Maclean's Talks Canadian Wild Turkey Hunting

Not only an enjoyable read, but shows the many interesting ways states and provinces can find new revenue--and the terrible trouble wild turkeys can make.

From yesterday's Talking turkey article:

...

If given the go-ahead, Wilson and others will travel to Ontario this winter, where they plan to use air-powered net cannons to trap 200 of the province’s estimated 70,000 wild turkeys. The birds will be tested for diseases, put in crates and shipped east to be released. They plan to repeat the process every winter for four years, aiming to more than double the existing population from 600 to 1,400, not including any natural increase. A biologist with the turkey federation estimates New Brunswick could support 10,000 birds.

One reason the province is considering a hunt is the money. Maine started its own program with 40 stocked birds in 1977 and now has roughly 60,000, says Northrup. Each year the hunt generates millions of dollars in spinoff revenue for the state. For every New Brunswick hunter who heads south to bag a bird, that’s money the province loses.

Yet many farmers are horrified at the idea of importing more of the birds, because wild turkeys are known for their voracious appetites. In Ontario, for instance, the birds are regularly blamed for devastating crops. With more than 300 wild blueberry farms in New Brunswick, there’s a lot at stake.

BTB: Bilateralist Reports on Progress, and (Relative) Risk to North American Exporters

Luiza Ch. Savage, at her blog Bilateralist and at Mclean's D.C. correspondent, shared an excellent BTB update chart prepared by Birgit Matthiesen that details and has and has not been accomplished by the governments of Canada and the United States.

You can find Matthiesen's 2-page side-by-side comparison here, and Savage's Maclean's article here.

Savage, not getting buried in details, succinctly gets to the 'impact' of differing rates of success on BTB's various objectives:

This is complicated stuff and no one expects overnight changes. But timing matters, too. For example, the governments reported progress on a pilot projects for harmonizing cargo screening for North-America-bound cargo at the ports of Prince Rupert and Montreal. There is a risk that quick progress on such“perimeter” elements coupled with slow progress on expediting the land border between Canada and the U.S. could inadvertently disadvantage North American manufacturers relative to exporters from, say, Asia or Europe.

Says Birgit Matthiesen, the Washington representative for the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters:

“With the increased competition from third countries in the last few years, and what is anticipated from the TPP and Canada-EU trade agreement, manufacturers in Canada and the U.S., and their business partners, are going to be looking for real relief from transactional costs and compliance burdens at the land border. If not, the North American supply chain could be at a competitive disadvantage.”

CNOOC Nexen Bid Part 3: Macleans Talks With Debra Steger

Check out Erica Alini's great Q&A with UOttawa professor, and former trade negotiator for Canada, Debra Steger.

Two main Steger snippets:

Compared to the U.S. and Australia, Canada’s Act, with the two review processes for “net benefit” and “national security,” is confusing and difficult to apply in practice, as in this case involving CNOOC. The “national security” process is also highly non-transparent in that there are no criteria specified for a review and no decisions are ever made public. The U.S. has one test for direct acquisitions: national security, with a list of 12 factors. These are wide-ranging and include: domestic production for national defence requirements, potential effects on U.S. technological leadership in areas affecting national security, potential effects on critical infrastructure in the U.S., long term projection of U.S. requirements for energy and other critical resources and materials. The U.S. approach is more specific, transparent, and integrated than the Investment Canada scheme. The U.S. CFIUS model also requires nine agencies to work together to carry out reviews. This would appear to allow for a broad range of views and better decision making than the Canadian approach in which Industry Canada plays the lead role.

...

My prediction is that the government will allow the investment, albeit with a requirement for undertakings designed to ensure that the resulting business operates in a transparent and commercial manner in accordance with Canadian corporate governance norms and likely to provide net benefit to Canada.

Morning News Round-Up

A roundup of attention-grabbing Canada-focused headlines:

Want to Solve America's Problems?  Vote Canada.  The BBC reports on a Canadian comedy team’s new book,  America But Better:  The Canada Party Manifesto.

B.C. Premier Steps In It, And Enjoys a Session-Free Fall.  B.C. Premier Christy Clark says Victoria is steeped in a “sick culture” with “no real people.”  Predictably, she’s grabbing headlines—especially since the Premier is not having a fall sitting of B.C.’s parliament, and there's that provincial election next May.

Understanding Canada’s Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair.  John Geddes offers a lengthy and fascinating portrait of NDP leader Thomas Mulcair raise to power and worldview in Macleans.  Here’s a particularly relevant snippet:

By his own account in an interview with Maclean's, backed up by the observations of some who have worked closely with him, Mulcair’s upbringing in such a large, tightly knit, complex household remains the template for his important relationships. Aides and allies say he maintains unusually close contact with family and old friends, cultivating an intensely personal network and leaning on time-tested loyalties more than most top politicians. While he is no longer an observant churchgoer, Mulcair’s brand of left-leaning politics flows directly out of his home province’s distinctive and deep well of progressive Catholicism—a powerful influence on seminal Quebec politicians of the past, including Pierre Trudeau. As for Mulcair’s Irishness, Graham Carpenter, an old family friend and long-time aide, alludes to his “Irish world view,” and not jokingly, as an explanation for Mulcair’s storied scrappiness and more. “There’s mystique to it,” Carpenter says, “that’s for sure.”

Canada’s Health System and Graying Population.  The Ottawa Citizen explores why the graying of Canada’s population hasn’t derailed the healthcare system of the Champlain district.

Rock the Canadian Rockies this Summer.  The Calgary Herald reports on Banff National Park’s preparations for its annual foliage tourist rush.

PQ Officially Take the Reins of Government in Quebec. Yesterday was the first day of Parti Quebecois (PQ) government in Quebec.  CTVNews reports on the PQ cabinet’s photo-op, and explores just who is holding the reins of Quebec government.  Of particular focus:  Alexandre Cloutier’s appointment to the newly created minister for sovereigntist government. 

U.S. Solider Avoiding Iraq War Service in Canada is Ordered Out By Day’s End.  Kimberly Rivera, a war resister who’s been in Canada since 2007, is told to leave Canada because she won’t face “punishment, torture, or loss of life if deported.”  (Source:  iPolitics)

Gamer-Free Vancouver?  Canadian Business reports on why the Vancouver’s video-game industry is moving east.  Why?  Two drivers:  Ontario’s lower cost of living and tax incentives. 

"Stop Worrying": Stephen Gordon On Canada's Widening Trade Deficeit

Stephen Gordon explains why Canadians shouldn't worry about their widening trade deficit.  To boil down his already short article, Gordon points out that net exports are a component of a nation's GDP, and thus lower net-exports can lower a nation's GDP.  But falling net-exports can also lead to rising investment, which is also a component of national GDP.  So, falling net exports can be offset by rising investment.  And where does that lead us?  The conclusion from Stephen Gordon's helpful and concise piece in Macleans: 

...there’s no obvious reason to think that strong growth in net exports is positively correlated with strong growth in GDP: net exports fell in the expansions of 1982-1990, 2001-2008—and again in the most recent expansion..."

That said, what could be considered worrisome is the drop in the levels of both exports and imports: this is indeed a sign of a slowdown in overall economic activity. But that would have been bad news even if net exports had gone up.

People should stop worrying about the trade balance; the fact that the word “deficit” is used shouldn’t alarm you.

Generational Strains: Why In Canada and Not in the US?

By Keith Edmund White
Editor-in-Chief


Are we approaching the era of the Discontent GenY in Canada and the United States? Macleans' Emma Teitel vents about Gen-Y frustration with their boomer counterparts, but beyond the moaning of today's admittedly rough economic landscape, how will a generation of Canadians and Americans deal with an apparent lean decade--and what will their politics be?

Today Emma Teitel writes on Gen-Y's frustrations with the dwindling economy and a seemingly lack of empathy from their baby boomer counterparts:

Unfortunately not everyone has such generous sponsors, parents or otherwise (or a sponsor who can afford to be that generous). In fact, most people don’t. Yet our elders in the Conservative party (ahem: “There is no bad job”) and the media (isn’t it awesome when Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente writes a column railing against Gen Y kids for not finding jobs followed by a column about how she’ll never retire?) point to ambitious grads like Smulders, or the Toronto girls who pitched a tent at a busy intersection to attract potential employers—in order to illustrate their allegedly simple and logical point: times are tough and us kids need to get off our butts and just work a little harder. In a recent column, the National Post’s resident killjoy, Barbara Kay, went to town on my generation after a twentysomething waiter knocked over a glass of water in her lap and didn’t apologize (which Kay immediately interpreted as, “Because being Gen Y means never having to say you’re sorry”). She was equally shocked and appalled that according to an October 2011 National Report Card on Youth Financial Literacy (which I have now seen cited in at least three Gen-Y bemoaning editorials) 70 per cent of high school students “erroneously assumed they’d own their own home in 10 years,” and “the average respondent overestimated his future earnings by 300 per cent.” Wow. Breaking news! Teenagers have dreams. Apparently it has become a crime to think beyond your means. 

The anti-youth, “kids these days” attitude of many older people today, in reference to the ongoing student protests in Quebec and the Occupy movement, is cynical beyond belief—especially coming from a generation that in their youth could afford to be protesting about “big” things like the military-industrial complex, and not “little” things like tuition hikes and unemployment. When Margaret Wente was 23 years old, a chocolate bar cost 10 cents and a box of Corn Flakes cost 25. Tuition at the University of Toronto was well under $1,000. My father, who is roughly the same age as Wente, says he could make enough money at his summer job (he was a camp unit head) to pay for his tuition at U of T in the fall. And his books.

But, one question: is this strain a bump in the road--after an admittedly painful and long economic contraction--or is it the beginning of a new generational split?

Yes, the United States has the occupy moment, which is dominated by young voices. But you don't see American students or U.S. youth protesting at their universities or, like in Spain, rallying in anger.

Part of this, of course, has to be that Americans have gotten used to ballooning economic costs, that where any discussion of actually dealing with it are considered pie-in-the-sky thinking. But if Canada and the United States have to grow accustomed to low-growth, long-term economies, I think there's something the new generation of political leaders have to learn: as the 20somethings turn into 30 and 40 somethings, their collective past and current desires of government are going to be incredibly different from liberal/conservative debates in each country; debates that appear increasingly irrelevant to addressing the issues facing each country and the global economy.

But, while Canada as the ascent of the NDP to perhaps deal with this realignment, the United States has no such luck. In any case, it will interesting to watch the ascent of the Ys.

And, as a small counterpoint to Teitel editorial: at least in the United States, every generation is guilty of rationalizing the intractable problems of economically suffering groups. In the 90s the lament was globalization and its discontents, with NAFTA destroying industrial jobs, but pumping up middle class 401ks and raising American GDP--while lowering the prices of goods. There are always winners and losers, and with no simple solutions, we can't blame the 'winners' with not sending us their checks or giving us sympathy. Instead, the challenge is how to unite the underlying economic challenges facing all generations and make a coherent platform that gets us out of the 'win-lose' paradigm.

But that question is considerably easier to write than to answer.

The Beginning of the NDP Era?

By Keith Edmund White
Editor-in-Chief


A recent poll finds that the NDP would win, albeit only with a minority government, if a federal election were now held in Canada. Is Canada's Liberal Party gone? In any case, the NDP--whose charismatic leader Jack Layton only died last year--is continuing to gain strength and might just be Harper's main worry at the ballot box in 3-4 years.

There might be a reason Harper is pushing for quick economic growth: his approval rating is in the 30s. But, perhaps, even more troubling is this: a recent poll not only gives the NDP leader Tom Mulcair an approval rating in the 40s, but finds if a federal election were held now in Canada the NDP, yes the NDP, would win with a minority government.

So, no idea who Tom Mulcair is? Well, here's an provocatively titled MacCleans piece (Mr. Mulcair is Mr. Angry) and quick rundown from the Huffington Post. Some interesting highlights: Mulcair's short-fuse has cost from $95K, he's voted in French elections, and was a one-time Liberal party member. I think more prescient are these concluding paragraphs from the Macleans piece:

Beyond ephemeral questions about the NDP’s reason for being, Mulcair, as leader, would have to grow into the new role as the face of the party, becoming both a unifying, consensus-building presence within, and a strong, assertive figure on the public stage. Concerns about his aggressive style will have to be assuaged. Former Winnipeg North NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis wouldn’t comment on Mulcair’s temperament. “We had a good working relationship,” said the long-time Manitoba MP, who resigned in 2010. When asked why she is supporting Brian Topp, the former MP said, “Brian Topp can take on Harper in a style similar to Jack, that is not personal, ugly or distasteful.”

But the case for Mulcair is that however controversial his presence, he is also the most obviously ready to fill the chair directly opposite Stephen Harper in the House of Commons. “Leaders have to carve our their own way of doing things,” says Davies. “And I think Tom’s ability to be smart and articulate and direct and to present a clear alternative—and he’s absolutely got steely resolve to take us to government—I think is carrying on Jack’s tradition in a different sort of package.”

Clearly, in only two months on the job, Mulcair--short-fuse or not--is gaining on Prime Minister Harper, whatever murmurings he makes about shifting Canada more towards European welfare model. Then again, when the number one issue in Canada is healthcare and not jobs, perhaps this line doesn't hurt poll numbers as much as it would in the United States.

In any case, the once-dominant Liberal Party has a tough--but perhaps not insurmountable--path to political relevancy.