BANGKOK, Thailand: Chevron Corp. will invest about US$4 billion in Asia this year for petroleum exploration and production, a company executive said Friday.
"The company sees Asia as a very attractive place for investment for future growth," Steve Green, managing director of Chevron Asia South Ltd., told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview.
Prediction: The National Post won't like the Newfoundland and Labrador energy plan whenever it is released, for many of the same reasons given in Corcoran's column.Having just sold off Petro-Canada, ending that particularly disastrous episode in national energy history, the Harper Conservatives are floating the idea of taking control of a new national project, Pipeline-Canada. As a Crown corporation, Pipeline- Canada would contract out construction of the $16.2-billion project to Trans-Canada Pipeline.
If this were to happen, rest assured that it would not really be an energy policy. It would be, above all, a native buy-off policy, a job-creation policy, a make-work program and a political strategy to secure votes and seats in Parliament.
But as an energy policy, the benefits are far from obvious. A government-funded pipeline megaproject would do nothing to help establish Canada as an "Energy Superpower." But it could set Canada up as an Energy Superloser. With a $16-billion construction cost, the latest estimate, it poses a monumental risk to the government.
Oil companies backing the project said in March that the 1,222-kilometre pipeline linking gas fields in the Mackenzie Delta to Alberta's natural gas pipeline grid would cost $16.2-billion, up from $7.5-billion only two years ago, thanks to inflationary pressures that have beset energy projects around the world.As Bond Papers noted last October in an article on a possible Lower Churchill loan guarantee, the federal government favours taking equity in projects rather than providing loan guarantees. Specifically, the October article linked to a Globe and Mail story on the possibility of the feds taking equity in the pipeline project.
The consortium then asked Ottawa for huge tax concessions, but at a May 2 meeting in Calgary [Indian affairs and northern development minister Jim] Prentice slammed the door on the idea of subsidizing the oil companies. Imperial then said it would shut down the project, sources said.
Since then, Ottawa has not only resurrected a proposal to be a partner in the project, but is exploring taking control away from Imperial. The massive venture would provide a new source of natural gas for North America and be a springboard for development of the North. It would also open the prospective frontier to gas exploration.
Under the plan under consideration, Ottawa would buy out Imperial and its partners, Houston-based ConocoPhillips and international conglomerate Royal Dutch Shell PLC, by reimbursing them for costs already incurred on the project plus interest.
Imperial, Conoco and Shell are now formulating a plan to let the government into the project. A deal is expected to take several months to be finalized, sources said.
Here is something Newfoundland's migrant workers are not told about in the glowing upbeat presentations in hotel ballrooms used to sell them on going to work in Alberta. Particularly on industrial job sites where risk of injury is higher than other jobs and just which health care system covers you in case of illness or injury.
First you had better figure out if Newfoundland’s MCP covers you while working in Alberta or if Alberta resident’s provincial health care plan is in play for your particular situation. If you are not an Alberta resident, you may not be covered. Also, when and does your employers additional health care benefits kick in after you start work. A lot of the answers to these questions will depend on whether you are an Alberta resident or a “commuter” flying in to work in Alberta but still a resident of Newfoundland.
...Health Minister Ross Wiseman told the legislature Thursday that Eastern Health — which is largely funded by government, but operates at arm's length — was aware of the inaccurate test results more than a year ago.In the House of Assembly, Wiseman said that the health authority became away of a problem with testing in May 2005 and began a review of tests and procedures.
However, he said, government officials were not notified until last August, and that the then health minister was not personally briefed until three months after that, in late November.
Health Minister Ross Wiseman said Eastern Health has known for more than a year about the error rate of hormone receptor testing.Health Minister Ross Wiseman said Eastern Health has known for more than a year about the error rate of hormone receptor testing.
(CBC)
Court documents reported earlier this week by CBC News showed an error rate of 42 per cent in a large set of samples, several times higher than a public estimates.
Wiseman said Eastern Health still may not know what went wrong with hormone receptor tests done between 1997 and 2005.
Conservative member of parliament Fabian Manning, left, and Paul Oram, parliamentary assistant to Premier Danny Williams, spent a few minutes on Tuesday night bashing each other in public, courtesy of VOCM's Night Line talk show.
Oram, right, started the row by calling the show to slag Manning for supporting the federal government's budget. Oram claimed that, by way of a gigantic contrast, Oram had voted for a controversial fisheries measure because he was told it was in the best interests of the province. [Now the wording he used was curious enough in itself, but that's another story.]
The Conservative government is set to unveil new legislation aimed at keeping foreign strippers out of Canada.Talk about a government that has already exhausted its agenda.
Analyses remain secret; Province won't release examination of system
by Rob Antle
It's been an argument fought largely without the help of any hard numbers or firm facts. And the provincial government is doing its part to ensure the situation stays that way.
The Williams administration confirmed this week it won't make public any of its analyses of changes to the federal equalization system.
Requested data
The Telegram requested the data a month ago under provincial access-to-information laws.
The province says doing so would violate both cabinet confidences, and a portion of the law dealing with the financial and economic interests of a public body.
A spokeswoman for Premier Danny Williams steered questions to the provincial Department of Finance, which denied the request.
Williams has been at war with Ottawa since the federal budget was tabled March 19.
The Harper government sidestepped a key election promise on equalization, instituting a cap on benefits.
Williams was apoplectic, commissioning a nationwide advertising campaign condemning the prime minister.
The feds, meanwhile, insist the province can stay in the old equalization system and retain the uncapped Atlantic Accord.
No hard numbers
Neither side has tabled any hard numbers to back up their respective opinions about the benefits of the new system versus the old.
Earlier this month, Ottawa told The Telegram it would require 1,056.67 hours just to prepare to release 31,700 pages of documents analysing the potential impact of the new system on Newfoundland and Labrador.
The federal Finance Department said it would take another 69 hours just to find the information. Total bill: $17,500.
Province just said no
The province, meanwhile, shut the door entirely.
Last month, Williams skated around three separate questions from reporters about whether he would release provincial analyses.
"It depends on how far we can go," he said April 18.
Equalization is fiendishly complicated, with factors as diverse as the price of oil, the value of the Canadian dollar and the economic performance of every province potentially shifting benefit levels.
Projections released
To date, the only person who has publicly released any projections of the new system's impact is Memorial University economist Wade Locke.
Locke first calculated that the new system could provide a boon of $5.6 billion to the province.
But a new set of parameters - based on changes in federal budget implementation laws - turned that boon into a bust. Locke's revised analysis showed the new system would provide $1 billion less than the status quo over 12 years.
The MUN economist has urged the feds and the province to make public their own projections.
Neither side has expressed much interest in doing so.
At this juncture, it is important to recognize that equalization has played another key role in the evolution of our federation. Over the years the federal government transferred progressively larger shares of the PIT [federal personal income tax] and CIT [federal corporate income tax] to the provinces, which made Canada one of the most tax-decentralized federations in the world. Arguably this tax decentralization would not have been politically acceptable to the "have-not" provinces were it not for the existence of equalization. In this sense, equalization also benefits the rich
provinces, since it allows them to reap the benefits of their superior tax bases.
In the 1962 quinquennial revision of the tax arrangements, the share of PIT entering the equalization formula was increased to 16 percent (with an interim increase to 13 percent in 1958). For present purposes, however, the importance of the 1962 revisions is that natural resources entered the formula for the first time, thereby beginning a complex and volatile relationship that has influenced the evolution of Canadian federalism well beyond the fiscal arena. The concern at issue in this time frame was that resource-rich Alberta was receiving equalization.
To prevent this, the formula was expanded to include resource revenues — 50 percent of the three-year average of provincial resource revenues would now be eligible for equalization. While this would exclude Alberta from receiving equalization, it would have substantially increased the total level of equalization. To temper this expansion the equalization standard was reduced from the TTPS [top-two-province standard] to a national-average standard (NAS).
This modification was short-lived. Following up on its 1963 election platform, the new Pearson government restored the TTPS standard and removed resource revenues from the formula, replacing them with the "resource-revenue override"; henceforth, 50 percent of the resource revenues accruing to a province would be deducted from that province’s equalization entitlement. The return to the top-two-province standard meant that Ontario was again the only "have" province, but the resource revenue override precluded Alberta and BC from receiving equalization.
"The role public opinion research plays in guiding governmental communications is often dismissed as partisan and not necessarily in the public interest," writes David Herle, who begs to differ. As the former pollster to the federal finance ministry in the 1990s, Herle’s polls and focus groups shaped support for balancing the budget and creating the fiscal dividend. Other policies, he writes, "can be sacrificed because (Ottawa) couldn’t talk about them to Canadians in a way that made sense to them." He also identifies five rules of current Canadian public opinion: Canadian social values, transparent governance, activism rather than retrenchment in government, and the enduring regionalism and evolving views of the Canadian federation.Herle has a striking observation on how Canadians view the separation of powers between federal and provincial governments. In light of recent musings by local nationalists, Herle's assessment might give a clue as to why the tone of the provincial government's most recent battle with the federal government is going over like a lead balloon:
Rule 5 — Views of the federation are evolving. The fight between "a strong central government," on one side, and "a community of communities," on the other side, is over, and both sides won.
Most Canadians have settled on a division of labour between levels of government that is based on what they see as the appropriate roles and competencies.
Program delivery is seen as being best done by provincial or even local governments. They are seen as being better able to manage programs and are thought to have a better sense of what the actual needs are, province by province, community by community.
The cities agenda is coming up into the national agenda for a reason. However, that does not mean that people want or will accept a balkanized Canada. They see it as completely appropriate for the federal government to fund programs in areas of provincial jurisdiction — in fact, most of the things people really care about, such as health care, education, early childhood education and the environment, are outside federal jurisdiction. They would not stand for a federal government that refused to help in those areas. In addition, they want the federal government to demand national principles and consistent approaches and applications.
But the danger of Saskatchewan joining as brothers-in-arms with Newfoundland and Nova Scotia is that it conveys the message that Saskatchewan’s economy is in trouble. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The unemployment rate in Newfoundland is above 14 percent. In Saskatchewan, it is under 4 percent — behind only Alberta’s as the lowest unemployment rate in the country. Saskatchewan’s economy has grown consistently at or above the national rate of real growth, and is likely to be the second- or third-fastest-growing province in 2007. Strong energy prices, rising real estate values, a burgeoning mining sector and a world-class hightech research sector are restoring business confidence. Even agriculture is doing reasonably well this spring.