Weekly Bulletin #2

This weekly bulletin is only on the past week and hopefully I can do one every week from now one I am not out of town. So here are the events that have happened and my personal views

Liberals acquire Peter Donolo as their chief of staff while sacking Ian Davey. This was probably a smart choice as he has actually been part of a winning team and as a pollster up until now I think he understands the reasons the Liberals are struggling in much of the country. With Ignatieff's team all being from Toronto, most had little idea why their message wasn't reasonating elsewhere. You don't win elections by having an inner circle all from your strongest part of the country. You win by appealing to regions where your support is more soft and even ones that don't normally support you. Toronto is probably the most solidy Liberal area in the country, so this about the last place the Liberals need to worry about. If they are in trouble in Toronto, then they must as well forget about winning nationally. That being said Donolo is probably not a name known to 90% of Canadians and also a lot has changed since the 90s, so his appointment won't automatically turn things around for the Liberals. And he still is from Toronto although originally Montreal, mind you both are Liberal strongholds.

Quebec Hydro acquired NB power in a deal between the Quebec and New Brunswick government. I support this deal as it would help pay off the debt of NB Power and also I believe provincial protectionism has no place in a modern united Canada. At the same time privatization would be my preferred option, although to prevent it from coming under foreign control, I would support placing a 25% cap on the percentage of foreign shareholders, requiring the headquarters to remain in Canada, and at least 50% of the board of directors including the CEO would be Canadian. In Canada, already 15-20% of Canadians get their electricity from private companies and in the United States it is over 80% and even in the normally more centre-left Europe, over 50% of electrical utilities are predominately privately owned (many are mixed, so privately owned here means over 50% of shares are not held by any level of government). I do however, hope Quebec Hydro does not take over Emera or Maritime Electric in PEI which are both privately owned unlike NB Power. Also all utility companies should grant open access to all firms much the way telephone companies are required to do the same.

The CRTC blocked the launching of Globavail for wireless plans since most of its financing came from Orascom, which is Egyptian owned thus violating Canada's telecom foreign ownership rules. Our foreign ownership rules on telecommunications are the most restrictive in the OECD, thus while it may prevent domestic companies from foreign takeovers, it leads to less competition and higher prices. I don't support going to the extent of most European countries in terms of removing all foreign ownership restrictions, but I think they could be relaxed and be similiar to that of the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan which all have rules in place to ensure greater competition, but also prevent complete or predominate foreign control of the telecommunication sector. I would support abolishing foreign ownership restrictions for wireless carriers as this would be bring down prices and lead to greater consumer choice, while at the same time maintaining them on ownership of all existing lines in Canada for landlines but allowing foreign companies to build new lines, but not buy existing ones. This would lead to greater competition and lower prices, while at the same time unless maintaining some Canadian control in the telecommunications sector. Also any firm which is over 50% state owned by a foreign government should not be permitted to do business in Canada (i.e. Swisscom in Switzerland and Belgacom in Belgium, both which are over 50% owned by the state). At the same time I believe the CRTC made the right decision as their job is to follow the law, not make it. Those wanting changes should ask their parliamentarians to do so, not the CRTC as parliament not the CRTC makes those decisions.

This week will be the one year anniversary of Obama's victory. While he had a great start, his approval rating is on more shaky grounds today. This is not surprising as he faced a very weak economy and also had to bring together several groups who had little in common. Much of the centre-right vote, voted for him since they were tired of the incompetence of the Bush administration, but many are wary of his expansion of government. Likewise many on the left hoped he could bring in many of the socialistic policies now seen in Western Europe and Canada. Off course, since the overwhelming majority of Americans don't want to go down this path, he has wisely chosen not to, but this has disappointed some on the left. The reality is the United States is still more right wing than it is left wing thus Obama must be careful not to go too far to the left even if it means disappointing some of his supporters. The Republicans have gone too far to the right thus why Obama won much of the moderate vote, but he must be sure not to swing too far to the left if he wishes to retain this. Finally as dismal as his approval ratings are, they are about the same as what Reagan was at this point in his first term and better than what Clinton was at this point in his first term and both went onto win bigger in their second election, so he still has plenty of time to recover. If anything, it will be next year's midterms that will likely hurt the Democrats more than the 2012 presidential election.