Canada’s worst government - Comment
Submitted by greg_g on Mon, 10/19/2009 - 09:56.
Date: --> Monday Oct 19, 2009
By Financial Post
Every now and then a province falls into the hands of blundering politicians so inept that their government ends up deserving of the title “Canada’s Worst Government.” It’s a rare award. At any time somebody has to be the worst, but no award for routine bottom-of-the-barrel performance seems necessary. Occasionally, however, the metric of incompetence is so large and conspicuousit demands special recognition. The Liberal regime of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, now slipping into deep deficits that are likely to exceed $30billion over two years and continue into the future, has hit the tipping point and triggered its candidacy as Canada’s Worst Government.
The new deficit outlook, announced yesterday and to be documented in a fiscal statement next week, comes in the wake of Ontario’s $1-billion eHealth fiasco. That followed the province’s Green Energy Act, a plan to force electricity users to pay 80 cents for a kilowatt hour of solar power and subsidize scores of industrial rent seekers. The province is also a leading promoter of endless nanny state rules and regulations that serve no purpose except to give the premier an opportunity to issue a statement and deliver one of his patented sanctimonious speeches.
Below the radar of media attention, there is more. This is about one of those so-far unrecognized bits of McGuinty Liberal bungling. Next week, the Ontario legislature will begin taking another look at two monster pieces of legislation allegedly aimed at bringing new order to the province’s shambling mining legislation. First is Bill 173, the Mining Amendment Act, which among other things is an attempt to bring Aboriginal communities into the administration of the province’s scatter-brained mining laws. Second is Bill 191, the Far North Act. It also attempts to bring Aboriginal participaton into decision-making over resource development of Ontario’s far north. What these two bills actually do, however, is trample on everybody’s property rights, from First Nation rights to the rights of cottage owners caught in the murky legislation that sets out mineral rights across the province.
The only happy campers here are green activists — theWorld Wildlife Fund, Environmental Defense, various Wildlands groups — whose concern for property and other individual or corporate rights is as deep and sincere as a beer commercial. Under the Far North Act,all territory north of the 51st parallel — a 450-square-kilometre mass of land north of Timmins and Thunder Bay that makes up about 40% of the province — is set to become permanently out of bounds for all exploration and development. About half of that territory, 225,000 square kilometres, will be locked down as conservation lands. The other half will theoretically be open to exploration and development, but nobody looking at Bill 191 sees any hope that any mine or any other kind of development will ever take place.
Only about 24,000 people live in First Nation communities in Ontario’s Far North. One of those First Nations, the Nishnawbe Aski, declared its total opposition to Bill 191 after it was introduced last summer. Grand Chief Stan Beardy called for immediate withdrawal of the bill. He said the 225,000square-kilometre conservation area, established without consultation or consent, will prevent his people “from achieving economic independence by preventing development needed to build our communities and strengthen the Ontario economy. ”
Under Bill 191, in other words, Ontario confiscates half the far north and declares it a no-go zone, killing all development in the conservation area. But not much will happen on the other half of the far north territory under the convoluted “community-based land use planning” system set up under the draconian provisions of the bill. The province’s mining groups say the planning structure is a perverse attempt to carry out convoluted legal provisions that guarantee First Nations be consulted before development takes place on Crown lands.
All of this is fallout from the Supreme Court’s famous Haida decision and other rulings that force governments in Canada to consult with First Nations when dealing with the possible existence of treaty rights. Whatever the merits of those decisions, Toronto lawyer Neil Smitheman,with Fasken Martineau Du Moulin, says the Ontario government appears to be setting up structures that effectively allows the government to side step its duty and pass the burden of consultation on to the mining and mineral development industry. “To the extent that the legislative ammendments ‘download’ or delegate to industry what is properly the Crown’s duty, the new legislation could be deemed ultra vires, or beyond the scope of the Province’s legislative power. ”
Industry officials say that under Bill 191 no exploration or development will ever take place in Ontario’s far north. Jon Baird, executive director of the Prospectors and Developers Association, said yesterday “no self-respecting MPP should vote for this.” Bill 191, and its sister Bill 173 (which applies to territory south of the far north region) grant massive arbitrary power to the Ontario Minister of Natural Resources and bureaucrats. Rulings are not appealable, no hearings need be called, environmental assessments are suspended.
The two bills are making their way through the legislature, with the government using closure to close down debate and bending the rules to get them through the legislative process. The Minister, Donna Cansfield, seems to be carrying out orders, even as nobody supports the bills except the greens and groups like the Canadian Borealis Initiative. They welcome the land set-aside as a new carbon sink, as one of the “largest ecosystems on earth” and the home of caribou and other wildlife.
The mining industry may not like that. On the other hand, the Canadian Mining Association is a member of the Canadian Borealis Initiative. No wonder Ontario’s far north will soon be out of bounds.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Speech for the Community Forum on Tenure Reform in Ontario
By Daniel Sigouin – Economic Development Officer for Hearst Economic Development Corporation
HEARST October 3 2009 – I am speaking today not only as the Economic Development Officer but also as a resident who chose to live and invest in Hearst. I would like to share the concerns I have for the future of our community and to share some fundamental principles for a new tenure approach for the forest. What is currently taking place in Hearst and in other Northern communities is without precedent. We are experiencing a crisis in the forestry sector that persists, a crisis that started in 2003 but most importantly, a crisis that risk changing the landscape in northern Ontario forever. Luc Bouthillier says “IT WILL NEVER BE LIKE BEFORE”, and he is not the only one saying it. It is not a question of BOOM and BUST but unfortunately, many have yet to realise it. This crisis is structural, not cyclical but have we started to restructure in response to these changes? Well I believe a tenure reform is part of that restructuring process. Are we too late? Many people will say that it is never too late yet the most important question is, to what degree communities will be listened to or considered (ask Smooth Rock Falls)? Maybe it will be someone else who will decide which communities will survive and which ones will be eliminated. Can we take that chance?
Many say that Hearst is holding its own during this crisis. But are we really holding our own or living off an artificial economy? What I mean is; are we living off borrowed time? Are we living off the prosperity we generated in the past? Are we generating new wealth and prosperity in Hearst, for our community? We have to ask ourselves the right questions.
I will give you a concrete example. We are currently operating our mills at a loss and we have been for a few years now. We are not talking about thousands but rather of millions of dollars in losses. Every time you see a rail car or transport truck filled with lumber leaving our community, there is lost revenue attached to every container of wood. That is the community’s, businesses’ and workers’ money ... money that is lost to the community and most importantly money that could be invested differently.
When you eat at your capital, you impoverish yourself more and more. More importantly, it is the proof that our communities are not sustainable.
There exists much imbalance in the principles for sustainable communities. What is a sustainable community? Are communities in Northern Ontario Sustainable? Ask Smooth Rock Falls they will tell you, or ask Longlac, Marathon, White River, etc… Sustainability is a big word and one that is often overused and can have conflicting connotations. Sustainable Forest Management, sustainable agriculture, sustainable development, sustainable technologies…but what is a sustainable community?
It’s defined as achieving a healthy community and quality of life by addressing economic, environmental, and social issues through a long term integrated systems approach.
Economic issues include good jobs, good wages, stable businesses, appropriate technology development and implementation, business development, etc. If a community does not have a strong economy, then it cannot be healthy and sustainable over the long term.
From an environmental standpoint, a community can be sustainable over the long term only if it is not degrading its environment or using up resources. The impacts of climate change (warming is part of climate change) are pressing issues that also need to be addressed locally. Not only are they important challenges for our communities, but they can also provide important opportunities for the future, like carbon sequestration…the cap and trade issue.
A community must also address social issues. If a community has significant social problems such as serious crime and social inequities, it cannot be healthy and stable over the long term.
A major assumption of the sustainable community definition is that trying to address such issues in isolation, eventually ends up hurting some other part of the community's health.
Well tenure reform makes no exception… it has to be developed in an integrated manner. Tenure can influence all three pillars of sustainability. It’s not only about the size of the forest management unit, the method of wood allocation, the pricing and so on. It’s about considering who occupies the territory and who is living of it?
A tenure system ... regulates interactions between companies, communities, stakeholders and government while also determining who has authority and access.
The existing system is structured so as to ... expand on commodity production with the anticipation of offering larger returns for the province (Robinson 2008, Zhang & Pearse 1997) which has resulted in a system that primarily serves the primary commodity sector in pulp and paper and dimensional wood, sectors that have been in decline in the past decade.
Presently ... the tenure system has failed to provide a framework for the conversion of natural resources for economic development. Furthermore, the existing tenure system provides very little flexibility or capacity for communities and the forest industry to respond to changing markets and economic conditions as well as innovation in the forest sector.
Markets are shifting ... towards value-added products and environmental services. Nous sommes choyés parce que nous vivons dans une grande forêt en santé et qui offre un potentiel immense de services écologiques sur l’échelle internationale.
But where tenure change should be headed…to achieve sustainability in our communities?
• The economy is not only shaped by economic factors. Infrastructure and strategic planning go a long way to offer a stable and promising place for investments. However, until communities have access and have a form of decision-making authority on the forest, very little can be done in this regard.
• Decision-making capacity and access for communities in forest management is necessary to build sustainable and adaptive communities, businesses and forest sector.
Decentralized models such as community forests provide the principles necessary to a tenure system that allows for the necessary flexibility and control to respond to the changing landscape of the forest sector and world markets.
Finally, as a community, we owe ourselves to make a return to our core values that enabled the development of our regions and take root in our territory.
Northern Ontario is perceived as a resource base, only interesting because it can be extracted. We must counter this approach and repatriate our territory through a sustainable development process. Offer balance between the environment, the economy and the social. We also have to mend our ties with First Nations and Aboriginal peoples who were our first guides. They will help us restore our understanding of being part of the territory. We also need to restore principles of coexistence in order to build a stronger economy together.
The solution is not to do more of what brought us in this crisis.
The solution is to do things differently and to do things that will enable our community to prosper in the future.
We must accomplish this for the future of our children.
Merci,
Thank You
Meegwetch
HEARST October 3 2009 – I am speaking today not only as the Economic Development Officer but also as a resident who chose to live and invest in Hearst. I would like to share the concerns I have for the future of our community and to share some fundamental principles for a new tenure approach for the forest. What is currently taking place in Hearst and in other Northern communities is without precedent. We are experiencing a crisis in the forestry sector that persists, a crisis that started in 2003 but most importantly, a crisis that risk changing the landscape in northern Ontario forever. Luc Bouthillier says “IT WILL NEVER BE LIKE BEFORE”, and he is not the only one saying it. It is not a question of BOOM and BUST but unfortunately, many have yet to realise it. This crisis is structural, not cyclical but have we started to restructure in response to these changes? Well I believe a tenure reform is part of that restructuring process. Are we too late? Many people will say that it is never too late yet the most important question is, to what degree communities will be listened to or considered (ask Smooth Rock Falls)? Maybe it will be someone else who will decide which communities will survive and which ones will be eliminated. Can we take that chance?
Many say that Hearst is holding its own during this crisis. But are we really holding our own or living off an artificial economy? What I mean is; are we living off borrowed time? Are we living off the prosperity we generated in the past? Are we generating new wealth and prosperity in Hearst, for our community? We have to ask ourselves the right questions.
I will give you a concrete example. We are currently operating our mills at a loss and we have been for a few years now. We are not talking about thousands but rather of millions of dollars in losses. Every time you see a rail car or transport truck filled with lumber leaving our community, there is lost revenue attached to every container of wood. That is the community’s, businesses’ and workers’ money ... money that is lost to the community and most importantly money that could be invested differently.
When you eat at your capital, you impoverish yourself more and more. More importantly, it is the proof that our communities are not sustainable.
There exists much imbalance in the principles for sustainable communities. What is a sustainable community? Are communities in Northern Ontario Sustainable? Ask Smooth Rock Falls they will tell you, or ask Longlac, Marathon, White River, etc… Sustainability is a big word and one that is often overused and can have conflicting connotations. Sustainable Forest Management, sustainable agriculture, sustainable development, sustainable technologies…but what is a sustainable community?
It’s defined as achieving a healthy community and quality of life by addressing economic, environmental, and social issues through a long term integrated systems approach.
Economic issues include good jobs, good wages, stable businesses, appropriate technology development and implementation, business development, etc. If a community does not have a strong economy, then it cannot be healthy and sustainable over the long term.
From an environmental standpoint, a community can be sustainable over the long term only if it is not degrading its environment or using up resources. The impacts of climate change (warming is part of climate change) are pressing issues that also need to be addressed locally. Not only are they important challenges for our communities, but they can also provide important opportunities for the future, like carbon sequestration…the cap and trade issue.
A community must also address social issues. If a community has significant social problems such as serious crime and social inequities, it cannot be healthy and stable over the long term.
A major assumption of the sustainable community definition is that trying to address such issues in isolation, eventually ends up hurting some other part of the community's health.
Well tenure reform makes no exception… it has to be developed in an integrated manner. Tenure can influence all three pillars of sustainability. It’s not only about the size of the forest management unit, the method of wood allocation, the pricing and so on. It’s about considering who occupies the territory and who is living of it?
A tenure system ... regulates interactions between companies, communities, stakeholders and government while also determining who has authority and access.
The existing system is structured so as to ... expand on commodity production with the anticipation of offering larger returns for the province (Robinson 2008, Zhang & Pearse 1997) which has resulted in a system that primarily serves the primary commodity sector in pulp and paper and dimensional wood, sectors that have been in decline in the past decade.
Presently ... the tenure system has failed to provide a framework for the conversion of natural resources for economic development. Furthermore, the existing tenure system provides very little flexibility or capacity for communities and the forest industry to respond to changing markets and economic conditions as well as innovation in the forest sector.
Markets are shifting ... towards value-added products and environmental services. Nous sommes choyés parce que nous vivons dans une grande forêt en santé et qui offre un potentiel immense de services écologiques sur l’échelle internationale.
But where tenure change should be headed…to achieve sustainability in our communities?
• The economy is not only shaped by economic factors. Infrastructure and strategic planning go a long way to offer a stable and promising place for investments. However, until communities have access and have a form of decision-making authority on the forest, very little can be done in this regard.
• Decision-making capacity and access for communities in forest management is necessary to build sustainable and adaptive communities, businesses and forest sector.
Decentralized models such as community forests provide the principles necessary to a tenure system that allows for the necessary flexibility and control to respond to the changing landscape of the forest sector and world markets.
Finally, as a community, we owe ourselves to make a return to our core values that enabled the development of our regions and take root in our territory.
Northern Ontario is perceived as a resource base, only interesting because it can be extracted. We must counter this approach and repatriate our territory through a sustainable development process. Offer balance between the environment, the economy and the social. We also have to mend our ties with First Nations and Aboriginal peoples who were our first guides. They will help us restore our understanding of being part of the territory. We also need to restore principles of coexistence in order to build a stronger economy together.
The solution is not to do more of what brought us in this crisis.
The solution is to do things differently and to do things that will enable our community to prosper in the future.
We must accomplish this for the future of our children.
Merci,
Thank You
Meegwetch
Massive north-south divide in province
Massive north-south divide in province The Ottawa Sun Wed Oct 7 2009 Page: 11 Section: Editorial/Opinion Byline: BY CHRISTINA BLIZZARD Column:
Queen's Park I sometimes think Dalton McGuinty's government has given up on northern Ontario. With record unemployment rates and with EI claims soaring in northern communities, you'd think the brain trust in the premier's office would be trying to find new ways to bolster the ailing forestry and pulp and paper businesses. That's not the case. As New Democratic Leader Andrea Horwath pointed out in question period this week, the number of people receiving Employment Insurance in northern communities has risen by a staggering amount. In greater Sudbury, StatsCan figures show a 152% increase. Northern Development Minister Mike Gravelle responded by reporting Thunder Bay is about to become the "Popsicle stick capital of the world." I'm sure it's wonderful that Global Sticks is investing there, but popsicle sticks won't lick the problems of the dying forestry and pulp and paper industries. There's a massive north-south divide in this province. You can see the frustration in politicians like Timmins-James Bay MPP Gilles Bisson and Howard Hampton, from Kenora-Rainy River. Forestry giant Tembec recently closed its pulp mill in Smooth Rock Falls -- a one-industry town north of Timmins. Make that a no-industry town if the government doesn't act. A consortium has raised $50 million to build a multi-purpose plant on the Tembec site. They've got everything they need -- except the wood allocation and the government is dragging its feet, even though the ministry has the authority to allocate timber rights. "It literally means the survival of our community," said Smooth Rock Falls Mayor Kevin Somer, who came to Queen's Park to see Gravelle Tuesday. The project would provide 100 direct jobs, plus 200 indirect jobs. And it would revitalize the local tax base. But Gravelle was on the defensive. "Unfortunately, the reality is that much of the wood supply is licensed and allocated to another company, which is also fighting to survive in Ontario," he told the House. Bisson says Tembec, which now owns the wood rights, has agreed to the allocation. Hampton, the former NDP leader, brings a unique, northern perspective to this. As the north bleeds jobs, who profits? The south does -- from the excess hydro the north generates through its fast-running rivers. Hampton points to a recent "green energy" announcement, in which the government said it would spend $2.3 billion on transmission lines. "What it's about is building transmission lines to take the electricity surplus that's been created in northeastern and northwestern Ontario and bringing it to southern Ontario," Hampton told me. He says the government needs a vision for beleaguered northern communities. "You could simply say, 'If you are an industry that cares about having a clean, green image, we have the cleanest, greenest energy on the planet and it also happens to be the lowest cost energy on the planet. Come and locate here. Create jobs and economic activity here,' " he said. In other words, instead of paying $2.3 billion to ship the electricity south, invite the world to the north. Every time a mill closes in the north, it frees up energy for the south. Hampton rattles off 10 paper machines that have shut down. "You've probably created 300 MW or more of surplus electricity right there," he said. A cynic might say that's the new Liberal vision for the north: Turn off the lights in the forestry and pulp and paper business -- and ship the electricity, and the jobs, south.
Queen's Park I sometimes think Dalton McGuinty's government has given up on northern Ontario. With record unemployment rates and with EI claims soaring in northern communities, you'd think the brain trust in the premier's office would be trying to find new ways to bolster the ailing forestry and pulp and paper businesses. That's not the case. As New Democratic Leader Andrea Horwath pointed out in question period this week, the number of people receiving Employment Insurance in northern communities has risen by a staggering amount. In greater Sudbury, StatsCan figures show a 152% increase. Northern Development Minister Mike Gravelle responded by reporting Thunder Bay is about to become the "Popsicle stick capital of the world." I'm sure it's wonderful that Global Sticks is investing there, but popsicle sticks won't lick the problems of the dying forestry and pulp and paper industries. There's a massive north-south divide in this province. You can see the frustration in politicians like Timmins-James Bay MPP Gilles Bisson and Howard Hampton, from Kenora-Rainy River. Forestry giant Tembec recently closed its pulp mill in Smooth Rock Falls -- a one-industry town north of Timmins. Make that a no-industry town if the government doesn't act. A consortium has raised $50 million to build a multi-purpose plant on the Tembec site. They've got everything they need -- except the wood allocation and the government is dragging its feet, even though the ministry has the authority to allocate timber rights. "It literally means the survival of our community," said Smooth Rock Falls Mayor Kevin Somer, who came to Queen's Park to see Gravelle Tuesday. The project would provide 100 direct jobs, plus 200 indirect jobs. And it would revitalize the local tax base. But Gravelle was on the defensive. "Unfortunately, the reality is that much of the wood supply is licensed and allocated to another company, which is also fighting to survive in Ontario," he told the House. Bisson says Tembec, which now owns the wood rights, has agreed to the allocation. Hampton, the former NDP leader, brings a unique, northern perspective to this. As the north bleeds jobs, who profits? The south does -- from the excess hydro the north generates through its fast-running rivers. Hampton points to a recent "green energy" announcement, in which the government said it would spend $2.3 billion on transmission lines. "What it's about is building transmission lines to take the electricity surplus that's been created in northeastern and northwestern Ontario and bringing it to southern Ontario," Hampton told me. He says the government needs a vision for beleaguered northern communities. "You could simply say, 'If you are an industry that cares about having a clean, green image, we have the cleanest, greenest energy on the planet and it also happens to be the lowest cost energy on the planet. Come and locate here. Create jobs and economic activity here,' " he said. In other words, instead of paying $2.3 billion to ship the electricity south, invite the world to the north. Every time a mill closes in the north, it frees up energy for the south. Hampton rattles off 10 paper machines that have shut down. "You've probably created 300 MW or more of surplus electricity right there," he said. A cynic might say that's the new Liberal vision for the north: Turn off the lights in the forestry and pulp and paper business -- and ship the electricity, and the jobs, south.
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