Tag Archives: ABpolitics

Details on Diversification Scarce as Alberta Cuts Corporate Taxes, Reannounces Keystone Subsidy

A faster corporate tax cut, a C$600-million infrastructure investment, and reannounced funding that was already allocated in the province’s spring budget are key elements of a highly-touted, $10-billion recovery plan for Alberta that is already taking fire for being far more tame and fuzzy than its architects claim.

On Monday, Premier Jason Kenney said his government expected to create 50,000 jobs by 2022 with a program that he described as the “largest infrastructure build” in Alberta history, CBC reports. The plan was also touted as a bold move toward a long-overdue diversification of Alberta’s fossil-dependent economy. But just days before the announcement, Finance Minister Travis Toews said the government would only present an “architecture” for diversifying the provincial economy, adding that “he thinks there is only so much a government can do aside from creating an environment where other industries can flourish,” the Globe and Mail says.

In the end, out of the total $10-billion package, “$6.9 billion was already earmarked in the spring budget and it’s unclear just how much of the $3 billion left over is new spending that hasn’t previously been announced,” CBC writes. “CBC News is awaiting further clarification from the government. The province did say at least $600 million will be new, large-scale projects that will start construction this summer, but no details were immediately available.”

Kenney “also said his government would speed up the implementation of corporate tax cuts, slashing the rate to 8% from 10% starting on July 1,” CBC adds. “That’s 1.5 years ahead of schedule. The government claims the cuts will create an additional 55,000 jobs by 2022 and attract $4 billion in investment annually, starting in 2023.”

The province is also diverting $1 million from its hapless fossil energy “war room” to cover a four-month extension for its inquiry into alleged “foreign-funded radicals” opposing fossil development in Alberta.

The day after the announcement, U.S.-based Fitch Ratings announced it was reducing the province’s credit rating from AA to AA-, citing “a concern with sharply higher borrowing done by the province to deal with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic,” The Canadian Press reports. The news agency says the province’s budget deficit is on track to increase from $7 to $20 billion this year.

In its story leading up to the announcement, the Globe said the provincial plan would be “laid out in two stages: short-term investments centred on infrastructure and longer-term efforts to diversify the economy, according to a senior government source.” The paper added that “long-term diversification plans to help specific sectors will be announced by the government in the coming weeks, but the source said they would include items such as logistics hubs for e-commerce, agriculture, technology, and rare mineral development.”

But that was where Toews said he didn’t see much of a role for government. “I’ve come to the conclusion that, in some ways, there are limited things a government can do to truly diversify an economy,” he told the Globe. “There are a lot of things the government can do to get in the way of true diversification, and so our view is that we want to get government out of the way. We want to ensure we have the most attractive business environment where creative and innovative Albertans and businesses can allocate capital into sectors of the economy where they believe there’s promise and a future.”

On iPolitics, self-described “journalistic gadabout” Graham Thomson says the Kenney announcement “is either a bold and ambitious plan or a hackneyed and desperate gamble,” depending on who you ask. Thomson’s own view is that the recovery plan “is still fuzzy. Kenney says he’ll be releasing more details over the summer. Right now, it glances in the direction of diversification but remains overly focused on fossil fuels, cutting already low taxes, and ramping up a public relations campaign,” making it “neither bold nor ambitious”.

Thomson also echoes the observation that some of the big-ticket items in the announcement—including Alberta’s lavish, $1.5-billion subsidy to the Keystone XL pipeline—are not new investments. “Re-announcing the project doesn’t change the fact that it is a gamble,” he writes. “Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, has vowed to scrap the scheme should he win this year’s election.” [And by the way, in Thursday’s polling summary on electoral-vote.com, Biden was leading the current occupant of the White House by 368 electoral votes to 132, with 270 needed to win. Just 122 more sleeps until the vote, 200 until the inauguration.—Ed.]

CBC and the Globe have reaction from opposition politicians, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, and at least two technology entrepreneurs who saw little to cheer about in Kenney’s announcement.

Article originally appeared on the Energy Mix

Alberta picks yet another hanky panky “Dickhead.” Blackrock (lost $90 Billion in fossil fuel investments last 10 years) rule breaker Mark Wiseman to chair AIMCo (money-losing launderer of funds from pensioners to bankrupt frac firms). | Ernst v. EnCana Corporation

Would a Contact Tracing App Keep You Safe

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The effectiveness of contact tracing apps is limited. Over ninety percent of the people in Canada who have died from the coronavirus are over sixty. They are the group who is less likely to carry and use a smartphone. Those that do, are more likely to have trouble working with apps. This causes concern about the government push to adopt this type of technology.

The Minneapolis Public Safety Commissioner suggested that protesters upset over the killing of George Floyd were going to be tracked down through a process described as a contact tracing app. It seems that the data collected by the smartphone app can pass information along that would help police identify users. It’s doubtful that many of these people would be over sixty but it shed some light on why the government encourages the public to download it. Although participants are told their privacy will be protected, it doesn’t mean it is.

In Canada, the recipients of the data could be violating your privacy according to the Charter of Rights. Then again, in Alberta, the UCP government will be going to court to defend Bill 1, which has also been accused of violating the charter of rights.

Amnesty International points out:

Not only can government intervention and the suspension of regular policies and practices create new injustices, but they can also often make the crisis itself disproportionately worse for some. And some governments use crises as an opportunity to overreach in their actions, using the crisis as justification for human rights violations.

There are a lot of apps that track people now. Two years ago Google was taken to court in a class action suit. It isn’t just Google. There are over five-thousand apps that track users locations. It isn’t only apps. There are a lot of cameras throughout cities, and facial recognition technology. Although reportedly to be accurate, it makes mistakes too.

This type of tracking happens every day. Regardless of whether it is a privacy violation, most people have become accustomed to understand it happens with or without their consent. To a lot of people it doesn’t matter. However, it becomes a bigger concern for those who get charged $25,000 for protesting, even though the right to protest is written into the charter of rights. This could very likely happen with the UCP’s Bill 1. Authorities could use the contact tracking app to help identify those who attended these protests.

An article in the New York Times, ‘Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy’ says, “Every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized — are logging the movements of tens of millions of people with mobile phones and storing the information in gigantic data files. The Times Privacy Project obtained one such file, by far the largest and most sensitive ever to be reviewed by journalists. It holds more than 50 billion location pings from the phones of more than 12 million Americans as they moved through several major cities, including Washington, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

We are coming into an era where we are being controlled by the government through the devices we own.

Nigel Smart, a Belgian professor who has been a key figure in pushing Europe towards decentralized contact tracing protocols says, “Making people think that contact tracing could also be used for political or law enforcement may make people less likely to engage with contact tracing during an epidemic. Which will then lead to unnecessary loss of life.”

Yes, you could even be made to feel guilty by not letting the government track you. Blaming the further loss of life on your selfishness by refusing to share your exact location at all times is an excellent motivator.

If you give into the guilt, there is more to worry about then having your privacy invaded. With so many millions of people expected to download these apps, it makes them a prime target for hackers.

One such example happened just recently in Canada. On the same day that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a voluntary nationwide contact tracing app, hackers compiled a ransomware app known as CryCryptor. The Android app encrypts important user files on a device and gives instructions on how to undo the encryption by paying the hackers.

Luckily, the security research team at ESET figured out the scheme. While CryCryptor may not be too prevalent a threat at the moment, that doesn’t mean ransomware of this type won’t be a big problem. You should learn about how this was done so you can avoid it happening to you.

Contact tracing apps are of little value to the majority of people who could benefit by them, and more valuable to other services and organizations other than the people who download and use them.

Steve MacLellan

Ramble On

Tag Archives: ABpolitics

Details on Diversification Scarce as Alberta Cuts Corporate Taxes, Reannounces Keystone Subsidy

Alberta picks yet another hanky panky “Dickhead.” Blackrock (lost $90 Billion in fossil fuel investments last 10 years) rule breaker Mark Wiseman to chair AIMCo (money-losing launderer of funds from pensioners to bankrupt frac firms). | Ernst v. EnCana Corporation

Would a Contact Tracing App Keep You Safe