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2019 will be cumulative year for Red Deer, or not?

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2019 will be a cumulative year. The Canada Winter Games will have occurred and the provincial and federal elections will have played out.
Federally will see whether the Liberals in Ottawa get a passing grade and a second term or sent to the opposition side, but locally the Conservatives should retain their seats in Red Deer.
The only uncertainty may be if incumbent Earl Dreeshen, retires after turning 65 on July 9 2018. There are rumours that he may retire and our mayor who is learning French as I write this column may contest the Conservative nomination. There are other local, county and other municipal election waiting for Mr. Dreeshen to retire and contest the Conservative nomination and it looks promising.
Who ever ends up as the Conservative candidate in the 2019 federal election, they are not expected to lose. There is no expectation of a cabinet post, currently, if the Conservatives do beat the Liberals, unless a strong candidate is placed before the electorate.
Most of the attention, locally, will be on the provincial election and whether the NDP will be given a second term. There is a lot of interest in the UCP under new leader, Jason Kenney as seen in the media, with the vacating of the seat in Innisfail/Sylvan Lake.
The city of Red deer has 2 NDP MLAs, neither in cabinet and may lose their party’s nominations in their ridings, if contested.
The party could protect their nomination and prevent them from being contested but I do not see that happening. Our local MLAs along with many others were elected on the coattails of Rachel Notley, but that won’t happen in 2019. Premier Notley needs some star candidates, candidates with proven name recognition like former city councillor; Paul Harris to help the NDP retain power.
Provincially we have interest in the Alberta Party and there are rumours of some names interested in running under their new leader and former Health Minister and former Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mendel.
Unfortunately, if the goal is to keep the NDP in government people will vote NDP, but if the goal is to defeat the NDP then the most viable option is the UCP, under our current first-past-the-post electoral process.
The second point of interest is the urbanization of Alberta. The NDP appeals to the more progressive and higher educated voters which are more often found in the larger urban centres like Calgary and Edmonton. Red Deer has reached their plateau in growth and may be inconsequential in the political arena unless there is a star candidate for the governing party.
Declining population, lack of interest by the various governments in our infrastructure, like expanding our hospital, for example gently signifies our irrelevance unless we were to offer strong candidates, “star” candidates if you will.
So when 2019 comes to an end, will we rejoice with fond memories of the Canada Games? Will we have strong representation in Ottawa and Edmonton? Or will it be just another missed opportunity in politics with 2 busy forgettable weeks of sports? I vote for fond memories and strong representation, how about you?

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Automotive

Auto giant shuts down foreign plants as Trump moves to protect U.S. industry

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MXM logo  MxM News

Quick Hit:

Stellantis is pausing vehicle production at two North American facilities—one in Canada and another in Mexico—following President Donald Trump’s announcement of 25% tariffs on foreign-made cars. The move marks one of the first corporate responses to the administration’s push to bring back American manufacturing.

Key Details:

  • In an email to workers Thursday, Stellantis North America chief Antonio Filosa directly tied the production pause to the new tariffs, writing that the company is “continuing to assess the medium- and long-term effects” but is “temporarily pausing production” at select assembly plants outside the U.S.

  • Production at the Windsor Assembly Plant in Ontario will be paused for two weeks, while the Toluca Assembly Plant in Mexico will be offline for the entire month of April.

  • These plants produce the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, the new Dodge Charger Daytona EV, the Jeep Compass SUV, and the Jeep Wagoneer S EV.

Diving Deeper:

On Wednesday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden, President Trump announced sweeping new tariffs aimed at revitalizing America’s auto manufacturing industry. The 25% tariffs on all imported cars are part of a broader “reciprocal tariffs” strategy, which Trump described as ending decades of globalist trade policies that hollowed out U.S. industry.

Just a day later, Stellantis became the first major automaker to act on the new policy, halting production at two of its international plants. According to an internal email obtained by CNBC, Stellantis North American COO Antonio Filosa said the company is “taking immediate actions” to respond to the tariff policy while continuing to evaluate the broader impact.

“These actions will impact some employees at several of our U.S. powertrain and stamping facilities that support those operations,” Filosa wrote.

The Windsor, Ontario plant, which builds the Chrysler Pacifica and the newly introduced Dodge Charger Daytona EV, will shut down for two weeks. The Toluca facility in Mexico, responsible for the Jeep Compass and Jeep Wagoneer S EV, will suspend operations for the entire month of April.

The move comes as Stellantis continues to face scrutiny for its reliance on low-wage labor in foreign markets. As reported by Breitbart News, the company has spent years shifting production and engineering jobs to countries like Brazil, India, Morocco, and Mexico—often at the expense of American workers. Last year alone, Stellantis cut around 400 U.S.-based engineering positions while ramping up operations overseas.

Meanwhile, General Motors appears to be responding differently. According to Reuters, GM told employees in a webcast Thursday that it will increase production of light-duty trucks at its Fort Wayne, Indiana plant—where it builds the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra. These models are also assembled in Mexico and Canada, but GM’s decision suggests a shift in production to the U.S. could be underway in light of the tariffs.

As Trump’s trade reset takes effect, more automakers are expected to recalibrate their production strategies—potentially signaling a long-awaited shift away from offshoring and toward rebuilding American industry.

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Business

‘Time To Make The Patient Better’: JD Vance Says ‘Big Transition’ Coming To American Economic Policy

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JD Vance on “Rob Schmitt Tonight” discussing tariff results

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Hailey Gomez

Vice President JD Vance said Thursday on Newsmax that he believes Americans will “reap the benefits” of the economy as the Trump administration makes a “big transition” on tariffs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,679.39 points on Thursday, just a day after President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs against nations charging imports from the U.S. On “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Schmitt asked Vance about the stock market hit, asking how the White House felt about the “Liberation Day” move.

“We’re feeling good. Look, I frankly thought in some ways it could be worse in the markets, because this is a big transition. You saw what the President said earlier today. It’s like a patient who was very sick,” Vance said. “We did the operation, and now it’s time to make the patient better. That’s exactly what we’re doing. We have to remember that for 40 years, we’ve been doing this for 40 years.”

“American economic policy has rewarded people who ship jobs overseas. It’s taxed our workers. It’s made our supply chains more brittle, and it’s made our country less prosperous, less free and less secure,” Vance added.

Vance recalled that one of his children had been sick and needed antibiotics that were not made in the United States. The Vice President called it a “ridiculous thing” that some medicines invented in the country are no longer manufactured domestically.

“That’s fundamentally what this is about. The national security of manufacturing and making the things that we need, from steel to pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, and so forth, but also the good jobs that come along when you have economic policies that reward investing in America, rather than investing in foreign countries,” Vance said.

WATCH:

With a baseline 10% tariff placed on an estimated 60 countries, higher tariffs were applied to nations like China and Israel. For example, China, which has a 67% tariff on U.S. goods, will now face a 34% tariff from the U.S., while Israel, which has a 33% tariff, will face a 17% U.S. tariff.

“One bad day in the stock market, compared to what President Trump said earlier today, and I think he’s right about this. We’re going to have a booming stock market for a long time because we’re reinvesting in the United States of America. More importantly than that, of course, the people in Wall Street have done well,” Vance said.

“We want them to do well. But we care the most about American workers and about American small businesses, and they’re the ones who are really going to benefit from these policies,” Vance said.

The number of factories in the U.S., Vance said, has declined, adding that “millions of workers” have lost their jobs.

“My town [Middletown, Ohio], where you had 10,000 great American steel workers, and my town was one of the lucky ones, now probably has 1,500 steel workers in that factory because you had economic policies that rewarded shipping our jobs to China instead of investing in American workers,” Vance said. “President Trump ran on changing it. He promised he would change it, and now he has. I think Americans are going to reap the benefits.”

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