Margaret Lefebvre will introduce her colleague and good friend, George Kesteven, president of the Canadian Association of Income Funds (CAIF) - an organization with dwindling membership in the face of the Conservatives’ taxation policy with regard to income trusts.

Director of Investor Relations for PrimeWest Energy Trust since 2001, George is in a unique position to discuss the issues related to trust acquisition by sovereign wealth funds as his company has disappeared into a new entity, TAQA North, otherwise the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company [”On January 16, 2008 PrimeWest Energy and TAQA successfully completed their plan of arrangement. As a result of the acquisition all traded securities of PrimeWest have been de-listed from the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges.”]

(Note also today’s news that Qatar is buying shares in Credit Suisse Group and plans to spend as much as $15 billion on European and U.S. bank stocks over the next year)

On Thursday Margaret and George will present a brief to the Competition Policy Review Panel, which was established to provide recommendations on how Canada should adapt and move forward in a new environment of global competition. It will be remembered that last October the Panel tabled its consultation paper outlining “what the Panel believes are the two principal issues for Canada’s economic performance: How best to create the domestic conditions to foster the development of Canadian-based global businesses; and how to best position Canada to be a world-leading destination for talent, capital and innovation”.

As the old saying has it: From their lips to God’s ear.

We anticipate that George and Margaret will have some insightful (UGH!) and possibly provocative views to share with us.

As George is not only a Calgarian, but one with deep roots in Alberta, we do not plan to limit his comments to issues of income trusts and competition policy, but look forward to his take on the Alberta election - we confess that we have been far more focused on elections in remoter parts of the world - not to mention the race to our south , so we are sure to learn something from him.

The Castonguay Report on financing Quebec’s medical system will have been made public before Wednesday Night and there will no doubt be commentary from our medical practitioners, even though the conclusions are not likely to startle since we know that Claude Castonguay has long been an advocate of greater privatization, user fees and private insurance in the system and Minister of Health Couillard is on the same side.

Pakistan’s vote will have been counted and no doubt by Wednesday there will be accusations and counter-accusations flooding the airwaves and ether.

Finally, as became abundantly clear in last week’s exceptionally informative and lucid seminar on The Balkans, the aftermath of the Kosovar declaration of independence is likely to be felt for many weeks to come and will have important repercussions on relations between the U.S. and E.U. on one side and Russia & Serbia on the other. For your information and reading pleasure, we maintain a watching brief on this issue.