BC/Quebec Pipeline, Tanker Bans are America’s “Trump” Card

The US has Canada over a barrel … literally.

BC’s refusal (so far) to lift its objections to oil tanker travel along our west coast, and Quebec’s refusal (so far) to allow oil/natural gas pipelines to the east coast are playing right into the US’s hands.

Canada will never be able to break free from American dominance and control of our oil (and mining) resources …which includes allowing the US to pay us 20% BELOW world market prices … unless BC and Quebec open up our access to alternative foreign … and friendlier … buyers.

If they don’t, all the talk about freeing us from US President Donald Trump’s domination, insults and humiliation, are futile.

In fact, although negotiations are still continuing, Canada is already hurting from the US trade attacks and interim tariffs.

Particularly hard hit are the steel, aluminum, automotive, furniture, clothing and forest industries … and, if the trade talks fail, those and all other cross-border trade are expected to suffer even more.

BC, already in a particularly difficult economic state, will be especially impacted … unless we open up our west coast ports to more potential customers in Asia, South America and other Pacific nations.

The Statistics Canada latest Jobs Figures for June tell the tale.

The good news was the country’s overall unemployment rate, despite layoffs in some sectors, was basically stable: 6.9%, with 83,000 new jobs added. Canadians are clearly stepping up … buying Canadian … trying to protect jobs.

But in BC, although the June unemployment rate dropped, unfortunately it was for the wrong reason:

“Although B.C.’s unemployment rate declined from 6.4 per cent to 5.6 per cent last month, making it the third-lowest in the country, that improvement mainly reflects the number of people leaving the workforce, as opposed to job creation,” the Vancouver Sun reported.

“B.C. gained 5,000 jobs in June. While the province recorded 8,000 new positions in accommodation and food services and 4,600 new jobs in public administration, it lost 4,800 jobs each in manufacturing, transportation and warehousing.

“There was also a decline in the number of jobs in critical fields such as health care and social assistance, which lost 2,100 jobs, and construction, which lost 2,500,” the statisticians found. (You can read the whole article here: https://vancouversun.com/business/bc-losing-workers-as-youth-cant-find-employment-due-to-lack-of-private-sector-jobs)

And there’s BC’s overall economic health …

“The B.C. government upped projected budget deficits throughout its three-year fiscal plan, including a record $10.9 billion shortfall in 2025-26,” RBC reported in March … and that, of course, was prior to the latest fiscal woes/threats besetting the province.

“Significant risks threaten revenue and expenditure projections—the plan doesn’t incorporate U.S. tariffs into economic assumptions.”

Ugh!

And our debt forecast looks even worse!

“B.C.’s debt is set to skyrocket with continued deficits and ambitious capital spending. The budget forecasts taxpayer-supported debt to jump from $97.7 billion in 2024-25 to $166.5 billion by 2027-28. This represents a nearly $69 billion (70%) increase in just three years.”

S & P’s last economic-lending review downgraded the province’s long-term credit rating to A+ from AA- .

And Moody’s dropped BC’s credit rating score as well:

“Moody’s said in a news release that its downgrade reflected a “structural deterioration in British Columbia’s credit profile” and it predicted this year’s deficit would soar to $14.3 billion,” according to The Sun.

“That’s more than 31 per cent higher than the forecast in Finance Minister Brenda Bailey’s budget last month. Moody’s said its credit outlook for B.C. remained negative with no “clear visibility” on how the province would balance its finances.”

And there’s a price to pay for that … literally:

A lower rating will cost BC millions more to finance its debt.

In Quebec, the impact of the tariff war will also have severe consequences:

““The core risk is really for manufacturing jobs. There is about 95,000 manufacturing jobs in Quebec in those sectors that are very dependent to US exports. So let’s think about aluminum, steel, aerospace. So 95,000 jobs that are in those very crucial sectors,” the Institut du Quebec warned.

“Quebec consumers will still feel the downsides of the tariff war through price increases on consumer goods such as appliances, furniture, clothing, and food products. The analysis indicates that unlike the industrial impacts, which could vary from one region to another, these increases will affect all of Quebec,” Montreal’s City News reported.

All of this, I’m sure, is not lost on our former American trading partners, now adversaries.

BC and Quebec must wake up a smell the coffee (now under a 50% Trump tariff threat)!

And let’s keep it real: even if a new trade agreement is reached soon, Trump is so unstable, it’s unlikely he won’t go off on another trade tantrum and attack (or two or three) before his term is up.

We MUST do everything we can NOW to expand access to world markets for our resources, our industries and our trade/co-operation relationships with friendly countries.

And a NECESSARY pre-requisite for that is the removal of self-imposed pipeline and port barriers preventing us from doing so!

Harv Oberfeld

(Follow @harveyoberfeld on “X” for FREE First Alerts to new postings on this blog.)

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

The NDP Government Savaged Granville Street; the NDP Government Should PAY to Re-Civilize It!

When you see Granville Street today, from Hastings to Drake, it’s hard to believe how far downhill it has has declined.

I remember.

I remember when there was not just the Hudson Bay store at Granville and Georgia, but Henry Birks and Eaton’s stores kitty-corner and more recently Sears, Nordstrom’s too; a Future Shop, the Castle Pub, Theater Row, White Lunch, Mr. Mike’s, Shepherd’s Shoes, and Tom Lee Music … all part of a vibrant retail, dining, entertainment scene … day and night.

And then came the transit mall … no cars, no parking, no easy access all the way from Hastings to Nelson … wider sidewalks and bench areas theoretically turning Granville into a “people” place to stroll, shop and relax.

Not!

Instead, the decline of Granville began: it became more and more a hangout for homeless youth, panhandlers and fewer and fewer serous shoppers/diners … many of whom moved to Pacific Centre underground or to Robson and Davie Streets.

Still, Granville was not dangerous: being poor is not a crime; the homeless youth hanging out on the mall were a sad sight but not threatening; the panhandlers were not violent … and although retail shifted away, the restaurant/bar scene struggled/adjusted and survived.

Until the BC NDP government delivered an almost fatal blow … or, actually, a series of fatal stabs right to the heart of the downtown Granville area!

Displaying what would turn out to be the ultimate in governmental ignorance or incompetence, the province took advantage of the economic downtown of the Covid era and started buy up struggling budget/tourist class hotels … on Granville Street.

Not to protect/preserve the city’s mid-range hotel stock, but to house more than 600 homeless, drug-users and mentally ill … some of them quite severely impaired … right there in the midst of Vancouver’s prime downtown core retail, dining, entertainment core!

Incredible, irrational, irresponsible.

And, of course, to service these new “residents” the BC NDP government spent millions more to open up/staff in the surrounding area ancillary services for them: a needle exchange, mental and social services/agencies.

Apparently it didn’t occur to these geniuses … exercising ideological blindness … that people who are homeless, drugged up, mentally ill don’t stay in their rooms, but actually leave them each day… to languish on the sidewalks, do drug deals or fence stolen goods in the laneways nearby, shoot up in doorways (urinate and defecate too) or approach passersby for money (sometimes quite aggressively), act out their mental psychoses … sometimes at the top of their lungs, damage property, steal from local shops, and threaten, assault, stab (and occasionally even murder) innocent passersby … a degree of savagery that turned Granville and the surrounding streets today into a “no go” area for many.

News reports regularly tell of the woes faced by local businesses that have not moved out … and the terrible crises the NDP’s SRO residences have created:

“The Luugat, a former Howard Johnson Hotel, was purchased by the province in June 2020 and converted into supportive housing. Since January that year, the facility on Granville Street has been the subject of 906 call-outs, including 375 medical incidents, 334 alarms, 43 fires and 12 rescue or hazard events, according to Vancouver fire service,” the Vancouver Sun reported. (Red the full story here: https://vancouversun.com/news/after-900-emergency-calls-43-fires-bc-vows-to-move-granville-street-supportive-housing.

One retail store on Granville revealed it had spent $300,000 on security anti-theft measures in just one year. (https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/there-needs-to-be-changes-downtown-vancouver-store-fed-up-after-spending-300k-to-fight-constant-crime/)

Readers of this blog know how often I sounded the alarm about all this when the government bought its first hotel on Granville for social housing … to be pooh-poohed by those so politically biased in favour of the NDP or who could not see the reality of these stupid decisions/moves by the government.

Now, finally, amidst all the rubble, Vancouver has announced a 20-year multi-billion-dollar plan to “revitalise” … I say “recivilize” … Granville Street. (Read about it here: https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/vancouver-council-approves-20-year-plan-granville-thrive.)

And the BC government has finally agreed to relocate the SRO housing residents to other areas away from the shopping/entertainment core. (Where and when is still to be determined.)

Private developers will finance/build much of the property redevelopment.

However, I believe the provincial government OWES it to the citizens of Vancouver to pay a MAJOR share of the public cost of restoring Granville Street. (And provide similar funding to other cities as well where the provincial government destroyed downtown shopping areas by buying up and housing the hard to house).

After all, it was the NDP’s decision to inflict its fatal decision-making mistakes on Granville Street.

It’s time for the province to own up … and agree to pay up as well!

Harv Oberfeld

(Follow @harveyoberfeld on “X” for FREE First Alerts of new postings on this Blog.)

Posted in Uncategorized | 23 Comments