Dr. David Robinson

Last month I talked about Christmas presents for politicians. Here is another: Perverse Cities by Pamela Blais, is the perfect gift for your local council member. The book has a great subtitle: Hidden Subsidies, Wonky Policy and Urban Sprawl.

Tip the globe so you are looking down on the North Pole. It is surrounded by seven countries. The Northern Rim Countries (NORCs), are the USA, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Greenland and Canada.

Say Jeff Rubin is right. Say energy prices go through the roof. Will it really be the “end of growth” as Rubin claims? Jeff Rubin was once the chief economist at CIBC World Markets.

What do Dryden and Temiskaming Shores have in common? And what do they have to do with ideas? More importantly, what do they have to do with ideas having sex? And how in the world am I going to make a serious economic column with an introduction like

In March, the premier of Ontario was attacked for defending Ontario’s manufacturing sector.

There is a battle going on for a big chunk of Northern Ontario. On one side is the global economy, desperate for minerals, desperate to minimize costs and leave behind as little as possible.

Premier Brad Wall is proud of Saskatchewan. The province is booming. Migration from other provinces is up 40 per cent —people are streaming in from places like Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta.

Timmins lost 670 Xstrata jobs because Quebec has lower electricity prices than Ontario. Cliffs is making noises about refining in Manitoba because Manitoba offers cheaper electricity rates.

American presidents like to declare war on abstractions. Lyndon Johnson went to war on poverty, Ronald Reagan went to war on drugs, George W. Bush went to war on terror. But these were all such timid wars.

Everyone connected to the economy seems to be having an identity crisis.