BBC
We welcome two new faces this week, guest experts, who bring knowledge of at least three extremely pertinent topics to the table.
Danny van Gelder will introduce his cousin, Mark Kruger, an economist by training, who serves as Minister Counselor/Head of Section (Economics and Finance) of the Canadian Embassy in Beijing. Armed with degrees from Colby College (Maine) and U of T, he spent much of his career at the Bank of Canada, where he was an Assistant Chief in the International Department and recently, while on leave from the Bank, was an Advisor to the Executive Director for Canada, Ireland and the Caribbean at the IMF.
Catherine Gillbert is bringing Professor Tudor Johnston, esteemed member of the Montreal Oxford-Cambridge Society (he earned his Ph.D. in Physics Engineering at Cambridge), has taught at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique - EMT (Energy, Materials and Telecommunications) of the Université du Québec since 1973. His current field of research is laser-matter interaction.
We are also very happy that Bert Revenaz is back from Scotland and can give us an update on his new challenge setting up the New York office of The Camco Group
Although topics can always change due to last-minute developments, we of course propose to look at the new Federal Budget to be presented on Tuesday by the not-always-beloved Mr. Flaherty (see last week’s discussion of Income Trusts). Although it is reported that the budget will show a surplus of $13 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31 - $1 billion higher than expected - it seems that he wants the public (taxpayers) expectations to be low - presumably that means slash and burn of wasteful programs like those that target environmental degradation. According to CP, two-thirds of the surplus will be used to pay off the federal debt, while most of the rest will be ploughed into infrastructure projects (that at least is good news). Meantime the IMF has lowered its growth forecast for Canada to 1.8% to reflect the sharp downturn in the United States.
Speaking of the U.S. economy, Alan Greenspan certainly doesn’t like to be in the shadows: there he is on the BBC website “Greenspan negative on US economy” He also predicted that booming oil prices would keep rising and that the US housing market would see more misery before the tide turned. Ben Bernanke must wish for duct tape!
Education is also on the top of our list this week, following Paul Wells’ column “Centres of excellence, or otherwise” and the reactions to it.
Our OWN Guy Stanley has comments:
“… the response to years of failure in making sense of most science-based files except possibly public health and agriculture. (Hence disastrous fishery management, disastrous forestry situation, steep decline of biotech and telecom commercial competitiveness, and of course the goofy way we’re backing into global warming issues.) Canada actually lacks programs and institutions that more successful countries have put in place to accelerate adaptation to the knowledge-based economy and at the federal level anyway this doesn’t seem to work its way through to ministers’ briefings. Paul may not think the closing of the chief scientist’s office matters, but the recent editorial in nature pointing to Canada as a science-unfriendly country will certainly undermine our reputation globally.”
We also note the Gazette editorial “Canada needs more grad students if we are to remain competitive”
We look forward to debate on this matter and, more important, solutions!
And there is - always - China. The latest news seems made to order for Mr. Kruger: Tough Talk Fails To Calm Chinese Investors
HONG KONG - Beijing may have to do more to calm its equity markets. Chinese stocks continued their recent freefall Tuesday despite a regulator’s warning to listed companies to stop large new share placements.
Sad news from Africa: Kofi Annan says rival parties in Kenya appear unable to resolve their differences, while a Nigerian court is to rule on whether last year’s presidential election in Nigeria should be re-run because of fraud, and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is “confident” of a sixth term.
Finally, another gloomy note “The United Nations warned yesterday that it no longer has enough money to keep global malnutrition at bay this year in the face of a dramatic upward surge in world commodity prices, which have created a ‘new face of hunger’.
With voluntary contributions from the world’s wealthy nations, the World Food Program (WFP) feeds 73 million people in 78 countries, less than a 10th of the total number of the world’s undernourished. Its agreed budget for 2008 was $2.9bn (£1.5bn). But with annual food price increases around the world of up to 40% and dramatic hikes in fuel costs, that budget is no longer enough even to maintain current food deliveries.”
We look forward to your company.
Diana & David Nicholson
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Friday 29 February 2008 OTTAWA: 100 CANADIANS INVESTIGATED IN LIECHTENSTEIN TAX SCANDAL Wednesday 27 February 2008 Budget thin on major initiatives
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty brought down a budget Tuesday that was short on big spending pledges but one he called “prudent” while facing the prospect of a slowing economy.
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The Canada Revenue Agency says it has started investigating about 100 Canadian taxpayers for tax fraud for having possibly hidden money in the tiny European principality of Liechtenstein. The agency says it's checking whether they've declared their income and paid taxes on it. The agency also says it received information from several sources but did not pay informants. Liechtenstein's tax scandal erupted two weeks ago when it developed that the German intelligence service had bought a disk from a former bank employee which contained the names of some 1,400 suspected tax dodgers from around the world. The U.S., Britain, France, Sweden and Australia are among the countries which also have launched investigations. Liechtenstein's banking system is notoriously secretive and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development considers it an "unco-operative tax haven."
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