u/Jimm_Kirkk

There is little denying the scale of this issue. The article itself is huge, and if I had to use the famous Reddit initialism of TL;DR, it would have to be TL;DR raised to the 5th power.

Anyways, it's a big deal. From other trade numbers, it looks as if Canada imports about 50-100B less than it exports to the US. Obviously, the US wants more access to Canada such that the deficit shrinks to near nothing. On the surface, that sounds fair and free, if both agree, but does population size and industry base skew the numbers? This is part of the crux of the matter: if yes, then Canada just keeps on the path it's on; if no, then the US expects to export more to Canada.

The long-running byline has been, at some point, one side will show their cards more, and is at least one card now on the table, that being oil exports? The XL pipeline, which has been a political football and hot potato, is back lime light. The project was started and stopped so many times that project engineers must be suffering from whiplash, yet now it is a deal breaker.

It is fatiguing to be bombarded daily with the trade talks. The signing of any deal will only be symbolic to say "we have a deal!" but I am sure that whatever deal is inked in the short future will be only at the US's pleasure, until they see a need to change the deal and conditions again.

The agriculture business is perhaps more complex than some would imagine. With that said, the price of Canadian beef is expensive. But sometimes you have to ask the stupid question: If prices are high, and quality is excellent, and the demand is high, then why is there not more domestic production?

Supply and demand are ever-present for all businesses. Some true capitalists suggest a business is either growing or shrinking, and a plateau is just an inflection between growth or decline. So what is the real state of beef production? Is there demand or a plateau?

The article makes reference to Australian beef as filling a niche market, or said another way, a market for those who can't afford Canadian beef. There will likely be more people in that category in a few months especially if the trade deal goes bad with the US. Canada's economy will be hit hard and general inflation will increase.

If I remember back to Covid days and a price of a 2x4 went from $2 and change to $11, one feels lost on how such pricing happens. Is beef just high because producers want it to be high? Canadian beef reminds me of Canadian oil, we should be totally self-sufficient and economical.

Of the Big 5 (Ford, GM, Chrysler, Honda, and Toyota) what ranking would be given to each company for loyalty to Canada? Loyalty is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this context as companies will go where the money is. Due to US tariffs and business uncertainty, that loyalty is being tested to its core strengths, if any are left.

My gut suggests: from most to least: Ford, Honda, Toyota, Chrysler, and finally GM.

This idle plant will likely be sold to a competitor or repurposed by another.

While we will not find out for a while, most of the Big 5's cards will have to be shown in the next few months as Canada and the US hammer out a trade agreement, where the US is already indicating Canadian cars are not welcome in the US.

It does feel like Groundhog Day every day for the past six months to a year. We wake to the news of another mid-night world impacting social media post and then we live with the musing. But some of those musings are enacted upon, and real effects take hold. This week will be the climax of a year's long push to get a deal signed.

As the very ground the Autopact was built on shakes, and cracks open, will they grow to giant ravines never to heal, or some other shape of contravesty? We will know shortly.

This is a good news story as Canadian tech sees and is acting on the opportunities in this sector. While Telesat still needs to rely on its competitor Starlink's owner, who also owns SpaceX, to lift the satellites into low-earth orbit, it seems a full push to become a major player.

There is a concern in general though, and that is how many satellites can fit into this low-earth orbit before they start colliding or creating space junk that effects other areas of space operations. I can only assume that this has been well thought out but sometimes when there is only a few players in the game, there are risks that are more than self-serving.

The emergence of satellites was partially the blame for the down fall of the Avro Arrow in turn hurt Canada's aerospace manufacturing, but times have changed and satellite demand has increased and will only continue.

Canada is simply too slow about just about anything it does. Even when it was clear years ago that demand would only sky rocket, we wonder and wonder whether we should build more. It is a theme and flaw with Canada.

Since the early 2010s, Canada has had forest fires that have wiped out communities and countless hectares of forest, knowing provinces needed to increase their forest fire fighting capabilities, and the ambient atmospheric temperature continues to increase, and while producing a world renowned aircraft for fighting forest fires, we are still lacking the push to seize the opportunity.

Last year has been much talked of as for nation-building projects, and here is a product that is already a class leader, and yet the governments still don't seem to see this as a golden goose.

In contrast to America, the US would gladly dive into such a program and sell product around the world. The question has to be: what is Canada waiting for?

It could be easily envisioned that each province and territory would have a fleet of these planes ready to go and protect the forests and communities, all supporting one another when the need demands it.

Canada has likely missed the boat on this opportunity as other countries are no longer going to wait for slow pokes to get off their hands and butts and increase the production of these aircrafts. Yes, we can and should double production, but that decision was needed 15 years ago or longer.

At present, three parties: a provincial and federal corporation, and one pipeline company.

A big question would be the costs and whether the initial project cost will be even relevant considering the Trans Mountain line went from ~5B$ to ~35B$. The difference signals incompetence at least in project estimation.

Pembina Pipeline is that one other company and their commercial background is in pipelines and the transport of the product which is accomplished with a diluting technique that allows the bitumen to flow easier then removing the chemicals at the end of the pipeline.

It is interesting to see the lack of private corporations in the mix from the start. This is likely due to several reasons, none probably more paramount is the unwillingness to engage in such a joint offering because of the amount of delay that is associated with building pipelines in Canada. It was once said from initial approval to completion is 15 to 20 years, and at that rate, the demand will be gone.

To be a fly on the wall and listen to both sides of the table explain their positions while the autopact itself is under US administration pressure would be interesting to say the least.

GM, out of the big three, has given an impression of a flight risk where they would exit Canada if they had their way. In 2018 they had a plan to open manufacturing plants in Brazil, and the unions then, along with the Canadian government raised concerns, but oddly it was Trump who likely put a dagger in that plan by directly telling GM they will never sell cars in the US that were built in Brazil, and GM scuttled the plan. But this time around, GM would be more in favour in expanding in the US and export to Canada.

Lots of issues might be on the table, but the key one is whether any of their idle plants in Canada will be filled with work. No longer will be it easy to build in Canada for export to the US, GM knows that and so do the unions. To further complicate things for the union, is that the botherly love that was once such a proud feeling shared with their US counterparts, no longer exists as the US unions will be prime benefactors with any GM expansion in the US.

These talks will be the canary in the mine, and perhaps show more of GM's resolve to growth in Canada or tread water either to placate the US administration or hide its true intentions.

The demand for lithium, in any state, must be high. From raw ore extract to finished grade compound, through to final batteries, are all opportunities for Canada. The higher up in the value chain, the better for Canada. We are now in the battery age, and it will only grow. It is not just car batteries; it is everything that requires some form of power to operate.

There are environmental concerns with lithium mining and Canada needs to guard against sloppy practices that affect water and air quality.

Whether final products find their way into any US-bound exports is hard to say. Shipping and storage of the product likely have some special considerations too, as the potential for fire is huge, and lithium fires are very difficult and dangerous to handle. Lithium will be a strategic material for any country, and as the article suggests, the race is on and Canada can not afford to sit this one out. We have to be a player!

Another action brought on by US tariffs. While the US allowed their steel industry to decline and their business leaders ignore reinvestment, Canada picked up the slack in its own industry as anyone would do in a free market economy to meet the demand. Both countries benefitted from the efforts, but now, the US is penalizing Canada for leveraging the capitalism that US braggs so much about. You're damned if you do, and damned when you don't.

It is hard to ignore that the program itself is warranted because manufacturing of steel is likely as a strategic commodity as they come. Steel is the backbone of so much infrastructure, that without that capability, would leave Canada vulnerable.

On the surface, the answer would be yes.

But like so many of these business arrangements, is the effort sustainable? Is the goal to actually make a profit or just a cost center where someone else will be the prime benefactor? Maybe this is a moot point after all, as if Alberta and the Feds both get what they are looking for, then the profit is not an issue as it is an expense.

Other questions would be who would buy it, would Canada ever see a profit on the sale?? It has been near impossible to get pipelines built in Canada for the last 20+ years, so companies and operators are likely reluctant to re-engage. But for the foreseeable future, oil will be in the economy.

If the conversation gets diluted a little more, then perhaps the money should have never been directed towards a pipeline itself, but an oil refinery capable of supplying all of Canada's gasoline and diesel fuel demand.

While the trade talks are the biggest story, the article reveals little new, other than the discussion of a bi-lateral bdtween Canada and the US, and also a tri-lateral with Canada, US, and Mexico. Obviously the bi-lateral would be on goods that only impact Canada and the US.

The big issues that keep coming: alcohol, autos, and dairy.

Alcohol: Most provinces have banned the sale of US alcohol in retaliation of the original tariffs. This was not a light impact as Trump had originally suggested, and now it is a main item at the table. The question that comes to mind is: was this retaliatory measure needed? Symbolicly the answer is yes, but the probable answer is no because many Canadians would have likely rejected buying US booze as their own decision as many Canadians likely feel some animosity towards the US due to Trump's constant social media attacks on Canada.

Autos: While Trump states that he does not want Canadian cars, he might not be far from the truth either. The rebalancing of autos has been moving in the favour of the US for a while, and will continue. Their market is 10X compared to Canada's, so even a rational mind would look at the numbers and compare population size, and Canada has likely benefited by over producing certain vehicles due to this difference in population. The other issue weighing in the US favour is they have been able to target specific car companies to pressure them into building in the US. Both Honda and Toyota are expanding their foot prints in the US, and that should concern Canada as both Honda and Toyota are manufactured in Canada also. Another example would be Hyundai who are doing a sizeable investment of heavy industrial and auto expansion into the US with little doubt of shipping US autos to Canada. There is an Ontario based professor, I believe his name is Ian Lee, who has suggested that Canadian auto production will come to an end. He can see the bigger picture better than most but I still think there is room for Canada to manufacture for Canada's domestic market, and if we rationalize some car imports, then maybe Honda and Toyota can actually expand in Canada. The question would be whether Canadians would give up diverse offerings from importers and settle for less diverse offerings from a handful of auto manufacturers all for the sake of keeping auto production in Canada.

Dairy: Oh, the sacred cow, literally. The US has been trying to slaughter Canada's supply management for as long as I can remember. This time around, they are looking for a marked increase in access to Canada. For the layperson, it is hard to know what are the real differences between Canada's system and the US system. A Co-pilot drive suggests that Canada's system is about managing risk and the US system is about production. Are there differences in the quality of products and whether the use of antibiotics are a concern? Little doubt that some in Canada would trade our system for US imports if the price was lower, and that is a major consideration now that the cost of living is through the roof.

A lot of the US posture is the way Trump negotiates, as a bully, with little tact or subtlety on but the US has managed to get other countries bigger than Canada to bend knee. The Canadian consumers may have a grudge against US goods, or they will have a short memory and move on. As the article suggests, talks are moving forward, and concessions are being discussed, and whether concessions are on both sides, time will tell.

Certainly good news considering the persistent trade talks that are dragging on. This could be the mark of resilience as US tariffs cause obstacles in what was a good trading relationship, now, it has become ugly.

Our trade deficit is growing due to tariffs as we are not exporting enough and obviously we import more in relation to lower exports. But Canada likely needs to make more goods for Canada and Canadians need to buy Canadian.

There was a report or news item that suggested approximately $183B of investment was targeted towards Canada. I would figure some of that investment is pending on the trade talks with the US, and that indecision is probably one of the things the US is counting on, to give pause and hope to steer that money to the US.

The skilled labour shortage is ever present in Nova Scotia, and I'm sure, everywhere in Canada. The trades are always short, and that has to be near cultural as many people overlook trades as being lucrative careers, and for those with an entrepreneurial spirit, a very direct means to running their own businesses. And this, in itself, is something that Canada seems to need more of.

Something to learn for me; Helium is used as a coolant for high-speed computing as with what is inside a large data center. The large rush to build data centers has created shortages in chips for all types of computers and the price of basic consumer electronics has increased due to the demand.

If 30% of the world supply of helium comes from one site in the Middle East, then considering all the political and military interventions, there would be opportunities outside that region.

While the development for helium is a true opportunity, a concern that is not getting enough attention is the noise from these data centers which require a lot of electricity supplied either by local grids or local gas-turbine powered generation plants. Think of a jet engine, or several, running 24/7. That noise is the growing problem as more data centers are likely planned.

The more technology used, the easier the tracking. This has been known since automation has entered into workflows.

It will only increase as new tools will be easily deployed to sift through countless databases to see work computers, softwares, and sites are being used during any given time of the day. Like a drug addiction, for managers, this type of surveillance will be hard to resist.

A question to ask is: Not that we can, but should we leverage these tools? The newer tools will surely be powered by AI capabilities which will give such systems ease of deployment by pointing at a group of computers and databases, then the system will easily summarize activity.

Like anything, it is not necessarily the technology that is the issue, it is the way it will be used. Keystroke logging has been around for decades, but since the work-at-home push during Covid, logging use has ramped up as one means to see if employees are actually working, but using a keyboard does not means always working, so more tools were introduced to see where those keystrokes led to.

Employees are hired for a specific series of tasks to meet a target, yet tracking software might be going beyond simple end target measures and be all monitoring that become oppressive. Some jobs are purely transactional, and then there are jobs that are more research based and less transactional, but as long as they require a computer to complete, then they will be a target for monitoring. It will not matter if the computer is in the office or at home, the monitoring tools will be able to determine a usage against standard or average user profile.

There will be little doubt such tools will lead to body-break analysis. Food and bathroom breaks will be at least a subset of summary of a worker's contribution to the collective work in an office. With great powers comes great responsibilities. I just hope those who deploy and use such technology, use it sensibly.

A device to offer an extra layer of protection is itself hacked to allow unauthorized access to funds. That is certainly not a good look. At the heart of the issue is the algorithm to generate security keys was flawed by not using a true number generator but instead used a deterministic number generator that can be seeded to give a predicted result. I know little of this itself but know that PCs can have their random number generator seeded to do likewise. So, why was this method used if the company knew it was faulty?

The article suggests that an AI agent of some means was potentially responsible for the hack. This is concerning because AI is like giving the bank keys to the robbers. The other item inside suggests if your running open software or have ever had it pubished to the web, then it is already compromised. IT would be likely safe to assume that anything that was ever put on the web is now captured in some form by AI to use and re-use for good or bad, which should scare the public!

Will the company be held responsible for the hack or will the explanation offered be enough to avoid legal costs and/or a suit?

The only excitement here is the return for investors. It is hard to be happy for retail food giants in Canada even though they are businesses. Their bargain outlets have increased traffic and revenue, overall the company saw $15B is quarterly revenue and $750M in profit, for around 5%. The question from an outsider is whether that increase is profit is due to finding efficiencies or on the backs of higher prices. I would suggest the latter.

The customers switching to frozen vegetables should not be surprise, the price and shelf life are both better, and the food quality is compariable to fresh considering the flash freezing is very effective at preserving the original condition of the food.

The GPL-1 generic is doing well, again, no surprise. The pharmacy business is doing great in Canada, as we march towards a diabetes epidemic. There has to be a correlation here with this type of drug in such high demand and the amount of ultra-processed food that we now eat.

There was a great line from some politician in the news cycle recently, I think in the US where the economy is doing much better than Canada's. When asked that inflation was down, he replied to remember that the rate went eased a little but the prices still went up. And it does seem that since Covid, greed inflation has taken hold.

The amazing mineral nickel supports aerospace propulsion across the world. With aerospace jet and rocket engines increasing in demand, the future of this mine is guaranteed. There is an excellent video here on this incredible material and the insane engineering that goes into jet engines: The Ridiculous Engineering Of Jet Engines - YouTube

Canada needs to take advantage of its strengths, and raw materials certainly fall into that category. Along with mining the resource comes the environmental responsibility of doing it right. Assessing the land, waterways, and impacts on wildlife are just some of the areas to understand. Building new technology is also a potential constraint. Where it all takes time to complete, then can come legal challenges and other social agreements.

Along the pathway to approval, the clock keeps ticking, and some will argue that it simply takes too long to get things approved. Sometimes the duration is due to the complexity of the technical aspects, other times it can be a number of reasons, but if to get the project safely operating and respecting the environment, the time is well spent.

Do you think seven years is too long to get approvals?

If Air Canada has already started to account for paid ground work, then it is time for Westjet to do likewise.

I don't know all the tasks that are within the scope of the discussions. However, if the tasks are fundamental to getting passengers on and off the planes, then that would have to be declared as work, thus paid work.

On the company side, there is the argument that labour costs can become unsustainable. It is easy to see that if cabin crew earn $100K per year, well, that is not going to fly either.

Part of the stumbling block now will be the union not willing to reduce its current base pay in order to receive the additional pay from the unpaid ground work. Their argument will be, we fought for that pay, now pay us for the ground work too. The company will surely suggest that the previous pay was partially to account for ground work.

Next will be the duration of the strike. With air travel down in relation to the US, does that mean there is extra capacity available from Air Canada to pick up the slack? Likely so, to what degree, hard to say.

The old saying in business "You're either growing or dying!" and for Couche-Tard it is clearly the former.

The journey to this size of company starting with one store and now tens of thousands and money like the monopoly game, this organization just keeps on getting bigger. They have found a methodology to trim waste and make each purchase more efficient and obviously more profitable.

I do wonder what is the true goal. To own every convenience store chain in the world? When is big enough, enough? Who are they trying to compete with?

It would be fascinating to know how they find and generate savings after each purchase.

Classified as a trade irritant with the US, the streamer contribution will be removed and replaced by government funding, even though the US says this move will not give any credit to Canada. The government claims it is based on affordability (in some manner), yet we pay. Does not sound like good business.

The game seems to be that everything the US sends our way is market value only, and everything we send to the US will be market value plus tariffs. Canada was to impose a digital tax on large external service providers such as Google, FB, and others, but that has been shelved and the US had warned if Canada inact such a policy the US would retaliate.

Once again, we are wrong about our policies, and the US is right. It is amazing to have such a perspective. I guess part of the US perspective is that Canada should welcome the US companies' services and their harvesting of our private data.

I don't know the answer, but it does seem it is a one-way street.