mining projects are intended to maximize stock returns. are these companies going to refund taxpayers for the gifts they are receiving, or is this just a strict handout to stock portfolios? i'd guess the latter. i'm not particularly opposed to the mining, but this isn't a public works project, it's corporate welfare, and a government handout to the ultra rich. if these mining companies want to expand their operations, they should pay for it themselves. if government is going to lend them money, they should do so at 20+% interest rates, and then tax them through the mouth when they get the resources out. if the companies don't agree, we should nationalize them and do it ourselves. whatever you think of this, it only benefits a handful of people at the expense of major public funding. government funding for projects of this sort should be opposed, but there's no opposition.
the nuclear power plant is being marketed as an energy solution, but the project fails basic physics. the amount of carbon you burn during uranium extraction is astronomical. it's actually one of the dirtiest forms of energy production, when you take into account the entire fuel cycle. if there was some easy to access source of uranium, that might make sense, but this is, counter-intuitively, just a handout to the diesel industry. worse, these plants will probably never get built, anyways. this is another handout to stock portfolios, and will likely be a boondoggle. conservatives should pay special attention to this one.
a better idea would be to build more clean hydro, but the canadian government won't fund hydro because it doesn't create "added value". that's their language. what they mean to say is that investors don't profit from hydro generation, because it's basically free after you build the dam. you can't package and sell hydro. they've tried to do it with hydrogen, but nobody buys into it.
the lng project is hopelessly backwards. once again, industry should fund this. it's the definition of short-sighted capitalism for the state to show up and expend massive resources chasing a temporary european market. by the time they build the infrastructure, the issue in europe will have resolved itself one way or the other, including, potentially, via pipelines from qatar.
the port expansions are reasonable, and i don't oppose this.
overall, carney is behaving in a way that was predictable and should have been expected. it was well understood that he had substantive investments. he is consequently hijacking the canadian state to provide corporate welfare that will help the stock market, and throwing everybody else under the bus. two of the five projects will never get built. you should expect him to talk about the stock market and the economy as though they are the same thing. you should also pay attention to the subsidies he does direct to the manufacturing sector, and see if you can pull out a pattern for his portfolio.
i can predict his demise.
he will be accused of corruption, and might get charged for it.