Canada’s Conservative government is in talks on proposed loan guarantees to prevent the failure of a hard-fought-for rescue plan for C$32 billion ($26.5 billion) worth of asset-backed commercial paper, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Wednesday. UPDATE Dec 19th 2008: Looks like the bailout is going through.  See the new Doom post "Ground Zero Canada: Ottawa to Detoxify Original World Seed-Crisis by Monday — OR ELSE" This story  may be way down the page from the possible auto industry bailout, but where GM, Ford and Chrysler are presently looking for roughly C$3 billion to tide them over the next while,…
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  "Because they’re levered, the amount of global assets that would be affected if all this went down would be eight or 10 times the nominal value of the notes, so you’re starting to get into the $200-billion, quarter-trillion-dollars’ worth" David Dodge, Governor of the Bank of Canada, December 11, 2007 [1] Thanks go to Doomer Yossarian, who just dropped this delightful find out of his B-25 (see comment #2 below): "Its unique shape was designed to conserve energy by allowing less light into the building." Big hat tip to the good folks at the Financial Post part of Canada’s…
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The moves come amid reports that the committee has approached Ottawa for nearly C$10 billion to prevent the failure of the hard-fought rescue plan as credit markets worsen. [1] The "ABCP rescue," also known as the "Montreal Agreement" or "Montreal Accord" dates back to August 12, 2007, and is the 16-month old grand-daddy of all efforts to fight the credit crunch.  The whole thing has been managed and fought perfectly out in the open, with litigation, investor votes, bankruptcy proceedings and even broad legal protection of the perps against any effort by their victims to sue them.  Imagine a 1/10th…
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"When Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff embraced it was hard to keep a dry eye. It was just an extraordinary moment. It was sincere . . . Everybody is united now" [1] Martha Hall Findlay The title is an in-joke relating to one of Peter Gzowski’s journalistic adventures. The circumstance is the Canadian establishment’s perception that we’re a near-orbit satellite of the American Empire, and our Prime Minister had better act as the President’s representative.  Until 1945 this role was taken by the Governor General in the interest of England, and was official.

Delicious with red wine, but HEARTBURN IS POSSIBLE! [1] I don’t have the heart for anything but humour and bad puns today.  However, the "grownups" are all in deadly earnest.  Bob Rae called Harper’s address Nixonian.  CBC’s talking heads dismissed Dion’s as YouTube’ish (it is now )  American Doomers please watch this carefully.  Harper just won the latest round but the game is not over.  Look here to start exploring this in more detail.  Economically and in many other ways this stuff is going to be high-impact on America too.   UPDATE: Now the real grownups [2] are starting to…
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[oops! shouldn't have tried to update the title with low memory apologies for making this disappear earlier] Mr. Gary Moore of Calgary AB (it’s even better he’s from Western Canada) has done a fine job of presenting the case for why Canada’s present Prime Minister should do the statesman-like thing and step aside for the Coalition.  Even Harper’s best neo-con buddies are now frantically signaling for him to back off.[2] I don’t ordinarily post a whole MSM piece, but this letter-to-the-editor deserves wide distribution.  Please consider clicking on one of the title links and visiting the original source (and their…
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"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…
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Doomers please adjust your tin-foil hats — we’re going deep. Thank-you, I think, to Doom friend W.C. Varones, whose comment — "… The Conservatives are not neo-cons. They are common-sense centrists, …" — got me going. Pardon me if I get touchy whenever our present government starts messing around with the franchise. The Civitas speech remains elusive, but something like its reputed contents came up in the campaign leading up to the January 23, 2006 Federal Election. The fun bit was preserved on Wayback from the Liberal Party’s home page as of December 17, 2005. The article link isn’t live,…
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It’s not a holiday up here, so with the American MSM stuffed with turkey, what better time to foment a small coup? An economic crisis is a fine time to suppress the opposition.  This just in from CBC World Report (last story on the 8AM AST package — later: Fitz-Morris’ story squeezed out of the final version of the package): Dwight Smith [10:50]: CBC News has learned that one of the programs first in line to get chopped today is the funding subsidy for political parties that’s based on the number of electoral votes they earned.  James Fitz-Morris has more…
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The next 48+ hours are shaping up to be a real fur-ball. North America’s rapidly fading troika of government leaders was planning to spend a couple of quiet days advancing their Security and Prosperity Partnership,[1] accompanied only by the traditionally ineffective anti-globalization protests,[2] but events seem to be conspiring to overtake them.