monster

Thursday January 27, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday January 27, 2022

Despite record high inflation, Bank of Canada holds interest rate steady — for now

May 2, 2020

The Bank of Canada has decided not to raise its benchmark interest rate just yet.

Like many other central banks around the world, the bank slashed its core lending rate — known as the target for the overnight rate — at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, to ensure that consumers and businesses had access to cheap lending in order to keep the economy afloat.

But two years of rock-bottom lending rates have been a major contributor to inflation, which rose to almost five per cent in Canada last month — its highest level in more than 30 years.

Tuesday December 14, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday December 14, 2021

Canada threatens U.S. with tariffs, partial suspension of CUSMA over electric vehicle tax credit

November 18, 2021

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has written to top U.S. senators threatening to suspend parts of the CUSMA trade agreement and impose tariffs on American goods unless U.S. officials back away from a proposed tax credit for American-built electric vehicles.

“We are deeply concerned that certain provisions of the electric vehicle tax credits as proposed in the Build Back Better Act violate the United States’ obligations under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement,” Freeland and International Trade Minister Mary Ng say in the letter.

“The proposal is equivalent to a 34 per cent tariff on Canadian-assembled electric vehicles,” the letter says. “The proposal is a significant threat to the Canadian automotive industry and is a de facto abrogation of the USMCA.”

November 19, 2019

The Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) is known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in the United States.

Congress is proposing sizeable tax credits worth up to $12,500 US to buyers of new electric vehicles — as long as those cars are manufactured by union workers in the U.S.

Experts agree the tax measure would deal a major blow to the Canadian automotive sector, which is trying to attract new investment as the industry transitions away from internal combustion engines.

Freeland and Ng also say in the letter that they will “consider the possible suspension of USMCA concessions of importance to the U.S.” They specifically mention the possible suspension of “USMCA dairy tariff-rate quotas” and the possibility of delaying implementation of CUSMA copyright changes.

December 11, 2019

“To be clear, we do not wish to go down a path of confrontation,” the letter says. “That has not been the history of the relationship between our two countries – nor should it be the future.

“There is an opportunity to work together to resolve this issue by ensuring Canadian-assembled vehicles and batteries are eligible for the same credit as U.S.-assembled vehicles and batteries.”

Ng said the letter is Canada’s way of indicating that it’s prepared to play hardball on the trade file, although she would prefer to come to a compromise that avoids trade actions. (CBC) 

 

Friday March 19, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday March 19, 2021

A big deal threatens bigger cellphone fees

There are two things you can bet on when it comes to this week’s $20.4-billion bid by Rogers Communications to snap up rival Shaw Communications.

First, the deal would be very good for both of these telecommunications giants, and not least members of the Shaw family who would personally pocket $920 million in cash for their troubles.

Second, the current takeover plan threatens to be very bad for Canadian consumers, and that probably means people like you. 

Think your monthly cellphone fees are sky-high today? They could blast into the stratosphere if this deal goes through as is. Because if one of Canada’s four biggest telecom companies is bought up by one of the others, there will be even less of the competition so urgently needed to keep some kind of a lid on prices. 

Let’s hope Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is watching this one closely. Let’s hope even more that he’s ready to stand up for the interests of ordinary Canadians. The fact is, cellphone users in this country are already saddled with some of the most bloated cellular fees in the industrialized world. On average, Canadians spend 20 per cent more than Americans and an eye-watering 120 per cent more than Australians for cellphone plans that offer comparable service.

Canada’s “Big 3” telecom companies — Rogers, Telus and Bell — defend the high prices as the cost of providing a first-rate service in a vast land, though the U.S. and Australia are also pretty big places where bills are a lot lower than here. It’s also worth noting that a review by Canada’s Competition Bureau found that those Big 3 telecom companies, however they excuse their pricing, were racking up far stronger profits than their Group-of-Seven or Australian counterparts.

One of the problems industry analysts consistently point to is the lack of competition for providing wireless services in Canada. Today, Rogers, Telus and Bell control nearly 90 per cent of the market. If Rogers is allowed to gobble up Shaw, the Big 3’s market share will rise to 95 per cent. 

Federal government after federal government has agreed more, not less, competition is what this sector needs. And they were all correct. Freedom Mobile, which was started by Shaw in 2016, has been credited with driving wireless plan prices down to at least some degree in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.

So what happens if big-fish Rogers swallows up smaller-fish Shaw and takes over not just Shaw’s cable and internet operations in western Canada but its Freedom mobile business? Rogers has tried to silence concerns about its takeover plans by promising not to raise cellphone fees for three years. However sincere that offer is, it would do nothing to stop a whopping fee hike on Day 1 of Year 4.

While Trudeau knows that telecommunications companies need to earn enough money to underwrite expensive investments in internet and wireless networks, he and his party declared they would lower cellphone fees by 25 per cent by the end of 2021.

Given that both the Competition Bureau and the Canadians Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission will now take a year or more to review this deal, Trudeau has time to think this one out carefully. But at the end of the day he should be willing to intervene strongly on behalf of consumers. One option among many would be to approve the deal — if Rogers agrees to sell Shaw’s Freedom Mobile business to a company such as Cogeco, which is interested in expanding into the cellphone business.

Such a deal between Rogers and Shaw might not be as big. Almost certainly, neither would the cellphone bills be in this country. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Saturday January 30, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday January 30, 2021

Fauci calls South Africa-based variant’s resilience a ‘wake-up call.’

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci warned Friday that new clinical trial results from Johnson & Johnson, showing that its vaccine is less effective against a highly infectious variant of the coronavirus circulating in South Africa, were a “wake-up call.” He said the virus will continue to mutate, and vaccine manufacturers will have to be “nimble to be able to adjust readily” to reformulating the vaccines if needed.

March 26, 2020

Dr. Fauci’s warning, at the White House briefing on the virus, comes amid increasing concern about new and more infectious variants of the virus that are emerging overseas and turning up in the United States. This week, officials in South Carolina reported identifying two cases of the variant circulating in South Africa, and officials in Minnesota announced they had found a case of the variant that was first detected in Brazil.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who was also at the briefing, said another variant, first identified in Britain, has now been confirmed in 379 cases in 29 states. 

She said officials remained concerned about the variants and were “rapidly ramping up surveillance and sequencing activities” to closely monitor them. Unlike Britain, the United States has been conducting little of the genomic sequencing necessary to track the spread of the variants.

August 6, 2020

Dr. Walensky also issued a plea to Americans to continue wearing masks and practice social distancing, and to avoid travel. Earlier this month, the C.D.C. warned that the variant circulating in Britain could become the dominant source of infection in the United States and would likely lead to a surge in cases and deaths that could overwhelm hospitals. And given the speed at which the variant swept through that country, it is conceivable that by April it could make up a large fraction of infections in the United States.

December 11, 2020

“By the time someone has symptoms, gets a test, has a positive result and we get the sequence, our opportunity for doing real case control and contact tracing is largely gone,” she said. “We should be treating every case as if it’s a variant during this pandemic right now.”

Friday’s briefing, the second in what the Biden White House has promised will be thrice-weekly updates on the pandemic, came just hours after Johnson & Johnson reported that while its vaccine was 72 percent effective in the United States, the efficacy rate was just 57 percent in South Africa, where a variant has been spreading. (New York Times) 

 

Friday December 11, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday December 11, 2020

Act now to stop anti-vaccine misinformation, says Ottawa researcher

December 1, 2020

Canadian regulators have approved Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, and one Ottawa researcher is urging public health authorities to start addressing false anti-vaccination information now to combat potential vaccine hesitancy.

Maxime Lê, a master’s candidate at the University of Ottawa who recently completed his thesis on anti-vaccine arguments in Canada, said now is the time to get ahead of conspiracy theories and misinformation around the COVID-19 vaccine.

One of the best weapons is answering people’s questions in a way that builds trust, he said.

“A lot of people are focusing on the logistical issues of vaccine delivery but the focus should indeed rely on that open and transparent communication,” Lê told CBC Radio’s All in a Day on Tuesday.

“Perhaps one of the reasons why people are so afraid is because their questions are not answered at all.”

A recent poll suggests that a fifth of Canadians are undecided about whether to get vaccinated while 16 per cent are against vaccination. Among the majority who said they wanted to get vaccinated, 15 per cent said they would wait several months before the shot and 38 per cent said they would wait one or two months, to make sure everything’s going well.

July 21, 2020

Lê said there are many themes that come up among people who question vaccines, from questioning the toxicity of ingredients, suggesting natural remedies or immunity as superior to vaccines, to the persistent myth that vaccines cause autism.

“People might be hesitant to vaccinate because they have unanswered questions, they have fears, they have concerns that public health authorities aren’t exactly addressing in their communications,” he said.

Lê suggests public health authorities begin consultations now to hear from residents about why they might be hesitant to get a COVID-19 vaccine to ensure they answer people’s questions and concerns, whatever they may be. 

He recently met with Ottawa Public Health (OPH) who he said was very receptive to his ideas. CBC reached out to OPH Tuesday but the agency was not able to provide information about its vaccine communications strategy by publishing time.

April 11, 2019

Lê said it’s important that organizations like OPH foster a trusting relationship with the public before anti-vaccination theorists have time to propagate misinformation.

“Anti-vaxxers position themselves as defenders of Canadian civil rights and liberties, and they’ll start to say these unscientific claims which, to everyday people, kind of make sense,” he said.

“It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what exactly is good science.”

Earlier this week Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said 249,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses could arrive in Canada by the end of the year. The first shots will likely be distributed to long-term care home residents and staff.

Documents released by U.S. regulators Tuesday confirmed that Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine strongly protects against COVID-19. (CBC)