Vancouver Housing Crisis Fuelled By Foreign Buyers As B.C., Canada Do Nothing: Study

VANCOUVER — The Canadian and British Columbia governments are complicit in fuelling Vancouver's housing crisis as foreign Chinese buyers continue to shut local residents out of the market, a new study says.

Josh Gordon, the study's author and assistant professor in the School of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University, said people whose dreams of owning a home are being crushed because they can't compete with foreign investors no longer accept "distraction'' excuses such as low interest rates for the state of the super-heated market.

Why Foreign Ownership Data Won't Solve Vancouver's Affordability Crisis

Data collection on foreign ownership of residential property is not the answer to the housing crisis playing out across Canada and, most acutely, in Vancouver.

Sure, such information might reveal an interesting detail of the housing market, but it is unlikely to be the major insight recent political discussions appear to assume. Indeed, this and an increase in the RRSP withdrawal limit for first-time home buyers are the solutions proposed by the party seeking re-election as our federal government -- showing how deficient current federal policy on housing insecurity and homelessness really is.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Ontario and the Beer Cartel

In Ontario, drinking on long weekends involves planning ahead. Not only are stores closed for civic holidays, but you may have to schedule an extra hour of shopping in the days before, so that you can stand in lines that snake through all of the aisles of liquor you’ve traditionally avoided.  While it may be an opportune time to familiarize yourself with the various varieties of peach schnapps the LCBO offers, the whole experience might be more palatable if they let you open a beer and get social with your sweaty partners in frustration. Unfortunately, drinking at liquor stores is frowned upon by law, and in Toronto, conversing with strangers is taken for a sign of madness. Should the LCBO employees go on strike, as they have threatened to do this Victoria Day weekend, Ontarians will either have to endure longer lines at The Beer Store or purchase their bottles of Canadian Club a week in advance.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet mulls massive Chinese resource project in Arctic

Another massive Chinese-owned resource project is before Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet.

Some time in the new year, four federal ministers are to decide how to conduct an environmental review for the Izok Corridor proposal. It could bring many billions of dollars into the Arctic but would also see development of open-pit mines, roads, ports and other facilities in the centre of calving grounds for the fragile Bathurst caribou herd.

Harper's cabinet mulls massive Chinese resource project in Arctic

Another massive Chinese-owned resource project is before Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet.

Some time in the new year, four federal ministers are to decide how to conduct an environmental review for the Izok Corridor proposal. It could bring many billions of dollars into the Arctic but would also see development of open-pit mines, roads, ports and other facilities in the centre of calving grounds for the fragile Bathurst caribou herd.

Izok Corridor Deal: Harper's Cabinet Mulls Massive Chinese Resource Project In Arctic

Another massive Chinese-owned resource project is before Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet.

Some time in the new year, four federal ministers are to decide how to conduct an environmental review for the Izok Corridor proposal. It could bring many billions of dollars into the Arctic but would also see development of open-pit mines, roads, ports and other facilities in the centre of calving grounds for the fragile Bathurst caribou herd.

Canadians want Stephen Harper to block foreign investment: poll

OTTAWA — Most Canadians want the Harper government to stop the sale of Canadian companies to foreign investors, particularly if the buyer is a state-owned enterprise, a new poll has found.

The Ipsos Reid survey, conducted exclusively for Postmedia News and Global TV, found that 68 per cent of Canadians believe the Conservative government should block the sale of Canadian firms to “all foreign investors.”

New rules for state-owned companies could mean foreign investment shortfall

The feds are getting high marks for their handling of the Nexen takeover, but observers say the government will need to use policy to make up for a potential drop in foreign investment by state-owned enterprises.

The Harper government has clearly signalled its preference for private foreign investment after announcing that it plans to introduce new rules aimed at limiting controlling ownership by foreign state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the oil sands.

Encana, PetroChina Form Partnership To Develop Natural Gas In Alberta

CALGARY - Less than a week after Ottawa waved through CNOOC Ltd.'s $15.1-billion takeover of Nexen Inc., a different Chinese state-owned company is plowing another $2.2 billion into the Canadian oilpatch.

Natural gas giant Encana Corp. (TSX:ECA) and PetroChina subsidiary Phoenix Duvernay Gas announced Thursday they have reached a deal to work together in the Duvernay, a promising shale natural gas formation in west-central Alberta.

Thus far but no further

HAVING spent the past three years trying to woo Asian investors, Stephen Harper, Canada’s prime minister, would have looked foolish had he snubbed the first significant show of interest, a $15.1 billion bid by China’s CNOOC, a state-owned oil giant, for Nexen, a smallish oil company whose main property is in Alberta’s tar sands. But he also had to appease public opinion and some members of his own Conservative Party who opposed the takeover, either because CNOOC is state-owned or because of China’s human-rights record.

Harper’s warning to foreign state-owned firms masks deeper ambiguity in new rules: experts

The impact of Ottawa’s new restrictions on foreign state-owned enterprises on the wider business climate will take years — and more regulatory decisions — to determine, said several analysts who spent the last several days deciphering the new rules.

While simultaneously approving over $20 billion in foreign takeovers during a rare news conference Friday evening, Prime Minister Stephen Harper also announced that the oilsands would from now on be off-limits to foreign SOEs and that similar firms in other sectors would receive extra scrutiny for any “influence” by their home governments.

Nexen deal proves Harper is China’s plaything

Just this once, OK?

That sums up Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s terrified assent to China’s $15-billion CNOCC takeover of Calgary-based petroleum producer Nexen. From now on, he promises, he’ll only say yes under “exceptional” circumstances.

Harper had offered himself up to NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair on a platter, and Mulcair set the platter on fire during question period. It was fun to watch but that’s little comfort. Nexen’s an awful deal for Canadians.

Nexen and Progress takeovers approved: What next?

The federal government's announcement on Friday that it is approving two more big oilsands takeovers (by China's CNOOC and Malaysia's Petronas, both state-owned suitors) was political tap-dancing at its best. Prime Minister Harper's speech listed several reasons why takeovers by foreign state-owned firms are a problem … but then proceeded to approve $21 billion worth of them. Future takeovers by foreign state-owned firms of bitumen assets will not normally be approved, he boldly proclaimed. (This strikes me like warning a burglar who has just robbed your house that you are going to install a burglar alarm sometime in the future.) Exactly how and on what criteria oilsands takeovers by foreign SOEs is not clear (and remember, the government also promised to clarify its foreign takeover rules after the BHP/Potash debacle, but has yet to do so). Foreign companies which are not state-owned are still welcome to take over Canadian bitumen companies -- and foreign state-owned companies are still welcome to take over other (non-bitumen-centred) petroleum companies. So this purported "crackdown" on foreign takeovers is awfully narrow and unclear in its potential application.

Harper’s foreign ownership policy is incomprehensible

Once again I’m dumbfounded that Stephen Harper’s university major was economics. His new policy on foreign ownership, unveiled with fanfare late last week, is as clear as the goo extracted from the dinosaur remains at Fort McMurray.

Harper last Friday rebuked the majority Canadian public opposition to a proposed Chinese government takeover of Calgary oil producer Nexen Inc. with his approval of that $15.1-billion deal, and of a $5.2-billion Malaysian government state grab for Alberta oil and gas assets. In doing so, the PM unveiled a ballyhooed “get tough” stance on future foreign state designs on the Alberta tar sands.

If China Can Have State-Owned Energy Firms, Why Can't We?

"To be blunt, Canadians have not spent years reducing the ownership of sectors of the economy by our own governments, only to see them bought and controlled by foreign governments instead." -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Dec. 7, 2012

There are many good reasons that the Conservative government should have rejected the $15 billion takeover of Canada's Nexen oil and gas giant by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation instead of accepting it last Friday.

‘Vast majority’ of Canadians liked Nexen deal, says Harper. Is he right?

According to the prime minister Monday in question period, the markets approved of the government’s decision to approve CNOOC’s takeover bid for Nexen Inc. This was his defence against a verbal haranguing from Opposition leader Thomas Mulcair on foreign investment regulations. In short, Mulcair said, there is still not enough clarity.

“Parliament enacts legislation and the government executive is responsible for enforcing it and applying it equally to everyone. Last Friday we learned that the prime minister does not think he needs Parliament to change the law,” Mulcair lecture. “In the Nexen case, he said that as long as there are exceptional circumstances, he can continue to approve foreign takeovers even if there is no net benefit to Canada.”

Oilsands Foreign Investment To Slow Under New Rules

OTTAWA - Foreign investment in Canada's oilsands is likely to slow and depress the value of some Canadian firms — but only moderately — as a result of Ottawa's new rules restricting state-owned enterprises, observers say.

But not everyone in the industry sees the development as a negative, arguing that too much development too fast is not necessarily good business.

Only shareholders will benefit from Nexen deal says Mulcair

OTTAWA — As far as NDP leader Tom Mulcair is concerned, there’s just one clear net benefit to a Chinese state-owned company’s takeover of a Calgary-based petroleum producer  – and that’s to the shareholders.

“The only clear net benefit is to Nexen shareholders in Mr. Harper’s oilpatch,” Mulcair told Global’s The West Block on Sunday.

The Nexen deal: 'Friends with benefits' may not be nearly as good as it sounds!

"When we say that Canada is open for business, we do not mean that Canada is for sale to foreign governments," Prime Minister Stephen Harper intoned at a news conference in Ottawa Friday -- except, he didn't add, those parts of Canada our government's rich pals feel like selling off.

So, once again, Dec. 7 gets to be a date that will live in infamy, in this case the soon-to-be infamous sale of Calgary-based Nexen Inc. for a tidy $15 billion to the government of a Communist dictatorship -- or whatever it is you call a Crown corporation run by the government of a Communist dictatorship, which by definition one would think is an uncrowned sort of place.

Are we trading away our rights and environment?

Global trade has advantages. For starters, it allows those of us who live through winter to eat fresh produce year-round. And it provides economic benefits to farmers who grow that food. That could change as oil, the world’s main transport fuel, becomes increasingly scarce, hard to obtain and costly, but we’ll be trading with other nations for the foreseeable future.

Because countries often have differing political and economic systems, agreements are needed to protect those invested in trade. Canada has signed numerous deals, from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to several Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (FIPA), and is subject to the rules of global trade bodies, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO).