Saskatchewan’s Minister of Energy and Resources replied to my op-ed and letter on Dutch disease and resource royalties. On Friday, he was promoted to Minister of Everything. Columnist Murray Mandryk wrote, “Given the amount of power Bill Boyd now has in his super-economy portfolio, he may be one fluffy Persian
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The Progressive Economics Forum: Duel of the Saskatchewan Expatriates
Last week, I had the following letter in The Globe and Mail: Oil sands royalties The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers’ most recent Statistical Handbook indicates that, in 2010, this industry sold $101-billion of oil and gas but paid only $12-billion in resource royalties. Even Senator Pamela Wallin’s higher figure
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Annular Solar Eclipse from Regina, Saskatchewan
I showed some of my neighbours the eclipse as I took photos, and here it is for those who missed it, or wanted to see it the easier/safer way (second hand using indirect viewing). -The lens flare underneath, on the roof, blows me away. -A couple sunspots visible in this
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Saskatchewan Manufacturing Hits the Wall
Premier Brad Wall was Tweeting about today’s Statistics Canada report of an uptick in national manufacturing sales in March. It is an odd report for him to trumpet, given that it found a decline in Saskatchewan’s manufacturing sales that month. Another recent Statistics Canada report, Friday’s Labour Force Survey, indicates
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Small Time Video
Gormley was critical of the bad language in Gunderson’s videos. I don’t care for foul language in most music either, but at least Gormley has a valid excuse for acting like a crotchety old man; I don’t know what my problem is. I do love Dirty Spaceman, however. And I
Continue readingLeft Over: Plenty of Jobs in Alberta (Alberta!!!) says Emperor Steve’s Puppet, Flaherty
Here’s good ol’ boy Flaherty warning Canadians that EI will be changed to reflect Alberta and Saskatchewan’s need for labour…as if the government was financing EI in the first place.. They aren’t – it’s financed by employers and labour…not that this has stopped any government from tinkering with the program
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Regina City Council meeting – Deadblog
(Liveblog notes, but no wifi to upload in real time so this is a deadblogging instead.) First attempt at council being paperless. When we entered the chamber we were all handed a paper package. Paperless fail. Still, good an effort is being made with their ipads. City Manager Davies asked
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Andrew (Andy) Suknaski of Wood Mountain and Moose Jaw
Andy Suknaski, award winning poet and visual artist, has passed away at age 69. Andy was from my home town of Wood Mountain, and I have some memories of him as I grew up. He lived only a block away (not big odds on that, when the village is only
Continue readingDriving The Porcelain Bus: Going To The Wall In Defense Of Mulcair
Great post by Erin Weir – The Progressive Economics Forum: “Mulcair has articulated a balanced approach to resource development that would generate more public revenue, a more competitive exchange rate, and more manufacturing jobs. Saskatchewan is well positioned to help implement and benefit from this approach by raising provincial resource
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Going to the Wall in Defence of Mulcair
I have the following op-ed in today’s Saskatoon Star Phoenix: Royalty hike cure for Dutch disease Premier Brad Wall calls federal NDP Leader Tom Mulcair “very, very divisive” for expressing concern that Canada’s overvalued petro-dollar is eliminating manufacturing jobs. In reality, Wall is being divisive by exploiting this legitimate concern
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Opting Out of Union Dues
Murray Mandryk’s excellent column today saves me the trouble of writing a lengthy blog post on the Saskatchewan government’s recent musings about labour legislation. From an economic perspective, it’s worth noting that enabling unionized workers to opt-out of paying union dues would create a classic free-rider problem. Indeed, Wikipedia’s article
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Meilinomics II: Income from Within
The following is another excerpt from Dr. Ryan Meili’s new book, A Healthy Society: How a Focus on Health Can Revive Canadian Democracy, which fellow blogger Greg Fingas has been discussing. The road to Tevele is red sand and sloppy in the rainy season. The pick- up truck bounces in
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: No Reply from SaskPower
SaskPower’s VP May failed to respond to my followup points, so I’ve included her entire initial reply at my earlier post. I wrote a letter months ago to ask why solar power information on the SaskPower website is out of date and now wrong. The response was underwhelming. The webpages
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: “Differentiation:” The à-la-carte Way to Hire More Course Instructors
I’ve written before about attempts in Canada to create more separation between university teaching, on the one hand, and university research, on the other. In 2009, I wrote this opinion piece about an attempt by five university presidents to each acquire a larger share of university research dollars. And last
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Good Thing It’s ^Not Pollution, Eh?
– Research and Innovation Centre at UofRegina; site of “clean energy” investment by Shell and other fine fossil fuel financiers. One of the more ridiculous logical fallacies that climate change denialists use is that carbon dioxide can’t be pollution because it can also be breathed by plant life. It’s really
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Green Party of Sask AGM ; Hot Wind
I helped out at the Green Party of Saskatchewan’s AGM this year. It’s the first Green anything AGM I’ve been to. I’ve previously been to a Sask Liberal leadership convention as a member a decade ago, and the NDP convention last year as (a blogger) media. The results of the
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Aurora in Regina
Early Tuesday morning I noticed others tweeting about northern lights, so I checked 3D Sun app on my phone, and sure enough, there was a moderate solar storm underway. Kp was at 6, which is huge, since 1 or 2 is more typical in an average night where you can’t
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your weekend. – Brian Mason makes the closing argument for Alberta’s NDP in tomorrow’s provincial election: – Meanwhile in Ontario, Keith Leslie reports that the McGuinty Libs are still dragging their heels on Andrea Horwath’s entirely reasonable set of budget requests. But while Martin Regg Cohn
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Tim Harper gets somewhat closer to the mark than most pundits in recognizing that any talk an NDP/Lib merger is neither timely nor particularly well-placed. But the “one more time” message is a little bit off: again, we’ve still run precisely zero election
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Meilinomics I: The Little Boats
The following is an excerpt from Dr. Ryan Meili’s new book, A Healthy Society: How a Focus on Health Can Revive Canadian Democracy. There’s a family that comes frequently to the West Side Clinic; we’ll call them Lucas and Annie. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t see them
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