In my high school yearbook, my mother inscribed: “Good, Better, Best! Never let it rest ‘til you make your good better and your better best!” The Trudeau government seems determined to stand this idea on its head — Bad, Badder, Worst! Never stop at first! Make your bad ideas badder, and your badder worst!
Looking back, we should have known. No, strike that, we knew; everybody knew. However much China might have liberalized its economy, whatever material gains it might have made, it was always clear that the Communist Party of China was the same brutal gang of thugs it always was. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 because Mikhail Gorbachev would not approve shooting the protesters. That same year, at Tiananmen Square, China went in another direction.
Looking back we should have known that the unholy alliance of the corporate and political class were all too willing to sell Canada to the ChiComs.
If you had to choose, among corporate giants, a champion environmental villain of the last 20 years, Volkswagen, the world’s largest automaker, would be hard to beat.
It was less than eight years ago when the world learned that, instead of working on making their vehicles less polluting, the very brightest minds in German engineering were conspiring to commit a massive global fraud.
OTTAWA — The Trudeau government claims “it’s not just about the money.” But it is.
Money doesn’t just talk. It turns out that it builds car plants on Canadian soil, but only if there’s enough of it.
That’s the takeaway from the ongoing dispute that exploded between a multinational joint venture seeking more taxpayer support for an EV battery plant in Windsor, and the federal and provincial politicians vying to keep it here.
Why America’s EV chargers keep breaking
Imagine living in a world where the gas station has trouble providing gasoline.
Every few times a driver fills up, something goes haywire — the gas doesn’t flow, or it flows fast for a while and then slows to a trickle. Other times, the credit card payment is mysteriously rejected or the screen is blank.
Jeep maker Stellantis has threatened to shift a planned battery plant from Canada to the US unless it receives billions more in state subsidies offered to a rival, in the latest manoeuvre by a big manufacturer in the international battle over green incentives.
It comes as the world’s fourth biggest carmaker, which also produces Vauxhall/Opel, Fiat, Citroën, Peugeot, DS, Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Abarth vehicles, leads a campaign in Europe for the UK and EU to renegotiate tariff rules in the Brexit deal.
A pox on both their houses.
Ottawa and Queen’s Park are getting played by Stellantis but you can’t say they didn’t ask for it. By deciding to engage in a subsidy war with the United States, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Doug Ford ensured they would be held for ransom.
Politically, they have no choice now but to pay up. Mr. Ford and Mr. Trudeau have boasted so much about attracting electric-vehicle investments, they would both lose face if Stellantis packed up its marbles. They may argue in public over who should pay most of the ransom to prevent Stellantis from cancelling plans to build a $5-billion electric-vehicle battery plant in Windsor, Ont. But none of that will matter in the end.
Neither Ford nor Junior will lose any sleep over this heinous waste of tax payer money.
I’ve always believed the difference between the cost of a government subsidy and the value of the project it is subsidizing is nothing more than a political premium – the price the government of the day is willing to pay to bring an uneconomical project to a riding or region the ruling party feels is important to its re-election.
Quebec sovereigntists were buzzing last week as if they’d found an issue to breathe new life into their cause: the federal government’s expanded immigration targets.
Actually, it’s not really new: Ottawa’s plan to increase the number of immigrants to 500,000 a year by 2025 was released more than six months ago.
The Trudeau government may not have officially adopted the Century Initiative’s goal to increase Canada’s population to 100 million but they’re working on it just the same.
Neither the CPC or NDP will raise the issue out of fear of being labeled “racist” and a need to please the corporate class.
Doug Ford warns Trudeau government needs to ‘step up’ with subsidies for auto giant Stellantis
As Stellantis halted construction on its massive Windsor battery factory, Premier Doug Ford warns Ottawa has to “step up” to match subsidies given to Volkswagen in St. Thomas.
The Star revealed Friday the federal government is renegotiating with Stellantis — parent company of Chrysler, Jeep and Fiat — because the company is threatening to relocate its new electric-vehicle facility to the U.S. unless it receives the same payouts VW received.
Stellantis stops construction on Windsor, Ont., EV battery plant
One of the world’s largest automakers has stopped construction on an electric vehicle battery plant in Windsor, Ont., saying the federal government has not delivered on what was promised.
Stellantis, which makes Chrysler, Ram and Fiat cars among others, and South Korean battery-maker LG Energy Solution announced the $5-billion plant last year and said it was expected to create 2,500 jobs.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he is worried and the federal government needs to support Stellantis in the same way it did Volkswagen.
Why worry Dougie? It’s not your money.
Windsor mayor calls out Ottawa after Stellantis accuses feds of failing on plant deal
The mayor of a southwestern Ontario city says he expects the federal government to live up to a deal that would see one of the world’s biggest automakers build an electric vehicle battery plant in the area.
Stellantis says the federal government has not delivered on an agreement with the automaker and South Korean battery-maker LG Energy Solution to build a battery plant in Windsor, Ont.
People can’t afford shelter or food and are taxed to death but the fucking Liberals can always find a reason to grease Corporate palms.
On Saturday mornings, Maggie Herdman, 31, leaves her home near Jane and Eglinton at 6 a.m. to commute nearly an hour to the Fort York Food Bank. Once there, it can take up to four hours before it’s her turn to shop inside the small College Street storefront.
Before the pandemic, Herdman used to be able to relax, sit down and read as she waited inside. Now, through rain and snow, she stands by as the line snakes behind her towards Kensington Market. “I’ve gotten sick before,” said Herdman, a recipient of Ontario Works. “But I still do it.”
All of this misery lies at the feet of our ruling class. Mass immigration, supported by the Uniparty has driven shelter costs beyond the reach of many, young, old it doesn’t discriminate.
Anybody seen any trickle down from the public service strike? Didn’t they claim they were “fighting” so everyone could enjoy gold plated benefits like they have?
Who thought that Canada would become a Banana Republic governed by greed.
It’s relevant to ask about conflict of interest when so many cabinet ministers and MPs make serious money through their real estate investments.
Having so many Canadian politicians invested in real estate is a problem.
In the midst of an affordability crisis that has struck Canada harder than almost any other country, the public should be worried that an unusually high proportion of its politicians are landlords.
… In addition to the real estate holdings of Liberal cabinet ministers — notably including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen and cabinet ministers David Lametti and Francois-Philippe Champagne — 38 per cent of the MPs in all parties are real estate financiers or landlords.
h/t Kiki
The new dollar numbers are big, but it’s still the same old story, a fight for funds and automotive glory that, in the past, has produced few long-term substantial benefits that economists have been able to measure. Will the $13 billion that Canadian governments are now showering on Volkswagen to set up a battery plant in St. Thomas, Ont., produce a century of benefits as promised by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals?
American authorities used a legal tool that doesn’t exist in Canada: a foreign agents registry
The United States has launched a crackdown on so-called Chinese police stations operating on its soil using a legal mechanism that doesn’t exist in Canada, at least not yet — a registry of foreign agents.
U.S. authorities this week announced they had shut down what they referred to as a Chinese police station in lower Manhattan.
The criminal charges they laid were against two American citizens who allegedly failed to register their work on behalf of the People’s Republic of China.
Trudeau plays identity politics with our security in order to protect the China grift.
Why is Justin Trudeau sowing confusion about a foreign influence registry?
Asked this week about the need for Ottawa to create a foreign influence registry, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the internment of Japanese-Canadians in the Second World War and warned against the dangers of creating “registries of foreigners in Canada.”
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended his government’s move to spend as much as $13 billion into a new battery plant for auto giant Volkswagen and set the willingness to subsidize green manufacturing as a major difference between his party and the Conservatives.
You know in your heart this will be the Mother of all Boondoggles.
