Over 40 percent of Thames Water, a troubled utility company in the United Kingdom, is owned by OMERS and BCI. These are two of Canada’s biggest public pension fund managers. The British utility is facing regulatory scrutiny and penalties for sewage leaks that require a financial bailout. Investors refused a
Continue readingAuthor: Norman Farrell
Blogging regularly since April 2009 on public affairs with focus on BC politics, journalism, the environment and ethical matters in the public arena.
IN-SIGHTS: Who funds think tanks, and why?
An organization in the United Kingdom aims to identify funders of think tanks that work to influence public policy. While the group’s focus is on the UK, it is a safe bet that political operatives and large organizations use their financial resources to achieve similar objectives in Canada and other
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Build—maintain—lose
The possibility of Corus Entertainment Inc. disappearing may astound people. However, there is a common pattern following intergenerational transfers of business interests. Reuter’s Chris Taylor reported: 70 percent of wealthy families lose their wealth by the second generation, and a stunning 90 percent by the third…
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Shares of Corus Entertainment may be worth zero if…
Years ago, well managed radio stations enjoyed operating profits that could reach 50 percent of revenue. Having permits to broadcast were said to be like having licences to print money. Those days are no more. But one company has fared worse than most. Far worse.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Triangulate your information
Ali Velshi is a journalist often seen on MSNBC. Promoting a new book, he appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air. The program covers much ground and is worth our attention. The end segment resonates since it cautions us to know the difference between news and nonsense…
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Western Canada’s climate change actions are inadequate or illusory
Climate change actions of British Columbia and Manitoba are inadequate and the main efforts by Alberta and Saskatchewan to reduce greenhouse emissions are illusory. While provinces in central and eastern Canada have reduced harmful discharges, western provinces have done the opposite…
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Racing toward danger
MIT’s Dr. Peter S. Park and academics associated with the Center for AI Safety examined deception by Artificial Intelligence. They conclude that increased capabilities of AI pose a serious risk and computers are now capable of inducing false beliefs and encouraging harmful outcomes…
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: A day in the life
I was planning to write about the dangers of unregulated artificial intelligence, but ChatGPT told me that AI is not inherently dangerous. So I’ll leave that subject for another day. Besides Monday was too good a day for pessimism…
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Youth sports: done right, done wrong
After watching a grandchild and other nine-year-olds playing in a Little League baseball tournament, I was reminded about the positive and negative aspects of youth sports. Done right, they’re beneficial. Done wrong, they’re harmful.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: BC NDP’s f***king policy
On Facebook, Northeast BC resident RanD Hadland says he visited the Bennett Dam and gained an understanding of why the downstream Peace River is so low. Behind the dam is the Williston Reservoir. Despite ongoing drought conditions, British Columbia has allowed oil and gas companies to draw water for fracking
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Existential threat or anti-growth rhetoric?
Climate change denialism remains strong. It has been strongly linked to right-wing nationalism and to the anti-feminist far-right but it was built primarily with funds from oil companies. Denialists have accumulated wealth by serving fossil fuel interests.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Canada is not a world leader on climate
I won’t be much affected by climate change, but my grandchildren will pay a very high price. For older folks like me, watching this country do the wrong things for the wrong reasons is difficult. Many of us care much about the world we leave to future generations. Political leaders
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Instead of a path to net zero, we’re on the eve of destruction
The concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere is a critical environmental issue. One important cause involves human activities such as the production and use of fossil fuels. Canada’s government just released the National Inventory Report (NIR) detailing GHG emissions for the years up to 2022. It provides useful
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck…
An IN-SIGHTS reader asks, “Who gains from chaos on American university campuses?” He suggests the theme of the 1997 movie ‘Wag the Dog’ motivates Netanyahu. Dark forces believe the conflict in Gaza also serves Trump.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Everything is not broken
In the House of Commons, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre told Canadians: “Everything is broken.” Canada is imperfect, but it is far from broken.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Megaproject madness
Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, Executive Chairman and co-founder of Oxford Global Projects has written about proponents getting large undertakings approved by using “strategic misrepresentation” when they conjure up budgets. Strategic misrepresentation is the planned, systematic distortion or misstatement of fact — lying — in response to incentives in the budget.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Green New Deal: “A socialist plot to take away your ice cream.”
By consensus, climate scientists believe that future restorative actions will be futile if policies followed today are insufficient. In our daily lives, we routinely limit or reduce potential harms. However, elected representatives choose not to apply the precautionary principle if they believe economic interests would be negatively affected.
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Minimum wage increases, job destroyers or job creators?
AAccording to MIT Economics Professor Daron Acemoglu, a bountiful supply of good jobs is the best way to generate shared prosperity and also to cultivate civic and political participation from the broad cross-section of society. But organizations that regularly appear in corporate media are paid to oppose the concept of
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: Occupational hearing loss
We dined recently at an “upscale casual” restaurant in Port Coquitlam. The service and the food were fine, but I was troubled by the noise level. My iPhone decibel meter calculated an average of 86 decibels with a peak level of 95 dB reached often. While the noise level I
Continue readingIN-SIGHTS: A $40 billion oil subsidy
If I told my spouse that I had decided to buy a car for $30,000, then I returned home with one priced at $150,000, she would bar me from the house. The same should happen to every person from bureaucrat to politician who said taxpayers ought to build an oil
Continue reading