[Canadian] National interest at stake in TMX deal – by Diane Francis (National Post – June 25, 2011)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. dfrancis@nationalpost.com

No self-respecting nation would allow its stock exchange, the cornerstone of a financial system, to be sold to foreigners. Australia, for instance, rejected a proposed sale of its exchange to Singapore as a “nobrainer.”

And yet, on June 30, the board of directors of the Toronto Stock Exchange will ask its shareholders to bless a sellout to the London Stock Exchange that will, eventually, result in both being sold to even bigger foreign entities. The vote is being staged before regulators and governments have given special permission required to allow the deal to be closed.

There is another competing bid, by Canadian financial players, that won’t need special permission. I don’t want to comment on the merits of that deal, which raises antitrust and other issues.

But the sellout to the British is not in the national interest. It will orphan Canadian entrepreneurs, ideas and corporations.

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Mining Marshall Plan for Canada now – by Diane Francis (National Post – March 8, 2009)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper. dfrancis@nationalpost.com

For instance, the single greatest discovery in Canadian mining history is the nickel belt
in Sudbury, the world’s biggest deposit. This multi-billion dollar development would never have been found nor discovered if the  Canadian Pacific Railway had been routed
differently. The railway passed through the area in remote northern Ontario.
(Diane Francis – National Post, March 8, 2011)

Canada’s best stimulus package is to launch a Marshall Plan for Mining by building unpaved roads and other infrastructure to open up the country’s vast, unexplored and untapped mineral wealth in its interior and the north.

The world expert on Canada’s geology is petrologist Wayne Goodfellow with the Geographic Survey of Canada in Ottawa. He’s an expert on rocks and petrology is a multidisciplinary incorporating a knowledge of chemistry, physics, mathematics, geophysics, structural geology, and geochemistry.

I interviewed him at last week’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada giant conference in Toronto about how Canada is a mining giant but is also one of the most unexplored nations in the world with vast untapped reserves in Canada’s remote interior.

“If I was going to hazard a guess,” he said in an interview this week, “there are three to five times’ more than has ever been found or exploited….three to five times more the current reserves as well as what we have left. It’s huge. There are vast areas in this country where boots have never been on the ground.”

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With asbestos, we are the Ugly Canadians – by Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail – June 25, 2011)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous impact and influence on Canada’s political and business elite as well as the rest of the country’s print, radio and television media.

Billions of dollars will be spent over the next two decades to repair the Parliament Buildings. One reason for the repair: The buildings are full of asbestos, a cancer-causing substance that Canadians no longer use.

But we mine asbestos, we ship it, we make money from it, and we’ll use every diplomatic trick in the book to defend this odious practice. We are the Ugly Canadians.

The Harper government could care less. It vigorously defends mining asbestos because of one little corner of Quebec, near Thetford Mines, where the asbestos is mined and shipped to developing countries, mostly in Asia. Stephen Harper’s top Quebec minister, Christian Paradis, used to head the Thetford Mines chamber of commerce. Mr. Harper campaigned in the area and supported the mining. He spent part of Friday, St. Jean Baptiste Day, in Thetford Mines, thereby reinforcing his government’s political marriage to asbestos.

This week, the Ugly Canadians stood alone against the world in blocking the listing of chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous chemical under the Rotterdam Convention.

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Canada’s toxic asbestos trade – Toronto Star Editorial Comment – June 25, 2011

The Toronto Star, which has the largest broadsheet circulation in Canada,  has an enormous impact on Canada’s federal and provincial politics as well as shaping public opinion.

For years the federal government has been warned by doctors, environmentalists, unions, even Health Canada, about the deadly impact of asbestos. But Ottawa remains intransigent about curbing exports of this harmful mineral. Once again this week it opposed listing chrysotile asbestos on the United Nations’ list of dangerous materials. Once again it acted irresponsibly.

At a summit in Switzerland to discuss the Rotterdam Convention — a UN treaty on the international trading of hazardous substances — Canadian officials quietly blocked the inclusion of asbestos on the list of dangerous materials, joining such countries as Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

The hypocrisy is staggering. The federal government has spent millions to clear its own buildings of this noxious material — including taking it out of 24 Sussex Drive to protect the Prime Minister and his family. Canadian companies, schools and homeowners have also removed asbestos from their structures. Yet we happily export it.

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