Provincial Economies II

[lio45]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

So, despite the failure of oil producers to agree to limit production, the price of oil has gone up and the Canadian dollar is at 79cents. Because Kuwaiti oil workers have been on strike for three days. It's a funny old world.

Do we think it's a local peak? I almost pulled the trigger on sending some money to the US earlier today.

I would not have expected the loonie back near 80 so soon.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Stryker

It's not that simple.

My cousin's a teacher, and she could easily have a job in rural, however she wants to be working in her actual home, and not bay nowhere.

Add to that she wants descent working condition i.e. not being a random sub traveling every single day.

It's more complicated than just "home".

My cousins a nurse and the same with her, if she wasnt working at the hospital she was born in her and her husband would be ultra inclined to goto halifax.

Keeping in mind both expect pretty good wages otherwise, it wouldn't be worth their spouses taking such hard hits living in province.

I suppose it might be a bit different in Newfoundland since the island is so big, but the three Maritime provinces are much smaller.

Somehow I doubt someone who is from Caraquet and who gets offered a job in Tracadie (40 km away) or even Bathurst (60 km away), if they're really attached to the area, is gonna say "fuck it, it's not in Caraquet, I am going to Moncton. Or Ottawa. Or Montreal."

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by lio45

Do we think it's a local peak? I almost pulled the trigger on sending some money to the US earlier today.

I would not have expected the loonie back near 80 so soon.

It's hard to see it staying that high, but who knows these days? I've been watching the UK pound dropping against the $Cdn - if it hits $1.80, I'm going to buy some for my trip to Scotland this summer. Of course if the UK votes "yes" to Brexit, that could be expensive!

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The hometown discount also works in your favour. Does the difference in a nurse's salary make up for the difference in housing costs between small town Newfoundland and the larger cities in Ontario or the West?

And if you move between the same province, salaries for the public and parapublic sector are the same province-wide. A nurse in Moncton makes the same as a nurse in Lamèque.

Going up a level, an RCMP officer in Shippagan NB makes the same salary (equivalent to rank) as an RCMP officer based in Lower Mainland BC.

Another thing is that "staying home" is a boon to many younger people who can live basically for free in their parents' or grandparents' old house. My parents each have siblings who have done this and they are the most financially well-off of their respective families in spite of having careers that were very average for their respective families.

My cousin (and spouse) who are nicely settled into "Depressed Acadia" are doing the exact same thing: they've settled into the old family home. The other siblings are gone to Moncton and Montreal and will never live in that town again.

I should elaborate and say there's two lines of thought within Newfoundland: the younger people who don't mind living in rural places of the province, and those who wish to live in the cities.

For those who don't mind living in the middle of nowhere, it's a moot point. Cost of homes, property tax, etc. is low enough that your wage will never be an issue. Understaffing is still a problem, and maybe even a bigger problem in rural areas of the province. But those who wish or chose to live in a smaller place are a minority.

It's a bit different when we're talking St. John's. When you want to buy a $350,000 or $400,000 house and whatnot, that difference in salary plus the pain of being on call, getting called into work 12 hour shifts day after day, working hours of overtime, all of that becomes a bigger factor.

I'd love to stay here in St. John's, and I'm in an industry which the pay rate here in NL is actually on par with the rest of the country. Unfortunately, for a province of over 500,000 there are about 3-4 companies which hire chemists to work as chemists. In comparison, Charlottetown PEI has an entire bioscience alliance full of pharmaceutical, biotechnology companies (probably around 10 on the island, most of which in Ch'Town). Why can't we be like that?

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Liberals vote against their own budget? Surely can't happen unless they leave the party first.

I don't know. We've had governments vote against themselves several times in the past, and lots of floor-crossing for votes as well:

Having premier-designate Frank Coleman resign after winning the party leadership (and premiership) but before taking office was titillating, for sure. But compare the doings of Dunderdale, Coleman and Davis against those of William Lloyd, the prime minister of Newfoundland who in 1918 seconded a motion of non-confidence against his own government. Or Richard Squires, the former prime minister who also led a defection against his own governing party and supported a motion of non-confidence that brought it down (all largely in order to escape criminal charges).

The party revolt and floor-crossing of NDP MHAs Dale Kirby and Christopher Mitchelmore raised eyebrows, but pale by comparison to Joey Smallwood’s leading a defection movement against the Liberal party that he himself helped to found (not to mention his refusal to concede the premiership for several weeks despite losing the election in 1971), drawing supporters into his rival Newfoundland Reform Liberal Party.

http://theindependent.ca/2016/02/05/....qgUCl76U.dpuf

[lio45]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

It's hard to see it staying that high, but who knows these days? I've been watching the UK pound dropping against the $Cdn - if it hits $1.80, I'm going to buy some for my trip to Scotland this summer. Of course if the UK votes "yes" to Brexit, that could be expensive!

From what I've gathered, if the UK votes yes to Brexit, your future trips might be done in Euros or in Scottish Pounds.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by lio45

From what I've gathered, if the UK votes yes to Brexit, your future trips might be done in Euros or in Scottish Pounds.

The strike in Kuwait is apparently settled, so we'll see tomorrow if the $Cdn holds or tanks.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

I don't know. We've had governments vote against themselves several times in the past, and lots of floor-crossing for votes as well:



http://theindependent.ca/2016/02/05/....qgUCl76U.dpuf

Newfoundland and Labrador - the Italy of Canadian politics.

[SignalHillHiker]

"Big announcement" coming at 11 a.m. from Natural Resources Minister Siobhan Coady.

The provincial Liberals tend to hype bullshit, so I suspect it's not that huge. I'd say Ed Martin is out as CEO. I don't think this will be a cancellation announcement - but who knows.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

"Big announcement" coming at 11 a.m. from Natural Resources Minister Siobhan Coady.

The provincial Liberals tend to hype bullshit, so I suspect it's not that huge. I'd say Ed Martin is out as CEO. I don't think this will be a cancellation announcement - but who knows.

My guess is this announcement will have to do with the environmental situation in Lake Melville. The government will probably be pressuring or ponying up money to fully clear the reservoir area to ensure the least amount of contamination of the water source.

Ed Martin stepping down would be a good second guess.

[SignalHillHiker]

You could easily be right. The President of Nunatsiavut has promised that the Inuit will not take a failure to clear the reservoir lying down and will use everything at their disposal to disrupt the project without a solution. And good for her. The project is already so expensive - a few hundred million more to prevent literally poisoning Labrador Inuit is something I'm willing to spend.

I suspect, though, that it's just that Ed Martin is gone. He got bad reviews from that independent project assessment, and he was really thrown under the bus with the budget. The Liberals clearly want him gone, and really... he should be.

We really need an "Off with his head!" political meme here. It seems to be our solution for everything. Power outage? New Premier, please.

[Marty_Mcfly]

^After reading more online this morning I'm willing to bet that it is an upper management change at Nalcor. But not poisoning an already tormented group of people in our province would be a good idea

[SignalHillHiker]

Ed Martin is out, effective immediately.

[SignalHillHiker]

They'll find a replacement soon. My money is on this guy:

https://nlliberals.ca/candidate/paul-antle/

Which isn't really that bad. He's one of the more qualified patronage possibilities.

[Marty_Mcfly]

If the process is allowed to run an appropriate process without government interference, this is the list of Nalcors Churchill Falls Board of Directors. A lot of these people are on several of the boards within Nalcor:

Ken Marshall - Chairperson
President - Atlantic Region
Rogers Communications

Marie-Jose Nadeau
Executive VP Corporate Affairs & Secretary General
Hydro-Quebec

Richard Cacchione
President
Hydro-Quebec Production

Bob Warr
Managing Director
Nor-Lab Limited

Gerald Shortall
Chartered Accountant
Corporate Director

Edmund J. Martin
President & CEO
Nalcor Energy

Jim Keating
Vice President
Nalcor Energy - Oil & Gas

[SignalHillHiker]

I just can't believe how amateur hour this government is.



This is a self-inflicted scandal. He could have come out and said he asked Ed to step down, that the Liberals have been vetting potential candidates for the CEO's position since before they even won the election, and that now they'll rush the process and get someone in place. Instead, we got a mess that makes it look like he's lying - oh, I didn't ask Ed to step down, oh I got no idea who will replace him, but b'ys, we'll announce who tomorrow. So completely ill-informed and unnecessary.

*****

Oh well, exciting weeks ahead.

[SignalHillHiker]

But will we sing the Internacionale in English?



*****

The unions are starting with (mostly) lunch-hour walkouts. Soft... but there's be burning buses across Prince Phillip Drive soon enough.

[Vorkuta]

What IS the alternative, if not some measure of austerity?

[Trevor3]

Originally Posted by Vorkuta

What IS the alternative, if not some measure of austerity?

Continued spending beyond our means with our collective heads in the sand as the previous government insisted on. The Liberals are taking the brunt of everything here despite the fact that it was the last decade of PC government that put us here.

You're mad at the wrong government: Now in opposition, PCs dodge blame for role in fiscal mess

Make no mistake, Cathy Bennett's first budget is a doozy. It contains one of the biggest tax grabs in the province's history. Then there's the agonizing promise of deep cuts to public services and the public employees who provide them.

But the new finance minister had to make so many tough choices in this budget, largely because past Tory finance ministers refused to deal with the fiscal challenges the province was facing.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfou...mess-1.3543213

[SignalHillHiker]

There are far more progressive ways to be austere. This budget is awful. We can cut even more and do so more wisely.