Only months ago, the recently retired CSEC commissioner, Justice Robert Decary, stated in his final report that he had uncovered records suggesting some of CSEC's spying activities "may have been directed at Canadians, contrary to law."

The retired justice said the CSEC records were so unclear or incomplete that he was unable to determine whether the agency had been operating legally.

Decary's predecessor, Justice Charles Gonthier, filed the same complaint about incomplete or missing records in his day, which forced him to report in a similar fashion that he could not determine if CSEC had been breaking the law.Gonthier also alluded to a CSEC operation in 2006 that he suggested may have been illegal.

The head of CSEC at the time, John Adams, recently told CBC News that, as a result of that discovery, "I shut the place down for a while."However, intelligence experts have told CBC News that the oversight problems at CSEC are much deeper than poor record-keeping.

They say successive commissioners have simply lacked both the resources and the legal mandate to conduct meaningful oversight.

The current commissioner, Judge Jean-Pierre Plouffe, operates with a staff of 11, about half of whom actually work on investigations, largely to ensure CSEC isn't abusing its powers by spying on Canadians.
hugh-segal-250-rtris7f

Conservative Senator Hugh Segal: "The notion that a group of 11 might be able to provide proper oversight is more like a prayer than any kind of constructive statement of fact." (Reuters)

But CSEC employs over 2,000 people who covertly collect masses of information recently described as more data per day than all the country's banking transactions combined.

As Segal says, the result is obvious: "When there are thousands of people at CSEC processing millions of messages every day of all kinds, the notion that a group of 11 might be able to provide proper oversight is more like a prayer than any kind of constructive statement of fact."

Not exactly as written

Of course, even if a commissioner did discover something seriously amiss at the electronic eavesdropping agency, there is a chance Canadians would never know.

Here's how the system works: a typical Canadian veneer
Suppose the commissioner's oversight sleuths discover that CSEC is illegally intercepting phone calls and hacking into the computers of certain Canadians.

The oversight commissioner is required to report his discovery in a top secret report to the defence minister.

That happens to be the same minister responsible for CSEC, and from whom the agency gets its government direction.It is also the minister who would be at the centre of any CSEC scandal if news of this breach leaked out.If the minister refuses to expose his own agency's wrongdoing, the oversight commissioner can try to use his annual report to Parliament to do that.

But a funny thing happens on the way to Parliament.

First, CSEC gets to censor the entire report. Then it goes back to the same defence minister.

The minister is required to present the sanitized version of the report to Parliament, but has no obligation to mention it is not exactly as originally written.

Former CSEC chief Adams admits the agency is "very, very biased towards the less the public knows the better."

He points out that in the spying business, opening an agency's operations to full public scrutiny "would be kind of like unilateral disarmament, because if Canadians know everything CSEC can and can't do, then everyone else will too."

But as the leaked Snowden documents continue to force back the curtains at CSEC, Adams says it is time to find a better way to reassure Canadians about what they are doing.

"I think a knowledgeable Canadian is going to be much easier to deal with," he says.

If the public reaction to the Snowden revelations is any indication, Canadians are all ears.

The cowardly government having left town, as it were, in a hail of bullets — one day before the post office announced it is ending home delivery — we are left to marvel at the prospect of a government, and a prime minister, who are quite literally hiding out from the public.

Not only was the House of Commons conveniently shuttered, but neither the minister responsible, Lisa Raitt, nor any Canada Post executives were on hand to answer questions regarding this drastic reduction in public services. But then, in this they were only following the example set by the prime minister, who has for months avoided answering questions about the scandal that is slowly destroying his government.

He does not answer the questions put to him in Parliament — simple questions of fact, on matters he would be in a position to know about, that one would think could be dispatched with a quick yes or no — when he chooses even to pretend to. He does not hold news conferences, in any but the most perfunctory sense. He does not consent to interviews, except under the tightest of conditions, and with the friendliest of interviewers.

He does not, because he dares not: because the story he has been telling — of a conspiracy among virtually everyone around him to dispose of a matter in which he had previously taken a great interest, in a way that he now insists he would have prevented had they not, all of them, lied and kept him in the dark — is not credible. It is indeed an open question whether he will consent to the sort of in-depth year-end interviews that prime ministers traditionally conduct. How can he?

If the Senate scandal has had such legs, then, it is because so much of the behaviour it describes, the secrecy and deception and control from the top, has been everywhere replicated in the government’s handling of the fallout. What began as a secret deal to buy a senator’s silence has progressed through several additional layers of deception: the bogus story about Senator Mike Duffy repaying his own bogus expenses, papered over with a bogus money trail; the tampering with the Deloitte audit; the whitewashing of the Senate committee report; the series of ever more preposterous stories, after the story broke, about what Senator Duffy and Nigel Wright were up to, and whether they were fine, upstanding public servants or misguided patriots or deceitful criminals; the denials of involvement or knowledge, including to the police, by several of the principals, in direct conflict with the known facts; the mysterious mass deletion of emails by Benjamin Perrin, who may or may not have been the prime minister’s lawyer, followed by their even more mysterious discovery; the stonewalling and evasions throughout. I may have missed a stage, but I believe we are now at the coverup of the coverup of the coverup.

But in the days before Parliament rose, as the government frantically attempted to close off every line of inquiry raised by the publication of an RCMP affidavit, what was previously denial and obfuscation reached the level of outright obstruction. Only, whether out of desperation or contempt or sheer cluelessness, they are no longer bothering even to conceal what they are up to.

I refer to the decision by the Tory-controlled Senate internal economy committee to refuse to call as witnesses any of those alleged to have taken part in the audit tampering. The committee — which, after all, had commissioned the audit in the first place — had earlier made a show of investigating the matter, hearing testimony from those responsible for conducting the audit that confirmed, at a minimum, there had indeed been highly improper inquiries made by a senior partner at the firm, Michael Runia.

According to the RCMP affidavit, it was Runia, the auditor of record for the Conservative party’s fundraising arm, whom Senator Irving Gerstein, its chairman, had approached to see if he could discover what the audit would report — one of several avenues that seem to have been pursued to block, influence or even shut down the audit. Yet when the motion was put to call Runia as a witness, the Tory majority voted it down — as, later, did the Tory majority in the Senate at large.

This astonishing performance was followed, in the days after, by the Senate Speaker’s rejection of a Liberal motion of privilege with regard to the documented interference by the Prime Minister’s Office in Senate business; by Senator Gerstein’s ruling, as chair of the Senate Finance committee, that a motion calling upon him to step down while the RCMP investigation continues was out of order; and by the apparent blocking of an opposition motion in the Commons Ethics committee to take up the matter of the disappearing emails.

As ever, we are confronted with the utter inability of our democratic institutions to hold those in power to account. Nor is this confined to the Senate mess. Debates in Parliament are now routinely cut short by “time allocation.” Committees now routinely meet in camera. The Parliamentary Budget Office is reduced to filing access to information requests for the departmental data to which it is statutorily entitled. The list goes on.

Ottawa is increasingly a town in lockdown — as often as not with all-party support. MPs of all parties have resisted having their expenses either audited or disclosed. All parties agreed to a plan to compel Hill staffers to sign lifetime gag orders (though the bad publicity may force a rethink), just as all parties colluded this spring to prevent Mark Warawa and other MPs from speaking their mind in Parliament. The culture of secrecy and control runs deep, and there seems no way to break out of it.

Here’s a ba humbug statistic heading into the holiday season: Employment growth in Canada is at its slowest pace (excluding the recession) in more than a decade.

BMO Capital Markets crunched the numbers this week and came up with what it says “isn’t exactly encouraging” results for job creation in this country.

While 6.9 per cent unemployment is better than earlier this year, only 148,000 jobs have been created between January and November, “the weakest in a non-recession years since 2001,” according to BMO economist Benjamin Reitzes.
He notes employment is up only 1 per cent in November compared to the same time last year, and called the creation of 21,600 jobs last month “unspectacular.”

“This is hardly the stuff of a firm underlying economy,” says Reitzes.

United Steelworkers economist Erin Weir points out that most of the jobs created last month were part time or self-employed Canadians.

“The longer-term trend is still that Canadian employers are creating barely enough jobs to keep pace with population growth,” says Weir.

The Bank of Canada recently pared back its economic growth forecast for this year and next and has stopped talking about hiking the benchmark interest rate, which has been stuck at the same level since September 2010. Instead, it’s taking a wait-and-see approach and some economist say rates could fall further.

That pessimistic view comes despite the latest gross domestic product figures showing Canada’s economy grew at the fastest pace in two years in the third quarter.

While the numbers were seen as encouraging, economists caution the pickup was expected after weak summer, which included the Alberta floods and a construction strike in Quebec.

Still, there are two ways of looking at Canada’s economic growth these days. On one hand, economists see steady improvements, driven in part by a recovering U.S. economy. Others point to lower consumer and business confidence that could curb spending.

TD Bank recently described corporate Canada as being “in a slump,” posting less profit over the past year and a half, which is weighing on economic growth and job creation across the country.

A recent report from Ernst & Young says corporate Canada is also more cautious about doing mergers and acquisitions in today’s economy than its counterparts in the U.S. It says Canadian companies “seem to be waiting for more favourable economic conditions, for the right deal or, in some cases, for someone else to make the first move.” Now where have I seen that before?

However, economists at the Conference Board of Canada are more optimistic about the country’s economic growth, with forecasts above the Bank of Canada. In a recent report, the Conference Board forecast 2.4 per cent economic growth in 2014 and 2.6 per cent in 2014, up from 1.8 per cent in 2013. That compares to the Bank of Canada’s predictions of 1.6 per cent this year and 2.3 per cent in 2014, which were lowered this summer from previous forecasts of 1.8 per cent and 2.7 per cent.

“Better times are in store over the next two years,” the Conference Board said, citing improved outlooks in the U.S. and the global economy. This kind of mixed view won’t do much for job creation. People looking for a new job will likely latch on to the more positive take on Canada’s economy, while those holding jobs they don’t like could use the pessimistic view as an excuse to stay put, for now. The rest is up to Canada’s employers.

OTTAWA — The growing threat of lawsuits over data breaches may be the impetus needed for the government to do more to secure its data — and move into the cloud — as the number of legal actions arising from a breach of data could grow as lawyers and the courts test a new area of legal liability around handling and securing data, experts say.

That legal threat, including two class-action lawsuits against the department that lost the social insurance numbers for more than half a million Canadians, comes as the government investigates creating a private cloud network, which would reduce the need to physically carry sensitive data between offices and limit the opportunities for sensitive information to fall into the wrong hands.

“This may be a tipping point, but it’s not so much going to be a tipping point on legal liability,” said David Fraser, a privacy lawyer with McGinnis Cooper in Halifax.

“Maybe a court will say this is a completely new thing and we have to change things. What I think…is the publicity about this will educate people in the public service and other places that handle information that if bad things happen, it will hit the fan and people will lose their jobs.”

Last week, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada admitted that it had lost a hard drive with the personal information of about 583,000 Canada Student Loans borrowers. The unencrypted, unprotected hard drive included names, social insurance numbers, dates of birth, addresses and loan balances — more than enough information for criminals to steal someone’s identity.

75,000
Square kilometres of Arctic sea ice that melted every day in August 2012. That’s like losing ice the size of New Brunswick every 24 hours.

10
Number of years in which Arctic sea ice could vanish. “Very soon we may experience the iconic moment when, one day in summer, we look at satellite images and see no sea ice coverage in the Arctic, just open water.”

2050
The year leading water scientists say humans may be forced to shift to a vegetarian diet due to population growth and limited water supplies.

2
Percentage of Canadians who doubt climate change is happening.

16
Percentage of Americans who deny climate change is happening.

32
Percentage of Canadians who believe climate change is happening because of human activity. Only nine percent believe climate change is occurring due to natural climate variation. (Source 1, 2)

#4
Canada has the fourth highest greenhouse gas emissions, per capita, in the world.

22
Tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted per capita in Canada in 2008. America emitted 22.8 tonnes per capita that year.

51
Percentage of Canadians who believe electricity production in Canada will still rely on fossil fuels by 2050. That belief is highest in Alberta (66%) and lowest in Quebec (37%).

#3
Due to the tarsands, Canada’s proven oil reserves are now the third largest in the world, behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

10
Number of years Canada’s proven crude oil and natural gas reserves are expected to be entirely depleted.

14.3
Percentage by which Canada might fall short of its promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Canada committed to a 17 per cent reduction by 2020 but will likely only cut emissions by 2.7 per cent.

For all sources please email me

Asians made up more than 36% of all US newcomers in 2010, compared to 31% with Hispanic origins in the same year.The study found Asian immigrants to be the most educated group of immigrants in US history.

Analysts say the trend reflects a slowdown in illegal immigration as employers boost their demand for high-skilled workers.

"For an economy that requires higher skills, Asian-Americans are very well positioned," said Elaine Chao, a former US Secretary of Labor.

More than 6 in 10 adults who recently arrived from Asia have at least a bachelor's degree, twice the rate of recent non-Asian immigrants.

Ms Chao, who served for eight years under President George W Bush as the first Asian-American female cabinet member, warned that issues for the foreign-born population still remain.

"Their first concern is to make a living, survive in this country, take care of their kids and put them in the best schools possible," said Ms Chao at a Pew-sponsored event in Washington DC.
Heterogeneous group

The fact that this milestone happened in 2009 and went largely unnoticed startled many experts, who attributed it to cultural differences.

Brands have found a new interest in the growing Asian American community

"There has been an argument to keep your head down and study hard and succeed more in the private sector than in the public sphere," said Neera Tanden, a former senior advisor in the Obama administration and herself a daughter of Indian immigrants.

Asian-Americans are still considered a small minority in the US, representing less than 6% of the total population.

But the US Asian community consists of more than a dozen subgroups speaking almost as many different languages.

In the study, Pew found that the six largest immigrant Asian immigrant groups to the US were Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Vietnamese, Koreans and Japanese.
Diplomatic opportunity

The fact that 74% of Asian-American adults are foreign-born trickled down to many other findings.

Pew found that 19% describe themselves as "Asian-American" and only 14% as "American", with 62% preferring their country of origin or the hyphenate of that country, for example, "Chinese-American".

One interesting trend could be the development of Asian-Americans born in the US, said Elaine Chao.
Gary Locke and Hu Jintao US Ambassador to China Gary Locke shakes hands with China's President Hu Jintao

"The median age of the second generation in this community is 17 years old so their chapter has yet to be written."

The rise of Asian-Americans in US society is seen by many experts as a chance to build bridges with emerging economies in Asia.

Both the US ambassador to China, Gary Locke, and the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US embassy in Beijing, Robert Wang, are Chinese-American.

"Having in China two Chinese-Americans representing the United States is very powerful," said Benjamin Wu, vice chair of the US-Asia Institute

What are we doing in Canada I ask..? Will it be too little too late as usual and then throw money at the idea.

Used to free U.S. soldiers for combat a disgrace.
March 15, 2012
Since the Canadian training mission in Afghanistan began last year, the federal government has said the purpose is to help Afghan army and police develop the skills needed to take responsibility for the country's security in 2014.

But shortly before visiting Afghanistan this past Christmas, Governor General David Johnston was told of another reason 950 Canadian troops have been deployed to Kabul and two other central Afghan cities: to free up United States soldiers for combat.

The statement is found in notes that were prepared in advance of Johnston's visit to Afghanistan, Kuwait and HMCS Vancouver in the Mediterranean and obtained by Postmedia News through access to information.

Since the end of the combat mission, Canada has become the second-largest contributor to the NATO training mission in Afghanistan after the U.S.

Shortly before the federal election call in March 2011, Defence Minister Peter MacKay authorized the deployment of Canadian military trainers to about a dozen locations around Kabul as well as to the towns of Mazari-Sharif and Herat.

The goal is to train 352,000 Afghan soldiers by the time Canada and its NATO allies leave in 2014.

According to the briefing note for Johnston, "locations and billets were based on ... where it was assessed that Canada could get the greatest effect on the ground and free up American forces to move to a combat role."

It's the first time such an objective has been mentioned. The Department of National Defence did not respond to questions Wednesday.

NDP MP Jack Harris said when the government announced the training mission, "it was all about setting up military colleges and classrooms."

"If what you're doing is freeing up soldiers to fight, then you're obviously contributing to the military mission," he said. "In our view the Canadian role should have moved to one of nationbuilding."

Mark Sedra, an expert on Afghanistan at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, did not know whether the redeploylot ment of U.S. forces would have an impact on that long-term goal.

However, he said the idea of Canadian troops deploying so Americans can hunt the Taliban has been controversial since NATO first arrived on the scene in 2001.

"They must have calculated that that sort of message would not be taken lightly by the Canadian public," he said.

"It's certainly not something that the Canadian government has been upfront about, the fact that the training mission would be used in that way."

Most Liberals probably didn't think Canadian troops would be freeing up U.S. troops to fight when the party supported the new training mission last year, Liberal defence critic John McKay said Wednesday.

But the revelation wouldn't have changed the party's position.

Rather, he said the bigger concerns are the actions of American soldiers in Afghanistan in recent weeks - such as burning Qurans, urinating on bodies and the massacre of 16 civilians - that put Canadian lives indirectly at risk.

"Those things to me are far more egregious and less anticipated consequences" of Canada staying in Afghanistan, he said.

18
Minimum number of riding's in which Canadian voters were allegedly harassed or deceived about voter information during the 2011 federal election, spawning an Elections Canada investigation into voter suppression tactics. (Source)

43
Total number of riding's, to date, which Liberals and New Democrats claim received “false or misleading” phone calls during the 2011 federal election. (Source)

51
Number of close races in the 2011 federal election. (Source)

11
Number of House of Commons seats buffering the Conservative Party’s majority rule. (Source)

2
Number of companies linked, to date, to potential voter suppression-related election-time calls (RackNine and RMG). (Source 1, 2, 3)

0
Number of fake calls voice broadcast company RackNine claims it knowingly facilitated during the 2011 federal election, though Elections Canada allegedly traced fraudulent phone calls to a RackNine number. RackNine claims no knowledge of such tactics and is cooperating with Elections Canada’s investigation. (Source 1, 2)

10 million
Number of robocalls RackNine claims it made, out of 200 accounts, during the 2011 federal election. (Source)

94
Number of Conservative candidates who allegedly paid for RMG’s services in the 2011 campaign. Election-time staff from a Thunder Bay-based RMG call centre allege they were instructed to make calls to voters relaying false information.. (Source 1, 2)

1
Number of Conservative staffers publicly associated with the robocall scandal to date, though he claims no involvement. (Source 1, 2, 3)

5
Number of years a person can spend in prison for breaking Canada’s Election Act (or up to a $5,000 fine, or both. (Source)

More to come....

Police will get much easier access to the web-surfing habits and personal information of all Canadians if a new law - expected to be introduced in the House of Commons next week - passes.

They also do not have to give reasons for the need for information relating to a subscribers personal data. I guess Canada gets what it deserves? If the police have reasonable grounds for illegal online activity, they can get a warrant, not go on phishing expeditions by snooping in the computers of ordinary Canadians. However Canadians, like fluffy lambs will be led to the slaughter of privacy .. and like it

At issue is the government's "lawful access" legislation tabled in the House of Commons on Tuesday. The last nail in the Canadian media coffin perhaps?

The legislation, newly branded by the government as the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act, but dubbed "online spying" by critics, is expected to pass under a Conservative majority government.

Privacy watchdogs caution if the so-called Lawful Access law is passed, it would give police access to web-browsing history and sensitive personal information, and would grant greater permission to track the cellular phones of suspects - much of it without the requirement of a warrant.

The bill, which is on the order paper for this week, would require Internet service providers and cellular phone companies to install equipment that would monitor users' activities so that the information could be turned over to police when requested.

It would also grant greater permission to law enforcement authorities to activate tracking mechanisms within cellphones so they can follow the whereabouts of suspected criminals. Its seems all suspects are guilty before the law. BIG BROTHER IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER If there is a suspicion of terrorist activity, the law would allow such tracking to go on for a year, rather than the current 60-day limit.

This isn't the first time this law has been introduced. The most recent incarnation of the Lawful Access bill died on the order paper when the federal election was called last year.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said the law will give the tools to police to adequately deal with 21st-century technology, and said anyone opposing the laws favours "the rights of child pornographers and organized crime ahead of the rights of lawabiding citizens."

However, Canada's privacy commissioner raised a red flag about the law late last year, writing a letter to Toews saying she was concerned about the permission it will grant police.

"In the case of access to subscriber data, there is not even a requirement (in the bill) for the commission of a crime to justify access to personal information - real names, home addresses, unlisted numbers, email addresses, IP addresses and much more - without a warrant," Jennifer Stoddart wrote.

"Only prior court authorization provides the rigorous privacy protection Canadians expect."

Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and an outspoken critic of the law, said he's worried about all the information police will be able to obtain without a warrant. "The ability to use that kind of information in a highly sensitive way without any real oversight is very real," Geist said.

As an example of the new powers, Geist said authorities would be able to use equipment to find the cellphone numbers of people attending a protest, and then be able to ask a cellphone company to disclose personal information on the people linked to those phones. Police could then track their web behaviours and monitor their movements by tracking their cellphones.

Geist said Canadians should also be concerned that the information obtained by police here could be shared with their counterparts around the world.

Geist added this could also be a tremendous waste of money, because ISPs would be required to spend a lot to put in place the advanced monitoring infrastructure proposed. "One thing (the government) has never provided is the evidence to show how the current set of laws has stymied investigations or created a significant barrier to ensure that we're safe in Canada."

He argued recent investigations into child pornography and the Sûreté du Québec's recent tapping of BlackBerry Messenger communication to make an arrest of suspected mobsters in a murder case in Montreal show the current laws already work well.

Projects & Initiatives: Alternative Federal Budget
January 26, 2012

OTTAWA—The twin claims by Conservative political leaders that the damage done by the recession to the Canadian economy and labour market have been repaired and that Canada survived the recession much better than other countries are both false, says a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

The study, by economist and CCPA Research Associate Jim Stanford, finds that, after adjusting for population growth, neither GDP nor employment growth have yet to recoup the ground lost during the 2008-09 downturn.

“In the labour market, in particular, the pace of employment-creation has lagged far behind the pace of population growth. After adjusting for population growth, less than one-fifth of the damage from the recession has been repaired, and things have gotten worse in the last 18 months, not better,” says Stanford.

“No wonder most Canadians think we’re still in a recession. From the perspective of the labour market, we still are.”

According to the study, real per capita GDP remains 1.4% lower as of the third quarter of 2011 than it was at the beginning of 2008—and several thousands of dollars per person below where it could be today on the basis of pre-recession growth trends.

“Real per capita GDP is still lower in Canada than it was at the beginning of 2006, when the Harper Conservative government first took power,” Stanford says. “By this measure, during almost six years of Conservative ‘economic stewardship,’ Canadians have experienced no economic progress whatsoever.”

Failing to take account of population growth also distorts international comparisons of economic and employment performance. Adjusting for differential population growth shows Canada’s GDP performance is only mediocre when compared to other OECD countries. Of the 34 countries in the OECD, Canada ranks only 17th—right in the middle—for growth in real per capita GDP since 2007. And after adjusting for growth in the working age population, Canada also ranks 17th (out of 33 reporting countries) in terms of employment growth.

“The claim that we’ve done better than other industrialized countries in surviving the recession is false. In fact, we’ve barely kept up with the pack,” Stanford says.

“The incomplete and relatively weak state of Canada’s economic recovery should make policy-makers think twice before embarking on a campaign of fiscal austerity,” Stanford concludes. “To do so would clearly further undermine output and employment, which are still weak. Instead, the top priority should be placed on expansionary measures to strengthen the economy.”

The Obama administration's decision this week to impose a further delay in approving TransCanada Corp.'s $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline project brought howls of outrage from Republicans and the oil industry, and “profound disappointment” from Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The State Department did invite the company to reapply when it has completed the rerouting of the pipeline around the ecologically sensitive Sand Hills region in Nebraska – essentially punting the final decision until after next November's elections.

Stung, the Harper government has lashed out at foreign environmental groups, characterizing them as “radicals” and “jet-setting celebrities” fuelling pipeline controversies in Canada. Federal regulators are now holding a public review of Enbridge Inc.'s Northern Gateway pipeline, and the government has warned that foreign groups are financing delaying tactics to undermine the development in the oil sands.

The Harper government itself has actively lobbied in state, federal and European capitals to oppose policies that it views as detrimental to Canadian oil. Yet it has good reason to worry about the globalization of the opposition. The stakes are enormous, and not only for the Prime Minister's home province.

Oil is now Canada's largest export by far, and the country ranks third in total crude reserves behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Meanwhile critics worry that the oil boom is transforming the country into something of a petro state, driving the loonie higher at the expense of Central Canadian manufacturing.

In the U.S., activists have targeted fossil-fuel production and use, with campaigns against coal, oil and the controversial “fracking” extraction of shale gas. But oil is the most politically divisive.

U.S. groups such as the NRDC have been active in Canada, and foreign foundations have funnelled money to Canadian environmental groups and activists, in some cases specifically to organize opposition to the Gateway pipeline through B.C.

Even in Europe, the Canadian government is battling an effort within the European Parliament – backed by well-organized activists – to pass low-carbon fuel regulations that would rate oil-sands crude as the world's worst from the standpoint of greenhouse-gas emissions.

Yet the environmental community is simply following the pattern of the international oil industry, which seeks to influence policy wherever it has operations. And they are also following a known script for global campaigns, whether to save the Brazilian rain forest, to protect tiger habitats in Asia or, indeed, to halt logging in British Columbia's Clayoquot Sound.

Canadian oil producers are now finding they have to respond to the heightened international campaign against them, said David Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, speaking from Washington, where he was meeting U.S. colleagues, Canadian embassy staff and analysts to assess the political climate for Canadian oil exports in the 2012 election year.

“It's a global business, and it's hard to draw boxes around these things,” he said. “Ultimately, it is for Canadians to decide whether those voices are relevant to the debate or not.”

Who's winning?

International groups have seized on the Alberta development as a potent symbol in the much bigger fight over climate change. Mr. Collyer argued that the groups have been acting out of fear, trying to win a battle to show that they are not losing the war.

Since the optimistic days of the Green Group summit, the U.S. Senate has failed to pass climate legislation, Mr. Obama has proved disappointing on emission regulations and international climate talks have faltered.

In turn, the environmental campaign has provoked a public-relations response in Canada: the founding of EthicalOil.org, a group with close ties to the Harper government and the industry. The group has been highly critical of the foreign groups that have financed campaigns in Canada.

“These groups unfairly target Canada and our oil sands because it's an easy, risk-free target for them,” EthicalOil spokeswoman Kathryn Marshall said.

But Rick Smith, executive director of Toronto-based Environmental Defence and an attendee at the 2009 Green Group summit, said the Canadian activists sought out the support of U.S. colleagues to help even the playing field against the hugely powerful oil industry.

“Canadian environmentalists were working on these issues long before we saw any greenbacks,” Mr. Smith said. “It was really the aggressive expansion of the tar sands themselves that has made this into a continental issue and an international issue.”

Canadian officials play down the climate impacts, saying the oil sands represent only 5 per cent of total emissions in Canada and that this country accounts for only 2 per cent of global emissions. But critics say the country's per-capita emissions are among the highest in the world, and Ottawa will not be able to reduce them if oil-sands production grows as expected.

Choke point

Shortly after the Airlie meeting, the NRDC's Ms. Beinecke visited Fort McMurray, Alta., along with Margie Alt, president of Environment America, a green umbrella group. Both women say they were awed by the sheer scale of the bitumen mines run by Suncor Energy and Syncrude.

“Clearly the overriding concern of the environmental community globally is climate change,” she said. “And it really doesn't matter where it comes from or where you burn it.”

But she said it is wrong to assume that the NRDC has an inordinate focus on Alberta's oil producers. The sprawling environmental charity – with a annual budget of $100-million (U.S.) – has offices across the United States and one in Beijing. It works on the full range of environmental issues, including coal mining, shale gas and hydraulic fracturing, renewable energy and clean oceans.

But Ottawa and Alberta can expect environmentalists across borders to keep up the pressure, whether on a Keystone revival, the Gateway project or any future proposal. Having gotten nowhere persuading governments to rein in oil-sands growth in the first place, they will keep looking to block the infrastructure it takes to get the oil to market.

OTTAWA - The richest of the rich have gained more ground in Canada, and are now making 189 times the average Canadian wage, according to a new report.

The 100 highest paid chief executives whose companies are listed on the S&P/TSX composite index made an average of $8.38 million in 2010, according to figures pulled from circulars by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a left-leaning think-tank.

That's 189 times higher than the $44,366 an average Canadian made working full time in 2010, the report says.(latest available figures)

And it's a 27 per cent raise from the $6.6 million average compensation for the top 100 CEOs in 2009, the report says.

Regular Canadians, on the other hand, have seen their wages stagnate over the past few years. In 2010, after adjusting for inflation, average wages actually fell.

"The gap between Canada's CEO elite 100 and the rest of us is growing at a fast and steady pace, with no signs of letting up," says economist Hugh Mackenzie, who authored the report.

"The extraordinarily high pay of chief executive officers is more than a curiosity. It actually is a reflection of a troubling redistribution of society's resources in Canada and the United States, and in most of Western Europe," he said in an interview.

He points out that in 1998, the top 100 CEOs were paid 105 times the average wage. Since then, the ratio has generally climbed up.

In 2008, it was 174, dropping back to 155 during the recession in 2009. The high-water mark was 2007, when it peaked over 190.

It means that by noon on Jan. 3, the average top executive will have already made as much money as the average Canadian worker makes in a year.

The driving forces behind the inequality gap are complex, and lie in the structure of executive compensation packages, Mackenzie says.

Consultants giving advice to corporate boards on how much to pay their CEOs only compare to other CEOs, perpetually driving up the average in the race to be above-average, he explains.

The corporate board members all run in the same circles.

And many companies use stock options for a large part of their executives' bonuses, a practice that not only drives up pay packages but also ties compensation to share price rather than company performance, Mackenzie notes.

"The process of paying CEOs is really quite incestuous."

Solutions are equally complex. Debate in the United States has raged over this subject since the sub prime fiasco of 2008, and the consensus seems to be that regulating the structure of compensation packages won't really work, Mackenzie says.

Instead, taxation is a better way to go, allowing corporate boards to compensate as they please, but putting governments in a position to claw back excesses and redistribute them as they see fit.

While Mackenzie does not expect Prime Minister Stephen Harper to hike taxes on the rich tomorrow, he does see some kind of policy response eventually.

"I actually see this kind of growing income inequality as inherently unstable. I think there will be a response," he said.

"The people at the very top of the income scale — and CEOs are at the top of the top — have really launched themselves into a kind of economic interplanetary travel. If the rest of us are on earth, they're off somewhere else in a different world. I think that's unstable."

The top earner on the list is definitely in a galaxy of his own. Frank Stronach, the honorary chairman of auto-parts manufacturer Magna International Inc., took home almost $62 million in 2010.

Excluding Stronach from the Top 100 calculation would bring the average pay package down by about $62,000, Mackenzie said. He did not say where....?

Number two on the list — Donald Walker, also of Magna — made $16.7 million in 2010.

The top banker was Richard Waugh of Bank of Nova Scotia, pocketing $13.8 million in pay, bonuses, options and perks.

But Mackenzie points out that the compensation information companies include in their circulars don't catch the pay packages of investment bankers, whether or not they work for publicly traded companies.

This index is a monthly listing of numbers, written by the CCPA's Trish Hennessy, about Canada and its place in the world. Scroll down for a PDF version. For other months, visit: http://policyalternatives.ca/index

1.57 Trillion
Canadians’ household debt in the second quarter of 2011, reaching an all-time high this year. (Source 1, 2)

34.6%
Canadians’ housing equity at the end of 2010. That represents a 20-year low. (Source)

150.8%
Canadians’ household debt ratio to personal disposable income in the second quarter of 2011, higher than our U.S. neighbours. (Source 1, 2 )

148.7%
Canadian households’ credit market debt ratio to personal disposable income, second quarter 2011. (Source)
7.6%
Percentage of Canadian disposable income that goes toward interest payments.(Source)
1 in 10
Number of Canadians who say even with a credit card or line of credit they would have trouble paying an unforeseen $500 expense. (Source)

27%
Percentage of non-retired Canadians who don’t commit to any type of savings, not even for retirement. (Source)

35%
Percentage of Canadians who say their debt is increasing. (Source)

46%
Number of low-income households who report their debt is increasing. (Source)

57%
Percentage of Canadians who say day-to-day living expenses are the main reason for their rising debt. (Source)

1/3
Proportion of retired Canadian households carrying an average debt load of $60,000 into retirement. (Source)
4 in 10
Number of Canadians who don’t feel confident they’ll have enough money in retirement. (Source)

Ask me for sources..all are available

OTTAWA - The fiscal conundrum that experts have long warned of has arrived: rising government costs linked to aging and to a growing public debt are truncating Ottawa's ability to cut overall spending.

A new report from the parliamentary budget officer which Harper will not agree with of course, shows while government spending has fallen slightly since last year, it is still 15 per cent higher than before it launched its massive stimulus program in 2009.

The federal government has imposed several cost-cutting exercises that seem to be picking up some steam. But the biggest cost drivers are persistently beyond its control, according to tables in the PBO's analysis of the latest tranche of supplementary estimates.

"This is the beginning of the tough decisions that need to get made," said Chris Ragan, an economist at McGill University who has long warned about the pending fiscal squeeze.

"I think they're starting to realize how tough cutting is."

In figures for government budgeting for the fiscal year to date, the PBO shows health care allocations up by $1.6 billion. That transfer will continue to increase at a six-per-cent clip every year for at least the next four years if the government sticks to its election promises.

Servicing charges on the public debt have also jumped $1.4 billion from the same period a year earlier because higher deficits are more than offsetting the benefits of low interest rates. Those costs, too, will continue to grow as long as the government keeps adding to its debt.

And old-age security payments rose $1.1 billion from last year — partly because of a growing number of beneficiaries and partly because the benefit has been enriched.

The baby boomers have only begun to reach the age to qualify for OAS and their numbers are set to soar, Ragan points out.

"It's really going to kick in starting now."

And despite a hiring freeze in the public service, personnel costs jumped 5.5 per cent this year as the aging workforce places more demands on benefits and requires compensation for experience. Those, too, are trends that are poised to persist, Ragan says.

On the other side of the ledger, the largest cost-reducers are mainly one-time events tied to the end of the government's Economic Action Plan to deal with the last recession.

The single biggest reduction comes from one-time transfers related to the Harmonized Sales Tax.

Only the Department of National Defence showed any sign of finding major savings that would endure, the PBO report said.

As the Afghanistan mission winds up, the department's capital budget is down $700 million and its operating budget is down $600 million compared to the same period the previous year.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said last week he is trying to eliminate the $31-billion deficit by 2015-2016 — a year later than previous commitments. A key component of his deficit reduction plan is to cut government spending by $4 billion a year.

But the details of spending released so far suggest cuts to operations won't be enough, said Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page in an email.

"I think 2011-12 was supposed to be a pivot or watershed year in the government's fiscal strategy," he said.

"The elimination of fiscal stimulus and the onset of spending control on operations with economic recovery was deemed to be sufficient in Budget 2010 and 2011 to turn the corner and restore balance over the medium term."

But with spending still 15 per cent above pre-recession levels and with no way to manage age-related spending, "this plan may not suffice," Page says.

The report also shows that even as the government is struggling to cut costs in many areas, it is not able to get budgeted money out the door in other areas.

The Green Infrastructure Fund in particular has only dished out 10 per cent of its budgeted $1 billion, despite being three years into its five-year plan, the PBO notes.

But insiders note that infrastructure programs are notoriously slow at booking federal money, mainly because the government does not pay until receipts for projects start coming in.

Also, the Green Infrastructure Fund has had to compete for attention with all the other more short-term infrastructure funds that the government used to deliver stimulus over the past two years.

The fund's website states that the majority of the funding has now been allocated, and it has more than enough project proposals on its desk to use up all the money productively.

OTTAWA - Canada plans to fight the Buy American provisions in the new U.S. stimulus package proposed by President Barack Obama , federal Trade Minister Ed Fast said Wednesday.

Obama has proposed a $447-billion bill to help revive the stalled U.S. economy, but the details unveiled Tuesday contain protectionist measures similar to Washington's original stimulus package in 2009.

Fast says in a release that the provisions are not acceptable to Canada.

He has instructed officials to initiate the consultation process that was established as part of the 2010 Canada-U.S. deal on government procurement.

He said Ottawa will also express its concerns to the White House and to Congress.

The offending passage is Section 4, headed "Buy American — Use of American Iron, Steel and Manufactured Goods."

The section contains a directive that none of the funds made available under the American Jobs Act may be used for "the construction, alteration, maintenance, or repair of a public building or public work unless all of the iron, steel and manufactured goods used in the project are produced in the United States."

The bill calls for more than US$100 billion towards the renovation of schools, the construction of roads and bridges and improving transit.

Fast said history shows protectionist measures stall growth and kill jobs.