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Canada’s bold Arctic claims are too little too late
In 2008, Moscow threw down the gauntlet and made it clear it intends to control the Arctic and its immense resources. The incident embarrassed Canada, exposed its impotence and strategic vulnerability....
View ArticleHere’s why Canada’s economy may lag the U.S. in 2014
Consensus is forming that 2014 will be the economic turning point for the United States and that is traditionally good news for Canada. But is it? Most rosy is the forecast by UBS that U.S. GDP will...
View ArticleHow to fix Canada’s economy before it’s too late
Canada’s short-term economic prospects are improving, but the outlook, both medium and long-term, is another story. That’s because Canada’s biggest competitive disadvantage is its politicians. Of...
View ArticleA better world dawns at Davos — but a better world for whom?
DAVOS – This village was the setting for Thomas Mann’s classic “Magic Mountain” about a young German at a sanatorium who meets a cast of characters representing a microcosm of Europe. All are oblivious...
View ArticleWinter Olympics 2014 puts Russia’s corruption — and incompetence —on world stage
In 1787, Czarina Catherine II went to Ukraine and Crimea to inspect her new acquisitions. They had been devastated by war, but when she arrived, her trusted military leader Grigori Potemkin ordered the...
View ArticleIron fists needed to take on Ukrainian thugs
I’m just heartsick about what’s happening in Ukraine. The cause of this tragedy is the fact that Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych has always been a thug and he rigged an election in 2004 that led...
View ArticleWhy punishment toward Russia’s ‘Putin Doctrine’ has only just begun
Stock markets have punished the Ruble and Russian markets over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bullyboy tactics in Crimea. By week’s end, the smart money was betting against military escalation and...
View ArticleParti Québécois forced into damage control as ‘money’ hijacks election bid
This week, Jacques Parizeau, former leader of the Parti Québécois, turned out to right again, nearly 20 years after the 1995 Quebec referendum. In his concession speech back then, after he had narrowly...
View ArticleNevermind U.S. shale, Saudi Arabia’s oil power play targets Iran’s economy
All politics are local, except for oil politics. The Russians think these low oil prices are an American-Saudi conspiracy. American commentators believe that the Saudis have driven down prices to...
View ArticleParis terrorist attacks should trigger soul-searching about assimilation
The terrorist attacks against the media and police in France this week are deplorable and will be analyzed for years to come. They also illustrate significant underlying differences between the...
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Diane Francis: Canada must take matters into its own hands if it wants to...
The Keystone XL pipeline issue has dragged on for six years, a political clash between oil barons and the green movement against the oilsands. In the coming days U.S. President Barack Obama must veto...
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Digital danger lurks at every turn: How to keep your stuff safe from cyber...
Marc Goodman is a one-man Geek Squad who began his law enforcement career as a beat cop in Los Angeles and became the departmental computer expert. With a nose for wrongdoing and digital aptitude, Marc...
View ArticleUber and Airbnb: Make these Silicon Valley darlings accountable
Uber and Airbnb are the darlings of Silicon Valley whose founders describe themselves as technology companies and pioneers of the “sharing economy.” But I don’t buy it. The shared economy — multiple...
View ArticleNo nation is safe in the politics of oil — including Canada
The global community has more unsafe neighborhoods than gated ones and no nation is safe anymore, including Canada. This means that nation-state models are challenged and must recalibrate all the time....
View ArticleReality television at its best: The U.S. Presidential Primary Season — and...
My favorite reality television series — the U.S. Presidential Primary Season — is about to begin with this weekend’s expected announcement of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. This political extravaganza...
View ArticleA gallery of rogues: one trader, one nation and one husband
Stories about a rogue trader, rogue nation-state and rogue husband captured headlines this week and raised more questions than they answered. U.S. prosecutors this week would have the world believe...
View ArticleIn or out? U.K. ‘Shock Election’ served up two demanding separatist blocs
The next major trade deal Stephen Harper will negotiate – in 2016 after he deservedly wins re-election – might just be with the old Mother Country Britain, or what’s left of it. This week’s Shock...
View ArticleIs the sun about to set on the Age of Oil? Solar, battery developments...
In Silicon Valley jargon, disruption is the euphemism for destruction, and the consensus is that Canada as whole, along with big oil producers Saudi Arabia, Russia or Venezuela, will be “disrupted”...
View ArticleDiane Francis: Why the next big banks will actually be tech companies
The bank of the future will be in our pockets or on our wrists, not on street corners or housed in high-rise towers. Mobile banking is going viral and the first adopters are the “millennials” (those...
View ArticleWhy Canada Inc.’s popularity with China could mean long-term pain
The recent flap about an Ontario politician with ties to China is inconsequential unless serious charges are laid. Cozy relationships are commonplace in politics everywhere and China, like Exxon or...
View ArticleIMF holds key to helping Ukraine escape from Russia’s stranglehold
Greece is a deadbeat nation, Puerto Rico is a party that lives beyond its means, but last year war-torn Ukraine made more interest payments to its lenders than it spent trying to defend itself against...
View ArticleTrade deal with Ukraine a vote of confidence in country’s potential
LVIV, Ukraine – It’s hard to believe, while touring this charming medieval city, there’s a war raging in this country against Russia. But the fighting is 25 hours’ drive east, and the psychology is...
View ArticleOntario government’s reckless spending would win gold in race to the bottom
If there was a medal for the race to the bottom, Ontario’s government could easily win a Gold. So it was fitting that during the Pan Am Games, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Ontario’s government,...
View ArticleDiane Francis: Why Stephen Harper’s opponents are critics, not contenders
The Oct. 19 election is Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s to lose. And he won’t for a number of reasons. He’s the only candidate with economic credentials and experience. Canadian Prime Ministers are...
View ArticleIf it were a corporation, the United States would be de-listed
Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and others can spout off as much as they wish about major reforms they would undertake as President, but presidential power in America is a myth. The U.S. federal system is...
View ArticleFences, laws no deterrent to outflows of people, money
The collapse in stock markets and the surge in the number of refugees flooding into Europe captured August’s headlines. There are many underlying causes for each phenomenon, but they are linked....
View ArticleIn the spirit of Donald Trump: 10 politically incorrect challenges facing Canada
In the spring I wrote that my favorite reality television series was the U.S. Presidential Primary Season, but who knew that Donald Trump would play the starring role? His candidacy has exceeded...
View ArticleLip service to money laundering: Failure to apply controls a serious threat...
A recent report by Washington think tank Global Financial Integrity reveals the fatal flaw in the world’s globalized financial architecture: It has not been accompanied by a globalized governance and...
View ArticleDiane Francis: Hunting for votes in the Facebook generation
Facebook is a social problem. It rewards shallowness and breeds a mentality that is seeping into the rest of society. And into elections. Facebook users accumulate “friends” who are people they have...
View ArticleClock is ticking for Trudeau on three key global issues: TPP, climate and...
Justin Trudeau won a nice majority, but with a slightly smaller percentage of the popular vote than Stephen Harper netted in 2011. That year, Harper got 39.62 per cent and this week Prime Minister...
View ArticleA nation-building project for the new government
A nation-building project, endorsed by the Assembly of First Nations, should be the top infrastructure, trade and First Nations priority for the new Trudeau government. It is the proposal to build a...
View ArticleDiane Francis: Sorry Mr. Prime Minister, fighting ISIL is not optional
Prime Minister Trudeau’s decision to end Canada’s combat role against ISIL is ill-advised in light of the Paris attacks. So is his insistence that 25,000 Syrian refugees must arrive in Canada within...
View ArticleWhy Canada should adopt the U.S. innovation model
The Liberals cannot tax and spend this country into prosperity. Only innovation will do the trick, and what’s missing in Canada is an American-style taxation policy that will provide incentives to...
View ArticleDiane Francis: How Donald Trump has pulled back the politically correct...
Donald Trump is what I would define as an Americanis Extremis, a man who embodies and exaggerates the American personality. It’s his style, not always his content, which appalls Europeans, Canadians...
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Diane Francis: Donald Trump wins TV ratings, but Bernie Sanders is ahead...
Donald Trump may be winning the television ratings, but Bernie Sanders is winning the polls. In a stunning Dec. 22 national poll, Sanders beat Trump by 13 points — 51 per cent to 38 per cent, a...
View ArticleChina takes centre stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos
Too bad Donald Trump isn’t going to deliver a keynote at next week’s World Economic Forum in Davos. But the Americans have been less keen on Davos for years. Barack Obama has never attended (and...
View ArticleIn Davos, George Soros ‘liked’ Justin Trudeau but preachy DiCaprio gets cool...
DAVOS — There is no better, bigger geopolitical theatre than the annual assemblage of the rich, famous and powerful at the World Economic Forum. This year’s superstar was Hollywood’s Leonardo DiCaprio,...
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In Davos, oil movers and shakers are bullish on oil prices
DAVOS, Switzerland — Canada has a lot of skin in the high-stakes oil game as the world’s fifth-biggest producer of oil and gas liquids (such as butane). Interestingly, Suncor just doubled-down by...
View ArticleDiane Francis: Ukraine has made gains, but the fight isn’t over yet
DAVOS, Switzerland – Ironically, it was a breakfast panel hosted by a Ukrainian oligarch, Victor Pinchuk and his Pinchuk Foundation, that yielded the most candid and interesting remarks as to what to...
View ArticleDiane Francis: Ottawa is letting petty politics sabotage the nation’s only...
It’s alarming that Montreal’s mayor shot off his mouth last week in an attempt to block the Energy East pipeline project to bring oil to Quebec and the Atlantic provinces for consumption and export....
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