"River …"
"I know. We’re going for a ride."
Looks like this week my country’s going to be in the hands of this 52 year old Haitian immigrant (picture credit at the Wikipedia link) …
… who also happens to be the Dominion’s ceremonial Head of State.
UPDATE:
Wow! This picture says it all (credit to CP in the story that follows)
"Dion to lead Liberal-NDP coalition, Liberals confirm — PM: Dion ‘playing biggest political game in Canadian history’ ", CBC, December 1, 2008. [that's 150 incoming links from the Mother Corp and counting -- thanks guys!]
Ignatieff, who is the front-runner to succeed Dion in an upcoming leadership convention, said the three were "at one" in believing "the only leader who can lead us in this context is the duly elected leader of the Liberal party."
It’s a long story, but if you want to follow the action this week, you might want to keep an eye on this page. The back-story is Byzantine, but here’s a start. These issues aren’t nearly as trivial as they appear.
"Conservatives to deliver early budget: Tories back down on plan to ban public service strikes", CBC, November 30, 2008.
The Conservative government moved up the federal budget date and scrapped a second element of its economic update Sunday in a bid to stave off opposition efforts to take power with a Liberal-NDP coalition.
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Thank you for keeping us informed on issues with our good neighbor to the north. Too many Americans don’t keep track of what’s happening with our neighbors.
My sister taught a college geography class a few years ago, and I helped her grade a test. One of the assignments was to label about 10 countries on a world map. Several of her students couldn’t identify Canada on a world map- one had labeled it as Brasil!
We are all to interconnected to ignore what is happening right next door.
First of all John, Firely /Serenity quotes are always welcome. Explain the reference please. Anyway good to hear the news from up north which we are never exposed to in the MSM here.
Second, Twist, my daughter (13) refers to Canada as America’s hat and Mexico is its beard. How is that for geography? She makes me proud! As for the interconnectedness absolutely correct and American’s are shameful in their ignorance of geography. It was my undergrad major and I am very happy with my choice.
The ‘housing’ crisis has finally hit my high end north toronto neighbourhood. Will take some photos, but basically, homes that sold for $1.5 million plus, are now siting on the market for over 8-10 months. One builder, even put up a sign that says “buy this house, don’t believe the scary stuff you hear in the news. This house is a bargain.” It’s a riot, and first time i’ve ever seen things like this in my particular area of Toronto, which is full of lawyers, doctors, etc. I will take a pic of the sign (on side and front lawn) when i get back from this business trip.
Builders who have helped drive up bungalow prices into the mid-600′s and selling the new built homes for over $1.5 are going to take a massive hit this next year.
Metro
OK, to start with here’s the plot summary for the movie. The epigram for this post is at the end of the wonderful 4-minute long sequence near the beginning. “Define ‘interesting’ ” was at the start. The spaceship Serenity is doing an entry to a planet where (most of) the crew intends to perform a bank-heist with six-shooters (the genre is “Space Western”). At the start part the heat shield comes off and the ship appears to be on the point of falling apart, and at the end they are preparing to head off to the bank-job on an anti-grav sled. The neat bit is that the whole scene was filmed in only two continuous takes.
That’s neat your first degree was in Geography. A friend from church got his B.A. in that from St Mary’s and he has managed to become a pretty heavy senior researcher at Stats Canada.
This week’s kerfuffle isn’t going to make sense without some geographical background, due to the intensely regional nature of Canada’s fractured Parliament. What used to be the historic Progressive Conservative Party was a few years ago consumed by the Alberta-based Reform Party (the combination was briefly and accidentally known as C.R.A.P. — these people are without humor). The new Conservative Party’s economic might is (was) based on the enormous production of “dirty oil” (oil sands) there. Their present leader Steven Harper is a neo-con wannabe George W. Bush bloodless policy wonk. Sort of an Alberto Gonzales without the charisma. The recent, and temporary, fall in oil prices have messed up their economic clout.
Meanwhile, the Liberals, the traditional Canadian “governing party,” are not governing the country — and not happy campers. They tend to be neo-liberal anyway, and a key American neo-liberal with Canadian roots named Michael Ignatieff was dispatched a few years ago to take the US-friendly torch away from Harper. Just like Bhutto was sent off to relieve Musharraf in Pakistan. (it would seem the CIA needs to work on its succession-planning skills
) When Jean Chretien (male) was replaced by Paul Martin, he amused himself undermining his successor, so Martin was defeated by Harper and quit. Ignatieff ran to replace him, but was opposed by former NDP(!) Ontario Premier (= Governor) Bob Rae. Rae wasn’t Liberal and Ignatieff wasn’t Canadian, so out of desperation the party selected Stephane Dion, who’s focused on green initiatives and is barely comprehensible in English — even though it was the “Anglo” turn for the Liberal leader. Thus the opposition was in such a mess that Harper could run the country as a minority government for about the last 4 years.
Now the Liberals are the pro-business party, with their power-base in Ontario, which is a sort-of combination of MI + OH … that is heavy industry and above all automotive. The Conservatives want to avoid bailing out the Big 3 and concentrate on getting Obama to keep buying dirty oil from Alberta, but for the Liberals an auto bailout is Job 1. The NDP is a union-dominated socialist party, and one of the dominant Canadian unions is the CAW — Canadian Auto Workers — so they’re onside on this issue.
But … Liberal + NDP doth not a majority make. The Bloc Québécois is a separatist party. Sort of like having the Tamil Tigers as a faction in Sri Lanka’s legislature. Quebec is also big in Automotive — and guess who manufactures those executive jets the Big 3 CEOs flew down to Washington in
If you tuned into that 1997 Harper speech I dug up the other day, you’ll see that the Bloc is our present PM’s worst nightmare. The country has come very close to breaking up a couple of times, including recently. The separatists were even the provincial Quebec government for many years. You may recall that one of their early cabinet ministers even made some appearances on this blog (but that’s another story!)
Anyway, it’s now obvious I correctly picked up that this was going to be hairy last Thursday while all you guys were busy with football and turkey. I see now that the GG is, as advertised above, coming into play.
“Opposition set to present coalition to Governor-General: Leaders from all three parties drafting letter that informs Rideau Hall a viable alternative to Conservative minority exists within current Parliament”, by Daniel LeBlanc, Toronto Globe & Mail, December 1, 2008.
lostoros -
Would love to see your Toronto pics (and post them here). I’m more an amateur macro blogger, so any insight about the Canadian and Toronto markets is most welcome.
In the above I’m speaking to the influence of manufacturing and commodities on the political crisis here, but the housing boom / bust is also extremely influential. Just in Vancouver you’ve got a very-long running boom (started with the Hong Kong repatriation in the 1990s) reversing just ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Metro-
You should be proud of your daughter, too many American adults have an appalling grasp of geography.
I lived in Japan for several years, and actually had a couple of conversations that went something like this…
Better-not-say: It snows in Japan?
Twist: Haven’t you ever seen the pictures of Mt. Fuji? There’s always snow on it.
BNS: Oh, I thought it would always be hot. Isn’t it down by Indonesia?
[At this point a stunned Twist struggles for a tactful response]
I remember in elementary school coloring different countries and having to name their capitals, principal exports, etc. I guess a lot of people can’t remember back that far.
lostoros-
I’m seconding what John said. Send the pictures!
Ok Ok… will send it as soon as I get back. It’s hilarious, to see this crap sign in front of a house that would have sold for $1.7 million 12 months ago BEGGING for someone to buy it. If anyone from Toronto is on here and can drive by and post it, go to this address on googlemaps to find it: “90 Old Orchard Dr. Toronto ON. Canada”. It’s the new house on the corner of Old Orchard and Jedburgh Dr. (South East corner).
I managed to find the listing on the MLS system: http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=7620008
They have lowered the price at least 300K since it was first listed over 6 months ago.
It’s actually corner of Ridley and Old Orchard (forgot Jedburgh was renamed at this portion).
Oops forgot to add more info. For those of you interested in housing, inventories, and pricing in the Toronto market – this is a great site: http://guava.ca
You can search google on this site as follows: Guava.com “23 Ridley” and you will get to this page: http://guava.ca/?p=1626
From this site, you can see inventories have gone up significantly, while sales have dropped quite a bit.
Promise, no more comments
lostoros (# 10) -
Oops! Igor nailed you with the dreaded 2-links spam-jail