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Ontario Economy

Is Hudak’s ‘million jobs’ plan the economic shock Ontario needs? – by Christina Blizzard (Toronto Sun – February 23, 2014)

http://www.ottawasun.com/home

TORONTO – A million jobs: Is it myth or miracle. That’s the question PC leader Tim Hudak was asked as he introduced his “Million Jobs Act” in the legislature last week.

I posed that question to economists.The province’s manufacturing sector is dying. We’ve lost 300,000 jobs over the last 10 years. Big companies such as Heinz and Kelloggs are pulling out daily. University of Calgary Professor Jack Mintz said he’s not sure public policy alone will create a million jobs. Other factors, such as the world economy, play a big part.

Mintz figures this province needs a kick start.“I think Ontario needs a shock in the positive sense. It’s dragging. It needs a serious look at the restructured role it’s going to have,” he said. “I think he (Hudak) has the right focus, which is to say,’ How can we get more economic growth and more jobs?’

“Whether he can create a million jobs or not is another story,” he added. Hudak’s plan to get energy costs under control makes sense, Mintz said. “I think the energy file is in a mess in Ontario and needs to be fixed. It’s going in the wrong direction right now and it’s going to make Ontario very uncompetitive,” he said.

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Ontario delivered on taxes. Business’s turn to step up – by Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail – January 10, 2014)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Hello, Queen’s Park. Hello, Toronto. Hello, Ottawa. Anybody home?

Ontario continues to stagnate while provincial politicians play games in a minority government, Torontonians are fixated by the Rob Ford gong show and the Harper Conservatives remained preoccupied by their western base.

Ontario’s task force on competitiveness and productivity recently released its 12th annual report and discovered that after inflation, Ontario’s gross domestic product has grown by just 6 per cent since 2002. That paltry growth has left the province 14th among comparable provinces and U.S. states, with only Florida and Quebec lower.

Sure, the task force has recommendations and the occasional critique of government. But what really stands out is its criticism of business, whose lobbyists and bullhorns in the media are always preaching for lower taxes.

Ontario has delivered. The province lowered corporate taxes. It harmonized the provincial and federal sales tax into the Harmonized Sales Tax.

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Time for this political advisor to Butt out – by Rolly Ethier (Inside Bellville.com – November 14, 2013)

http://www.insidebelleville.com/bellevilleregion/

Central Hastings News – It wasn’t just coincidence that Liberal leader Justin Trudeau suddenly came out recently and blamed Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the U.S. refusal to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built. According to Trudeau, all Harper had to do to sanction the pipeline was to simply become a far-left liberal ideologue like himself by approving a carbon tax, something even the Americans haven’t yet done.

Of course, Trudeau also claimed his main objective is to protect the middle class but he also insists that taxing everyone is the right thing to do.

It wasn’t too surprising to understand where Trudeau is coming from by pushing for still another environmental hit to be imposed on the taxpayers. The carbon tax initiative comes shortly after the Trudeau camp’s selection of Gerald Butts as one of his key advisors. Butts, known as Butthead by his many critics, was the Principal Secretary to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty prior to getting a call from the Trudeau people. He also has his fingerprints all over the Green Energy fiasco and other boondoggles by the provincial Liberals.

So Butts helped to economically destroy one province and now he has his sights on bigger things like the entire country’s economy so we all can become a financial basket case just like the Obama administration.

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How long does Ontario need to turn around OPG? – by Konrad Yakabuski (Globe and Mail – December 12, 2013)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

How long should it take to turn the Titanic around? Is five years a reasonable amount of time to allow for the transformation of a bloated and poorly run government-owned utility into a disciplined, high-performing one? Surely 10 years should be enough?

A decade ago, Ontario’s newly appointed energy minister promised to fix the mess at Ontario Power Generation. Dwight Duncan vowed to end to the years of “indecision and ideology” that had hamstrung electricity policy under the Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats. Job One was ending the excesses at OPG.

Mr. Duncan hired a bank chairman and two former federal cabinet ministers to examine the utility that managed a motley stable of publicly owned energy assets, including the Adam Beck hydroelectric station at Niagara Falls that once made Ontario an energy leader and the problem-plagued fleet of nuclear reactors, which had become the bane of Mr. Duncan’s predecessors and saddled power consumers with the utility’s atomic-sized debt.

The group led by former Liberal minister John Manley, former Tory minister Jake Epp and Bank of Nova Scotia chairman Peter Godsoe, sized up their task:

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Corporate excess tops radioactive waste at OPG – by Martin Regg Cohn (Toronto Star – December 12, 2013)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Why did OPG bosses overpay themselves while overcharging electricity ratepayers and impoverishing OPG’s sole shareholder — us?

Sweetheart hirings, obscene pensions, bloated bonuses, skyrocketing salaries: You don’t need to be a rocket scientist — or an auditor — to know the numbers don’t add up at OPG.

Surely a nuclear engineer could do the math? Like Tom Mitchell, the handsomely paid CEO of Ontario Power Generation?
Mitchell’s a smart guy who doesn’t count with his fingers, but it’s hard to wag your finger at overpaid staff when you’re pocketing $1.7 million in a good year.

But where was OPG’s board of directors, who are supposed to oversee work flow, supervise cash flow and superimpose core values? You don’t have to be a right-thinking, God-fearing apostle to know something smelled rotten in the boardroom.

Surely an old Tory, proud of his Mennonite heritage, could see through the lack of thrift? Like Jake Epp, the chairman of the board at OPG?

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Ontario driving jobs out with Blue Boxes, green energy – by Terence Corcoran (National Post – December 10, 2013)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Slowly but surely, Blue Boxes and green energy are driving red tomatoes out of the province

Did the blue box help kill Ontario’s red tomato? Certainly not by itself, but when Heinz announced last month that it was shutting its century-old ketchup-making plant in Leamington, Ontario, the U.S. food maker had already warned against a new provincial government plan to impose major new waste reduction fees on industry.

In a letter to the government in August, Heinz said, among other things, that the proposed massive overhaul of the province’s Blue Box program failed to consider the “impact the new framework could have on the Ontario economy.” The Heinz letter was part of major alarm-ringing exercise from Food and Consumer Products of Canada (FCPC) against Ontario Environment Minister Bill Bradley’s scheme to upload hundreds of millions of dollars in recycling costs onto industry.

Industry currently pays $104-million in “steward fees” to cover 50% of the cost of the province’s pioneering imposition, two decades ago, of a bass-ackward recycling regime. Now the province wants to upload all the costs, a burden the food industry says could boost the cost of the waste regime to $231-million.

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We all breathe easier in post-coal Ontario – by Stephen Bede Scharper (Toronto Star – December 2, 2013)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

The elimination of coal-fired plants in Ontario is a deeply hopeful story. It shows that progress can be made in fighting climate change.

A decade ago, in the team-taught core environmental studies course at the University of Toronto, my colleagues and I assigned the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) Smog Report as our touchstone text. The report noted the severe health effects associated with air pollution in Ontario.

In 2000, for example, the OMA detailed, there were 1,925 premature deaths, 9,807 hospital admissions, 45,250 emergency room visits, and over 46 million minor illnesses engendered by increased Ontario smog levels. Taken together, these fulsome effects take your breath away—literally.

These disquieting figures all jumped significantly five years later, as indicated in the OMA 2005 report, and were projected to continue to rise unless something were done about elevated levels of air pollution in the province.

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Stop petty squabbles and help Ontario’s Ring of Fire succeed (Toronto Star Editorial – November 30, 2013)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Ontario’s Ring of Fire mining development is worth an estimated $60 billion but it’s being delayed by bad political decisions.

Bob Rae is a man of many hats. He’s been the NDP premier of Ontario, the interim federal Liberal leader and is currently the chief negotiator and counsel for the Matawa First Nations.

Now, at least temporarily, he’s playing the role of rational adult, calling on Premier Kathleen Wynne and Prime Minister Stephen Harper to stop their petty squabble over the development of northern Ontario’s massively lucrative Ring of Fire, 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.

As Rae told Toronto’s Empire Club last week: “It is, to me, deeply troubling that those two governments still can’t agree on who’s responsible for what. This is challenging for the First Nations. It’s also challenging for companies that are trying to do business. We need to create some certainty.” Amen to that.

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Canada’s Ontario joins global ‘war on coal’ – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – November 28, 2013)

http://www.mining.com/

The Canadian province of Ontario may soon become the first place in North America to snuff out coal-fired electricity generation for good, as it is set to introduce next week legislation aimed to ban the burning of coal and the building of new such plants.

If the proposed Ending Coal for Cleaner Air Act is approved, it would means that no Ontario generating station will ever burn coal again, once this kind of facilities stop operating by the end of 2014, the government said in a press release.

The plan has been in the works for quite a while. The Liberals first promised to close the coal plants in 2007, then pushed back the timetable to 2009 and again to 2014.

In January this year, Chris Bentley —who was then Ontario’s minister of energy— vowed he would make coal account for less than 1% of the province energy supply by 2014.

He also said the province’s largest coal-fired electricity plants, Nanticoke and Lambton, would be shut by the end the year. And the province will likely deliver— it is finishing the conversion of Nanticoke to run on biomass.

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For Ontario’s economy, good is not good enough – by Roger Martin (Toronto Star – November 28, 2013)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Ontario’s future prosperity depends on government and the private sector in the province stepping up and exploiting the ample opportunities before them.

In 2001, then-premier Mike Harris created the Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress to measure and monitor Ontario’s performance in those areas compared to other provinces and U.S. states. The government understood about productivity what Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman asserted in 1994: that it “isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything.”

By comparing Ontario to peer jurisdictions, our government hoped that policy-makers, business leaders and individual Ontarians would have the information and the impetus to make the decisions necessary to improve our economy.

Back in 2001, Ontario ranked 14th out of 16 North American peers and sixth out of 13 non-North American peers for an overall ranking of 19th out of 28 global peers.

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Economic report paints grim picture of Ontario – by Martin Regg Cohn (Toronto Star – November 26, 2013)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

After 12 years of looking ahead, Roger Martin’s Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress took a look back and found Ontario in a stall — not just exports, but domestic investment.

Something’s missing from a new task force report on the province’s economic progress: There’s no progress — just regress over the past decade.

“A highly disconcerting finding,” observes economist Roger Martin, in a grim echo of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.
Coincidentally, Gore dropped by last week to give Ontario an eco-hug. But it’s an economic-hug that we really need.

After 12 years of looking ahead, Martin’s Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress took a look back and found Ontario in a stall — not just in our outputs (exports), but inputs (domestic investment). Rather than closing a productivity gap with our American competition, Ontario is lagging further behind.

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Ontario cuts coal, while BC looks for more – by Mike Chisholm (Vancouver Observer – November 22nd, 2013)

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/

It may be the industrial heartland of Canada, but Ontario took a major step forward this week by announcing all its coal fired generating plants would shut down, while in ‘super natural” BC the province is preparing to increase its coal mining and shipments.

On Thursday, the Ontario government announced it is taking the final steps to reach its goal to close all provincial coal burning facilities, including the Nanticoke Generating Station – the largest coal-fired electrical generating plant in North America. And the government has announced a permanent ban on all coal-fired electricity from the province, making Ontario the first jurisdiction in North America to do so.

When burned, coal is one of the greatest generators of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, which contributes to climate change.

“Our work on eliminating coal and investing in renewables is the strongest action being taken in North America to fight climate change,” says Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne. “I believe we can work together as stewards of our natural environment and protect our children, our grandchildren and our fellow citizens.”

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Ontario must stand ground on pipeline projects, report says – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – November 11, 2013)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

OTTAWA — Ontario needs to take a more aggressive stand on new oil pipeline proposals to ensure the province’s interests are being addressed, says a former deputy minister.

In a paper to be released Monday, Matthew Mendelsohn – who served as deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs under former premier Dalton McGuinty – said Ontario is seeing its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions swamped by the booming oil sands while getting little benefit from the economic growth.

“So long as the federal government – and the government of Alberta – support a climate change policy that asks Ontarians – and other Canadians – to carry the largest burden and pay the biggest financial cost for reducing emissions, there are good reasons for Ontario to oppose pipeline development that will only exacerbate climate change,” said the paper co-authored by Mr. Mendelsohn and Richard Carlson, of the University of Toronto’s Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation.

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US Steel ends 103 years of steelmaking in Hamilton – by Meredith MacLeod (Hamilton Spectator – October 30, 2013)

http://www.hamiltonnews.com/

Hopes that Hamilton’s U.S. Steel blast furnaces will fire up again have burned out, along with more than a century of steel production at the plant.

The announcement Tuesday that U.S. Steel will permanently cease making iron and steel in Hamilton has been feared since the company idled the mills in October 2010. The final blow came when CEO Mario Longhi told investors Tuesday those operations will wrap up Dec. 31.

“Decisions like this are always difficult, but they are necessary to improve the cost structure of our Canadian operations,” he said. Tuesday’s announcement does not affect rolling, coating and finishing operations, along with coke making, according to Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel.

Forty-seven non-union jobs will be lost, but company spokesperson Courtney Boone said it would try to move staff into other positions. That leaves approximately 600 members of United Steelworkers Local 1005 and about 228 salaried positions at the Hamilton plant.

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U.S. Steel ends an era in Hamilton – by Greg Keenan (Globe and Mail – October 30, 2013)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

TORONTO — United States Steel Corp. will permanently cease steel production at its Hamilton mill at the end of the year, ending an era that goes back more than a century.

The blast furnaces at the massive Hamilton Works site have been on what U.S. Steel calls “temporary idle” since late 2010. The permanent closure will leave just a coke-making operation, a cold mill that processes steel from the Nanticoke, Ont., operations and the company’s Z-line galvanizing operation, which finishes steel for automotive customers and others.

“Decisions like this are always difficult, but they’re necessary to improve the cost structure of our Canadian operations,” Mario Longhi, president of U.S. Steel said on a conference call for the company’s third-quarter financial results Tuesday.

The permanent end of steel making in what was the cradle of the Canadian steel industry is the latest step in what has been a troubled history for U.S. Steel with the operations of the former Stelco Inc., which it took over in 2007. Each set of negotiations with members of the United Steelworkers union in Hamilton or Nanticoke, Ont., led to lockouts of workers.

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