David Akin’s On The Hill

Flying over the St. Lawrence river right now, on board Airbus 001, the military jet carrying Prime Minister Harper, his wife, political aides, diplomats and journalists to London, England where Harper will meet Tony Blair and the Queen tomorrow. Cdn Forces staff are serving us breakfast. This morning's in-flight movie is Syriana — which some on board here think is an odd choice.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper spoke to reporters while travelling from Ottawa to London today.

Harper made a statement about the situation in Israel.

The following is my transcript of the English-language portion of the press scrum. The Prime Minister spoke at about 12:15 pm EDT for about four minutes.

Harper: “We're obviously concerned – our government is obviously concerned – about the escalation of violence in the Middle East. Israel has a right to defend itself. It's essential that Hezbollah and Hamas release their Israeli prisoners. Any countries in that area that have influence on those organizations should encourage an end to the violence and recognize and encourage the recognition of Israel's right to exist.”

Harper was asked what he thought of an observation by the Russians that Israel's military response has been disproportionately harsh.

“Israel has a right to defend itself. I think Israel's respnse under the circumstances has been measured. I think it's tremendously disappointing that these attacks are coming from areas that Israel evacuated and so I think the onus for this escalation is on the other side and I would urge them to return the prisoners.”

“I'm assuming this will come up at the G8.”

“Foreign Affairs will do everything it can to help Canadians that are there.”

ON BOARD AIRBUS 001 – Since taking office in February, Prime Minister Harper has already met Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and has twice met with U.S. President George Bush.

Tomorrow, he will have his first private meeting with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street.

Then, on Saturday, it's off to the G8 in St. Petersburg where, according to the itinerary just distributed to us on the PM's plane, Harper will have hour-long one-on-one meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, with Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (the Fins, this year, hold the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union), and with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Then, after the G8, Harper goes to Paris for separate meetings with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and President Jacques Chirac.

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi will be, by the middle of next week, the only G8 leader who has not found his way on to Harper's dance card.

My colleague Ellen Pinchuk, CTV's Moscow Bureau Chief, scored a rare interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a CTV exclusive. Packaged excerpts of this interview ran last night on our national newscast but the entire 28-minute interview, in three segments is available online.
Putin gave this interview in advance of the G8 summit. Ellen and I will be covering this summit for CTV. I will be travelling with the Prime Minister tomorrow when he heads to the United Kingdom to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Queen ahead of the summit which begins this weekend in St. Petersburg.
After the summit, the PM will travel to France where he will tour the Vimy Ridge Memorial Site before separate meetings with French President Jacques Chirac and French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.
The Canadian government has prepared a backgrounder on this trip.

in 1988, I edited the University of Guelph’s student newspaper The Ontarion and, while I (that's me on the left around this time — click on it for an explanation) was at that school and writing for the paper, I wrote a column called “Dance of the Wood Nymph”.

The headline writers at The Portico, the University of Guelph alumni magazine, picked up on that to title a profile about me, penned by writer Rebecca Kendall.

Remember the wood nymph?
Former Ontarion Editor brings home a Gemini

“Cheating, like most forms of dishonesty, has its place and its purpose. In fact, in some cases, cheating is the only option available if . . . one wants to stay in the game. Right now, our federal government doesn’t believe in cheating — they think there’s something inherently bad about it, I suppose — so they have presented a bill to axe our National Policy on Cheating. And so we have free trade.”

Those words were written in the summer of 1988 by David Akin, a young reporter for the student newspaper at the University of Guelph. Back then, Akin’s byline most often appeared in the Ontarion on stories about U of G and campus life, but as editor, he also dabbled in voicing his views on government. Now he travels around North America covering the hottest political topics of our day and can be heard and read daily through the national media. If he wants to share his point of view on today’s political agenda, there’s his daily blog . . . [Read the full story]

A little more than 49,000 people dropped in here to look at something during the month of June and the odds are — as they have been for the last two years or so — that those folks weren’t so much interested in Canadian federal politics as they were in sports cars or Celine Dion. I make that conclusion based on the site traffic logs for On the Hill which continue to show that a picture of me in a Porsche at the Detroit Auto Show continues be heads and away the most popular thing people look at here (Question for Porsche fans: Did you get here from Google or is there a link somewhere that’s sending all the traffic here?) followed closely by a video of Celine Dion. I must say I’m pleased to see that a photo of me “Hard At Work” appears to be a top two favourite, for more than one month — although, again, I’m not sure why. The site logs show that 167,000 pages were served up on June. Here’s the top 15 most popular posts for June. These posts may have been made at any time (the date of the original post follows in brackets) but they were the tops for visitors here in June.

1. A Porsche moment (Mon 10 Jan 2005)
2. Hard at work  (Sat 05 Mar 2005)
3. CIRA gets drawn into Volpe vortex (Fri 02 Jun 2006)
4. Air Canada and a new Celine Dion video — right here! (Mon 01 Nov 2004)
5. Senator Lavigne kicked out of Liberal caucus (Thu 08 Jun 2006)
6. PM to snub gallery dinner? (Thu 18 May 2006)
7. Sea Kings to troop carriers (Wed 31 May 2006)
8. Fair comments (Mon 12 Jun 2006)
9. “YouthforVolpe” tells all! (Sat 03 Jun 2006)
10. The Toronto Star wins on terrorism coverage, says New York Times  (Mon 05 Jun 2006)
11. Jane Austen (Sat 18 Jun 2005)
12. Just what I was waiting for — WTO Podcasts! (Wed 24 May 2006)
13. The New Air Canada uniforms (Mon 01 Nov 2004)
14. CSIS deputy director on “homegrown” terrorists (Mon 05 Jun 2006)
15. The anti-abortion MPs (Fri 12 May 2006)

 

Ipsos-Reid, the polling firm, has exacted its pound of flesh from the national director of the Liberal Party. Fair enough.

But as someone whose last name is constantly misspelled or mispronounced (Attention Ryerson University professors : Mine is pronounced to rhyme with bacon but is spelled Akin), allow me to offer Ipsos-Reid a little advice: The National Director of the Liberal Party is Steven MacKinnon (right). Ipsos was crowing about a certain Steve McKinnon to whom Ipsos gives the title National Party Director.

Now, heaven knows, as someone who spent a decade-and-a-half as a print reporter, I have misspelled my fair share of people’s names. But, then again, I never sued anyone because they questioned my accuracy and then issued a press release about how I was always right: “The reputation of Ipsos Reid for the integrity of its work is of vital importance to its business,” said Peter A. Downard who acted for Ipsos Reid Corporation from the law firm of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin. 

 

From the 10th meeting of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology held June 8, 2006:

Canada may negotiate a free trade agreement with the Republic of South Korea. Bad idea, says Liberal Joe Fontana: “I think it's becoming increasingly clear that unless we get reciprocity or in fact the Koreans show they're prepared to open up the market, we shouldn't go any further until such time as it happens.”

 

From the 10th meeting of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology held June 8, 2006:

The automotive industry in Canada is mighty important, says the president of a group which represents Ford, Chrysler, and GM on the Hill:

Mr. Mark Nantais (Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association): We have roughly 570,000 jobs that are directly or indirectly related to the automotive industry in Canada. We are the largest manufacturing sector. We account for a trade surplus of roughly $6.5 billion of a $22 billion trade surplus with the United States. Certainly, when it comes to CVMA member companies, we procure about $40 billion from Canadian sources, which is roughly three times what the entire federal government purchases on an annual basis. As an industry, we represent roughly 11% or 12% of manufacturing GDP.

David Adams is the president of the group which represents foreign nameplates like Toyota and Honda. He agreed with much of what Nantais had to say but was at pains to point out to the committee that his members are net benefit to Canada and to the industry:

Mr. David Adams (Association of International Automobile Manufacturers of Canada): With respect to globalization, the automotive industry is perhaps the most global of all industries. Globalization is viewed as having a negative effect on Canada's automotive industry. However, the numbers do not necessarily bear this out.

    Capital investment in Canada has been fairly consistent at about $3 billion a year for each of the last seven years. Direct employment in the parts and assembly sector has been relatively stable at about 150,000 for the past five years. And the figure of 148,250 employed in 2005 is about 11% higher than the 133,181 employed in 1995. Vehicle production has been relatively stable at about 2.6 million units for the past five years, and Canada has held on to about a 16% share of North American production over that timeframe.

    Vehicle sales have been relatively stable as well at about 1.55 million units over the past five years. That is not to say there is not significant transition taking place in the industry and in the different sectors and manufacturers within the industry. The challenges currently facing the traditional North American manufacturers are well documented and likely to persist, at least for some time. Again, however, the health of much of the parts manufacturing community is pinned on General Motors, Ford, and to a lesser extent DaimlerChrysler, pushing through their current challenges.

….A more telling statistic is Canada's auto parts trade deficit with Japan. The deficit last year was about $1.7 billion, which is almost exactly the same as it was in 1996, despite the fact that automotive production from Japanese companies in Canada has increased 140%, from about 366,000 units to about 881,000 units last year. It is clear, then, that a lot more parts sourcing is being conducted by these companies in Canada and the United States.

 

Notes from a meeting held June 14 of the Standing Committee on International Trade. The topic du jour was a proposed trade agreement with South Korea.

Chris Buckley is president of Local 222 of the Canadian Auto Workers union. Local 222 is the bargaining unit in Oshawa, Ont. where Buckley’s members work for General Motors at plants that have been recognized with top industry awards as being the best and most efficient plants in North America and among the best and most efficient in the world. GM, nonetheless, has plans to close one of those plants.

Mr. Chris Buckley: Why? How do we make sense of that irrational result? Only one thing can explain it, one-way flood of imported vehicles from offshore auto makers.

I’ve heard others explain it differently: When any one of GM, Ford, or Chrysler got into trouble over the last decade or so, it was usually because of unsustainably high labour costs in the U.S. The solution for these companies was to close down a U.S. plant and shift production to a lower-cost/higher productivity area. Canadian plants were often a lower cost/higher productivity area — particularly when our dollar was trading at low levels compared to the U.S. dollar. But the United States Auto Workers union (UAW) would insist in bargaining with any one of the Big Three that if car plants in Alabama or Chicago or New Jersey were to be closed, some of the pain had to be shared north of the border. And so, typically, you would see the GM announcement or Ford’s decision to close its relatively efficient truck plant in Oakville, Ont. be made at the same time GM or Ford would be closing plants in the U.S. In other words, these plant closures are more the result of bargaining politics than any real economic cause-and-effect. It drives the CAW nuts because there’s almost nothing it can do or say to change the corporation’s mind.

Buckley: Last year 130,000 Korean vehicles entered our market; we exported 400 vehicles into theirs. Those imports are significantly harming our industry at a moment when we need to be fighting as hard as we can to save Canadian jobs.

How are vehicle sales doing this year? GM’s car sales for the current calendar year are 108,952, down about 10 per cent compared to the same period last year. Toyota — number two in Canada when it comes to sales of cars in Canada  at 73,555 — is up nearly 10 per cent. GM’s light truck and van business is down 6.7 per cent for the year; Toyota’s is up 24.3 per cent.

Hyundai, the Korean car giant, actually had a better June than Chrysler, so far as car sales goes. Hyundai sold 4,893 cars in Canada in June compared to 3,638 Chrysler cars. So far this year, Hyundai has sold — and therefore imported — 23,539 cars in Canada. That’s a 12.3 per cent increase compared to the same period last year.

Chrysler — and the rest of the so-called Big Three — sell a ton more light trucks and vans than the offshore nameplates. GM, Ford, and Chrysler were one, two, and three in the country when it comes to truck sales, selling a combined 51,938 trucks. Hyundai’s truck sales (mostly an SUV it makes) were 1,908. Hyundai’s truck sales for the year are at 10,752, a 7.1 per cent year-over-year decline.

Jim Stanford, the CAW’s economist, followed Buckley’s presentation to CITT with his own:

Dr. Jim Stanford: … since the Korean financial crisis, the broader Asian financial crisis in 1997, they have turned to exports aggressively to promote their economic recovery, while keeping a very firm cap on imports, with a variety of techniques, including: macroeconomic policy levers; active management of the exchange rate-very different from how we do it in Canada; taxation policies to shift consumer spending away from imported products; and of course various non-tariff barriers.

Our exports to Korea today are smaller than they were in 1997, despite a decade of economic recovery in Korea. There is no evidence whatsoever that a free trade agreement on the NAFTA model will change that.

…our automotive exports to Korea, which were never big to start with, have fallen by over 90% since 1997. That is despite Korean tariff reduction. Korean tariffs were at 50% in the eighties. They reduced them to 20% later in the eighties, then to 8% in 1995, yet it has had no visible impact on our exports to Korea, and neither will a free trade agreement.

It isn’t just the unions who represent workers at Canadian auto plants (important note here: Workers at Toyota’s plants in Cambridge, Ont. and at Honda’s plants in Alliston, Ont. are not unionized) that are lobbying hard against free trade with Korea. GM, Ford, and Chrysler — represented by their industry association the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association — doesn’t want a deal with Korea, either. Here is Mark Nantais, president of that group, in front of CITT after Stanford.

Mr. Mark Nantais: We have built our industry on free trade agreements. We believe in free trade, but that free trade must be also fair trade. Right now what we're seeing and the approach that the Canadian government has taken, we do not see any possibility of fair trade in this case. The flow is always in one direction. So we see a direct harm to Canada's auto industry. We have a $2.6 billion deficit in 2005 with Korea of which 67% or about $1.7 billion was purely automotive.

Helena Guergis, the parliamentary secretary for International Trade Minister David Emerson, is a member of CITT and she noted, after these witnesses had finished, negotiations with Korea are still in an early stage. She also notes some Canadian companies are in Korea now:

Ms. Helena Guergis: We've got parts maker Lenamar in Guelph who now has an assembly plant there. At least one member of the Forest Products Association of Canada already has a joint venture in Korea and they believe this proposed free trade agreement offers an opportunity to ensure the best protection for Canadian investment in Korea. I also met with a separate forestry stakeholder yesterday who has a plant in Korea and they raised the same benefit of the potential FTA. Potato growers are also looking to get into the Far East markets and there is a huge market for potatoes there, but there seems to be a lot of barriers that include tariffs and red tape. s