Operational and funding costs are huge: $548M in 2019 (before COVID-19) and $597M in 2021
Investment managers and investors should often ask: If I didn’t already own this stock, would I buy it today? By any criteria, Via Rail, a federal Crown corporation, is not a good investment – even under unrealistically favourable assumptions. The federal government should rigorously examine this charitably-designated ‘enterprise,’ then aim it toward one of two…
Approving new fossil fuel projects is moral and economic madness
After approving the Bay du Nord offshore oil project off Newfoundland and Labrador in April, the Canadian government has decided to take our climate risk-taking to a whole new level by issuing a Call for Bids for oil exploration for an area one third larger than the size of New Brunswick. Bids to drill for…
There’s nothing more significant than living with meaning
There’s nothing more significant than living with meaning. This is the concept pondered by the Jewish psychiatrist Viktor Frankl as he struggled to remain alive for three years in Nazi concentration camps. Frankl established the groundwork for his psychological theory on the importance of finding meaning in life before he was sent to Auschwitz. He…
Supply management pushed up to 190,000 Canadians into poverty
By Krystle Wittevrongel and Gabriel Giguère New Zealand had never launched a dispute under a free trade agreement until two weeks ago, on May 12, when it launched a trade dispute against Canada under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), accusing our government of breaking its promises on dairy imports. This was also the first dispute launched…
Consumers used to love to hate these machines. But things have changed
Self-checkouts have long been an unloved tool in the world of retail. In the beginning, nothing worked as it should, especially at the grocery store where an order for 20 items brought a new form of despair. But even if the mere presence of self-checkouts bothered many consumers, Canadians have apparently befriended them in some…
His fictional story may have the best ideas anyone has had about assessing COVID impacts
A hallmark of Albert Einstein’s career was his use of thought experiments or “Gedankenexperiment” as a fundamental tool for understanding physical issues and elucidating his scientific concepts. These thought experiments employed his incredible imagination and took diverse forms. As a boy, Einstein mentally chased beams of light. For special relativity, he conceived moving trains and…
Combat naturally leads to behaviours that would be deemed shocking in normal life
Antony Beevor is a prolific English military historian, most famous for the bestseller Stalingrad. First published in the late 1990s, the book’s narrative covers the period between the June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union and the conclusion of the Battle of Stalingrad in February 1943. That battle is often described as the Second…
21,000 jobs, $890 million in taxes and about $2.5 billion in annual GDP
There’s been a big step forward for a major proposed Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG) project that’s seen as an opportunity for economic reconciliation with Indigenous communities and help to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Partners in the Ksi Lisims LNG project, including the Nisga’a Nation, have applied for a 40-year LNG export licence and…
Trudeau consistently uses fear as a tactic to get his way
While our series is fictional, the principle objective is non-fictional – to explore the likelihood that sooner or later, Canadians will demand a full-scale investigation into the management of the COVID crisis by our federal government. Time and space do not permit a detailed description of the public hearings held by the COVID Commission across…
If the current arrangements continue, the result will be another lost generation or two
Canadians have talked extensively about Indigenous education, with much of the recent conversation wrapped up in the condemnation of residential schools. But, despite loud and consistent protests by Indigenous leaders and others, the country has done precious little to address antiquated delivery processes, systemic failings and tragically disappointing outcomes. It might seem odd to say…
Investment managers and investors should often ask: If I didn’t already own this stock, would I buy it today? By any criteria, Via Rail, a federal Crown corporation, is not a good investment – even under unrealistically favourable assumptions. The federal government should rigorously examine this charitably-designated ‘enterprise,’ then aim it toward one of two…
