The past few days has been filled with bluster and rhetoric regarding the seperatist movement in Quebec and Canadian Unity in general. So, no better time than now to discuss this issue more fully.

There is no doubt in my mind that more so than any other issue affecting Canada, National Unity has the power to truly cripple and destroy our great nation. Wars, crashed markets, and natural disasters can all take their toll on our day to day lives.. but they also serve to bring the country together and in effect make us stronger. A break up of Quebec, or any other province, however, would have far reaching effects that would strike to the very heart of this nation and likely destroy it… or at least make it utterly strange from what it is today.

Indeed, there are disenchanted voters and regions from Coast to Coast to Coast. Alberta, The West, the North, the Atlantic Provinces, Quebec, Newfoundland and I’m sure many other sub-regions all have their gripe with the federal government. All these issues are fair and deserve the same amount of care (or lip service as those affected might call it).

However, I think if you ask Canadians what region was most likely going to split from Canada or cause true division within Canadians, it would be Quebec. And that is why the Quebec sovereigntist movement must be addressed and resolved. Quebec must be brought into the Constitution as a full and equal partner in Canada. Otherwise, our nation as we know it would be fractured both physically and emotionally. Instead of being the beacon of tolerance, acceptance, and multiculturalism, we would be just another nation-state struggling for a definition Our voice and footprint on the International stage would be (even more) confused and weak. Our economy would literally be cut in half. What we must all realise is that we already have a definition. And that definition is Canada. A land of many voices, many regions, many landscapes. We are a nation with a history unique in the world… our bilingualism speaks to the legacy of those who colonized North America and founded our country.

Our current crop of politicians are using the Naitonal Unity issue as a stump speech and nothing more… I don’t believe any of them actually care about the issue… the sovereigntists see only the political “glory” of a sovereign Quebec, and the federalists want only to be the hero for Canada for a day. This is disgusting… and a disgrace. This issue deserves real action. The last Prime Minister to do it was Brian Mulroney, so we have a good indication of what a future politician would be up against were he to seriously tackle this issue again.

Paul Martin talks a lot about standing up for Canada and such, but he doesn’t do much to really make me, or I think Quebeccers, really believe it. If he is so concerned and “cares” so much about national unity then why has he not been spreading his message to Quebeccers. Why has he refused Gilles Duceppe’s challenge to a one-on-one debate on National Unity?

It is clear where his party stands on National Unity, they see it as a cash cow for their own coffers and Quebeccers know this better than anyone else.

Stephen Harper has accepted the challenge, but clearly only because he is trying to actually get on Quebeccers radar screens.

Perhaps in the coming weeks we will see some substantial talk about what to do about National Unity, but in an election campaign, “substantial” is not generally the word used to describe the discourse.

No, I expect more of the same… and so we will continue to blindly march down a road toward another unnecessary referendum. All the while ignoring, or too frightened, to deal with the issue itself.

I’m willing to give credit where credit is due… and believe it or not, I think George W. Bush deserves some credit for saying this last night.

Our coalition confronted a regime that… possessed, we believed, weapons of mass destruction.
After the swift fall of Baghdad, we found mass graves filled by a dictator; we found some capacity to restart programs to produce weapons of mass destruction, but we did not find those weapons.

Constrast that with this from 2002, from Dick Cheney:

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

Bush also said this last night:

It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As your President, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq.

That’s in contrast with this by George Bush on January 23rd, 2003:

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.

Contrary to what some may believe, I do not take any form of happiness from this change of heart. Instead it leaves me deeply saddened that the most powerful man in the world could have made such a terribly misguided decision and face no consequences

I could get fired from my job for, say, shooting a coworker.

But the President of the United States (who won’t be up for reelection anyway) suffers no consequence after taking his country to war for all the wrong reasons and in the process killling over 32000 Iraqis and US Soldiers.

That’s beyond unfair.

That’s criminal.

And Latin America slips further away from the US’s current political sphere of influence.

The BBC Reports that Leftist leader, and indigenous Bolivian, Evo Morales has won the Presidential election in Bolivia and should be voted in as President by the Bolivian Congress in the new year.

Mr. Morales is a man cut from the same cloth as Venezuelas Hugo Chavez. His platform is based on allowing the poorest in Bolivia to benefit from Bolivias massive oil-based wealth. He is also an aspiring friend of Fidel Castro and he isn’t thrilled with Free Trade in the Americas. No doubt these are all things that do not thrill the United States. But really, there is not much they can do.

The BBC has an excellent Feature on Central and South Americas year of electionsand how, many of those countries are moving towards much more socialist governments rather than the right-leaning, generally US-backing governments of the past.

As they say… times they are a changin’. Lets just hope it’s for the better for the people of Bolivia and Latin America.

Over the weekend some interesting information sort of coalesced into what might be considered a strong indication for what might happen come springtime.

This information spans multiple issues, from the Iranian nuclear issue, to peak oil, to Israeli security, to the global economy and the massive amounts of US debt in foreign hands.

1. Israeli sources last week said Iran was 3 months from having the capability to build a nuclear device (the JPost says “to build a bomb, but I think that is over-simplifying things a little)
2. Israels election will be March 28, 2006
3. Iran will create a new Oil Market, to compete with the “Brent Crude”,”Texas Crude”, and “Dubai Crude”… but traded in Euros instead of Dollars.
4. The US Fed will stop publishing M3 results, which tracks production and is used to calculated inflation (and thus how much USD the Government is printing) on March 23, 2006

I believe the most ominous of these snippets is not the Israeli saber-rattling but rather the ceasing of puplication of the M3 reports. This, combined with the new Iranian Oil Bourse seem to point to something on the horizon. I think the “power-that-be” see something coming and a sort of circling of the wagons is happening.

The M3 report, as explained here, is a comprehensive report published by the government which basically tracks all production, savings, accounts and spending in the US economy. Thus, it is used to track inflation and the printing of US dollars to keep up with US Debt. Without that information it becomes quite a bit harder for economists and investors to know exactly what is driving the economy.

So with US Current account deficits and government and consumer debt at all time highs due in large part to foreign investors holding vast amounts of “PetroDollars” what will happen when Iran starts this new “Iranian Oil Bourse” trading in Euros? That will mean more US Dollars being converted to Euros, and the US having to print more USD to keep up. This website has a good explanation of inflation since the 30s… and how in the past 20 years printing USD has been used to prop up the US Economy.

According to the explanation above:

The average annual increase in M3 during the past 20 years was 5.9%. However, during the past 3 months, M3 has increased at an annualized rate of over 10%. Given that the US dollar is also the reserve currency of the world, such high inflation rates for the dollar could impact more than the value of this currency alone.

My understanding is that printing billions of USD to replace foreign currency reserves that are lost to the Iranian Oil Bourse/Euro would be reflected in these M3 reports. Unfortunately, we will apparently never know, at least directly, whether that is actually happening. And what is *excluded* from the M3 reports? Military expenditures, so what better way to “prove” the economy is doing OK than to boost the numbers that we *do* see?

I think Iran is causing the US Administration and Fed some serious angst and it has little to do with the Nuclear program. If anything, the indicators above would seem to point to the nuclear issue being used as a distraction mechanism, namely. Israel attacks Iran re: nuclear weapons (and to appeal to a new spring mandate)… incredible instability ensues… no one uses Iranian Oil Bourse (or it simply collapses) thus keeping USD in more foreign reserves and staving off the immense downward pressure on the US dollar and economy and boosting the already lucrative defense contractors/establishment.

Is it a bit tin-hatish? Sure. But call me crazy for thinking that wars have been started for far less.

And for the record, no I don’t think attacking one of the Iranian nuclear establishments will do it… this isn’t Iraq… it’s not all at Osirak… it is well documented that the Iranian nuclear “complex” is spread wide and far across the Iranian landscape. If Israel really wants to deliver an Osirak-like blow, they’d have to do so in multiple operations… and without the cover and distraction provided to the Iraelis by the Iran-Iraq war as there was in ‘81, it’s hard to fathom how the Iranians would not retaliate with everything they had. So I don’t think the Israelis are even that nuts… but hey, what do I know?

So in short… you may want to make your New Years resolution “Spend less, save More”… and stick to it this time. Because come springtime, world events may not be so conducise to that $10,000 Mastercard bill.

Update

I just found that local business/investment guru and talk-show host Michael Campbell (he’s also BC Premier Gord Campbell’s brother) includes the above linked article by Paul van Eeden on his MoneyTalks.net website. Just thought this would interest those who might be skeptical of the qualifications of my sources.

Update 2

Fed Reserve Bank of San Fransisco definition of “M3″ and for the sake of completeness, can cause definitions are funny… I included M2 and M1 as well.

M3. Measure of the U.S. money stock that consists of M2 plus large-denomination time deposits (in amounts of $100,000 or more), balances in institutional money funds, RP liabilities (overnight and term) issued by all depository institutions, and Eurodollars (overnight and term) held by U.S. residents at foreign branches of U.S. banks worldwide and at all banking offices in the United Kingdom and Canada. Excludes amounts held by depository institutions, the U.S. government, money funds, and foreign banks and official institutions.

M2. Measure of the U.S. money stock that consists of M1 plus savings deposits (including money market deposit accounts), small-denomination time deposits (time deposits-including retail RPs-in amounts of less than $100,000), and balances in retail money market mutual funds. Excludes individual retirement account(IRA) and Keogh balances at depository institutions and money market funds.

M1. Measure of the U.S. money stock that consists of (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) travelers checks of nonbank issuers; (3) demand deposits at all commercial banks other than those due to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks and official institutions, less cash items in the process of collection and Federal Reserve float; and (4) other checkable deposits (OCDs), consisting of negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW) and automatic transfer service (ATS) accounts at depository institutions, credit union share draft accounts and demand deposits at thrift institutions.

I took a break from blogging this weekend to work on my Weather site.

It’s coming along nicely. I found a Jetstream image as well as Radar. The Radar image was difficult to insert in as the URL changes for every new image, so most of my time was spent creating a shell script to search the index file for the radar URL, and change it with the updated timestamp.

In the end though, I’ve got it working… save for a few bugs perhaps.

You can see my weather site for Port Alberni here.