Canada's tech-juggernaut, Research in Motion ("RIM"), now trading as Blackberry, is still adapting to the new world of mobile devices, but its still on path to release a new generations of devices--which can hopefully return this company to premier status.
Today, BlackBerry (the company formerly known as RIM) essentially put a nail in the PlayBook coffin by announcing that it would not be converted to the new Blackberry 10 OS. That mobile OS is clearly the future of the company. QNX, though, bought and now developed by BlackBerry, is the past.
In a Q1 2014 earnings press release, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins outlined the company’s near-term strategy: “Throughout the remainder of fiscal 2014, the company will invest in BlackBerry 10 smartphone launches, and the roll out of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, to continue to establish the new BlackBerry 10 platform in the marketplace.”
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Will Blackberry ever build another tablet? If Heins can turn BB10 and its flagship phones into a success, then yes. But the signs are not promising. From the earnings statement:
“The smartphone market remains highly competitive, making it difficult to estimate units, revenue and levels of profitability ... Based on the competitive market dynamics and these investments, the company anticipates it will generate an operating loss in the second quarter.”
With this kind of fiscal outlook, it’s unlikely the company will invest heavily in new initiatives like rebooting its 7-inch tablet product line.
So, PlayBook, it was nice knowing you. You were, in fact, impressive and innovative for your time. Your features like cards (at least on a tablet), swipe from bevel, true multitasking, wireless content sharing and more have all been copied by more successful mobile companies. I guess you can take solace in that.
Airport safety and wait times: …Sequestration reduced Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) FY 2013 appropriated dollars by approximately $600 million, which required CBP to reduce overtime for CBP Officers (CBPO) beginning in early March. These cuts have already led to significant increases in wait times at air ports of entry. (Page 5).
Overall, USCG expects to have approximately 20-50 percent fewer assets in the offshore patrol areas for migrant and drug interdiction at various times over the next several months. The Coast Guard expects to submit a reprogramming request in the next few weeks that will mitigate some of the impacts, but will likely not completely restore planned interdiction patrols. (Page 6).
Ports of Entry: As noted above, sequestration reduced Customs Border Protection Officer (CBPO) overtime availability at the Nation’s ports. This slows the movement of goods across the border and impedes U.S. capacity to facilitate and expedite cargo, adding costs to the supply chain and diminishing global competitiveness.
Land border truck wait times have increased significantly.
Del Rio and Mariposa both reported wait times of 120 minutes; normal wait times average 15 minutes for both locations.
Pharr Cargo reported wait times of 105 minutes; normal wait times average 15 minutes.
Detroit Fort Street Cargo reported wait times of 60 minutes; normal wait times average 5 minutes.
Other POEs with wait time increases: Nogales, Peace Bridge, Progreso, and Rainbow Bridge. (Pages 18-19).
Maritime cargo also faced delays: LA/Long Beach reported container release delays of 144 hrs (6 days) and Port Everglades and Miami Seaport reported container delays up to 48 hours. And cruise ships saw the effects of reduced CBPO overtime. Los Angeles and Port Everglades reported increased processing times of 6.5 hours; normal processing time is 4 hours.
Sequestration will also affect Border Patrol coverage between ports of entry, but DHS is still attempting to find additional savings. CBP expects to submit a reprogramming notification soon to mitigate some of these impacts and to prevent the need to furlough CBPOs for an estimated 3-4 days. (Pages 18-19).
Canada needs three ports in the Arctic: on its West Coast, in the centre of the archipelago, and on the East Coast. There is near-unanimous agreement that the Arctic is warming at about twice the rate of global warming elsewhere. There is also clear evidence that the arctic polar ice cap is fast disappearing. Human activity in the Arctic is increasing exponentially as the Arctic becomes increasingly accessible. Maritime traffic has grown significantly. The U.S. Coast Guard has reported that commercial maritime traffic through the Northern Sea Route along the Russian Coast increased tenfold between 2010 and 2012. Canada’s Northwest Passage was free of ice in 2007, years ahead of scientific predictions. It has been free of ice every summer since. There is growing interest in harvesting the natural resources that have been shielded by the permanent polar ice cap. This will naturally lead to further increases in human activity and a greater incidence of search and rescue operations and maritime accidents. Such incidents could lead to an environmental catastrophe, in what is recognised as a very fragile environment with a short vertical food chain. Almost any major accident in the Arctic will affect the “human security” of its inhabitants. ... Nunavut Premier Eva Aariak has stated that one of the anchors of sovereignty in the Canadian Arctic is having healthy communities. By investing and developing ports such as those proposed, the federal government could put concrete action behind Minister Leona Aglukkaq’s stated desire to develop the Arctic during Canada’s chairmanship of the Arctic Council. It would create a significant number of long term well-paying jobs for the communities in and around those ports. “Build a road and they will come” it is said. In the Canadian Arctic, ports will attract business. In so doing, Canada would also improve greatly its ability to deal with SAR [search and rescue] and marine pollution and meet its international commitments.
Some interesting facts re: Canada and the U.S. Civil War:
40,000 = # of Canadians who fought in the Civil War.
12,000 = # of Civil War Draft dodgers who made Canada home.
But, most interesting, is Boyko's apparent contention that it was during America's bloodiest years that Canada, under John A. Macdonald government, truly became a nation. From Tim Cook's review:
Relations between Canada and the North were not helped by the open gloating of many Canadians and their newspapers over the fast-collapsing republican experiment to the south. But far more damaging was the harbouring of Confederate terrorists who set up home in various Canadian cities, especially Montreal and Toronto, and then launched cross-border raids. There were calls throughout the North for American troops to cross the border in retaliatory expeditions and to abrogate trade treaties. Canada barely stood the pressure. While the story here is firmly set in the past, one cannot help but draw parallels to terrorist and border threats in the early 21st century. Even after the cessation of hostilities in 1865, the threat continued, with Irish-American Fenians storming into Canada in the ludicrous dream of capturing it and holding it ransom so that Britain would be forced to set Ireland free.The raids were enough to topple an anti-Confederation government in New Brunswick and eventually led to that colony entering into Confederation with Nova Scotia, Canada East and Canada West, on July 1, 1867. Blood and Daring is a fast-paced read, and Boyko skillfully weaves together the complex and conflict-filled Canadian, British and American wartime policy, with John A. Macdonald emerging as the nation-building hero that he was, fending off American threats of annexation and holding off weak-willed British politicians who sought to cut Canada loose. That Canada survived was probably against the odds, but this nation has a habit of doing that.
The posturing over U.S. country of origin labeling (COOL) rules continues! I know, just what you needed to get your Monday kick-started... (Note: I really want to interview the people in the Dep't of Agriculture that drafted the original and now reworked COOL, or MCOOL, rules. I feel like they'd give a delicious bureaucratic description of this very technical, but very live trade issue between two of the world's friendliest nations.) Check out BTBObserver on Canada's latest COOL retaliatory warning shot.
By Keith Edmund White Editor-in-Chief There's nothing like talking securities regulation to get the morning juices flowing! But, then again, seeing as increasingly more Canadians and Americans mood follows market swings (FYI-this is not a good life plan), perhaps it will? And, anyway, it gives you the opportunity to see just how weird Canada is. Out of the world's major economies, Canada is the only nation that does not have a federal securities regulator. Instead, it leaves the regulation of financial trading instruments--whether they be stocks, bonds, the markets they are traded in, or dreaded derivatives--to provinces. It's a quirk of history and federalism, and one that the Harper government had been assiduously trying to change. Harper tasked Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty with creating a national regulator. First, Flaherty spent years developing, vetting, and constitutionally scrutinizing a plan for a national securities regulator. Result: the Canadian Supreme Court (understandably, in my opinion) torpedoed it. Then Flaherty then spent a about a year trying to get a joint provincial-federal substitute. Well, the verdict's in: Flaherty's folly is over. Reuters reports on Canada's Securities Plan C: Give up; federalize the securities slice they can; move on.
Canada is pushing ahead with plans to create a new but watered-down version of a national securities regulator as its campaign to create a more powerful watchdog like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission appears to be headed toward failure.
The Conservative government's new plan would bypass the country's powerful provinces and focus on detecting market risk, sources familiar with the process told Reuters. This alternative, however, is unlikely to impress investors and the financial industry given its limited powers and the potential for duplication and more bureaucracy, industry officials say.
Ottawa has tried for decades to replace a patchwork of 13 provincial regulators with a single agency more in tune with today's globalized markets, arguing it would reduce costs and give it more clout to deal with the cross-border effects of reforms like the U.S. Volcker Rule.
On Thursday, May 23rd, the Skagit River Bridge collapsed, bringing down a critical trade link between Canada and the United States. It may not be surprising, then, that a week latter Canada and the United States gave an official roll-out to the Canada-United States Border Infrastructure Investment Plan (BIIP). (BTB Observer blogs on the roll-out here, and provides a nice link to the actual plan). Last Thursday, the NYTimes reported
on the impact of the collapse to the town of Burlington, WA:
The malls are still open, and the cars and trucks creeping through town day and night along the detour routes are testament that the highway corridor, though temporarily crippled, is still in use. But now the people are not coming to buy, and they are mostly not stopping. The message by the state to avoid the area to help ease congestion, and the news images of stalled traffic and twisted steel, have created a secondary collapse, business and political leaders here said, in a community that was poised this year to finally break through, back to prerecession health. ... That a 160-foot section of highway bridge could catastrophically fail without causing serious injuries — cars into the river, passengers treated and released — is still a source of head-shaking wonder. About 70,000 vehicles used the half-century-old steel truss bridge every day, and the evening rush had barely ebbed when, around 7 p.m. last Thursday, a truck’s oversize load struck a girder, crumpling the structure in a chain of events still being investigated by federal authorities. State transportation officials said this week that they are hoping to have a temporary spanin place by mid-June, with a permanent fix later this year. But they also cautioned that the temporary bridge — truckloads of components began arriving this week — will be constrained in its use and capacity, with a reduced speed limit. Detours for oversize vehicles will remain in place for months.
The United States has a D+ infrastructure problem. Perhaps the increased attention of this collapse, and the international attention it brings can ensure, at the very least, vital border crossings are maintained. In any case, it shows that the Canada-U.S. relationship plays an important and daily role in the lives of Americans and Canadians, alike. And getting Canada-U.S. priority issues done right not just secures economic growth in both nations, and works to protect lives.
