Things are not getting better!

[pierrelebel]

From Stat Canada this morning:

=============================================================================

Employment fell by 46,000 in December, the result of declines in full-time work. The unemployment rate rose 0.3 percentage points to 7.2% as more people searched for work.

Dampened by the decline in December, employment gains in 2013 amounted to 102,000 or 0.6%.

Employment growth averaged 8,500 per month in 2013, compared with 25,900 in 2012.

=============================================================================

Folks we need a new Economic Plan.  The one advertised with our tax dollars by Harper and his Cabinet is obviously not working.

[pierrelebel]

I forgot to include the link to the full story:

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/140110/dq140110a-eng.htm?HPA

[valve37]

Get these pipelines underway, that will demand tons of high paying jobs!

[valve37]

Noteworthy is of the 46000, 39000 is the result of our Wynne/McGuinty Liberal Government.

Now isn't that interesting. Can anyone say higher and to go higher Ontario hydro rates?

================================================================================================

Today we learned that Ontario lost over 39,000 jobs in December. That is more than any other province in Canada. 

These numbers reflect the failure of Kathleen Wynne and the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals to manage Ontario's economy or promote job growth.
This number also marks a new milestone for the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals.  Under their failed economic leadership, Ontario's unemployment rate has been higher than the national average for 7 years - 84 consecutive months.

That's 7 years of waste, scandal, and Liberal self-interest taking priority over Ontario's economy and it has to end. 

Tim Hudak and the Ontario PC Party have a plan.  We can turn Ontario around and put it back on the path to prosperity.

[prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil]

We need more manufacturing, it's as simple as that. "Creating" is what made this country and gave us prosperity at one time, but now, we have Canadian corporate owners who get items made in other countries and Harper is advocating for more importing which makes it virtually impossible for any company in Canada to compete with items being made with what is tantamount to slave labour in other countries. Attracting more manufacturing (hopefully Canadian owned) is in many respects the responsibility of all branches of government in order to create an atmosphere both financially and otherwise that will make manufacturing attractive enough to set up and stay. Also, small business needs help in Canada. Few people seem to realize the amount of people that small businesses employ and when you add it all up, it's a good chunk of people. If people do not have jobs, it goes without saying that they will not spend and that hurts other businesses and the economy as a whole. Harper has to quit thinking BIG business and resources and start thinking down to earth where a majority of Canadians live and work.  

[neatstuffkp]

Nope ... things are not getting better!

[nuvistors]

How can things get better when the Ontario Liberal government is paying  $0.60 to $0.80    per KWH for wind and solar and selling it on the wholesale market for around $0.04  per KWH.        And when  Ontario does not need the power they keep buying it and  pay the US or Quebec to take the excess power. 

[pierrelebel]

"when the Ontario Liberal government..."

Stay focussed!

Please read the release from Stat Canada (link above).  We are referring to the national employment and unemployment situation.  Not just Ontario.

The Harper government was elected in large part by Ontarians to govern all of Canada, not just Alberta.  Without Ontario voters, Harper goes back to Opposition.

[valve37]

A major reason manufacturing jobs have left the province and will continue to do so.

At a time when Ontario has seen its manufacturing industry crater, the province has found that it can still do a booming business with one type of export: electricity.

Unfortunately for ratepayers, the business model is a little unsound. If energy were doughnuts, Ontario would still be expanding its dough supply, while sending ever more trucks full of discounted day-olds to places like Michigan, Minnesota and Quebec.

The province’s Independent Electricity System Operator on Wednesday released its year-in-review of the province’s energy data. Most of the numbers were as expected, with wind energy an increasing part of the supply mix, coal a decreasing part of it and nuclear energy remaining the backbone of the grid.

Energy exports, meanwhile, “rose to 18.3 TWh,” which is an awful lot of electricity: enough to power 300 billion 60-watt bulbs for an hour. The province’s exports have been on a steady upward trend; the 2013 total is a notable jump from 14.6 TWh in 2012 and from 12.9 TWh in 2011, according to figures released by the IESO last year. Exports have increased by almost 50% over that two-year period.

This would be a welcome development if the province and its ratepayers — which is to say, you — received a return for our electricity that was equal to, or ideally above, the amount that was paid to produce it.

But it does not. Jurisdictions that import electricity from Ontario pay something close to the wholesale market price of electricity, a number that changes hour by hour and is dependent on factors too numerous to list here. For 2013 the average wholesale price was between 2.5¢/kWh and 3¢/kWh. The cost paid to produce that electricity, again using the IESO’s own numbers, is on average about 8.5¢/kWh, or about four times the wholesale price.

Consumers pay, again depending on a host of factors, something much closer to the larger number, because built into the cost of our electricity is everything from capital investment to executive salaries to the payout for when gas plants are cancelled in the middle of election campaigns.

This trend, where Ontario ships excess electricity to its neighbours at steep discounts, is not new. In 2011, the province’s Auditor-General noted in a report that “the price Ontarians pay for electricity and the price it charges its export customers … have in recent years been moving in opposite directions.”

He estimated that Ontario received about $1.8-billion less for its energy exports than what it cost ratepayers between 2005-11. And as the numbers released Wednesday show, the exports are only increasing.

(Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli has in recent weeks touted exports as a source of profits for the province, but seems to have since realized that revenues do not equal profits. When I asked his office for clarification on Thursday, I was referred to the IESO, which confirmed that Ontario received the wholesale price for exports, which is a long way from a price that would allow for profits.)

It is true that Ontario might as well export its excess supply, because it allows the power system to recover a chunk of its costs, but given the lousy exchange it should hardly be a policy goal. It’s worth noting that exports tend to rise during periods of low demand — late at night and on weekends — so that the wholesale price received is usually even lower than the daily wholesale average.

But high export levels appear to be part of the plan, at least in the medium term. Over the next 18 months, the IESO expects to add another 3,300 megawatts of renewable energy capacity to the supply mix, which is about double what exists in the system. And, as has been noted time and again, it’s those renewables that often contribute to the cut-rate exported power.

On Wednesday, the day of the IESO report, the province’s wind-energy sector was running at almost full tilt, more than 1,600 megawatts — at midnight, when demand was low. By midday, it had dropped to producing about a third of that amount. (Even that number is relatively robust; on Thursday morning the sector was ticking along at less than 10% of capacity. As it does.)

These are the continued remnants of the Green Energy Act, which caused a renewables boom where none was needed. Ontario keeps expanding its supply, even as energy demand is expected to decline in the coming years. Good news for Minnesotans and Quebecers, I guess.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/01/09/scott-stinson-ontario-powers-up-electricity-exports-b...

[prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil]

It seems ......"We are referring to the national employment and unemployment situation.  Not just Ontario.".......... didn't register.

[pierrelebel]

It never does with those guys.

"Employment gains in 2013 amounted to 102,000, or 0.6%, the slowest December-to-December growth rate since 2009. In 2012, growth was 310,000 or 1.8% over the 12-month period."

That means that across Canada - a federal government is responsible for all provinces and territories - 208,000 fewer jobs were created in 2013 compared to 2012.  208,000 fewer jobs!

"the slowest December-to-December growth rate since 2009"

Yet, Canadian taxpayers are paying 26 million dollars for that "Economic Action Plan" advertising campaign telling us how great the federal Conservative majority government is doing.

[valve37]

With some it just doesn't register what is happening to energy rates in Ontario and how it is affecting manufacturing here, hence jobs. 

Will someone tell me how the Feds can fix Ontario's energy policy. Heard recently that 600 more wind turbines are slated for the Huron lake shore. Have you got some on your property Prior?

Perhaps the Feds can pay for the billions to cancel those contracts for 600 more so we won't be subsidizing the export of the energy produced from them to the US.  

[pierrelebel]

"how it is affecting manufacturing here, hence jobs. "

How many jobs were lost in Ontario by Blackberry (Research in Motion) and Sears in the last year or two?  Do any of these jobs have anything to do with the cost of hydro in Ontario?

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/companies-and-industries/alert-blackberry-to-cut-4500-jobs-report/

http://crackberry.com/6000-rim-jobs-line

ibtimes.com/canadian-jobs-report-worse-us-thanks-freezing-temperatures-layoffs-blackberry-bbr-sears-shld-1535194

[valve37]

I can only imagine what BB's energy bill would be although that wouldn't be their demise for the way things have gone for them. However there is Kelloggs, Heinz and the Talbotville Ford plant gone down the tubes where their energy bill is unimagineable. Next will be the General Dynamics plant here likely. No big loss as they make things to make war and kill people. I suppose it would go south where hydro we sell them will only be 4 cents a KWH.  

[pierrelebel]

"Kelloggs, Heinz and the Talbotville Ford plant gone down the tubes"

Did any of these plants mention the cost of electricity to move their operations somewhere else or what it more a case of high labour costs?  Kelloggs for example moving from unionized London to non-unionized plants elsewhere, including Belleville, also in Ontario.

Closing these plants have little to do with the federal or provincial governments inaction or cost of power. 

Why is it so darn difficult for you to admit the federal government has done a terrible job creating jobs in 2013 instead of shifting the blame?

[prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil]

These plants closed down because of cheaper labour in the US (people now desperate for jobs since the crash) and people in Mexico and offshore. Some companies like Kelloggs found that breakfast has changed and their product is not as important as well as losing market share to drive-thru breakfasts and other breakfasts being imported from other countries. NONE, I repeat NONE of these companies have ever mentioned for a moment in any of their press releases that hydro had a thing to do with their decision making. If it had it would have been the perfect scapegoat for them, but they didn't because they know it's not true.

Why is it so darn difficult for you to admit the federal government has done a terrible job creating jobs in 2013 instead of shifting the blame?

Because we all know for Harper supporters (getting fewer and fewer) and some particular supporters, that Harper is like a father to them, the man who was going to give them gun freedom and establish Canadian "values" and make Canada more prosperous (because he is after all an 'economist') and they cannot find it in themselves to admit that daddy was wrong, lied to them and was out for only one thing, himself. Neither do they want to have to admit that they were wrong and others were right from the beginning. At breakfast this morning the discussion at the table came around to Harper and a man said he voted for Harper twice but he never will again; and that's a farmer, a devout card carrying dyed in the wool Conservative. Well, up until now.

[valve37]

Some do not recognize that so go our largest trading partner US (80%) so goes our economy and related jobs. Gawd the Government has tried everthing to get Obama on board with Keystone. Other huge pipeline projects which would create tons of jobs (plus spinoff) are being hijacked by natives and green huggers. Our resources will have to be our major job producer as we canot compete in manufacturing in a world economy. It follows if we can't get our resources to market then unemployment will remain stalled. I guess some can't clue in to that.  

[prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil]

What some have a clue about is that although jobs are important the earth, the land, is supposedly here for the future. Also the jobs created making this pipeline are only temporary and once they are gone...........that's it. Some people are all money, money, money, but other people look to things of higher importance. To those who want oil transported, do it by rail and make far better tankers to carry it. Have Harper make more stringent regulations for both the train companies and the tracks.  You want jobs, then there they are and a lot more than a pipeline will ever give you.

We are not the owners of the earth, we are custodians and all the money that people may make from oil they can't take with them when they're six feet under.

[brandeentertainment]

IF we could make jobs and money out of green peace etc. that would be great but not gonna happen ...

Everybody in this world sacrifies the world for money ... Everytime you use a grocery bag or toilet paper you are sacrificing the planet for convience ..

There is not many Natives that will fight for the land till the bitter end they all fight until the price tag gets high enough then give in ,,,

We are all contributing to destroying the world so why not live with money in the bank well doing it

[brandeentertainment]

FYI I collect rain water for any hosing ,gardens car washing I use ..

I use all Green cleaning products

I recylce everything

I have a composter for soil

I also have My back up generator powered by solar power ...

Now after saying all of that I can still tell you I have 1000 habits that hurt this world compared to my 10 habits that help ....

By pipeline which seems to be the enviromentally friendly way these days or by trains everyone knows the jobs need to be created short term or long term it need to be done ..

People who say maybe this or maybe that or this and that and this are the reason why politics talk 90% of the year and work 10% ...  they could just do a pipeline or Train and create tons of jobs but by time they go through The People,The legislatins, The non sense 10 years has passed and 10,000 families are still struggling to put meals on there table