I see where the Petroleum Services Association of Canada, one of many oil industry lobby groups, has the begging bowl out for a cool half billion!
Apparently there's at least 75,000 defunct oil and gas wells scattered about Alberta that were never properly decommissioned by the folks who drilled them.
Wonder what Gwyn Morgan has to say about that?
Showing posts with label Gwyn Morgan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gwyn Morgan. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Thursday, August 6, 2015
No wonder Gwyn Morgan hates big government
Gwyn had himself a snappy little paean to Big Steve in yesterday's Globe and Mail, titled Some vital perspective on the economic record. Oddly enough, it appeared just as a recent research paper by economist Jim Stanford was getting some traction. Stanford's conclusion?
The Harper gang have been the worst stewards of Canada's economy in the post-war era.
Now if there's one thing Mr. Morgan hates almost as much as big government, it's lefty economists. Gywn comes to Harper's rescue by claiming that the hoo-ha over Harper's long-promised surplus having, at the eleventh hour, become a deficit, is taking a tiny tiny deficit and blowing it out of all perspective. "How significant is a $2.9 billion change in an $890 billion budget? The answer is that it amounts to less than a third of one percent," Gwyn dismissively informs us.
Except Gwyn has one little fact wrong; the federal budget is about $620 billion less than the imaginary number he made up for his article. So that $2.9 billion trifle is over one percent, not "less than one third of 1 per cent."
That's the problem with folks who see "big government" as a monster hiding under the bed; it gets so much bigger in the imagination than it actually is in reality. Or maybe there's some "unreported budget" coming from the same wizards who invented that Harperite stroke of genius, the increase in "unreported crime."
Be that as it may, Gwyn does bring us some perspective. He's obviously a big-picture guy who doesn't fuss too much about the accuracy of the details... maybe that explains how tens of millions in bribe money wafted out of the SNC-Lavalin accounts while he was chair of the board of directors.
The Harper gang have been the worst stewards of Canada's economy in the post-war era.
Now if there's one thing Mr. Morgan hates almost as much as big government, it's lefty economists. Gywn comes to Harper's rescue by claiming that the hoo-ha over Harper's long-promised surplus having, at the eleventh hour, become a deficit, is taking a tiny tiny deficit and blowing it out of all perspective. "How significant is a $2.9 billion change in an $890 billion budget? The answer is that it amounts to less than a third of one percent," Gwyn dismissively informs us.
Except Gwyn has one little fact wrong; the federal budget is about $620 billion less than the imaginary number he made up for his article. So that $2.9 billion trifle is over one percent, not "less than one third of 1 per cent."
That's the problem with folks who see "big government" as a monster hiding under the bed; it gets so much bigger in the imagination than it actually is in reality. Or maybe there's some "unreported budget" coming from the same wizards who invented that Harperite stroke of genius, the increase in "unreported crime."
Be that as it may, Gwyn does bring us some perspective. He's obviously a big-picture guy who doesn't fuss too much about the accuracy of the details... maybe that explains how tens of millions in bribe money wafted out of the SNC-Lavalin accounts while he was chair of the board of directors.
Friday, November 14, 2014
Canada leads world in CSR
What the hell is CSR, you ask?
Why, that would be "corporate social responsibility,"
Yup, we're leaders all right. In fact, we pretty much invented the concept, just like we invented R2P and saving women and girls etc.
CSR has been splashed around the Dept. of Foreign Affairs website a fair bit.
I'm suspicious.
I'm suspicious for multiple reasons. First of all, I'm suspicious because Baird's bailiwick is famous for just making shit up. Oh ya, there's been another Russian invasion of Ukraine this week, and so on.
Secondly, I'm suspicious because sometimes Canada's "leadership" isn't what it seems. Take the much ballyhooed leadership in saving women and girls for example. You can find dozens upon dozens of press releases on the DFA website wherein Baird and Co. pat themselves on the back for... saving women and girls worldwide.
Dig into the back-stories a bit, and you'll find they're talking about some "aid" program co-sponsored by some franken-food conglomerate that is providing franken-seeds and the accoutrements of "modern agriculture" to some less developed nation. It's not as if they're lying; franken-foods are indeed edible, and women and girls have to eat, but the way we frame our "aid" tends to be somewhat misleading at times...
OK! Pretty much all the time!
Thirdly, I can't help but think of Gwyn Morgan when I think of CSR. Gwyn talked a lot about CSR while he was Chair of the Board of Directors at SNC Lavalin. Even as he was talking about corporate social responsibility, his company was being exposed as a serial practitioner of bribes and kick-backs world-wide.
Fourthly, when you take a serious look at it, Canada's world-leading extractive industry is a world leader in defiling local environments, abusing local populations, and leaving a mess for future generations to clean up. Mining Watch is a good source of information on how Canada leads the world in ethical extractive practices.
Finally, I'm suspicious because of the very nomenclature of this latest good cause.
CSR. Corporate social responsibility. Think about it; that's ultimately an oxy-moron, isn't it?
Why, that would be "corporate social responsibility,"
Yup, we're leaders all right. In fact, we pretty much invented the concept, just like we invented R2P and saving women and girls etc.
CSR has been splashed around the Dept. of Foreign Affairs website a fair bit.
I'm suspicious.
I'm suspicious for multiple reasons. First of all, I'm suspicious because Baird's bailiwick is famous for just making shit up. Oh ya, there's been another Russian invasion of Ukraine this week, and so on.
Secondly, I'm suspicious because sometimes Canada's "leadership" isn't what it seems. Take the much ballyhooed leadership in saving women and girls for example. You can find dozens upon dozens of press releases on the DFA website wherein Baird and Co. pat themselves on the back for... saving women and girls worldwide.
Dig into the back-stories a bit, and you'll find they're talking about some "aid" program co-sponsored by some franken-food conglomerate that is providing franken-seeds and the accoutrements of "modern agriculture" to some less developed nation. It's not as if they're lying; franken-foods are indeed edible, and women and girls have to eat, but the way we frame our "aid" tends to be somewhat misleading at times...
OK! Pretty much all the time!
Thirdly, I can't help but think of Gwyn Morgan when I think of CSR. Gwyn talked a lot about CSR while he was Chair of the Board of Directors at SNC Lavalin. Even as he was talking about corporate social responsibility, his company was being exposed as a serial practitioner of bribes and kick-backs world-wide.
Fourthly, when you take a serious look at it, Canada's world-leading extractive industry is a world leader in defiling local environments, abusing local populations, and leaving a mess for future generations to clean up. Mining Watch is a good source of information on how Canada leads the world in ethical extractive practices.
Finally, I'm suspicious because of the very nomenclature of this latest good cause.
CSR. Corporate social responsibility. Think about it; that's ultimately an oxy-moron, isn't it?
Friday, April 19, 2013
Tangled webs; Gwyn Morgan, SNC-Lavalin, Cynthia Vanier and Muammar Gaddafi
Must admit I was thrilled to hear that Cynthia Vanier is getting herself out of a Mexican prison.
What that means is the payola finally got to the judge in the case.
Not that this should be any reflection on the veracity of Cynthia's case; everybody knows that the ebb and flow of bakteesh in Mexico ebbs and flows quite independently of a person's innocence or guilt.
Rather, it ebbs and flows in accordance with the depth of the pockets of those ensnared in the Mexican judicial system.
In Cynthia's case, those pockets were deemed deep indeed.
On the one hand, you had the Muammar Gaddafi clan, universally known as the biggest kleptocrats in history.
On the other, you had the SNC-Lavalin conglomerate, the poster-boys of post-colonial corruption, headed up by the anti-corruption sermonizer Gwyn Morgan.
With such a stellar cast lurking in the background, it's no wonder that it took the Mexican authorities a year and a half to come to a satisfactory settlement.
Me and Cynthia are practically next-door neighbors. An hour down the road qualifies as "next door" in these parts. I'll be having her over soon for a cup of tea, or a pint or two, and we'll get to the bottom of this story.
What that means is the payola finally got to the judge in the case.
Not that this should be any reflection on the veracity of Cynthia's case; everybody knows that the ebb and flow of bakteesh in Mexico ebbs and flows quite independently of a person's innocence or guilt.
Rather, it ebbs and flows in accordance with the depth of the pockets of those ensnared in the Mexican judicial system.
In Cynthia's case, those pockets were deemed deep indeed.
On the one hand, you had the Muammar Gaddafi clan, universally known as the biggest kleptocrats in history.
On the other, you had the SNC-Lavalin conglomerate, the poster-boys of post-colonial corruption, headed up by the anti-corruption sermonizer Gwyn Morgan.
With such a stellar cast lurking in the background, it's no wonder that it took the Mexican authorities a year and a half to come to a satisfactory settlement.
Me and Cynthia are practically next-door neighbors. An hour down the road qualifies as "next door" in these parts. I'll be having her over soon for a cup of tea, or a pint or two, and we'll get to the bottom of this story.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
SNC-Lavalin made million $$ illegal political contributions
That's today's scoop from the anti-corruption inquiry in Quebec.
After eight months of interrogating Italian guys who keep money in their socks, the Charbonneau Commission is finally getting serious. SNC-Lavalin is a great Canadian success story. They've been brought low lately by allegations of running wild with the schmier-geld on their overseas contracts in places like Libya and Bangladesh.
And Quebec from the sounds of things.
Ironically, the guy overseeing this cesspool of corruption is one Gwyn Morgan, Chair of the Board of Directors. Morgan made his hundreds of millions perfecting fracking practices when he was CEO of Encana. Upon retirement he took the SNC-Lavalin gig, which leaves him lots of time to pen his Globe and Mail column, in which he likes to pontificate on, among other things, corporate ethics!
Attaboy Gwyn!
Looking forward to your next column!
After eight months of interrogating Italian guys who keep money in their socks, the Charbonneau Commission is finally getting serious. SNC-Lavalin is a great Canadian success story. They've been brought low lately by allegations of running wild with the schmier-geld on their overseas contracts in places like Libya and Bangladesh.
And Quebec from the sounds of things.
Ironically, the guy overseeing this cesspool of corruption is one Gwyn Morgan, Chair of the Board of Directors. Morgan made his hundreds of millions perfecting fracking practices when he was CEO of Encana. Upon retirement he took the SNC-Lavalin gig, which leaves him lots of time to pen his Globe and Mail column, in which he likes to pontificate on, among other things, corporate ethics!
Attaboy Gwyn!
Looking forward to your next column!
Monday, December 3, 2012
Preacher caught with pants down
Gwyn Morgan is a very successful top drawer exec who is now the Chairman of the Board of SNC-Lavalin, Canada's biggest international construction conglomerate. Sort of a "Bechtel North" outfit that's famous for landing the big deals in the shadier realms of the global economy.
When he's not busy in the Chairman's chair or out on the lecture circuit, where he likes to spread the gospel of "corporate ethics," Gwyn pens a column for Canada's newspaper of record. It's a somewhat preachy column, all things considered, and I found today's effort typically stinky.
He's tossing turds at the Euro-zone dumpster-divers, those benighted citizens who have been reduced to finding their next meal in the dumpsters of Europe, from Athens to Barcelona to Lisbon to Madrid. The reason they're in those dumpsters scrounging for their next meal is because Angela Merkel's "austerity enema" has made that dumpster their last best hope.
Gwyn takes exception to the fact that these folks are blaming the lenders or the politicians for their plight. They are "blaming others," when it is so patently obvious that it's their fault. After all, they are the ones who were living large off all those " extravagant programs that drove debt to astronomical levels."
That's right! It wasn't those guys with the 100 foot boats in the ubiquitous Mediterranean yacht basins and the Bentleys and the Manhattan and Belgravia apartments. It was the grubby-fisted school teacher who thought he was entitled to retire at 62 WITH A PENSION!!!
Now that they've hit the debt wall of course, these coddled malcontents are looking for someone to blame, and their first instinct is always, you know it, blame the Bentleys-in-Belgravia crowd! And if those guys have hoisted anchor and sailed for the Caymans, well, blame the bankers!
Gwyn does a sterling job of setting the record straight. Debts are debts and if they're not repaid, well, God Himself fears what could happen next. So stop your whining, starving children of Spain and Greece. Suck it up! In two or three generations, if you keep your noses to the grindstone, the bond-holders should be paid in full and we'll let you out of the dumpster.
This is in stunning contrast to how excess debt is dealt with in the private sector. First of all, once you're deemed "too big to fail" you get a bail-out courtesy of those folks now rummaging through the trash.
If you weren't quite too big to fail, if you were an Enron or a Worldcom or an Olympia and York or a Lehman Brothers, hell, you just pulled the plug and moved on! Hundreds of billions of dollars of debt just go away!
It's magic! And neither Dick Fuld or Paul Reichman has ever been spotted climbing out of a dumpster.
When he's not busy in the Chairman's chair or out on the lecture circuit, where he likes to spread the gospel of "corporate ethics," Gwyn pens a column for Canada's newspaper of record. It's a somewhat preachy column, all things considered, and I found today's effort typically stinky.
He's tossing turds at the Euro-zone dumpster-divers, those benighted citizens who have been reduced to finding their next meal in the dumpsters of Europe, from Athens to Barcelona to Lisbon to Madrid. The reason they're in those dumpsters scrounging for their next meal is because Angela Merkel's "austerity enema" has made that dumpster their last best hope.
Gwyn takes exception to the fact that these folks are blaming the lenders or the politicians for their plight. They are "blaming others," when it is so patently obvious that it's their fault. After all, they are the ones who were living large off all those " extravagant programs that drove debt to astronomical levels."
That's right! It wasn't those guys with the 100 foot boats in the ubiquitous Mediterranean yacht basins and the Bentleys and the Manhattan and Belgravia apartments. It was the grubby-fisted school teacher who thought he was entitled to retire at 62 WITH A PENSION!!!
Now that they've hit the debt wall of course, these coddled malcontents are looking for someone to blame, and their first instinct is always, you know it, blame the Bentleys-in-Belgravia crowd! And if those guys have hoisted anchor and sailed for the Caymans, well, blame the bankers!
Gwyn does a sterling job of setting the record straight. Debts are debts and if they're not repaid, well, God Himself fears what could happen next. So stop your whining, starving children of Spain and Greece. Suck it up! In two or three generations, if you keep your noses to the grindstone, the bond-holders should be paid in full and we'll let you out of the dumpster.
This is in stunning contrast to how excess debt is dealt with in the private sector. First of all, once you're deemed "too big to fail" you get a bail-out courtesy of those folks now rummaging through the trash.
If you weren't quite too big to fail, if you were an Enron or a Worldcom or an Olympia and York or a Lehman Brothers, hell, you just pulled the plug and moved on! Hundreds of billions of dollars of debt just go away!
It's magic! And neither Dick Fuld or Paul Reichman has ever been spotted climbing out of a dumpster.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
How much longer can Gwyn Morgan's comedy column in the Globe and Mail continue?
Every couple of weeks Gwyn Morgan is given a platform by Canada's newspaper of record, to pontificate on matters close to his heart.
What's close to his heart tends to revolve around certain predictable themes.
Government bad. Private sector good.
Regulation bad. Unfettered exploitation good.
Socialism bad. Capitalism good.
Unions bad. Minimum wage too generous.
You get the picture.
It's a pretty straight-forward regurgitation of the old-school neo-liberal manure wagon.
And in his spare time Gwyn is on the lecture circuit preaching about corporate ethics!
I know!
Every time I write those words, or even ponder such an improbability, I laugh so hard I wet myself, and all that out-of-control belly laughter leads to simultaneously having an asthma attack... then I'm trying to change my shorts while clinging to my puffer for dear life... I swear the man is trying to kill me!
Gwyn made his fortune as CEO of one of the world's biggest gas exploration companies, Encana. Under Gwyn's headship they became a leader in bringing industrial scale fracking to shale formations and fresh-water aquifers near you.
Since his retirement (i.e. waddling away with his pockets bulging with loot after selling out to a Chinese government controlled oil major, aka "the commies") Gwyn found himself sitting in the chair reserved for the Chairman of the Board of SNC-Lavalin, Canada's leading construction conglomerate.
Since Gwyn has graced that chair, his international head of construction operations, Riadh Ben Aissa, has been arrested in Switzerland, where he is awaiting trial on fraud and money-laundering charges.
And today, former SNC-Lavalin CEO Pierre Duhaimer was arrested in Canada on similar charges.
That's quite an ethically challenged operation you preside over, Mr. Morgan.
I can hardly wait to open the Globe and Mail and read your next column on corporate ethics!
What's close to his heart tends to revolve around certain predictable themes.
Government bad. Private sector good.
Regulation bad. Unfettered exploitation good.
Socialism bad. Capitalism good.
Unions bad. Minimum wage too generous.
You get the picture.
It's a pretty straight-forward regurgitation of the old-school neo-liberal manure wagon.
And in his spare time Gwyn is on the lecture circuit preaching about corporate ethics!
I know!
Every time I write those words, or even ponder such an improbability, I laugh so hard I wet myself, and all that out-of-control belly laughter leads to simultaneously having an asthma attack... then I'm trying to change my shorts while clinging to my puffer for dear life... I swear the man is trying to kill me!
Gwyn made his fortune as CEO of one of the world's biggest gas exploration companies, Encana. Under Gwyn's headship they became a leader in bringing industrial scale fracking to shale formations and fresh-water aquifers near you.
Since his retirement (i.e. waddling away with his pockets bulging with loot after selling out to a Chinese government controlled oil major, aka "the commies") Gwyn found himself sitting in the chair reserved for the Chairman of the Board of SNC-Lavalin, Canada's leading construction conglomerate.
Since Gwyn has graced that chair, his international head of construction operations, Riadh Ben Aissa, has been arrested in Switzerland, where he is awaiting trial on fraud and money-laundering charges.
And today, former SNC-Lavalin CEO Pierre Duhaimer was arrested in Canada on similar charges.
That's quite an ethically challenged operation you preside over, Mr. Morgan.
I can hardly wait to open the Globe and Mail and read your next column on corporate ethics!
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
The blissful certainties of a black-and-white world
Gwyn Morgan, according to the brief bio beneath his byline in the Globe and Mail, is "a Canadian business leader and a director of two global corporations".
Yesterday Morgan's astute analysis cut straight to the heart of the global economic crisis. The world is divided into two camps. On the one side you have the "givers". These would be your hard-working right-voting folks; entrepreneurs and wealth creators.
On the other side is your left-tilting grab-bag of liberals, Democrats, socialists of all stripes, welfare cheats, drug addicts, the sick, the halt, the lame, the weak of back and slow of mind, et. cetra. These are of course the "takers".
Quoting reverently from Glenn Beck's idol Friedrich Hayek, Morgan warns the reader that the long-suffering "givers" are on the verge of giving up. It's clear to Morgan that the insatiable demands of the "takers" are threatening the very future of the free enterprise model, which history has irrefutably proven to be superior. He cites two vastly over-simplified examples.
Look at Germany when the wall went down. Free-enterprisers on the one side. A socialist wasteland on the other. Germany was able to absorb those Eastern slackers and become the manufacturing powerhouse of Europe, but now all these "takers" in Greece and Spain threaten to break the back of the German miracle.
He finds an example in Canada as well. Look at those student protesters in Quebec. Talk about thankless "takers"! The lowest tuition in the land and yet they march for lower tuition?
And the "givers" in his Canadian scenario are the tax-payers of Alberta, who work tirelessly digging their self-created oil wealth out of the ground so that they can provide the "lions share" of the 7 billion in equalization payments that the rest of us bestow on Quebec every year.
But no economic analysis by this Fraser Institute regular is complete without a gratuitous slap at the NDP, the former socialist party with aspirations to form a government in the event that Canadians ever wake up and smell the Harper.
So Morgan has got the pro-labour NDP leader Thomas Mulcair marching to the barricades with the Montreal students. There they go, students and unionists arm in arm, rallying to "replace free-market capitalism with government controlled socialism".
The final triumph of the "takers" over the "givers".
Then it struck me that both the students and the NDP leader would be more than comfortable in Germany!
No tuition!
Government mandated union representation on corporate boards!
And suddenly I realized that it's not such a black-and-white world after all. Maybe there are other options besides "free-market capitalism" and "government mandated socialism".
Maybe a government regulated capitalism?
Perhaps we should embrace the German model, Mr. Morgan!
But his economic analyses aren't all that's dodgy about Gwyn Morgan.
In the course of his business career Morgan built Encana into North America's second largest natural gas company, leaving a trail of despoiled communities all over the continent as a result of his wholesale embrace of industrial-scale fracking practices.
Since leaving Encana he has become Chairman of the Board of SNC-Lavalin, the Canadian conglomerate currently under a cloud of suspicion over corruption in Bangladesh, Mexico, Libya and Switzerland.
And here's the punch line; he's on the speakers circuit these days, giving lectures around the world on the topic of business ethics!
Yesterday Morgan's astute analysis cut straight to the heart of the global economic crisis. The world is divided into two camps. On the one side you have the "givers". These would be your hard-working right-voting folks; entrepreneurs and wealth creators.
On the other side is your left-tilting grab-bag of liberals, Democrats, socialists of all stripes, welfare cheats, drug addicts, the sick, the halt, the lame, the weak of back and slow of mind, et. cetra. These are of course the "takers".
Quoting reverently from Glenn Beck's idol Friedrich Hayek, Morgan warns the reader that the long-suffering "givers" are on the verge of giving up. It's clear to Morgan that the insatiable demands of the "takers" are threatening the very future of the free enterprise model, which history has irrefutably proven to be superior. He cites two vastly over-simplified examples.
Look at Germany when the wall went down. Free-enterprisers on the one side. A socialist wasteland on the other. Germany was able to absorb those Eastern slackers and become the manufacturing powerhouse of Europe, but now all these "takers" in Greece and Spain threaten to break the back of the German miracle.
He finds an example in Canada as well. Look at those student protesters in Quebec. Talk about thankless "takers"! The lowest tuition in the land and yet they march for lower tuition?
And the "givers" in his Canadian scenario are the tax-payers of Alberta, who work tirelessly digging their self-created oil wealth out of the ground so that they can provide the "lions share" of the 7 billion in equalization payments that the rest of us bestow on Quebec every year.
But no economic analysis by this Fraser Institute regular is complete without a gratuitous slap at the NDP, the former socialist party with aspirations to form a government in the event that Canadians ever wake up and smell the Harper.
So Morgan has got the pro-labour NDP leader Thomas Mulcair marching to the barricades with the Montreal students. There they go, students and unionists arm in arm, rallying to "replace free-market capitalism with government controlled socialism".
The final triumph of the "takers" over the "givers".
Then it struck me that both the students and the NDP leader would be more than comfortable in Germany!
No tuition!
Government mandated union representation on corporate boards!
And suddenly I realized that it's not such a black-and-white world after all. Maybe there are other options besides "free-market capitalism" and "government mandated socialism".
Maybe a government regulated capitalism?
Perhaps we should embrace the German model, Mr. Morgan!
But his economic analyses aren't all that's dodgy about Gwyn Morgan.
In the course of his business career Morgan built Encana into North America's second largest natural gas company, leaving a trail of despoiled communities all over the continent as a result of his wholesale embrace of industrial-scale fracking practices.
Since leaving Encana he has become Chairman of the Board of SNC-Lavalin, the Canadian conglomerate currently under a cloud of suspicion over corruption in Bangladesh, Mexico, Libya and Switzerland.
And here's the punch line; he's on the speakers circuit these days, giving lectures around the world on the topic of business ethics!
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