New large oil discovery in Brazil is further shifting the energy balance

Petrobras yesterday announced the discovery of up to 8 billion barrels of new oil and natural gas deposits in the Tupi field offshore Santos Basin. This new finds ranks Brazil as world number 8, moving ahead of Nigeria in the oil and natural gas producing nations. Brazil's latest find in the Tupi field ranks the country well against the recent find in Kazakhstan's Kashagan field. Let's see how the market reacts to this. More

New Federal tax cuts

Federal Finance minister Jim Flaherty yesterday unveiled a range of tax cuts for Canadians starting in the new year. All this, amidst clamouring from provincial and municipal governments for funds to be released for infrastructure development. The federal and provincial governments continue to enjoy enormous budget surpluses which is grossly unethical. Toronto has for sometime given strong support to the Liberal party hence our help should come from Premier McGuinty who chides the Feds for not sharing with Toronto. He got the votes, what is he waiting for?

VW facing takeover?

The European court of Justice today ruled that the German law protecting auto magnate Volkswagen AG from hostile takeover is illegal. For years Porsche invested in the auto company which carries a full suite of vehicles envied even by Porsche. From the popular VW brand to the upscale Audi and topped off by the Bugatti and Lamborghini, Volkswagen has been the target of a number of European auto manufacturer. Full article

Wal-Mart goes high-tech with managing employee absenteeisn, will others follow?

Wal-Mart earlier this year moved on employee absenteeism in a manner some may describe as draconian and even worse. But then, that's Wal-Mart. Recent trends have been focusing on employee productivity and not time spent around the office. I wonder how many other corporations will make this move as pressures mount to increase cost savings. If this trend continues, will it spell the end of the telecommuting trend? More

Ontario's future and the campaign messages

The Ontario election campaign is noticeably lacking in issues of vital importance to the province's economy and is instead focused on the the issues to get votes and power. The only party that has deviated somewhat from the "faith-based" funding issue since the start of the campaign is the NDP. Howard Hamilton has shifted the debate to funding for children with special needs and joined McGuinty and Tory in promising needed provincial uploads to the city of Toronto. Unfortunately Premier McGuinty is now seeing victory on the issue of John Tory's pledge to provide public funding for faith-based schools and forgets that there is a desperate need for public transit in the province.

I don't understand the concerns regarding the funding of faith-based schools as these students can always re-enter the public school system. Whatever happened to the $17 billion promise that he made when "Green" was the fashion of the day?

Toronto and the Mayor's tax plan

Today Royson James outlined in his Toronto Star article what might be the genesis of the city's tax woes. Whatever happens for the rest of Mayor Miller's tenure there will still be a need for strong leadership in the city in the years to follow.

The Mayor is on the offensive again

His Lordship is carrying out some of his threats to Torontonians as he can't seem to have his way at taxing the population. The mayor has not displayed any form of negotiation skills since he started threatening the Federal Conservative government about campaigning against them (which he always does since he is affiliated with the NDP) unless he gets 16.7% (his misleading 1 cent plan) of the GST revenue collected in the city. Mayor Miller never negotiates from a position of strength and seems surprised when he is unsuccessful. His leadership ability is now being questioned and he should be doing some serious self assessment if he has not done so in the past couple days. Things have not changed since he first took office and the city's debt has climb to where it now sits. The Mayor now has some critical decisions to make and chief among them should be his tenure in office.

City Under Seige

Toronto has been put on notice by His Lordship and council executive. How dare those councilors fearing retribution from the voters in the near and not too distant future, not play along with his tax plans. The treats include TTC fare hikes, shutting down subway services and eliminating other city services to name a few. Whatever happened to all the gab about getting more people to ride the TTC in order to protect the environment?

Interesting how quickly we are faced with the harsh reality of the funding necessary to "walk" the environment preservation "talk". Mum.