

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Whenever we are confronted with such abrupt turnarounds in previous attitudes on a potentially emotional issue it is valuable to take a step back and ask ourselves the essential questions. In this case: one, based on past activity who should we ultimately trust more in their intentions? Glencore or the government? Two, do we still believe in the free market system? And finally, why isnt Teck the one acquiring companies all over the world?

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Who we should trust in their stated intentions is an easy one. Whether one agrees with Glencore as a company or not, their motivation is naked and simple: profit and shareholder value. One can filter any statements and actions through that framework and understand what their motive is likely to be. Glencore sees future value in Teck, notably its coal resources, and so it wants to make it part of its global empire. End of story.

The governments rhetoric is much less clear. Having spent the better part of their term bashing natural resources, particularly oil, the Liberals seem very belatedly coming to the realization that our energy does need to come from somewhere, and that somewhere will be electricity.

The issue is that electrification requires minerals and minerals mean you need miners; not exactly the constituency most environmentalists tend to love. Open pit mines arent pretty and even underground mines must disrupt some of the surrounding area to work. Thats the reality of an extraction industry. The other stark and for some uncomfortable reality is that there is no electrification without miners. Anyone believing otherwise is an enviro-irrealist.

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Teck Resources is a world leader in mining, specifically copper and zinc, as well as steelmaking coal, and so, perhaps, the government truly has come to suddenly value that home grown capability. However, losing a company headquartered in Canada also looks terrible politically. This is a muddy question, currently impossible to parse. Should we believe in a long-term commitment to mining from Justin Trudeaus Liberals? In theory Id love to, but anyone involved in the mining industry for any length of time has more than enough government-induced PTSD to take the seriousness of this commitment du jour with an extra helping of freshly mined salt.

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Canadas, and indeed the worlds, success is based on a free market system with minimal government intervention. So, much as I personally want Teck Resources to say put in Vancouver a city all too bereft of head offices compared to, say, Seattle I ultimately believe in a free market more. In that, Glencore is doing nothing improper or evil. They are using the free market to unlock value in a company they believe has more potential when integrated into their corporation than the two do separately. It remains to be seen if they are correct, but the basic mechanism is one to be supported and one which Pierre Poilievres Conservatives should support, not deride. There are emotional reasons to stop Teck leaving Vancouver and I share those emotions, but logic and a belief in the free market must ultimately win out.

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In a more certain regulatory environment with a supportive government it is not hard to imagine homegrown Canadian miners more willing to invest in Canada first, exporting their expertise and being the ones acquiring companies in other countries. We have the resources and ability to extract our minerals better than anyone, our government all too often simply doesnt want to.

Recent developments offer possible glimpses of light at the end of the mining tunnel. Initiatives such as the Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy and tax incentives for exploration are positive developments for Canadian miners. In that, we should acknowledge that farcically late though the government may be, its still better than never. The impact will nonetheless be slow. The current timelines of 10-15 years to take a mine to production will not change overnight and any visible impact could easily be more than a decade off; do we, as a country, have the will to see through our new vision so that in 2035, Canadian companies are the acquirers, not the acquired?

National Post

Adam Pankratz is a lecturer at the University of British Columbias Sauder School of Business.

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Adam Pankratz: Wait, so now the Trudeau Liberals care about mining companies? - National Post

Russias current invasion in Ukraine happened because the world didnt do enough to respond when they did it before, former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton said Friday in Ottawa.

And failing to stop Russia now would also be disastrous in terms of unleashing Chinese aggression, she said.

It is in our interest to stop them, Clinton said, as a keynote speaker at the Liberal policy convention in Ottawa.

Clinton was sharing a stage with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland for a wide-ranging discussion that heavily focused on the threats to democracy and human rights in both Canada and the United States.

Clinton said when Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia in 2008, we all sat him down, we gave speeches about it.

We, you know, expressed our absolute opposition, but nobody really did much. Think of the lesson Putin took from that.

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Then he invaded Ukraine the first time in 2014, and again it was Oh my gosh, we wish he wouldnt do, its really fortunate, but weve got other things weve got to focus on, other places that we have to pay attention to.

And the message Putin took from that was that he can get away with invading other countries and interfere with elections and buy his way to influence all in his great quest to restore Russian greatness.

The only solution, she said, is Ukraine has to win and that means like-minded nations must send everything they can to Ukraine to help them do that.

Freeland agreed and said its not just about Russia.

The single strongest message of deterrence we can send to China is a decisive Ukrainian victory that says to all the worlds dictators, You know what, democracy is prepared to fight back and democracy can actually win.

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1:16Putin on wrong side of history, Freeland warns China amid Xis meeting in Moscow

Clinton also brought with her warnings that Canada will not be immune to the attempts to turn back the clock on human rights, and in particular, reproductive rights, that are happening in the United States.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v Wade abortion rights ruling that allowed for legal abortions.

Make no mistake about it, in our country there is a very significant historical struggle going on, about whether we move forward or the clock is turned back, said Clinton.

And she said some of that debate is being fuelled by misinformation and disinformation campaigns, including by politicians who have started to see democracy as a nuisance to getting what they want.

And I would predict that youre going to have some of that, you know, in the next election whenever it is for you because there are forces in your own country that are trying to figure out whether they can tinker with the clock and maybe turn it back a little, said Clinton.

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Clinton was enthusiastically received by the crowd of about 3,500 people in town for the Liberal convention. Another 500 or so were expected online.

It is the first in-person policy convention for the Liberals since 2018 and likely the last before the next election. Many Liberals wanted the convention to help the party regroup and recharge after an exhausting and difficult few years.

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They got some of that Friday from former prime minister Jean Chretien, who before Clinton took the stage, led the Liberals on a walk down memory lane of the legacies Liberal governments have left.

He listed medicare, official language rights and gun control laws among them, but got the largest and loudest ovation for the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Liberals, said Chretien, must never lose their social conscience.

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When you stick to your values, you cannot go wrong, he said. That has been my experience all my life.

The Liberals inclusion of Clinton on the program came in part as a way to draw more people to the convention, and give them a sense they got their moneys worth.

4:57Survey suggests Liberals and Conservatives tied in popularity

But the day before Clintons speech, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau borrowed from some of Clintons messaging as a presidential candidate in 2016, attempting to draw a sharp contrast between what he said was a positive, progressive Liberal vision for Canadas future and the darker, more divisive one offered by his main political rival, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

That narrative echoes the Democrats approach to challenging former president Donald Trump, who beat Clinton in the 2016 election and is now running for the Republican ticket again.

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Liberal MP Rachel Bendayan, who introduced Clinton and Freeland, said Clintons appearance came because Freeland called to invite her personally. Freeland and Clinton have been close since they met when Clinton was secretary of state.

She has inspired a lot of women to get involved in politics to really have their voices heard and that will speak to a lot of women at the convention, said Bendayan in an interview.

Trudeau was absent from the evening Friday, boarding a plane to fly to London for the coronation of King Charles on Saturday.

© 2023 The Canadian Press

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Hillary Clinton brings warnings on Russia, human rights to Liberal convention - Global News

The most rapid growth in public-sector employment was at the federal level. Government of Canada data indicate the federal public service now employs more than 336,000 people. As Jack Mintz, Presidents Fellow at the University of Calgarys School of Public Policy and former president of the C.D. Howe Institute, wrote in theFinancial Post in January, annual compensation of federal employees has risen from $38 billion to $58 billion since the Justin Trudeau government gained office in 2015 a 52 percent increase that far exceeds the growth in the number of federal employees. And still these workers and their unions want even more.

A study by the Fraser Institute using data for the pandemic year 2021 found that government-sector workers enjoyed a 5.5 percent wage premium over private-sector workers even after controlling for differences in age, gender, education, work type/experience, unionization and other labour market factors. Just two years later, the studys most recent edition finds, the disparity had jumped to 8.5 percent. That was before this weeks deals.

Mintzs own calculations based on Statistics Canada data suggest that the average full-time federal employee makes $75 per hour nearly $150,000 per year in wages and benefits. That is unbelievable, Mintz said in a recent interview with C2C. By contrast, he notes, Oil and gas workers and mining workers, manufacturing workers, make an average $40 per hour.

The public/private disparity in job-related benefits is much larger than the mere wage difference. More than 86 percent of government workers are covered by a registered pension plan compared with just 23 percent of private-sector workers. Government workers are much less likely to lose their jobs. They have longer paid vacations and take an average of five more days off per year for personal reasons than private-sector workers. Moreover, they typically retire more than two years earlier, most likely thanks to their generous pensions.

PSAC was determined to increase that public/private compensation disparity by wresting wage increases of 4.5 percent in each of the next three years. Even that wasnt enough for the CRA workers, who demanded 20.5 percent more over three years plus a one-time adjustment of another 8 percent, for a total of over 30 percent. Presumably this enormous increase, aptly described as unprecedented and crazy, was intended to compensate them for taxing their brains pushing the keys on an almost fully automated tax return system.

No wonder Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre observed during a recent Question Period that, Its one thing to increase the size and cost of the public serviceand another thing to be faced with a massive strike by public servantsbut it is an especially incredible achievement of incompetence to do both of those at the same time.

PSACs excessive demands would normally be tempered by the possibility of back-to-work legislation most recently used in 2021 but the NDPs support of PSACs goals reduced the chances of that to virtually nil. Passing back-to-work legislation with the support of Poilievres Conservatives, though technically feasible, was unthinkable for it would have ended the Liberals de facto coalition deal with the NDP. That put the Trudeau government between the proverbial rock and a hard place: either leave government services that people count on shut down or agree to a settlement that adds many more billions to already perilously high deficit spending.

In the end, the unions demands were met for the 120,000 Treasury Board workers, but dressed up in slightly different clothes. Rather than receiving the demanded 13.5 percent increase over three years, PSAC settled for a nominal 11.5 percent over four years, but retroactive to 2021 and with a 0.5 percent special adjustment added for 2023. The unions website shows a total wage increase of 12.6 percent compounded, with 10.1 percent coming immediately. This is not only higher than what the federal government originally offered but higher than the Public Interest Commission recommended.

Thats not all. According to the unions triumphant press release issued on Monday, PSAC members will also receive a pensionable $2,500 one-time lump sum payment that represents an additional 3.7 percent of salary for the average PSAC member. Moreover, the union also gained new protection against contracting-out with a provision designed to protect public service jobs and reduce contracting out in the federal public service. Federal workers will also be paid to attend training in diversity, equity and inclusion, i.e., radical left-wing ideology. And Indigenous federal employees will get paid time off to go hunting. Its true PSAC is bragging about all of it. On Thursday, the CRA workers tentatively settled for the same deal, considerably less than their original demand, but still a large increase.

Its hard to comprehend how the settlement could have been worse, both for taxpayers and in how it increases the already-dangerous disparity between public and private-sector workers. As government workers try to justify their excessive wage demands, the rest struggle with the rising cost of groceries and other necessities. These are the same private-sector workers whose taxes pay the cost of the public service. But it has become quite clear that PSAC workers and union bosses just dont care. This is a shamefully selfish attitude that tears at the fabric of our nation.

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Incredible Achievement of Incompetence: How the Liberals ... - C2C Journal

Norton Lovolds recent letter to the editor should be eye-opening to those of you that agree with him. He shows how brainwashed he, himself, is by the extremist leftwing news media which includes CBS, NBC, CNN, NPR government broadcasting. And others

He believes FOX is a brainwashing arm of the right. Does any of the leftist media amount to brainwashing or propaganda? Where is the truth to be found?

In my experience (at least as experienced as Lovold due to his timeframe references), I have found that most fear and distrust is based on the left. Climate change crisis has been so for over 50 years of my life, and Earth-ending dates by these leftist extremists keep moving outward as to where we will all be dead long before the Earth has been destroyed by us. But we have to follow them today or perish. There's no real science involved, only predictions based on non-science proven conditions. How else do these predictions never, ever come close to reality?

Government education should not be based on right or left propaganda but on real things, like being able to read, write and know some mathematics. Real history the good, the bad and the ugly - should be taught, not propaganda written by people who have a grudge to grind or a narrative to perpetuate.

Slavery has been a worldwide condition primarily driven by totalitarian governments Socialist, Communist, Islamist.

Steve Johnson is a resident of Fargo.

This letter does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Forum's editorial board nor Forum ownership.

Link:
Letter: It's the liberals who've been brainwashed - INFORUM

The reigning sentiment in this moment of the coronation is the absurdity of Australians being invited to chant and pledge allegiance to the King and his heirs and successors. The British do pomp and ceremony very well and long may that continue for Australians to enjoy, ignore or have distant interest in as they wish but the time for this country to have its own head of state cannot come soon enough.

That view is not widely shared within our political opposition, which has become embedded in an anachronistic world, such that the phrase modern Liberal Party is an oxymoron. Not just with respect to the partys stance on women, inclusion and diversity, and climate change action but in its relationship with the business world. Their claim to being the party for business has become less and less credible, as their political process has skewed further from democratic to a coronational approach.

When Georgina Downer lost the Mayo byelection in 2018, her father and former Liberal leader Alexander Downer declared, in an embarrassing spectacle, Our family have been nation-builders nation-building is in our blood. He expressed confidence that she would win in the 2019 election, as if this proclamation, dynastic in tone, would garner votes and support. Georgina Downer lost not just once but twice to the indefatigable Rebekha Sharkie, who was also once, like me, a Liberal.

And like the Downers, Liberals who lost to the teal independents behaved in the lead-up to and throughout the election campaign as if they would be re-elected by divine right. During and after the campaign, Alexander Downer had much to say and in one opinion piece which read more like a pronouncement from on high complained that these so-called independent candidates could rob the incumbents of their opportunity to become truly great men.

But since were talking about nation-building Danny Gilbert, who is co-chair of the Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition, director of the Business Council of Australia and managing partner of the law firm Gilbert + Tobin, recently and correctly said: This is a nation-building moment. Corporates are corporate citizens, and they are part of the social economic and political infrastructure of this country. They employ a lot of people and have an interest in building astrong, healthy, inclusive democracy.

Gilbert of course was talking about the Voice a proposal that business leaders from the NAB, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, along with BHP, Rio Tinto, Wesfarmers, Woolworths and Coles support, as prominent corporate advocates of the Yes campaign for the referendum. So are many of Australias largest law firms, including Allens, Baker McKenzie, Ashurst, Herbert Smith Freehills and King & Wood Mallesons, to name a few.

Most of them are no doubt frustrated by the Coalitions No approach to everything, from their refusal to negotiate on the safeguard mechanism to the Voice.

Just as the Liberals self-description as a broad church is now patently wrong, given the dominance of the regressive right wing, so is its self-description as the party for business. Since the coup against former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull a highly successful businessman outside politics the partys move to the right has coincided with a stark downward slide in its relationship with the business community, not least because the bulk of the remaining Liberal members of parliament, staffers and ministers are political clones of Turnbulls successors in the Liberal leadership. The careers of both Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton have been enmeshed in politics outside the real world for most of their adult lives. One of the standout demonstrations of their disdain and disrespect for business leaders was when Morrison bellowed on the floor of parliament, with reference to the highly respected former Australia Post chief executive Christine Holgate, She. Can. Go.

Both Liberal leaders, and most of their cabinet ministers, have trotted out talking points that are now meaningless variations of we understand business. They say this in practised tones that land like clichs to help them meet their goal for political donations. They are not seeking to understand, learn and grow with the business community with a view to establishing good policy for a strong economy.

When I had a seat in the Liberal party room, Id regularly feign tolerance over the ignorance of some of the so-called political leaders of Dutton and Morrisons ilk. Whether the debate was about climate change, marriage equality or business and the economy, I would often reflect that many of them wouldnt survive two weeks in a good corporation.

Too often when the corporate sector has tried to point the way to a more successful future for business and for the Liberal Party itself it has been condescended to by Dutton in the most cringeworthy way.

In 2017 there was a massive, unified push in favour of marriage equality from corporate bosses across industries and major sporting bodies. Senior executives from the likes of Apple, AGL, Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, Westpac, Qantas, Telstra and Wesfarmers were all supporters. Peter Dutton, then a government minister, admonished and patronised them, saying those in the CEO world who are on big dollars need to concentrate on their business and frankly on the improvement in the economy. As for social issues, they were to leave that up to the politicians, to the leaders, to talkback hosts like yourself, to normal people who can have those discussions without the millions of dollars being thrown behind campaigns, he told a Radio 2GB presenter.

Yes, he actually included the talkback hosts. Unsurprisingly, business leaders from corporations, law firms and other organisations around the country responded that marriage equality was not only good for their employees and customers but also for Australias global reputation. These experienced, successful business leaders know that companies that embrace diversity perform better than those that dont.

It was eminently predictable that disunity and division within the Liberal Party would get worse upon Dutton declaring support for the No campaign on the Voice. Though the lead-up was frustrating enough, with the constant demands for more detail which already existed on the internet and insistence on seeing the legal advice. The solicitor-generals advice could not have been clearer: the Voice enhances the system of government, is advisory only, has no power of veto, doesnt impede executive government, would not clog up the courts and would not slow down government processes. In a predictably tiresome response, Duttons ministers called for the earlier legal advice to cabinet, ignorant or unaware of the cabinet in confidence protocol.

Since then, Dutton, his deputy Sussan Ley and Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor have embarked on a listening tour around the country. This could have been described as their magical mystery tour, because Dutton and his ministers seem mystified by what theyre hearing from the business community and no doubt the feeling is mutual. After their travels, the best they could come up with was to declare business leaders were being played for fools and to reprimand them for advocating publicly on social causes. Dutton offensively rationalised that corporations are signing up for social causes to satisfy some craving popularity on social media.

Moreover, in relation to energy policy, Dutton said business leaders should be staring down the extremes of ESG, or environmental, social and governance. What does that even mean? Perhaps Dutton and Co need to have it explained to them that stances among corporations on issues such as climate change, corporate governance, integrity and social issues are not only critical in many contexts they are mandatory, as part of a companys risk management and duty to shareholders.

The Liberal Partys blinkered vision and ability to dismiss the strategic and business experience of leaders around the country let alone the legal advice from the solicitor-general is appalling. Their inability to say or do anything meaningful within the body politic is based on their striving for power and control, for the sake of power and control. The Liberal Party has no grasp of how good leaders make their decisions and it cannot read the boardrooms across Australia. This is not about the body politic against the body corporate its just what the Liberal Party has become.

As for nation-building, the Voice wouldnt be the first such opportunity Dutton has missed. He sought to justify his appalling walkout on then prime minister Kevin Rudds apology to the Stolen Generations from his perspective as a young policeman in Queensland seeking practical solutions for Indigenous people. I failed to grasp the symbolic significance, he said.

Yes to the Voice referendum will be more than symbolic it will be a foundational moment for our country, as will the Yes, in a referendum further in the future, to Australia becoming a republic. The right-wing conservatives of the Liberal Party are typically staunch monarchists and theyll be celebrating the coronation chanting and proclaiming at related events. But the Liberal Party has demonstrated its members and MPs are not nation-builders. The party is not modern, not inclusive and certainly no longer the party for business. The party is over.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper onMay 6, 2023 as "No business in the party".

For almost a decade, The Saturday Paper has published Australias leading writers and thinkers.We have pursued stories that are ignored elsewhere, covering them with sensitivity and depth.We have done this on refugee policy, on government integrity, on robo-debt, on aged care,on climate change, on the pandemic.

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The Liberal Party is failing business - The Saturday Paper