Port Place project approved

The OMB has approved the Port Place tower, leaving disappointed residents no recourse.

Unless…

The Republican Response

I thought for a moment the universe might collapse when Jindal (Republican Governor of Louisiana) used the catastrophic response to Hurricane Katrina (after six years of a Republican President) as an example of bureaucracy run amok.

P.S. The apology was nice.

Like it or… don’t

The National Post’s editorial board, fed up with Quebec’s continuing refusal to speak English and vote Conservative (or something), suggests the Quebecois should shut up or put up. Be like the rest of us or just separate already. They suggest it’s time for the federal government to “adopt a tough-love attitude” because the Tories have nothing to lose.

Maybe it’s the National Post’s editorialists that need to go. This federation is flexible and accommodating provincial differences is something it does well. If the editorialists want to live in a land of homogeneity and consensus, they can be the folks to go.

And if we’re going to be dividing Canadians by province, it should be pointed out that Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia are Canada. The rest of you are late to the game, and have no right to ask any of the original players to go.

Golf clap, if you please

Andrew Coyne was not impressed with the Obama fan(atic)s who stood out in the cold to yell encouraging words to a passing SUV.

I don’t think this is a uniquely Canadian deficiency – remember Berlin? – so there’s no need to be concerned. Our national neuroses (of the beer commercial variety) played no part in this.

No, the reason I bring this to your attention is because Coyne makes reference to the Jonas Brothers, and that struck me as inordinately humourous. Read the post. It’s fun.

(photo credit)

Cinematic mice

That historical asymmetry was exacerbated in Mexico’s case following its entry into NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) in 1994. Subsequently, and unlike Canada (another of three “partner” countries to enter into the agreement), Mexico became increasingly unable to protect its film industry from the onslaught of Hollywood, particularly in the areas of distribution and exhibition, and, between 1995 and 1997, film production slumped to an all-time low there since the 1930s.

Framework 49, No. 2, Fall 2008, pp. 86–105.

It’s interesting that Hollywood is producing Spanish-language films for foreign audiences. I suspect there wasn’t much of a domestic film industry, by the early nineties, to muscle out of English Canada, but what protects French Canada from cultural domination by Hollywood? Is it that there are so few francophones it would be unprofitable, or are there too few French-speaking people in Los Angeles (as compared to Spanish-speaking people or English Canadians) for the necessary cross-cultural pollination?

We’ll follow this adorable story throughout the day

CNN is treating Obama’s visit like a water-skiing squirrel.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Because I need to busy myself with the consequential work of a student, two links that are too important to go un-blogged but not important enough for my time:

Another condo planned for Port Dalhousie – and it doesn’t meet the heritage regulations!

Trailer parks: a more viable way of achieving higher density than you might think.

Toronto: things could be so much worse

1) It’s a recession, sure, but in the long-run Toronto may come out on top. So says Richard Florida, not for the first time, but it needs to be repeated until people understand that the collapse of Detroit is not the collapse of civilization.

2) GO Transit is getting $500 million (pledged last year) for service and station improvements while transit agencies in the US are facing catastrophic budget shortfalls. We can argue about the merits of giant parking structures at train stations (for which a good chunk of the cash is targeted), but its better than nothing.

2 and a half) Michael Ignatieff makes the right noises about high-speed trains.

bonus half) Awarded to a comment following the train post:

Ignatieff is endorsing a high-speed train now? Please! All the pounds sterling in the Empire would not suffice to push steel through the cold, inhospitable Canadian wilderness! The Dominion would surely bankrupt itself upon such an endeavour, and we should be quite happy with a ragged dirt track in the horseshoe with signs every kilometre reading “WINZOR DIS WAY”.

- guest comment by Sir George Brown’s reanimated corpse

(photo credit)

Repeat, this time with evidence

A couple months ago, I asserted that expanding higher education in Ontario would be a good way to spend our way out of recession. Now I can say it’s not just a crazy scheme: Ontario will need 25,000 new undergraduate positions over the next 15 years.

Apparently there is no more room at the universities in Toronto, and some are calling for the creation of a new university focused on undergraduate education.

The way I see it, expansion of the existing universities outside Toronto, especially those in declining or stagnating cities, is a good way to compensate for deindustrialization. Windsor, OUIT, and Brock could help fill the void left by manufacturers.

Speaking specifically to the situation in St Catharines, a larger university presence in the central city would also help the us achieve the intensification targets of the province’s Places to Grow Act.

Good Point: trade is risky too

Canada’s been getting some good press lately, thanks mostly to the non-implosion of Canadian banks. Of course, this is really the minimum one should expect from a bank.

However, Tyler Cowen points out that its not very wise to invest most of the country’s GDP in trade with a nation of risky banks. No matter how safe our domestic banks, the economy will still tank if the Americans don’t have money to trade.

I’m of two minds when it comes to trading with the US. They present us with a large, convenient, and usually stable basket in which to place all our eggs. If we were one nation, nobody would expect Ontario to decouple with Michigan in favour of India. But we are not Americans and it is probably not a good idea to encourage the elephant-mouse qualities of our relationship.

Broadly speaking, trade with the US is good for Canada and should not be discouraged in any way. Yes, there are some potential rough spots with NAFTA (water and culture come to mind) but they are not treaty-killers. Ideally, we would grow our trade with the rest of the world even faster. Canada should be pursuing membership in DR-CAFTA and free trade with the EU, for example. Granted, I’m no economist, but there must be government tools or incentives that encourage international trade.

There’s probably nothing we can or could have done to shield ourselves entirely from this mess, but being coupled so tightly to one trading partner is risky business.