Canada is regarded as a model progressive society, but is the country’s current leadership living up to these ideals? Hasan examines the policies of current Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and sits down with him for a one-on-one interview in advance of Canada’s October election.
https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2019/04/17/albertas-new-premier-plans-to-abolish-the-carbon-tax
Jason Kenney, the newly elected premier, is set to clash with Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister
“HELP IS on the way, and hope is on the horizon,” proclaimed Jason Kenney after his United Conservative Party decisively won the election in Alberta, an oil-producing province in western Canada, on April 16th. He was talking to Albertans depressed by a downturn in the oil industry, which has pushed up unemployment and left empty a quarter of the office space in Calgary, the province’s biggest city. For Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Liberal prime minister, Mr Kenney’s victory is more a source of worry than of hope.
Although Alberta’s slump was largely caused by factors beyond the province’s control—notably the fall in oil prices in 2014-15—voters took their anger out on the government of Rachel Notley of the left-leaning New Democratic Party. Her election four years ago had been a first for a province with a reputation for Texas-like conservatism and suspicion of the federal authorities in Ottawa. Ms Notley is a defender of the province’s oil industry, which extracts the stuff expensively from tar sands. She lobbied hard for an expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline to take more oil to the Pacific coast for export.
But she is also an environmentalist, and introduced a carbon tax, now C$30 ($22) a tonne, to discourage greenhouse-gas emissions. In striking this balance she had an ally in Mr Trudeau, who championed the pipeline but also passed a law requiring provinces to set a price on carbon emissions or to submit to one imposed by the federal government.
Much of Canada has resisted that grand bargain. The province of British Columbia, the pipeline’s terminus, remains opposed to the project on environmental grounds. In August 2018 the federal government took it over from Kinder Morgan, the frustrated US-based firm trying to build it. Moreover, four provinces led by conservative premiers—Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick—are fighting Mr Trudeau’s carbon price in the courts.
Alberta will now join them. Mr Kenney, a former federal immigration minister described by Maclean’s, a magazine, as a “Guinness-sipping nerd”, is expected
- swiftly to kill the provincial carbon tax. He plans to
- raise an emissions cap on tar sands oil production and s
- low down plans to eliminate coal-fired electricity. He has
- threatened to cut off British Columbia from shipments of Alberta’s oil if it continues to oppose the pipeline expansion. Mr Kenney also
- promises to bring “tens of thousands of jobs” to Alberta by slashing environmental and labour regulation, and by reducing the corporate-tax rate from 12% to 8%.
At first glance, his victory will pose additional problems for Mr Trudeau, who has been hurt by allegations that his office put improper pressure on the country’s attorney-general to drop the prosecution of a Quebec-based engineering company. He faces a re-election battle in October. But Mr Trudeau may not mind a fight over climate policy. According to a poll conducted in March by Abacus Data, 69% of Canadians say climate change is one of the top five issues they will consider when they vote. Just 28% of Canadians are firmly opposed to a carbon tax.
The federal government has the power to override British Columbia’s opposition to the pipeline expansion. It could do so as early as May 22nd. That gives Mr Trudeau some hope that he can rescue his energy grand bargain, despite Mr Kenney’s opposition to the carbon tax.
Alberta’s new premier may benefit from an upturn in the province’s growth. The unemployment rate was 6.9% in March. That is still 1.1 percentage points above the national rate, but it is well below the peak of 9.1% in November 2016. TD Financial Group, a bank, predicts that Alberta’s economy will grow by 2.4% in real terms next year, the fastest rate in the country, thanks in part to a rise in oil prices. The sunnier outlook has nothing to do with the new premier’s pro-oil policies. That will not stop him from taking the credit.
Minnesota Pipeline Replacement Threatens a Repeat of ‘Standing Rock’
The centerpiece of the House GOP tax package is an extension of last year’s tax cuts beyond their 2025 expiration date; that is unlikely to draw enough Democratic votes to become law. But Mr. Brady said he hoped the new retirement bill will attract bipartisan support.
.. Emergency savings are a big focus of this year’s House Republican effort.
Rep. Kenny Marchant (R., Texas), said the bill could include a universal savings account, funded with posttax dollars but with tax-free earnings and more flexible withdrawal rules than existing retirement accounts.
.. The Line 3 project, which would carry crude oil from Alberta, Canada, across Minnesota to a terminal in Wisconsin on Lake Superior, is a replacement of a pipeline built in the 1960s. Enbridge said the existing pipeline requires as many as 900 repairs over six years. It has reduced capacity on the current line to 390,000 barrels a day, from 760,000 barrels a day, out of safety concerns.
.. “It feels like a gun to our head that somehow compels us to approve a new line because of the risks of that existing pipeline,” he said.
.. His main argument is that Minnesota’s refineries would get enough oil without a new pipeline, a conclusion reached by a state Commerce Department study. “There’s just simply no need for this,” Mr. Plumer said.
He used to rule Germany. Now, he oversees Russian energy companies and lashes out at the U.S.
For seven years, Gerhard Schröder was the leader of the most populous democracy in Western Europe. He modernized the country’s social security system, angered George W. Bush by refusing to participate in the invasion of Iraq and was only narrowly ousted in an election defeat to Angela Merkel in 2005. Schröder could have easily spent the rest of his career as an elder statesman, attending summits and writing books.
Instead, Schröder — a friend of Vladimir Putin who has defended Moscow’s top man as a “flawless democrat” — opted for a career in the Russian business world.
Schröder has spent much of the past decade working for the Russian energy industry, serving as a board member of several consortia in which Russian-government-controlled energy company Gazprom is either the majority or sole shareholder
.. At a time when Russian business connections among members of Trump administration have come under growing scrutiny, Schröder’s case stands out as the perhaps most blatant example of a Western politician having conflicts of interests when it comes to Moscow. “By becoming a well-paid official of a foreign, aggressive power he has damaged the reputation of the political class more than any other living politician,”
.. he went on to criticize the United States’ “monstrous” political influence, and he urged Germans to ignore Trump’s demands to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense. There was long applause for his remarks, which implied the need to improve relations with Russia.
.. Schröder’s renewed popularity among parts of the German left has also stunned conservatives, who are concerned about possible Russian election interference in September.
.. As chancellor, Schröder championed the North Stream pipeline deal with Russia. The German government pursued the offshore pipeline between Russia and Germany to cut energy costs and establish a reliable supply route, but the U.S. largely viewed it as a Russian attempt to make Europe more dependent on the Kremlin.
.. Fears in Washington over the pipeline date back to 2005, when Schröder hastily signed the deal during his last days in office. Then, just weeks after leaving politics, he began to oversee the implementation of the gas pipeline project himself — this time as a businessman in Russia and as the head of Nord Stream AG’s shareholder committee.
.. In 2014, at the height of the Ukraine crisis, Schröder celebrated his 70th birthday with Putin, sparking an international backlash. By opting for a post-politics business career in Russia, his critics said, Schröder had essentially chosen to join the Putin administration.
.. He’s also remembered as a “fighter with guts,” as Benner put it, for standing up to the U.S. during the Iraq War — something the Trump era may call for again.
.. Schröder’s rehabilitation also fits in with the traditional patterns of German politics. “Germans on the left and the far right have always had a weak spot for Moscow
.. “If Putin had not invaded Crimea and eastern Ukraine, many Germans would see him as a natural ally in times of transatlantic estrangement.”
.. With global confidence in the U.S. in free-fall due to the Trump administration’s policies, Schröder and other pro-Russian voices in Germany are finding it easier again to defend Putin, said Bierling — and so, too, are many Germans finding it easier to forgive and forget when it comes to their former leader.