Canada: economy 2009

Jeff Rubin blog

Bombardier layoffs reduced after it agrees to job-sharing with union
More than 100 Bombardier Aerospace employees will avoid layoff next year after the manufacturer regional jets agreed to a job-sharing agreement with its union. The Montreal-based company will now lay off 604 workers next year as it reduces production of regional jet because of reduced demand. That’s down from 715 announced last week. Unionized workers at the facility in Mirabel, north of Montreal, agreed to reduce their work week to four days to save 111 jobs
11 November
Jeff Rubin: What Do We Do Next Time?
Correctly diagnosing the nature of a disease is usually an essential first step to finding its cure. Similarly, knowing what caused this recession seems pretty pivotal to figuring out how to avoid falling into the next one. … Getting the last recession wrong not only means we are ill-equipped to deal with the next one, but also that it will be all the more severe when we have to start paying the bill for the policy moves we now have to reverse. Fiscal pump priming and printing money aren’t the answer to triple-digit oil prices. Moving from a global economy to a local one is.
30 October
Cities need more time to spend stimulus cash
(CTV) Cities should be given more time to spend stimulus cash so that the money is used wisely as the Harper government rushes billions of dollars out the door, Parliament’s budget watchdog says. With so much infrastructure money being released at once, there’s a chance the rush to build could prompt hasty decisions (!) or cause local prices to soar (!!), Kevin Page warned in an email interview.
27 October
Currency intervention no good without policy: Carney
Foreign exchange intervention usually does not work without complementary policy moves, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney said on Tuesday.
25 October
Carney warns bankers against complacency
Governments, regulators and central bankers must be diligent in building a global financial system that has learned the lessons of the recent collapse. Following three quarters of sharp contraction, it is becoming clear that an economic rebound is underway in Canada as profits return to financial firms and economic activity is rebounding globally, Carney said.
“What is perhaps less evident is that these returns are largely the product of public policy.” Amid the demand to get tough on financial firms to ensure they can’t repeat their own mistakes, there are concerns that implementing heavy-handed regulations on them now could stifle nascent economic growth.
23 October
Canada’s oil patch, mines tempt Asian giants
(Reuters) – Canada’s energy and mining sectors are riding a wave of acquisitions by Asian companies that are flush with cash and hungry for resources to fuel rapidly expanding economies, a trend not expected to let up soon.
Deals such as Korea National Oil Corp’s C$1.8 billion ($1.7 billion) bid for Harvest Energy Trust on Thursday are aided by difficulties some Canadian companies have in funding their operations because of the financial crisis.
22 October
The oil sands takeover game
South Korea’s $1.8-billion foray into the oil patch reinforces a long-established trend: Canada’s oil sands will be developed by foreign energy companies. State-owned Korea National Oil Corp.’s friendly bid for Harvest Energy Trust late Wednesday is just the latest in a series of takeovers aimed at building substantial holdings in the reserve rich, but capital-intensive oil sands. However, the deals are getting larger, as smaller plays are picked off, and buyers get comfortable with owning increasingly large properties.
21 October
Soaring loonie, low growth won’t change plans for no taxes hikes: Flaherty
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says he’s worried about the volatility of the Canadian dollar but does not see it as a sufficient threat to his policy of not raising taxes.
The finance minister said Wednesday he agreed with Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney’s views and approach in dealing with the surging loonie. On Tuesday, Carney said the dollar was harming the economy and hinted strongly that he was prepared to keep the bank’s policy interest rate at the historic low of 0.25 per cent until at least next summer.
3 September
China invests in Canada’s tar sands – Rumours of the death of a controversial oil province prove exaggerated
(The Economist) CRITICS of the exploitation of Canada’s tar sands watched gleefully this year as the collapse in the oil price did what their opposition could not: dent the oil industry’s enthusiasm for this mixture of sand and bitumen, which generates a lot of pollution when it is extracted and “upgraded” into oil. A year after crude markets began their slump, however, there are green shoots appearing in the ravaged muskeg soil. On August 31st PetroChina, a state-owned Chinese oil firm, agreed to pay C$1.9 billion ($1.7 billion) for a majority stake in two tar-sands projects.
14 August
Purdy Crawford on ABCP
(Financial Post) Exactly two years ago this past week, $35-billion of Canada’s asset-backed commercial paper froze up, leaving thousands of investors unable to get their money back. Many victims claim some of the investment dealers who sold the paper were aware the market was in trouble, but continued to unload the product. Following a marathon restructuring to repair the damage ( ABCP restructuring plan gets court approval), the frozen ABCP was swapped for new notes, but the new notes have been trading for less than 50 cents on the dollar.
28 July
Bankruptcy courts approve sale of Nortel to Ericsson
But the rulings in Toronto and Delaware may not be the final word in the tumultuous saga that has seen the former Canadian technology darling fall from atop the country’s business world to be sold off in pieces. Before the decisions were handed down, opposition to the deal sprang from a number of groups who say the company is too valuable to fall into foreign hands, including federal opposition parties, the Ontario government and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM), which failed in its own bid for the assets. Both Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP Leader Jack Layton asked the federal government to block the sale of insolvent Nortel’s cutting-edge technology, appealing to the other parties in Parliament to convene an emergency session of the Commons industry committee to consider the sale.
29 April
The Council of Canadian Academies released the report, Innovation and Business Strategy: Why Canada Falls Short. The report linked Canada’s productivity problem to weak business innovation, enticing frank discussions among various stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem about what is needed for Canadian businesses to adopt innovation-based business strategies. Media Advisory
14 January 2009
Nortel files for bankruptcy protection
(Globe & Mail) Facing $107-million interest on debts, former telecom giant will likely be broken up and sold to foreign rivals
Nortel’s storied history in the telecommunications field dates back nearly as far as the telephone itself. The company was founded in 1895 as Northern Electric Manufacturing Company to begin selling telephone equipment to other companies as Canada built out its first telecom network. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the company’s telecom gear business grew steadily, but Nortel also built telegraphic equipment used on the battlefields of the First World War as well as the first sound system in Canada for talking movies.
October 2008
Canada’s Pathways Toward Global Innovation Success: Report of the Leaders’ Panel on Innovation-Based Commerce (part of  How Canada Performs: A Report Card on Canada) and written by our OWN Guy Stanley points out that “Countries that regularly outperform others on innovation all have coherent strategies. These strategies differ from one country to the next but they all stimulate their country’s capacity to innovate—from the creation of ideas to the transformation of those ideas into new products and services for the domestic and world markets. Canada invests in university research and development but fails to support highly innovative companies to become successful on a global scale.”