[. . . . ] Recently, another ‘big bank’ alternative has surfaced online – a high-interest savings account offered through ICICI Bank Canada, a subsidiary of India's largest bank, Mumbai-based ICICI Bank Ltd., which has about 450 branches and 1,700 ATMs across India.
Like ING Direct and its counterparts, ICICI is a member of Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation ("CDIC") and is supported by a state-of-the art electronic banking platform and proprietary ATMs, which are currently available in four – English, French, Punjabi, and Chinese – languages. It also has a few branches in and around the Toronto area. Nonetheless, it’s primarily another online option, looking to both serve its existing mix of ethnic customers and recent immigrants and expand its appeal beyond this particular demographic.
As a growing number of people continue to migrate to Canada in search of opportunity, banks across the country are competing to provide them with financial services. But ICICI’s ‘Hello Canada Newcomers Account’, a banking services package designed to provide instant access to banking services in Canada to Indians coming to Canada, is rather unique although it’s not going to do much for the existing domestic market.
The package is designed for Indians planning to work, study or immigrate to Canada, enabling them to open a savings account, and apply for a credit card or loans before leaving from India, thus reducing downtime before they can access banking services here. It’s a handy alternative for people coming to this country. [. . . . ]
This announcement will spur our government to allow bank mergers, I suspect. As if our banks don't make enough now. Do you ever feel that banks provide little service that you really want as it is?
[. . . . ] Chinese energy companies are on the verge of striking ambitious deals in Canada in efforts to win access to some of the most prized oil reserves in North America.
The deals may create unease for the first time since the 1970's in the traditionally smooth energy relationship between the United States and Canada.
[. . . . ] Chinese companies are also said to be considering direct investments in the oil sands, by buying into existing producers or acquiring companies with leases to produce oil in the region. In all, there are nearly half a dozen deals in consideration, initially valued at $2 billion and potentially much more, according to senior executives at energy companies here.
One preliminary agreement could be signed in early January. A spokesman for the Department of Energy in Washington said officials were monitoring the talks but declined to comment further.
[. . . . ] Executives at energy companies and investment banks in Calgary say an agreement with the Chinese could materialize as early as next month. Ian La Couvee, a spokesman for Enbridge, a Canadian pipeline company, said it was in talks to offer a Chinese company a 49 percent stake in a 720-mile pipeline planned between northern Alberta and the northwest coast of British Columbia. [. . . . ]
BEIJING -- China's Communist rulers have a blunt message for anyone who frets about the planned Chinese takeover of Canada's biggest mining company: Get ready for more to come.
In an exclusive interview with The Globe and Mail in Beijing this week, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing made it plain that the controversial $7-billion takeover of Noranda Inc. is just a small element in a much more ambitious strategy of investment in Canada's resources sector to feed China's voracious appetite for raw materials.
"Given our rapid economic growth, we're facing an acute shortage of natural resources," the Foreign Minister told The Globe. [. . . . ]
Did you know that China's human rights situation is "not too different from Canada's"? Or that trade with China has increased 60% in one year? You may learn other interesting details if you link.
China and trust: Let's examine the past duplicitous actions of China Minmetals in Canada before we let the state-run entity take over Noranda -- MP David Kilgour has written an excellent, well-researched article
Is Minmetals really the acquirer in the proposed transaction to purchase Noranda?
David Kilgour is Liberal Member of Parliament for Mill Woods-Beaumont (Edmonton). This article was first published in the Northern Miner.
[. . . . ] The government of China has openly admitted that it desperately needs natural resources to fuel its economy and will pursue an aggressive acquisitive strategy to ensure a steady supply. China wants to circumvent the discipline of markets by securing captive supplies of raw materials. Ordinarily, the rising cost of such products would prohibit its economy from growing too quickly and placing too much strain on the world's supply of resources.
However, China's strategy of acquiring resources directly and thus outside the marketplace frees it from being subject to the forces of supply and demand. Without market principles to restrain China's growth, the world may soon face a serious global resource shortage, which will have negative implications for all, as commodity price inflation destabilizes economies generally.
China has shown also shown a disturbing willingness to deal with authoritarian and corrupt regimes in order to secure access to natural resources. Beijing makes no demands on the countries it operates in with respect to good governance and thus makes a good trading partner for governments that are often criticized. In Burma (Myanmar), for example, the Chinese prop up an authoritarian and corrupt regime by serving as a market for the country's timber and minerals. [. . . . ]
Contrary to the agreement, Minmetals refused to complete the purchase of Sydney Steel and sold its interest to a firm called Global Steel. Ordinarily in such a situation, the province would have sued Minmetals for breach of contract, but in this case such an action would have proved futile because the province had been dealing with a Minmetals shell company called Mincan Canada, headquartered in Canada for the express purpose of consummating the deal with the province. Mincan had no assets and as a result litigation would have achieved nothing. Based on the Nova Scotia experience with Minmetals, several questions come to mind.
Is Minmetals really the acquirer in the proposed transaction to purchase Noranda? If not, what assurances do Canadians have that Minmetals will fulfill any legal and ethical obligations that come with operating in Canada? Minmetals' duplicitous past actions make it is clear that the current proposal to acquire Noranda requires serious scrutiny.
Read the rest of the well-researched details of Kilgour's ammo.
Ottawa fails to reach offshore revenue deal -- Premier Williams has taken down the Canadian flags on public buildings
The National Post editorial this morning [Dec.24, 04] criticizes Premier Williams' actions but I think of the raw deal this province got in the past with the electricity contract with Quebec and I am not so sure. There has to come a point where a province moves from "have-not" status to "have" and equalization grants must end but . . . . . Think of the mismanaged fishery upon which the area had lived previously. The Quebec electricity deal was so unfair to Newfoundlanders that any honourable government would have admitted it and re-negotiated. Gaining oil revenues seems one way of redressing the unfairness. Perhaps I am wrong but so much unfairness has been visited upon the rest of Canada by federal governments catering to one province and not stopping it from special treatment and having assymetrical rules that I am happy to see Newfoundland-Labrador fight the feds. The nub of Williams' beef is in the following.
[. . . . ] Newfoundland and Nova Scotia have long pressed Ottawa to revamp the way offshore oil and gas revenues affect equalization payments.
For every new dollar in energy royalties a province takes in, its equalization payments are reduced. Nova Scotia and Newfoundland want to exclude royalty revenues from the equalization calculation, saying the clawback has prevented both provinces from shedding their 'have-not' status. [. . . . ]
[. . . . ] I will not reveal the name of this individual.
[. . . . ] an Anglican clergyman and sometime academic.
[. . . . ] He was writing on the gay marriage issue, and he wanted the world to know that, even though he is "a church-going, Bible-reading, creed- affirming Christian," he is whole-heartedly in favour of gay marriage.
All through his life this man has watched the advance of the "common good," he writes.
Things like the decriminalization of contraception back in the '20s, the legalization of Sunday sports in the '40s, the easing of the divorce laws in the '60s, the legalization of abortion in the '70s, and now with the new century, the crowning achievement, the legalization of gay marriage.
"Canadians have learned to live with successive changes in lifestyle, each one feared as the first step on a slippery slope," he writes. "Yet we have remained a peaceable kingdom... Laws in a pluralistic society must embrace everyone. This country is a better place to live for all of us when we acknowledge we can be different without fighting about it. Or repressing it."
Now the fascinating aspect of all this is that while the man knows that great changes have occurred in our society, he does not realize that equally great changes have also occurred within himself.
[. . . . ] Put the right spin on some new "freedom," support it with editorials and columns in the "authoritative" newspapers, furnish it with the respected academic credentials, let the judges loose on it, and in 30 years you could have a man like this swinging from the trees with a banana in his mouth, all the while gibbering: "This country is a better place to live for all of us, when we acknowledge we can be different."
What, I wonder, is the basis of this thing he calls "the common good?"
Where does it come from? What is its authority?
Is it merely whatever the majority favours?
If the majority approve of, say, slavery, does that mean slavery must serve the common good? [. . . . ]
What is the authority for the common good? Have you asked lately?
Check the Calgary Sun poll results-- definition of marriage
Question: Should a national referendum be held on changing the traditional definition of marriage? Yes 78%
No: 22%
Time: Dec. 23, 04, early afternoon
Cdns feel there's too much gambling in the country: poll
OTTAWA (CP) - Most Canadians agree there's too much government-run gambling in the country and the boost in tax revenues isn't worth the social cost, a national poll suggests.
Most of those polled - 58 per cent - say increased opportunities to gamble have led to an increase in problem gambling, says a study by Decima Research released Wednesday. Only one in four respondents - 23 per cent - say the benefit of increased tax revenues offsets the negative impact of gambling.
Half of the people polled believe provincial governments should cut back on advertising and promotion of lotteries and gambling, and 40 per cent say governments should not permit construction of casinos.
[. . . . ] Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty admitted before a caucus meeting last month that the province has come to rely on gambling revenue. [. . . . ]
He is not the only one. It is a cash cow for governments -- and for those with other connections to it. Of course, governments should not be involved. I consider it a tax on the poor and the stupid -- a terribly old-fashioned view. Nevertheless, I have yet to buy my first lottery ticket -- and I am satisfied with that.
I want governments out of the gambling business; furthermore, I don't want to see another ad stating "do ***** and get a chance to win that" from any business, but especially those purporting to be handling people's life savings. How can you take a bank seriously that offers a chance to "win"? Banks are supposed to be realistic, sober, cautious -- and other similar descriptive terms -- not promotors of "chance" and "free". I expect even more from our governments. Gambling is a curse upon the poor and the foolish.
Have we become such a nation of gamblers?
Sex scandal in Congo threatens to engulf UN's peacekeepers -- They should be rebuilding the country, but foreign workers face serious accusations
HOME-MADE pornographic videos shot by a United Nations logistics expert in the Democratic Republic of Congo have sparked a sex scandal that threatens to become the UN’s Abu Ghraib.
The expert was a Frenchman who worked at Goma airport as part of the UN’s $700 million-a-year effort to rebuild the war-shattered country. When police raided his home they discovered that he had turned his bedroom into a studio for videotaping and photographing sex sessions with young girls.
The bed was surrounded by large mirrors on three sides, according to a senior Congolese police officer. On the fourth side was a camera that he could operate from the bed with a remote control.
When the police arrived the man was allegedly about to rape a 12-year-old girl sent to him in a sting operation. Three home-made porn videos and more than 50 photographs were found.
The case has highlighted the apparently rampant sexual exploitation of Congolese girls and women by the UN’s 11,000 peacekeepers and 1,000 civilians at a time when the UN is facing many problems, including the Iraqi “oil-for-food” scandal and accusations of sexual harassment by senior UN staff in Geneva and New York.
The prospect of the pornographic videos and photographs — now on sale in Congo — becoming public worries senior UN officials, who fear a UN version of the scandal at the American-run Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq. “It would be a pretty big problem for the UN if these pictures come out,” one senior official said. [Perhaps the UN should be more concerned about the child-victims involved rather than in the UN's reputation which is in tatters anyway?]
Investigations have already turned up 150 allegations of sexual misconduct by peacekeepers and UN staff despite the UN’s official policy of “zero-tolerance”. One found 68 allegations of misconduct in the town of Bunia alone. [. . . . ]
How could they? Where is the pleasure in bedding someone hungry, deprived or with any number of poverty's reasons? What leads men to be aroused by debasing the poor benighted child females of the world and photographing the act? They are not men -- nor are those men who salaciously view the product. Any man needing this for arousal lacks the first quality of a real man--understanding of and empathy for another. Sick.
Don't they ever think of their own children and the quixotic nature of fate? It would not take much for the middle class 'haves' to slide into being 'have-nots' -- and a run of misfortune (which several seem ready to bring the West) could result in who knows what for the children of present good fortune.
Thinking individuals should be storing up good karma for the bad times. The gods have a way of visiting horrors on all of us when we least expect them; it would be wise to prepare the soul--not in a Christian sense--but in the sense that cultivating one's humanity toward one's fellows might help one face one's own inevitable adversity. It might even bring kindness in return. The high ideals with which the UN began have fled if the activity described above could take place at all amongst those tasked with aiding and protecting.
It seems to me that we might as well admit that the UN is not working at all -- and start small building something better, less venal. The UN has become an unwieldy bureaucracy comprised of some unfit to help or to lead anything. The activity described is despicable -- but so were Rwanda, the oil-for-food program kickbacks, the inability of the UN to see the evil of any but Israel, the rise of thug states to positions of prominence in the UN of all bodies, et cetera.
Is it Time to Bring Back that Old-time Religion -- Do you think too many are not reasoning out how to behave as decent human beings?
Consideration of the evil inherent in men or women who would look at or enjoy pornography brought to mind the wavering moral compass in the West today. I am thinking also of our own society's bullying, violence, drugs, criminality--all the evils to which our children turn, perhaps the result of our own generation's example of laxity and too much "understanding". I have puzzled as to why what was considered unethical, immoral, or plain evil just a generation ago became acceptable under our watch. Always, I returned to the influence of the religious teachings of the past--in my case a Christian past. There were firm rules to live by, not situational ethics, nor discussion of your "values" vs someone else's. There was a right and a wrong. Today, there is nothing deemed so evil that it deserves society's rage and extreme censure, not understanding. It will be our downfall.
Has tolerance, understanding, moral relativism a life-span beyond which it results its own civilization's demise?
Think of our PM's lack of what should have been rage on Canadians' behalf in allowing an admitted Al Qaeda family, the Khadrs, to return to Canada. What he was saying is that our citizenship means nothing -- that it will accept anything. Think of the Walkerton Koebels, the hockey thug Bertuzzi, Homulka and others whom the courts have not, in most eyes, punished adequately, I suspect. Think of the community or communities who have allowed their personal fear of retaliation or their hatred of police to allow them not to turn in those committing violent and dangerous acts, thereby protecting and prolonging evil. When it turns out that this is the case, will society show its fury by punishing them? Not likely. The justice system through the courts send a message with their inadequate meting out of society's punishments against evil; they are simply reflecting the tendency of society to excuse most behaviours. Society must demand the meting out of justice by those who represent their interests, if our society is not to collapse and evil is allowed to prosper.
This is a time for some introspection, if Christianity means anything at all to those of us who believe Christmas means something other than shopping--though not necessarily holding a belief in Jesus Christ as God. Many of us fled organized religion because it was forced upon us and we believed we could reason on our own. Finally, full circle, it seems, and based upon reason--not necessarily belief--many of us have come to see the need for a God and organized religion. I suspect most of mankind needs to believe in something outside the self to provide direction when they cannot reason for themselves to a body of rules for living a decent, ethical and moral life. At least the religion of the past brought fear of the consequences of one's evil actions -- if reason were lacking in the individual.
Furthermore, do we really believe that in all human history, our good fortune in the West derives from some innate superiority on our part? Hardly. We have been blessed with this Judeo-Christian tradition which has allowed much that is good to thrive--though our society is beset now by a foolhardy tolerance for everything except this tradition. It would be well for us to remember that good fortune may be replaced by its opposite. We may be beset by complete evil--and little warning; 9/11 comes to mind. Sometimes, sweet reason is futile in the face of evil; we are seeing it more and more.
God and the various Jewish and Christian mediators for God did not reason. God's representatives or intermediators pronounced, directed, gave orders, did not seek to understand. Believers were forced to admit errors--sometimes true evil--try to make amends, live better, or face the justified wrath of homes, communities, and whole societies. Societal pressure to coerce right behaviour brought about the required action on the part of most who could not reason it out and who had a snippet of conscience. Today, in the face of true evil, our society "understands"; conscience is out but understanding is in. Enough! Religion did not pat evildoers on the back with understanding; it gave certainty, a certainty our society needs desperately today -- for the continuance of the best in Western society.
Whoever took part in the activities mentioned in the UN article above is undoubtedly beyond the certainties of a god; our society's children and youth are not. I am suggesting we need to give example in the hope of bringing back that old-time religion -- whether in our hearts we are certain about the existence of God or not. Short of belief, how can we know? But we can see the good that belief has accomplished -- belief in an all-knowing God, a harsh taskmaster, but One whose teachings have stood us in good stead in the West. I know there was evil done in the name of God, but, on balance, more good resulted for the society. It seems that too few families are teaching their children to reason their way to what is right -- based even on long-term self-interest if necessary; now, perhaps, those of us who think we have reasoned it out should help families by returning to the certainties and teachings of organized religion's certainties for the good of all our children.
Now is the time to admit that if there were no God, humans would have had to invent Him -- for Western civilization to survive and thrive. I do not touch on the rest of the world's beliefs. It would be enough to start with ours. Fear of a wrathful God is a powerful motivator where evil exists in the unreasoning individual.
Or is that too . . . . . old fashioned?
Blessings upon all. May you give and receive the gift of family and friends along with the spirit of goodness which is a God whose birth we celebrate. Merry Christmas.
[. . . . ] The immigration community is suspicious that there's more going on here than cheap stripper politics and media fun. They see the bureaucratic leaks and comments as an attempt to derail a minister who had plans to shake up the immigration bureaucracy. One of her plans is to reverse a 2002 bureaucratic decision that suddenly prevented spouses of Canadian citizens from staying in Canada while their landed-immigrant status was being approved. For 20 years before 2002, married people could get their spouses approved almost automatically on humanitarian grounds. Now, special ministerial permits are needed, which is what Ms. Sgro gave the woman who sparked the current crisis. (See Michael Greene's piece below for more detail.)
Ms. Sgro had other policy plans that ran afoul of current bureaucratic thinking. She publicly said she intended to look at an amnesty program for up to 200,000 illegal immigrants now in Canada. "Every time you talk about amnesty, everyone gets all uptight about it," she said in an interview last month. How right she was.
On this and other immigration policies, Ms. Sgro appeared to be on the right track. She should stay and be allowed to get on with the job. [. . . . ]
The article to which Corcoran refers follows.
Peeling the layers off the 'Strippergate' scandal subscriber only content -- from an immigration 'stakeholder' -- i.e. He makes his living from the system.
"Strippergate" is more than a tempest in a teapot. It highlights a growing problem in the delivery of Canada's immigration program. The media coverage and political partisanship has obscured the real story -- a genuine Canadian family (one spouse happens to be a stripper) that didn't wish to be separated on a mere technicality. The real problem isn't work permits for strippers, and it isn't giving ministerial permits to political supporters. While both of those issues are worthy of debate, we have a bigger problem on our hands: We have an immigration program that has lost its capacity to be kind. [. . . . ]
"Michael Greene is a Calgary immigration lawyer and the former chair of the Canadian Bar Association's national citizenship and immigration section."
Why should the rest of us take his views seriously?
As a 'stakeholder' in the immigration system, . . . . . . . oh, for goodness sake, would someone please send this man some articles on what these Romanian strippers are--allegedly--and a few articles on how women are abused as prostitutes. Mr. Greene seems to believe that in the Balaican story it was love. Perhaps, but there is usually a darker story. I met a young woman lately who told me quite frankly of marrying an older man to get to the West; naturally, she is not married to him now. Love is a Western idea, I would hazard a guess.
Also, there was an excellent documentary on TV within the last month or so, possibly on CBC, detailing how women from Russian satellite states are trapped into prostitution and the degradation they suffer all along the route to the West; now there is real abuse of women by unscrupulous and evil men. They are promised work as dancers--lied to--and it proceeds from there.
First, we need to close the doors, correct the problems, then proceed with the orderly entry of those who would make good Canadians; we do not need to speed up entry of more people simply because the system is overloaded. The system is broken badly and it needs to be re-thought.
What makes a Canadian? What traditions are most likely to fit in here and benefit Canada, as well as the individuals? Which traditions bring crime and the attendant problems? No, one cannot look at each individual at a border post and decide -- in the time allotted to an IRB member pushed by the 'stakeholders', nor can Canadians look to the UN for guidance. Really, should we? Canadians' experience should mean something in making decisions.
We must look at the countries from which these people emanate and decide whether it is worth the risk for the rest of Canadians. Our human rights to be free of crime, terror and barbaric practices trump their human rights at the border -- in my humble opinion. What follows is an example of what I do not want coming to Canada.
Don't tell me I'm penalizing the victims, the women. I have known enough women who perpetuate barbarities against women.
Iran: Authorities stay execution by stoning -- Do you want this tradition coming to Canada?
TEHRAN - Iranian authorities have temporarily stayed the execution by stoning of a woman convicted of adultery while her case is studied by the judiciary pardons commission. [. . . . ]
Isn't that a relief? The men will cogitate. She might be beheaded by an imam, as others have been, instead?
Government 'pimping for underworld' -- Opposition seeks probe: Chretien's ministers ignored warnings of forced prostitution
OTTAWA - The opposition parties accused the government yesterday of "pimping for the underworld" and called for a judicial inquiry to determine why foreign strippers were trafficked into Canada for the "illegal sex trade" under a federal labour-mobility program.
[. . . . ] Former Human Resources minister Pierre Pettigrew, now the Minister of Foreign Affairs, approved the program change in 1998 despite warnings about the involvement of organized crime.
Senior officials in other departments said the nude dancers were "being misled, exploited and trafficked to support illegal sex trade activities in Canada," but Mr. Pettigrew and his successors didn't cancel the special exemption. [. . . . ]
Pettigrew, again! Think HRDC, his department pre-Jane Stewart. He slithers through everything, it seems.
Refugee claimants hit border -- There they make appointments to return for processing before the new rules about safe third countries kicks in.
More than 300 refugee claimants massed at a border crossing at Fort Erie, Ont., yesterday as a deadline neared that will see Canada shut its doors to asylum seekers from foreign countries attempting to enter this country via the United States. [. . . . ]
"These people have not been admitted to Canada, but because we have reached our processing capacity, we are taking some basic information and booking appointments for some time in the future," he said, adding the claimants are being sent back to the United States and told to return to the border crossing at the date of their CIC meeting.
"The biggest problem is how to deal with the numbers of people who are [at the crossing] now," Mr. Kellam said. "Making sure they are warm, that kind of thing."
They chose to come; why should Canadians . . . . . . . I know, bah! humbug! I am Scrooge about our wonderful 'refugee' system.
Police debunk notion teen killers on rise -- 'The bigger danger group are people between 18 and 25' -- but read the rest
[. . . . ] "I think the bigger danger group are the people between 18 and 25. Those are the people more likely to put themselves in situations where they become involved, whether they're at clubs or involved in drug dealing or gangs," he said.
Police say they have solved 30 of the 61 murders committed so far in 2004. (There were 60 murders in Toronto all of last year; 61 in 2002 and 61 in 2001.) Det.-Insp. McGuire believes more will be resolved by year's end, noting 11 of them occurred in the last month.
[. . . . ] He said investigations take longer because detectives now need to fill out copious amounts of paperwork due to new DNA laws and other legislation before executing search warrants. In addition, homicide officers attend the court appearances of suspects they've arrested, which can take many weeks. Approximately seven of the homicide squad's 34 officers are currently tied up in court.
"When a trial lasts six or eight months, I lose investigators for six or eight months. And we can have six or seven trials going on at the same time," Det.-Insp. McGuire said. "A couple of my people have been in court the entire year. They haven't investigated one murder." [. . . . ]
Top U.S. drug-addiction research warns against decriminalizing marijuana
VANCOUVER (CP) - A top American clinical researcher in the field of drug addiction warned Tuesday that decriminalizing marijuana could lead to increased abuse of the drug.
Studies show wider availability of a drug coupled with a relaxed attitude towards it help predict the level of use and addiction, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Volkow said surveys indicate that if a drug is considered safe and benign, its use spirals. Drug addiction rates can range from 20 to 30 per cent of users. [It looks as though we must be saved from ourselves by unavailability. Poverty keeps so many out of alcoholism--or is it high government prices? It amounts to the same.]
"The notion of legalizing and making drugs accessible, what it will do is ultimately increase the number of people that get exposed to the drug," Volkow said in an interview.
"Some of those people will become addicted that may have not become addicted had it not been so easily accessible."
The best examples, she said, are alcohol and tobacco, both widely available and relatively acceptable socially and with the most widespread addiction rates. [. . . . ]
But some studies have tied its use to a rise in psychotic episodes and schizophrenia. [. . . . ]
Obviously, more research is needed. Our government would not likely pay much attention to nay-sayers, however. Decriminalizing would be a vote-getter with some and that is all that matters to this government. Mustn't turn off any voting bloc--except Christians and red-necks--people like me and the people I admire, people who see a slippery slope, the thin edge of the wedge, as we saw with gambling and just legalizing a few machines.
Thought for the Season -- Government Priorities
One wonders why the government was able to find $1.5 billion to renovate Parliament, $1.5 billion for the gun registry, but couldn't find the money to keep 9 detachments open in Quebec along with other significant manpower and resource shortfalls?
[. . . . ] The answer, of course, is the usual media-inspired flight from reason that overwhelms this country at various times — hype playing on our fears and groupthink to create a sudden story when there really is none. And now with the renewed attack on Donald Rumsfeld we are back to more of the flu-shot hysteria that has been so common in this war. Remember the pseudo-crises of the past four years — the quagmire in week three in Afghanistan or the sandstorm bog-down in Iraq?
Let us not forget either all the Orwellian logic: Clinton's past deleterious military slashes that nevertheless explained the present win in Afghanistan, or his former appeasement of bin Laden that now accounts for the successful doctrine of fighting terror. Or recall the harebrained schemes we should have adopted — the uninvited automatic airlifting of an entire division into the high peaks of Islamic, nuclear Pakistan to cut off the tribal fugitives from Tora Bora? Or have we put out of our memories the brilliant trial balloons of a Taliban coalition government and the all Islamic post-Taliban occupation forces?
So it is with the latest feeding-frenzy over Donald Rumsfeld. His recent spur-of-the-moment — but historically plausible — remarks to the effect that one goes to war with the army one has rather than the army one wishes for angered even conservatives. The demands for his head are to be laughed off from an unserious Maureen Dowd — ranting on spec about the shadowy neocon triad of Wolfowitz, Feith, and Perle — but taken seriously from a livid Bill Kristol or Trent Lott. Rumsfeld is, of course, a blunt and proud man, and thus can say things off the cuff that in studied retrospect seem strikingly callous rather than forthright. No doubt he has chewed out officers who deserved better. And perhaps his quip to the scripted, not-so-impromptu question was not his best moment. But his resignation would be a grave mistake for this country at war, for a variety of reasons.
[. . . . ] The blame with this war falls not with Donald Rumsfeld. We are more often the problem — our mercurial mood swings and demands for instant perfection devoid of historical perspective about the tragic nature of god-awful war. Our military has waged two brilliant campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. There has been an even more inspired postwar success in Afghanistan where elections were held in a country deemed a hopeless Dark-Age relic. A thousand brave Americans gave their lives in combat to ensure that the most wicked nation in the Middle East might soon be the best, and the odds are that those remarkable dead, not the columnists in New York, will be proven right — no thanks to post-facto harping from thousands of American academics and insiders in chorus with that continent of appeasement Europe. [. . . . ]
Pipeline behemoths square off -- TransCanada, Enbridge manoeuvre for role in building US$20B Alaska Highway line
CALGARY - Canada's two major pipeline companies are preparing for battle over who gets to play a role in building the US$20-billion Alaska Highway natural gas pipeline.
And industry sources say the rivalry between TransCanada Corp. and Enbridge Inc., both based in Calgary across the street from each other, could land the federal government in court since Ottawa might have to take sides early in the new year.
One source said the competition to build the world's largest pipeline project is likely to become "the hardest-fought" contest that Canadian pipeliners have been involved in.
The Canadian companies are the only two serious pipeline contenders for a piece of the venture, two-thirds of which would run through Canada and is likely to locate a lot of the planning in Calgary. However, Alaska producers BP PLC, ExxonMobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips Co. may also decide they will build the pipeline themselves.
[. . . . ] "Canada needs to be prepared so that consumers can see this long-term viable secure source of supply, which impacts prices and volatility," Mr. Carruthers said. "All eyes will be on Canada to have a clear and predictable [regulatory] process such that this huge investment can be made."
Be sure to skim all today's sections for other mention of Enbridge.
Alcan spins out business -- Rolled products -- result of agreements at the time of the buyout of Pechiney Group of France
MONTREAL - Canada will be home to two major aluminum firms after shareholders of Alcan Inc. voted yesterday to spin out its rolled products business into a separate public company, Novelis Inc.
[. . . . ] The spin-off is the centrepiece of Alcan's commitments to regulators when it bought Pechiney Group of France last January for $6-billion. A previous deal, part of a planned three-way merger in 1999, fell through over competition concerns, under former CEO Jacques Bougie.
[. . . . ] With the spin-off, Alcan severs its corporate links to Novelis, and the two will become competitors in some markets. Alcan will keep no stake in Novelis. Two Alcan directors, Ted Newall and Clarence Chandran, will step down to join the Novelis board. Mr. Newall becomes chairman. Also joining the Novelis board is Mr. Bougie. [. . . . ]
