Winston Churchill on Boris Johnson and Brexit

Boris Johnson is now the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister and he has promised to lead the UK out of the European Union by October 31^st.  He insists that he can get the European Union to renegotiate the deal even though the Europeans are adamant that the deal negotiated with Teresa May is a take it or leave it proposition.  And if they do not renegotiate, then Johnson is also quite strident that Britain will leave no matter what. As a result, all of this will likely lead to a quite disruptive and erratic next few months as Britain and the EU try to sort out the remainder of Brexit.

Based on these positions, it would appear that the outcome by October 31^st is assured – Britain will leave the EU without a deal and sail off on its separate way.  On the other hand, politics is a strange process with a lot of dramatic posturing and one could very well see a new deal emerge.  Or, in what could be a really bizarre turn of events, Britain could very well stay in the EU.  Just as only Nixon could go to China, only Boris could actually keep Britain in the EU.

Much of the discussion of the entire Brexit issue has focused on how chaotic and disruptive it has been and how damaging it is to Britain’s long-term economic and political interests.  However, there may be some reason behind this madness if one is to take the writings of Winston Churchill on foreign policy and extrapolate them to the present.  In his first volume of his epic history of the Second World War, Churchill writes the following:

“For four hundred years the foreign policy of England has been to oppose the strongest, most aggressive, most dominating Power on the Continent, and particularly to prevent the Low countries falling into the hands of such a Power…we always took the harder course, joined with the less strong Powers, made a combination among them, and thus defeated and frustrated the Continental military tyrant…Thus we preserved the liberties of Europe, protected the growth of its vivacious and varied society, emerged after four terrible struggles with an ever-growing fame and widening Empire…Here is the wonderful unconscious tradition of British Foreign Policy…Observe that the policy of England takes no account of which nation it is that seeks the overlordship of Europe…it is concerned solely with whoever is the strongest or the potentially dominating tyrant.”

Well, there you have it.  Britain’s elites and particularly those in the Conservative Party appear to be - borrowing from the words of Keynes - the unwitting slaves of some now defunct foreign policy prescription that guided the rise to empire.  Boris Johnson and the Brexiteers do not view the dominant European power as Germany, France or Spain but the grand project of European union and its bureaucracy in Brussels is now the continental tyrant.  By leaving the EU, they see themselves as safeguarding the freedom of Britain and sowing disruption that might lead to the eventual breakup of the EU. 

Of course, one might ask why they joined?  Well, as the European Project was coming together after 1950, it gradually became apparent that it was not falling apart and would continue.  So, being on the inside would have been the best way to keep an eye on things and steer things according to Britain’s interests.  Indeed, being on the inside and “unconsciously” provocative or disruptive could be seen as a potential policy direction given hundreds of years of British foreign policy geared towards keeping Europe apart.  Indeed, French President Charles De Gaulle’s opposition to British membership can be viewed as a realization of this.

Why leave now? Well, the “unconscious” hope was that given the strains the EU was undergoing in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis and the migrant crisis, leaving now might be the final push leading to its break-up.  However, the miscalculation here was that it is no longer 1789 or 1913 or 1939.  It is the early 21^st century and Britain’s actions have interestingly enough galvanized the Europeans at least for the time being into working harder to stay together.  Boris and the Brexiteers and their “unconscious” policy formulation may backfire big-time.
 

Crime Statistics Update 2018: Thunder Bay Crime Rate Down 6 Percent

The Police-reported crime statistics for 2018 from Statistics Canada are out.  The police reported crime statistics provide both the crime rates and the crime severity index as well as more specific data on things like the homicide rate.  According to the report, police-reported crime in Canada, as measured by both the crime rate and the Crime Severity Index (CSI), increased for the fourth consecutive year in 2018, growing by 2%. Despite the increase, the CSI was 17% lower in 2018 than a decade earlier. Indeed, over the period 1998 to 2014, the crime severity index in Canada fell rather dramatically – dropping by about 44 percent - but has now started to rise.

The CSI increased in two-thirds of Canada's largest census metropolitan areas in 2018, with the largest increases in Windsor (+21%), Moncton (+15%) and St. Catharines–Niagara (+15%). Breaking and entering was an important contributor to the increases in Windsor and St. Catharines–Niagara, while fraud was an important contributor to the increases in Moncton and Windsor. The largest decreases in the CSI were in Belleville (-20%), Saguenay (-12%) and Peterborough (-10%). 

 

The value of the CSI was highest in Lethbridge at 137, followed by Regina at 126.6 and then Winnipeg at 119.4.  Thunder Bay ranked 8^th out of 35 on the level of crime as measured by the CSI index (See Figure 1) while Greater Sudbury ranked 14^th.  In terms of changes, Thunder Bay and Sudbury both registered an increase in the CSI in 2018 at 9 and 5 percent respectively (See Figure 2) with Thunder Bay reporting the 9^th largest increase and Sudbury the 17^th.  Driving Thunder Bay’s increase in the CSI were increases in breaking and entering; robbery; fraud; trafficking, production and distribution of cannabis (pre-legalization); attempted murder; and homicide.  As for Sudbury, the increase was driven by Increase in breaking and entering, and sexual assault; and partially offset by decrease in child pornography.

 

However, when the increase in crime is reported using the traditional crime rate (which measures total reported crimes per 100,000 population without any weighting) Thunder Bay actually registered a decrease in reported crime (See Figure 3) while Sudbury registered an increase.  Indeed, Thunder Bay registered the third largest decrease in crime rates of these 35 CMAs at -6 percent while Sudbury was up 5 percent.  However, at 8 homicides in 2018, Thunder Bay still ranked first in the homicide rate amongst Canadian CMAs coming in at 6.38 per 100,000 of population.  Greater Sudbury comes in at 0.59 per 100,000 – one of the lowest homicide rates in the country.  Barrie was the lowest in 2018 coming in at 0 homicdes.  Brantford, came in as the second-highest this year with a rate of 3.36 homicdes per 100,000 followed by Regina at 3.1.  

So the long and short for Thunder Bay this year is that crime rates are down but the severity is high.

 

So What's Up With Air Canada Service to Thunder Bay Now?

Air Canada’s new three times a day with larger planes Rouge service from Toronto Pearson to Thunder Bay seems to have become quite erratic over the last few weeks based on some of the arrival times.  The new service began May 1^st with a ceremonial greeting at the Thunder Bay airport using water cannon.   However, the anecdotal evidence from conversations with a few people suggests that there have some significant delays of up two hours and sometimes more in recent weeks.  This is likely not due to adjustment to a new schedule as it has now been in place for several months.  One also suspects it is not an official part of some type of preliminary celebration of Canada’s new air passenger protection laws.

In terms of some specifics over the last week: Last Friday (July 12th), my in-laws were on Air Canada 1512 which was supposed to arrive at 4:17pm and they arrived at almost 7pm.  A flight earlier in the day also had a substantial delay of several hours.  On Sunday the 14^th, AC8547 was supposed to arrive at 11:02pm but did not show up until one and a half hours later. On Monday July 15^th, the last flight of the day 8547 was only about a half hour late.   On Tuesday July 16^th, AC 1510 due at 10:17 am arrived at 11:40am while AC 1512 due at 4:17pm came in at 6:04pm.  On Wednesday July 17^th, AC 1512 was again late and at the time of this posting is supposed to be coming in at 6:42 pm. 

Not sure what is responsible for this service deterioration – it does seem like a pretty bad on-time rate.  In a discussion with one of my more well-traveled sources, we hypothesized that part of the problem seems to be the fact that Rouge also services international markets and some of these planes coming to Thunder Bay may be part of a chain with origins in the United States and the Caribbean.  So, for example, the story is some of these planes do runs for Rouge like say New Orleans-Toronto and then Toronto-Thunder Bay or a Caribbean destination to Toronto and then Toronto-Thunder Bay.  Small delays on the earlier international leg then cascade into larger ones on the final leg into Thunder Bay. Another story is that this may have something to do with the removal of capacity resulting from the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max8.  Given that Rouge has larger planes – AC 1512 last Friday was a 270 seater – there may be last minute diversions onto other routes going on which complicate the schedule.  Air Canada does claim in their messages to delayed passengers that there  have been “scheduling issues.”

Of course, who really knows what is going on here other than God and Air Canada. It would be nice for Air Canada to acknowledge that they are having difficulties getting to Thunder Bay on time with an explanation why and what they are doing to address the situation.  One expects that passengers in Thunder Bay will have better luck getting an answer from God.

Bombardier, Technological Unemployment and OMNI TV - A Busy Week for Northern Economist

It was a busy week for me as there was the release of a report by the Fraser Institute I contributed to as well as the Bombardier story that announced 550 layoffs in Thunder Bay that generated some media activity for me.  The Bombardier story is in many respects not a surprise given that the talk over the last year was that the contracts were ending and in the absence of substantial new contracts, there were gong to be layoffs.  The real question is if these layoffs are temporary until a major new contract comes online as has often been the case in the past or whether there is going to be a permanent downsizing of Bombardier's Canadian rail operations given that they are expanding their US presence as a result of Buy America provisions.  Of course, more Canadian contracts would be a solution but Canada compared to Europe or the US is still not an urban rail transit country as its cities are not as large or as dense and there is a preference for driving.  Moreover, even if new contracts come along, there is going to be more international competition for the contracts and Bombardier needs to up its game in terms of meeting its delivery obligations as well as being more price competitive.

The Fraser Institute released a report this week on the impact of artificial intelligence and technology on employment and my contribution was an essay showing that historically in Canada, technological change - like in many other countries - is accompanied by short term employment disruption but in the long run employment has grown.  This also generated for me an oped in the Full Comment Section of the National Post and several media mentions as well as a number of comments and emails from interested readers assuring me that I was wrong and we are all headed for an apocalypse of mass unemployment notwithstanding the evidence of the last 150 years.  No doubt, the view of many is as in mutual fund returns, past performance is no guarantee of future performance.  Such is life.

The Bomdardier story also generated coverage by the Globe and Mail,  the Financial Post, Radio-Canada and an opportunity for an oped with the Globe and Mail which incidentally also contained a nice plug for Lakehead University and its efforts to recruit international students.  The material for Radio-Canada included a television interview and a quote about how the layoffs represented a blow to the heart of Thunder Bay.  Interestingly enough, the best editorial cartoon I have seen on this point of a blow to the heart was in Corriere Canadese with La Vignetta di Ynot and I have the link right here.  And Corriere Canadese also ran a story on the return of OMNI programming back to cable in Thunder Bay.  I should note that OMNI Senior Manager Charmaine Khan did contact Corriere Canadese and assured them the disruption was temporary and also did eventually email me with an explanation so all is well!

It has been a busy week.  A veritable symphony of media activity from start to finish! Now it is time to enjoy what looks like a glorious summer weather weekend here in Thunder Bay. Have a great weekend.

Historical Canadian Government Data Sources

I recently received the following message from Ryan MacDonald at Statistics Canada:

“I recently came upon a number [of] scans done by our library to place the historical publications into pdfs.  They can sometimes be a little difficult to search for, so I thought I would pass along a few links that may be of use to you or your colleagues in your research.”

So, I think a good way to further disseminate these historical economic data sources more broadly is to post the links here on Northern Economist. Please feel free to share.

Canada Year Book
<<http://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.838186/publication.html>>

Tables of the trade and navigation of the Province of Canada for the year ... (1850-1908)
<<http://www.publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.843286/publication.html>>

Report of the Department of Customs containing the tables of imports, exports and navigation of the Dominion of Canada for the fiscal year ended Mar. 31 ... (1909-1916, 1918)
<<http://www.publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.843294/publication.html>>

Annual report of the trade of Canada (imports for consumption and exports) (1917, 1919)
<<http://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.852124/publication.html>>

Trade of Canada = Commerce du Canada (1920-1939)
<<http://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.851960/publication.html>>

Trade of Canada = Commerce du Canada (1939-1970)
<<http://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.809303/publication.html>>

Imports, merchandise trade / Statistics Canada, External Trade Division = Importations, commerce de marchandises / Statistique Canada, Division du commerce extérieur (1970-2002)
<<http://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.809322/publication.html>>

In addition, if you are interested in a lot of official Government of Canada as well as provincial government publications, quite a few appear to have migrated onto a platform known as Internet Archive.  For example, you can find Canadian Federal Government public accounts going back into the nineteenth century. That has come in handy for me given that my university library a couple of years back "deselected" all the paper copies of the federal public accounts. Given the growing trend away from paper, sources like the Internet Archive and the Statistics Canada links provided above will become increasingly dominant.
 

Italian Programming on OMNI in Thunder Bay Appears to Have Suddenly Returned

Last week, I posted about how the noon-day Italian newscasts on the OMNI channel on Shaw cable in Thunder Bay had disappeared.   There used to be both a RAI broadcast from Italy as well as the OMNI network's Italian language newscast which covered Toronto, Canadian and international news including Italian items.  This appeared to have been a somewhat arbitrary change given the size of the Italian community in Thunder Bay.  I contacted OMNI via their contact page, I put a link to my blog post on my LinkedIn account and even forwarded a copy of my post to Corriere Canadese, Canada's Italian language newspaper all in the hopes of attracting some attention.  I did hear back from Corriere Canadese and they expressed interest in the story but until today have yet to hear anything back from OMNI.  However, flipping through my channels this morning,  I noticed that all of a sudden, the noon-hour Italian newscast was back followed by a half hour Italian cooking show. 

So it looks like I can go back to my practice of PVRing the OMNI Italian newscast out of Toronto for viewing in the evening in order to keep up my Italian as well as get a different perspective on the world news.  It would be nice to have the other RAI newscast return too but hey, I suppose sometimes we have to take what we can get.  Not sure what got things moving.  Have not heard back from OMNI directly so hard to know.  Perhaps it was contacting the Italian media community via Corriere Canadese that got things moving or the contacts on the LinkedIn network. In any event, thank you to whoever helped to get things moving.  Hopefully, the Italian content is here to stay.

Happy Canada Day from Northern Economist

Well it is July 1st and the 152nd Anniversary of Canadian Confederation.  In the time since 1867, Canada has grown from  four eastern provinces with 3.4 million people to a country touching three seas spanning the northern half of the North American continent with ten provinces and three territories and a population today of just over 37 million people.  By world population standards, we remain a small country but occupy a massive geographic space.



As a country, we have been truly blessed with peace, order and good government and have over the decades achieved a quality and quantity of life that is one of the highest in the world.  It is true our history has not been perfect or free of injustice or inequality.  We will face numerous challenges in the years to come both to deal with our past as well as dealing with a much more uncertain world as the recent few years have demonstrated.

Yet, whatever our divisions and challenges, we have had solid institutions and we need to combine those with an international effort to reach out to like-minded countries - many of them as small as we are - in an effort to build new alliances and networks with which to help shape and stabilize the world.  That is our new challenge for the 21st century.

Just as Canada has grown over the last 152 years, so has Northern Ontario and the figure below plots the population of the five largest urban areas in the north from the earliest available city population figure from the Census of Canada to the 2016 census. 



From small 19th century resource communities, all these cities have grown to quite sizeable centers though it is true they have in recent decades not kept pace with other parts of the province or country.  Nevertheless, the future has yet to be written and opportunities abound.  Happy Canada Day!