Uncategorized
Mattis expected to send hundreds of troops to border
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is planning to dispatch 800 more troops to the border at the direction of a president who has declared illegal immigration a “national emergency” and has been stoking fears about it ahead of the fast-approaching midterms just as he did before his own election.
The order comes as thousands of Central American migrants continue their caravan trek through Mexico toward the hoped-for, but still far-distant U.S. border. Trump earlier Thursday tweeted that he was “bringing out the military” to stop those trying to enter the country and blamed Democrats for existing laws.
The additional troops are to provide what one official described as logistical support to the Border Patrol, including a variety of things such as vehicles, tents and equipment. There already are about 2,000 National Guard troops assisting at the border under a previous Pentagon arrangement. But the new troops would be active duty troops, not National Guard, the U.S. official said.
Trump, who was elected by stoking fears about immigrants, has been eager to make immigration a top issue heading into the midterm elections next month, which will determine which party controls Congress. Trump and senior White House officials have long believed the issue is key to turning out Trump’s ardent base of supporters. And Trump, at rallies and on Twitter, has tried to paint the Democrats as pro-illegal immigration, even claiming, with no evidence, that Democrats had organized and paid for the caravan, which remains more than 1,000 miles from the U.S. border.
The sprawling caravan of migrants —once estimated by the United Nations to be more than 7,000 strong — is hoping to make it to the United State. Most are Hondurans, seeking to escape the poverty and violence that plagues the region.
The caravan swelled dramatically soon after crossing the Mexican border on Oct. 19, but sickness, fear and police harassment have whittled down its numbers. Since entering Mexico at its southernmost tip, the group has advanced roughly 95 miles.
Trump earlier this year ordered the deployment of National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border to respond to a spike in illegal border crossing. But those members remain under the control of the governors of the states where they’re positioned, and their activities are limited to supportive roles, such as providing surveillance.
Federal law prohibits the use of active-duty service members for law enforcement inside the U.S. unless specifically authorized by Congress.
Trump had tweeted Monday that he’d alerted Border Patrol and the military that the caravan was “a National Emergy,” but the Pentagon said then that they’d received no new orders to provide troops for border security.
But Trump told a rally crowd in Wisconsin on Wednesday that moves were under way.
“Wait’ll you see what happens over the next couple of weeks. You’re going to see a very secure border. You just watch,” he told the crowd. “And the military is ready. They’re all set.”
__
Follow Burns and Colvin on Twitter at https://twitter.com/robertburnsAP and https://twitter.com/colvinj
Robert Burns And Jill Colvin, The Associated Press
Uncategorized
What is ‘productivity’ and how can we improve it
From the Fraser Institute
Earlier this year, a senior Bank of Canada official caused a stir by describing Canada’s pattern of declining productivity as an “emergency,” confirming that the issue of productivity is now in the spotlight. That’s encouraging. Boosting productivity is the only way to improve living standards, particularly in the long term. Today, Canada ranks 18th globally on the most common measure of productivity, with our position dropping steadily over the last several years.
Productivity is the amount of gross domestic product (GDP) or “output” the economy produces using a given quantity and mix of “inputs.” Labour is a key input in the production process, and most discussions of productivity focus on labour productivity. Productivity can be estimated for the entire economy or for individual industries.
In 2023, labour productivity in Canada was $63.60 per hour (in 2017 dollars). Industries with above average productivity include mining, oil and gas, pipelines, utilities, most parts of manufacturing, and telecommunications. Those with comparatively low productivity levels include accommodation and food services, construction, retail trade, personal and household services, and much of the government sector. Due to the lack of market-determined prices, it’s difficult to gauge productivity in the government and non-profit sectors. Instead, analysts often estimate productivity in these parts of the economy by valuing the inputs they use, of which labour is the most important one.
Within the private sector, there’s a positive linkage between productivity and employee wages and benefits. The most productive industries (on average) pay their workers more. As noted in a February 2024 RBC Economics report, productivity growth is “essentially the only way that business profits and worker wages can sustainably rise at the same time.”
Since the early 2000s, Canada has been losing ground vis-à-vis the United States and other advanced economies on productivity. By 2022, our labour productivity stood at just 70 per cent of the U.S. benchmark. What does this mean for Canadians?
Chronically lagging productivity acts as a drag on the growth of inflation-adjusted wages and incomes. According to a recent study, after adjusting for differences in the purchasing power of a dollar of income in the two countries, GDP per person (an indicator of incomes and living standards) in Canada was only 72 per cent of the U.S. level in 2022, down from 80 per cent a decade earlier. Our performance has continued to deteriorate since 2022. Mainly because of the widening cross-border productivity gap, GDP per person in the U.S. is now $22,000 higher than in Canada.
Addressing Canada’s “productivity crisis” should be a top priority for policymakers and business leaders. While there’s no short-term fix, the following steps can help to put the country on a better productivity growth path.
- Increase business investment in productive assets and activities. Canada scores poorly compared to peer economies in investment in machinery, equipment, advanced technology products and intellectual property. We also must invest more in trade-enabling infrastructure such as ports, highways and other transportation assets that link Canada with global markets and facilitate the movement of goods and services within the country.
- Overhaul federal and provincial tax policies to strengthen incentives for capital formation, innovation, entrepreneurship and business growth.
- Streamline and reduce the cost and complexity of government regulation affecting all sectors of the economy.
- Foster greater competition in local markets and scale back government monopolies and government-sanctioned oligopolies.
- Eliminate interprovincial barriers to trade, investment and labour mobility to bolster Canada’s common market.
Uncategorized
COP29 was a waste of time
From Canadians For Affordable Energy
The twenty-ninth edition of the U.N. Climate Change Committee’s annual “Conference of the Parties,” also known as COP29, wrapped up recently, and I must say, it seemed a much gloomier affair than the previous twenty-eight. It’s hard to imagine a more downcast gathering of elitists and activists. You almost felt sorry for them.
Oh, there was all the usual nutty Net-Zero-by-2050 proposals, which would make life harder and more expensive in developed countries, and be absolutely disastrous for developing countries, if they were even partially implemented. But a lot of the roughly 65,000 attendees seemed to realize they were just spewing hot air.
Why were they so down? It couldn’t be that they were feeling guilty about their own hypocrisy, since they had flown in, many aboard private jets, to the Middle Eastern petrostate of Azerbaijan, where fossil fuels count for two-thirds of national GDP and 90% of export revenues, to lecture the world on the evils of flying in planes and prospering from the extraction of oil and natural gas. Afterall, they did the same last year in Dubai and there was no noticeable pang of guilt there.
It’s likely that Donald Trump’s recent reelection had a lot to do with it. Living as they do in a media bubble, our governing class was completely blindsided by the American people’s decision to return their 45th president to the White House. And the fact that he won the popular vote this time made it harder to deny his legitimacy. (Note that they’ve never questioned the legitimacy of Justin Trudeau, even though his party has lost the popular vote in the past two federal elections. What’s the saying about the modern Left? “If they didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.”)
Come January, Trump is committed to (once again) pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accords, to rolling back the Biden Administration’s anti-fracking and pro-EV regulations, and to giving oil companies the green light to extract as much “liquid gold” (his phrase) as possible, with an eye towards making energy more affordable for American consumers and businesses alike. The chance that they’ll be able to leech billions in taxpayer dollars from the U.S. Treasury while he’s running the show is basically zero.
But it wasn’t just the return of Trump which has gotten the climate brigade down. After a few years on top, environmentalists have been having one setback after another. Green parties saw a huge drop off in support in the E.U. parliament’s elections this past June, losing one-third of their seats in Brussels.
And wherever they’ve actually been in government, in Germany and Ireland for instance, the Greens have dragged down the popularity of the coalitions they were part of. That’s largely because their policies have been like an arrow to the heart of those nations’ economies – see the former industrial titan Germany, where major companies like Volkswagen, Siemens, and the chemical giant BASF are frantically shifting production to China and the U.S. to escape high energy costs.
But while voters around the world are kicking climate ideologues to the curb, there are still a few places where they’re managing to cling to power for dear life.
Here in Canada, for instance, Justin Trudeau and Steven Guilbeault steadfastly refuse to consider revisiting their ruinous Net Zero policies, from their ever-increasing Carbon Tax, to their huge investments in Electric Vehicles and the mandates which will force all of us to buy pricey, unreliable EVs in just over a decade, and to the emissions caps which seek to strangle the natural resource sector on which our economy depends.
Minister Guilbeault was all-in on COP29, heading the Canadian delegation, which “hosted 65 events showcasing Canada’s leadership on climate action, nature-based solutions, sustainable finance, and Canadian clean technologies—while discussing gender equality, youth perspectives, and the critical role of Indigenous knowledge and climate leadership” and stood up for Canadian values such as “2SLGBTQI+” and “gender inclusivity.” Once again, in Azerbaijan, which has been denounced for its human rights abuses.
And no word yet on the cost of all of this – for last year’s COP28 the government – or should I say the taxpayers – spent $1.4M on travel and accommodations alone for the 633 member delegation. That number, not counting the above mentioned events, are sure to be higher, as Azerbaijan is much less of a travel destination than Dubai, and so has fewer flights in and available hotel rooms.
At the same time all of this was going on, Trudeau was 12,000 kms away in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, telling an audience that carbon taxation is a “moral obligation” which is more important than the cost of living: “It’s really, really easy when you’re in a short-term survive, [to say] I gotta be able to pay the rent this month, I’ve gotta be able to buy groceries for my kids, to say, OK, let’s put climate change as a slightly lower priority.”
This is madness, and it underscores how tone-deaf the prime minister is, and also why current polling looks so good for the Conservatives that Pierre Poilievre might as well start measuring the drapes at the PMO.
He has the Trudeau Liberals’ obsessive pursuit of Net Zero policies in large part to thank for that.
The world is waking up to the true cost of the Net Zero ideology, and leaving it behind. That doesn’t mean the fight is over – the activists and their allies in government are going to squeeze as many tax dollars out of this as they possibly can. But the writing is on the wall, and their window is rapidly closing.
Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.
-
Frontier Centre for Public Policy2 days ago
Christmas: As Canadian as Hockey and Maple Syrup
-
armed forces2 days ago
Canada among NATO members that could face penalties for lack of military spending
-
Daily Caller2 days ago
LNG Farce Sums Up Four Years Of Ridiculous Biden Energy Policy
-
Daily Caller1 day ago
Former FBI Asst Director Warns Terrorists Are ‘Well Embedded’ In US, Says Alert Should Be ‘Higher’
-
Business2 days ago
Comparing four federal finance ministers in moments of crisis
-
Business22 hours ago
For the record—former finance minister did not keep Canada’s ‘fiscal powder dry’
-
armed forces21 hours ago
Top Brass Is On The Run Ahead Of Trump’s Return
-
National2 days ago
Canadian gov’t budget report targets charitable status of pro-life groups, churches