Meanwhile Canadians still need the truth about Harper's bribery of Cadman

Tories ditch Cadman suit against Liberals

The Canadian Press

February 6, 2009 at 5:05 PM EST

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has dropped a $3.5-million defamation suit against the Liberal party over the Cadman affair.

A terse news release says Mr. Harper and the Federal Liberal Agency of Canada have agreed to settle all issues related to the suit.

The action has been dismissed without costs awarded to either side and both parties have agreed not to comment further.

Mr. Harper launched the lawsuit last March after the Liberal party accused the Prime Minister of condoning immoral, illegal and unethical behaviour in the Cadman affair.

The Liberals charged that Harper was aware of an attempt by Conservative officials to bribe Chuck Cadman, the late independent MP, in return for his support during a crucial 2005 confidence vote.

Harper’s hokey stimulus plan will create fewer jobs (189,000) than have been lost in the last three months (213,000)

Job loss figures show Tory stimulus plan inadequate: Liberals
February 6, 2009
CBC News

The Opposition Liberals ridiculed the Conservative government's job creation estimates included in its massive economic stimulus package, as employment figures released Friday showed Canada shed 129,000 jobs in January alone.

With the economy staggering in recession, Canada's unemployment rate shot up by 0.6 percentage points in January to 7.2 per cent, Statistics Canada said. Almost all of the job losses were in full-time work.

Last month's job losses represented the "the largest monthly decline in recorded history" and showed Stephen Harper's Conservatives have been overselling what the stimulus package can do, Liberal finance critic John McCallum said Friday.

During question period in the House of Commons, McCallum said the stimulus package job creation estimates are a "failure," considering the battered Canadian economy has lost 213,000 jobs since October.

"How can the minister explain to Canadians that the budget will save fewer jobs than the country has already lost in three short months?" McCallum told the House.

Speaking for the government, Ted Menzies, parliamentary secretary to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, recognized the seriousness of the unemployment figures and implored all MPs to work together to ensure the budget's full passage so that help can start reaching Canadians in need.

Menzies added that as early as the end of 2007, the prime minister "was clear to Canadians that we were going to be facing some difficult economic times."

"Yes, it is a serious problem, and let's be serious," Menzies told the House. "I would urge all honourable members to quit bickering and get on with what matters to Canadians."

New Democrat MP Libby Davies lambasted the government for failing to eliminate the two-week waiting period and increase accessibility of employment insurance.

"We don't need to wait to see if things get worse," Davies told the House. "They are worse right now."
Flaherty 'open' to more spending

The Liberals are calling for the immediate release of more federal economic stimulus funds on top of the $40 billion over two years pledged in the recently tabled federal budget.

While he said his party still did the right thing in voting for the Conservative budget because it contains many helpful measures, McCallum added "there's still time" to bring in additional stimulus before the summer break if necessary.

On Thursday, Flaherty said Canadians should brace for "significant" and "very regrettable" job losses, while the finance minister is "open to the possibility of doing more" on top of the stimulus spending in his budget.

"But the first job is to get the budget passed and implement the stimulus," he said.

The budget projects $64 billion in deficits over the next two years, although several observers have said the numbers are based on assumptions that appear to be too optimistic.

Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page, for one, has cast doubt on the size and effectiveness of the minister's stimulus package.

According to Statistics Canada's figures released Friday, the manufacturing sector lost 101,000 jobs during January, the most on record for the industry.

The bulk of January's losses in manufacturing were concentrated in Ontario, which lost 36,000 positions; Quebec, which lost 30,000; and British Columbia, which shed 18,000 manufacturing positions.
With files from the Canadian Press

Caisse's losses equal that of income trust investors

The Caisse lost $38 billion last year. Roughly equal to the $35 billion of retirement savings lost by income trust investors, and caused solely by Stephen Harper and his
policy lie that income trusts cause tax leakage. Someone should be fired? Ne pensez-vous pas?

Quebec’s Caisse Had C$38 Billion Loss in 2008, La Presse Says
By Frederic Tomesco

Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec had a C$38 billion ($30 billion) loss on its investments last year as stocks declined and the fund manager wrote down the value of its asset-backed commercial paper, La Presse reported.

The 26 percent loss was the biggest in the Montreal-based fund manager’s 45-year history, La Presse reported, citing internal Caisse de Depot documents. The figures are preliminary and haven’t been approved by the audit committee, the newspaper said today.

The Caisse, which managed C$155.4 billion at the end of 2007, took a C$4 billion writedown on its C$12.6 billion asset- backed commercial paper holdings, La Presse said. Stock and bond investments lost C$26 billion, while foreign-exchange holdings yielded a loss of C$5 billion, the newspaper said.

Pension funds in Canada dropped by an average of 16 percent last year, according to a January report by Royal Bank of Canada’s RBC Dexia unit. The Caisse is due to report its 2008 results this month.

Caisse de Depot spokesman Maxime Chagnon declined to comment on the La Presse article, when contacted by Bloomberg News.

To contact the reporter on this story: Frederic Tomesco in Montreal tomesco@bloomberg.net.

Harper "Canada is not the U.S."....... No, we’re twice as bad.

How many times did we hear in the October 2008 election from Harper that “Canada is not the US”, as a means to provide Canadians with false assurance about the true state of Canada's economy? Harper was right. We’re not the US. Turns out, we are 22% of the US. They lost 598,000 jobs in January and we lost 129,000, which is twice the rate of job loss in Canada that we would have normally expected, as Canada’s economy is 10% of the US economy. Well done Stephen Harper. Meanwhile Harper’s $85 billion deficit budget is only going to produce a mere 189,000 new jobs?

By that did Harper mean 189,000 net new jobs? If so, the number of jobs that his Home Depot stimulus package will have to produce has now increased to 318,000 new jobs.


Meanwhile news organizations like the Calgary Herald endorsed Stephen Harper as Prime Minister on the basis that:

“Thus, the choice is simple. The Calgary Herald endorses Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. They deserve to be re-elected based on their record, competence, and on the prime minister's steady hand as Canada heads into uncharted, choppy economic waters.”

Choppy is an understatement, whereas competence is a gross overstatement:


Canada’s Employers Cut Record 129,000 Jobs in January
By Theophilos Argitis February 6, 2009
(Bloomberg) -- Canada lost a record number of jobs in January, pushing the unemployment rate to a four-year high of 7.2 percent, as companies struggle to cope with the country’s first recession since 1992.


U.S. employers cut 598,000 jobs in January
Friday, February 6, 2009
CBC News
The U.S. economy lost 598,000 jobs last month — the biggest one-month drop since 1974 — as the jobless rate climbed to 7.6 per cent.

Didn't Harper just give Bombardier $350 million, to create 3,000 jobs, rather than lose 1,360 jobs?

In February 2008, the Harper government extended $350 million to Bombardier, on the premise that it would create 3,000 jobs in the launch of the C-Series jet. Here’s the outcome of that "stimulus":

Bombardier cutting 1,360 jobs
Globe and Mail Update

February 5, 2009 at 9:47 AM EST

MONTREAL — Faced with a greater-than-usual level of deferrals and cancellations for business jets in uncertain times, Bombardier Inc. is slashing 1,360 jobs, or about 4.5 per cent of its total aerospace work force.

A wake up call for Kevin O'Leary of BNN

Subject: Wall Street Journal failed to pursue Madoff fraud, just like CTVBellGlobe Media has failed to report truthfully on tax leakage

Kevin:

You seem to want to go down the rabbit hole with the immoral CTVBellGlobe Media crowd, Flaherty is nothing more than a Bernie Madoff in disguise, having expropriated $35 billion of Canadians’ wealth based on a totally fallacious argument and policy rationale. As we both know, tax leakage is a total hoax. You can do something about it, since you have a pulpit from which to speak. You seem to have lost your "voice" of late?

Meanwhile we have financially illiterate clowns at BNN (Michael Kane) as recently as Monday of this week, writing nonsensical justifications for Flaherty’s income trust tax centered around the completely bogus argument that income trusts cause tax leakage. Do investors in Canada have to occupy a world of total falsehoods advanced by news organizations line BNN?, Globe and Mail?, CTV? I thought you were an investor first? When will you bring some honestly to bear on BNN and your fellow news commentators, none of whom are investors and all of whom kow-tow for a living?

Your professional reputation is on the line. Do something to protect your reputation and Canadians hard earned savings. Associating yourself with a news organization that propagates lies on behalf of the government, wont look good on your resume. If you aren’t part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

Here’s the Globe and Mail calling the kettle black: “Frustrated by the SEC, Harry Markopolos said he went to The Wall Street Journal in 2005 but was shot down by senior editors who declined to pursue the story.”

Meanwhile the Globe and Mail's coverage of the income trust policy has been nothing more than a complete cover up, designed to purposely evade the facts and to propagate lies instead,

MADOFF SCANDAL
He blew the whistle – and no one listened
PAUL WALDIE
Globe and Mail

Mr. Harper: This is your 2009 wake-up call

Canada could lose 325,000 jobs this year: TD Bank

Last Updated: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 | 5:55 PM ET
CBC News

Canada could lose as many as 325,000 jobs this year, sending the national unemployment rate soaring to almost nine per cent, according to Toronto-Dominion Bank.

Canada already lost 84,000 jobs in the last two months of 2008 as the recession took hold.

The bank says the economy is now entering a more perilous period.

Because most of the economic shocks came from problems outside the country, Canada was sheltered for most of last year, it says.

Derek Burleton, TD's director of economic analysis, says the country is now being hit by a negative feedback loop that will spread to most sectors and regions.

"What happens is manufacturers and other export producers cut back production, then you get employment cuts, and we're just beginning to see that now, and that will weigh on consumer spending,” he said.

TD predicts the national jobless rate will rise to 8.8 per cent by the end of the year from the current level of 6.6 per cent .

Burleton believes Canada's economy won't recover until next year, largely as a result of President Barack Obama's $819-billion US stimulus package.