Making Canada Relevant Again- The Economic Super-Thread

[foresterab]

While an interesting report I question some of the assumptions in the report such as:
1) expenditures are based upon spending up to a maximum of 145% of revenue in a year
2) no provision for economic tax expansion.  Alberta has no sales tax currently and low overall tax rates (hence high default rating score) but how much can Quebec expand taxes?
3) Does not speak to expenditures as a percentage of federal equalization?
4) Has a large weighting for number of seniors in 30 years -> increased health care costs. But does not speak to working population available to pay taxes.
5) assumption of no change in productivity of working population

Best parts were the parts about future bond yields and discount differences between provinces based upon credit scores...that 0.5-0.75% difference has huge impacts on how areas will climb out of debt.  Also the acknowledgement of debt held by investments done by the provinces (page 11) showing an additional 18.9% liability not talked about in the provincial debt reports.

Worth a read but not enough here to formulate economic policy on.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The Good Grey Globe's[ Jeffrey Simpson is a recent convert on the Road to Damascus, but he has seen the light on health care budgeting and he gives a good thumbnail sketch of the problem in this column which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/tight-money-kills-ontarios-buy-change-illusion/article4621935/

Tight money kills Ontario’s ‘buy change’ illusion

JEFFREY SIMPSON
TORONTO — The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Oct. 19 2012

Greg Sorbara, as a newly minted Ontario Liberal finance minister in 2004, offered a shock and a prediction in his first budget.

The shock was health-care premiums, a tax by another name from a party whose leader, Dalton McGuinty, had signed an election pledge not to raise taxes. The premiums, Mr. McGuinty explained, were needed to finance health-care spending, the government’s and Ontarians’ top priority. Simultaneously, the government stopped paying for optometry, chiropractic treatments and physiotherapy.

Then came Mr. Sorbara’s warning. The previous Conservative government had increased health spending by 7 per cent a year – $22.2-billion in 2000-2001 to $25.5-billion in 2002-2003. These 7-per-cent increases, plus the 7-per-cent increase for health care he announced in his first budget, were unsustainable.

Read Mr. Sorbara’s words from 2004: “This rate of increase is not sustainable, and can only lead to the continued ‘crowding out’ of available funding for other priorities in the future.”

Spin the wheel forward to 2010. Dwight Duncan is now Ontario’s Finance Minister. In Mr. Duncan’s budget that year, he proclaimed: “Just 20 years ago, 32 cents of every dollar spent on government programs was spent on health care. Today, it is 46 cents. In 12 years, if we don’t take action, it could be 70 cents.”

Having warned Ontarians in 2004 that 7-per-cent annual health-care increases were not “sustainable,” what did Mr. Sorbara and his colleagues do? Answer: From 2003-2004 to 2010-2011, they increased health-care spending by almost $16-billion, a 52-per-cent increase over seven years – or, wait for it, 7.4 per cent each year.

This was the rate of increase that, in 2004, the same government had described as “unsustainable.” Yet, the Liberals were on a spending treadmill, and they couldn’t get off it. So, for that matter, were many provincial governments across Canada – at least until the aftermath of the brutal 2008 recession turned their surpluses into deficits – in Ontario’s case, a $15-billion deficit.

Now, belatedly, the Liberals have done an about-face. Strapped for cash and burdened by deficits, they’re slamming on the spending brakes for education and health care. So are other provincial governments that are wrestling with their most expensive program, health care, in a period of deficits.

Many were the reasons for the Liberals’ huge health-care spending increases. An obvious one was demand, which grows and grows to take all available money. Among others was the idea, articulated forcefully in the 2002 Romanow commission report, that health care needed a huge infusion of money that would “buy change.”

Following this advice, and enjoying fiscal surpluses, Ottawa and the provinces agreed that the federal government would pour an additional $41-billion into health care over a decade – indexed at 6 per cent a year. That 6 per cent sounds generous, and it is. But if yearly spending is going up by 7.4 per cent, a 6-per-cent indexation just keeps things afloat. Which is what happened in Ontario, and elsewhere. The post-Romanow money didn’t buy change as much as it bought time.

It also bought big wage settlements. Ontario physicians and nurses – the large provider groups within the system, organized in powerful associations and unions – did just what Ontario teachers did: They negotiated handsome settlements that grabbed a big chunk of the new money being injected into these public systems.

That this would happen should have been seen by any politician at the time, because such is the nature of the public sector dominated by motivated and mobilized organized groups. The money the groups got far exceeded productivity gains (an economic principle called Baumol’s cost disease).

Now, its fiscal back against the wall, the Ontario government is generating important changes to health care: altering the way hospitals are financed, allowing pharmacists to do more, scaling back providers’ income increases, trying harder to get more value and higher quality outcomes for the money spent. They’re steps in the right direction, many long overdue. Many more are required, and over a long period of time.

There are more changes being introduced now that money is tight in Ontario than when governments operated under the “buy change” illusion.

I am not well enough read on health care to offer sensible solutions, but ...

1. The current 6 or 7 or even higher rates of growth are, clearly unsustainable over the mid to long term. We must either -
   
    a. Find "new" sources of money ~ bearing in mind that you and I are, always the only source of money for anything, or

    b. Reduce spending ~ on the services that you and I need use. If we, you and I, really need the service then we must pay directly ("new" money, in its own way), otherwise we must do without;

2. Tommy Douglas was right: a system that insures Canadians against catastrophic health care bills for medically necessary services is better, in all respects, than most other models, including, especially, the US model which is one of the few in the OECD that costs more than ours and is one of the few in the OECD which has worse outcomes than ours;

3. Monique Begin was wrong: the system she introduced via the Canada Health Act does not give us Tommy Douglas' model of health insurance, rather it appears to promise "free" care for everyone for everything; and

4. The finite pool of money which you and I give to governments must be spent on many vital, core issues including e.g. the defence of the realm, public education and infrastructure. Health care spending is, indeed, "crowding out" those essential programmes. Thus go back to 1.a and 1.b

Almost every country in the OECD spends less, per capita, than Canada on health care and almost ever country in the OECD gets better results from its health care system. We must conclude that we have a poor  model. But our model is very close to being the defining issue for most Canadians; reform is, nearly, a practical political impossibility. We love our inefficient and ineffective system. I think the only thing we can conclude from that is that most Canadians are stupid willfully blind to economic realities.

 

[ModlrMike]

We love our inefficient and ineffective system. I think the only thing we can conclude from that is that most Canadians are stupid willfully blind to economic realities.

From the perspective of one who works at the heath care "coalface", I rather think you had it right the first time.

One of the other unintended consequences of "free" health care is that Canadians have abdicated any responsibility to look after themselves. The prevailing attitude is one of "my (hypertension/diabetes/obesity) is not my fault, but it's your job to make it go away". This philosophy is in large part responsible for a rapid drain of health care dollars. Preventable disease should not cost nearly as much as it does in this country. Add to the foregoing the inappropriate use of resources (if you come to ER with a cold it costs the system $1000, if you see your MD or walkin clinic $35), then it becomes easy to see where the money goes.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>They negotiated handsome settlements that grabbed a big chunk of the new money being injected into these public systems.

That should not come as a surprise to anyone who has lived long enough past the age of 15 to observe at least two rounds of public sector union negotiations.  The claim is _always_ that more money is need to "improve the X system".  The employees are _always_ first in line with their hands out when "more money" is announced.

 

[Edward Campbell]

There is a report in today's print edition of the National Post that says that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has been given a classified (SECRET) report outlining some possible changes to equalization. One change that might have real fiscal and political ramifications is to recalculate how hydroelectricty production and the associated economic benefits are factored in; this would impact BC, MB, QC and NL.

The Winnipeg Free Press, quoting Jim Flaherty's office, says "the files referenced are not under active consideration by the government," which is a pity because the nature of "comparable" in revenues and services needs to be more clearly defined.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

>They negotiated handsome settlements that grabbed a big chunk of the new money being injected into these public systems.

That should not come as a surprise to anyone who has lived long enough past the age of 15 to observe at least two rounds of public sector union negotiations.  The claim is _always_ that more money is need to "improve the X system".  The employees are _always_ first in line with their hands out when "more money" is announced.

Yup, I guess if you have a Public Service job, you're nothing but an ungrateful, money grabbing ne'er do well. Your only goal in life is how to fuck the taxpayer out of more of their cash.

However, the CAW doesn't have anything to do with that ridiculous price you pay for your car, or the IBEW when it comes to wiring a house, right?

I'd like to see how many naysayers would turn down a job in the Public Service if they wanted and were offered one. Very few I suspect. The majority would only be too glad to jump on that perceived 'gravy train'.

I suppose those that wouldn't also think PS don't pay taxes, get free cigarettes, etc, as once was thought of CF personnel. Speaking of which, I wonder what all those (Public Service) CF types would do for raises if their wage wasn't tied to those of others in PS unions?

But I suppose police, firefighters, ems and soldiers are ok, even though they are PS, they protect us right? The rest of the PS don't perform anything that you need, so they're just considered slugs that are a drain on society.

I guess if you are a Luddite libertarian you have the option of thinking like that.

 

[Jed]

Yup, I guess if you have a Public Service job, you're nothing but an ungrateful, money grabbing ne'er do well. Your only goal in life is how to fuck the taxpayer out of more of their cash.

However, the CAW doesn't have anything to do with that ridiculous price you pay for your car, or the IBEW when it comes to wiring a house, right?

I'd like to see how many naysayers would turn down a job in the Public Service if they wanted and were offered one. Very few I suspect. The majority would only be too glad to jump on that perceived 'gravy train'.

I suppose those that wouldn't also think PS don't pay taxes, get free cigarettes, etc, as once was thought of CF personnel. Speaking of which, I wonder what all those (Public Service) CF types would do for raises if their wage wasn't tied to those of others in PS unions?

But I suppose police, firefighters, ems and soldiers are ok, even though they are PS, they protect us right? The rest of the PS don't perform anything that you need, so they're just considered slugs that are a drain on society.

I guess if you are a Luddite libertarian you have the option of thinking like that.

Wow! Pretty extreme characterization. IMO, Brad Sallows makes a valid point. Having spent most of my working career in PS or the military, and now sitting on the other side of the fence I agree with it to some extent.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Wow! Pretty extreme characterization. IMO, Brad Sallows makes a valid point. Having spent most of my working career in PS or the military, and now sitting on the other side of the fence I agree with it to some extent.

Really? What's extreme?

No more extreme than people that think the all PS are nothing more than a bunch of blood suckers.

And while they're swinging that big brush around, they must remember that all CF pers are PS also.

So please, come here and tell all the serving people on this site that they are not worth their pay.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Wow! Pretty extreme characterization. IMO, Brad Sallows makes a valid point. Having spent most of my working career in PS or the military, and now sitting on the other side of the fence I agree with it to some extent.

Did you turn down or protest any raises while you were PS or military???  No??  Than your statement is futile.....

NEWSFLASH::  It's the Union's job to get more for thier members...full stop.

When you pay an investment person to help you invest do you tell him you'd like to make as little as possible or perhaps even lose some money??  Well, I pay my union to invest in my future.

 

[Jed]

Since when did I ever say that the PS or the CF were not worth their pay? Of course I never turned down any negotiated pay raise and I suffered the increment freezes as everyone did. There is no option given.

I did however refuse to sign on to a Union when given the option in the PS (Sask circa 1985)  and I did receive less of a salary compared to my peers that did elect to sign with a Union as a consequence of my decision.

Unions are not all bad blood sucking organizations, currently however IMO, they are generally causing more economic harm than good as they are helping to perpetuate the culture of entitlement that seems to be so prevalent in today's society.

 

[Jed]

Further to my last; After many years of representing their members, it seems that Union management evolves into just another interim level of supervision between the management and workers. After a while, like all facets of human relations, the union management loses touch with their members and begins to make sure they (the Union Management) get their entitlements first.

Just like any democratically elected political party.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Unions are not all bad blood sucking organizations, currently however IMO, they are generally causing more economic harm than good as they are helping to perpetuate the culture of entitlement that seems to be so prevalent in today's society.

Nice statement but please explain how?  I surely hope you aren't basing all that on a few sound bites from newscasts who need someone/anyone to give them something to,...well, whatever it is the media does these days.

I feel no more entitled now than when I non-union delivered drywall........

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Further to my last; After many years of representing their members, it seems that Union management evolves into just another interim level of supervision between the management and workers. After a while, like all facets of human relations, the union management loses touch with their members and begins to make sure they (the Union Management) get their entitlements first.

Just like any democratically elected political party.

Now that I can buy,.......but just like politics it's because too many of us sit on the sidelines and whine and complain on websites all da.........err, wait a minute....

 

[a_majoor]

Eliminating debt should be job one, at all levels. The headline question "is it the governments fault?" is indirectly "yes", since they provided perverse incentives (even if these were perhaps indirect or created for a different purpose) that people responded to.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/10/23/marni-soupcoff-canadians-are-immersing-themselves-in-debt-is-it-governments-fault/

Marni Soupcoff: Canadians are immersing themselves in debt — Is it government’s fault?

Marni Soupcoff | Oct 23, 2012 12:45 PM ET
More from Marni Soupcoff | @soupcoff

As I saw it, the great financial crisis was a warning to the entire world — governments and individuals alike — that spending more than you’ve got can have dire consequences. It was, for those of us in Canada, a convenient warning because we were lucky enough to be able to receive it without personally feeling the pain of those consequences. Without, for example, experiencing an epidemic of foreclosures and lost homes.

Yet, it’s not clear we have learned the lessons we should have, even from our close neighbours in the United States. For those who don’t think Canadians have a problem with debt and over-extending themselves in real estate, a new BMO survey should serve as an eye-opener. Consider: The report (conducted for BMO by Pollara) found that 72% of the people they interviewed would feel a “significant strain from a modest increase in their monthly mortgage payments.” It seems even with the current low interest rates, Canadians are surprisingly close to the edge of not being able to afford their homes. Seventeen percent of the folks they surveyed have already had to dip into savings just to meet their existing mortgage obligations.

For those who are thinking that we’re still nowhere the levels of personal debt that helped bring the United States to the point of financial meltdown, think again. It is pointed out in the Canadian Press report on the BMO survey that as things stand, Canadian household credit market debt is sitting at 163% of income, which happens to be “about the level reached in the United States before the housing crash of 2007-08.” We have the benefit of not having Fannie and Freddie here to inflame matters and expand the housing bubble with the riskiest of mortgages. But given how over-extended Canadians are, we shouldn’t consider ourselves immune from such disasters.

The statistics certainly make Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s recent decision to slightly tighten up the rules for government-insured mortgages (reducing the maximum amortization rate by five years, and reducing by 5% the refinancing limit) seem like a wise one.

One wonders, though, whether this is really a problem the government can fix when the root of the evil is consumers and home-buyers who are eager to put themselves into as much debt as a creditor is willing to allow them, with no internal mechanism (a sober voice of reason echoing in the mind about the cost of borrowing, or thoughts of caution in case current income streams get interrupted) for putting on the brakes.

The government can certainly help by getting out the way and not facilitating irresponsible borrowing. It’s now becoming clear that Canada has benefitted from a government less obsessed with pushing home-ownership than its American counterpart — and we’ve, therefore, benefitted from having fewer policy incentives (such as tax-deductible mortgage payments) for people to borrow beyond their means to own their own home.

But at the end of the day, if Canadians aren’t willing to act like grown-ups about their own finances, there are going to be serious problems regardless of anything Ottawa does or doesn’t do. For the reckless borrower, it’s just a matter of time before someone steps up with an expensive loan of one sort or another.

Maybe trying to shield these people from the logical harsh consequences of their poor choices is a bad idea in itself.

I think that idea could easily be extended to financial institutions too — letting them shoulder the burden for making high-risk loans, rather than leaving taxpayers on the hook, could do wonders to reduce the number of such loans extended. That’s one lesson consumers and banks have both learned a little too well: the government can always be counted on to bail you out when you make a mistake. The sooner that notion is unlearned, the better for us all.

National Post
msoupcoff@nationalpost.com
Twitter @soupcoff

 

[captloadie]

NEWSFLASH::  It's the Union's job to get more for their members...full stop.

Really, has that now become the sole role of a union. I always thought the union's job, originally, was to ensure that members were protected from overzealous management who put profits ahead of workplace safety and an employee's well being. And I applaud union execs who still work towards this goal. On the other hand, when union bosses would rather prove a point than ensure the well being of the membership, I have an issue. When the choice is to either give concessions or see an organization go bankrupt and the choice is allowing bankruptcy, how is that helping the membership. When the choice is fighting for higher wages for the PS, and the result being more layoffs and having to do more with less people, how is that helping? I'd give up my pay raise for the last three years if it meant I could have just one more admin clerk, truck driver, or mechanic.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Trade unions do a number of useful things - consider workplace health and safety, for one - but the most important thing they do is to help set the cost of labour. Knowing and accounting for all costs is vital to good management and labour costs are, usually, a major component of the final price of any product or service.

Please note that cost ≠ value. While the union helps to determine the cost of labour, through the collective bargaining process, the value of that labour is decided by the owners or managers of the enterprise. If or when the owner* is not satisfied that cost is proportional to or commensurate with value then (s)he must take measures to make them equal. It is possible, but rare, that the owner will see that the cost of labour is below its value and (s)he will, as a defensive measure, raise salaries and benefits to keep the valuable work force at their jobs. But, most often, the owner and/or her/his managers  will see that the cost of labour is too high. (S)he may, as the NHL owners are doing in 2012, try to renegotiate salaries and benefits to get them down to a level (s)he considers commensurate with the value or (s)he may decide to change methods, perhaps through automation, to do the same work with less labour.

There is nothing wrong with unions; they are part of an economic process but the process is very, very human and so, it is almost always imperfect, usually very imprefect.

With respect to the cost/value of labour: in most collective agreements we find three phases:

1. In the first phase the workers are paid too much, relative to the value of their labour;

2. In the second phase costs (wages and benefits) and value are pretty much proportionate; and

3. In the third phase the workers are underpaid relative to the value of their work.

In a good, balanced system the first and third phases should offset one another.


__________
* And you and I are the "owners" of public services; the Prime Minister or Premier are our "employees," we hire them to manage the country for us.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I would say that the vast majority of PS workers would be happy to hang onto what they have much less ask for more. They know neither the government nor the public have an interest in that at the moment.

The problem  see with reductions in the PS is that the true bloodsuckers rarely suffer as they are connected and send their time being aware enough to avoid the axe, while people busy doing real work are to busy to protect themselves and then find themselves cut.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Really, has that now become the sole role of a union. I always thought the union's job, originally, was to ensure that members were protected from overzealous management who put profits ahead of workplace safety and an employee's well being. And I applaud union execs who still work towards this goal. On the other hand, when union bosses would rather prove a point than ensure the well being of the membership, I have an issue. When the choice is to either give concessions or see an organization go bankrupt and the choice is allowing bankruptcy, how is that helping the membership. When the choice is fighting for higher wages for the PS, and the result being more layoffs and having to do more with less people, how is that helping? I'd give up my pay raise for the last three years if it meant I could have just one more admin clerk, truck driver, or mechanic.

When I said "more" I didn't say I meant money did I??....YOU made that leap........

Check my username on my profile and you might see that I have a job where "more" personal means a whole lot to me.

 

[mariomike]

On the other hand, when union bosses would rather prove a point than ensure the well being of the membership, I have an issue.

They were not our bosses.

We could ( and did ) vote them back to Operations if they failed to represent to our satisfaction.

When the choice is fighting for higher wages for the PS, and the result being more layoffs and having to do more with less people, how is that helping?

Minimum staffing levels were/are written into our collective agreement. This protects not only the workers, but is also a matter of public safety.

As an Essential Service, we did not have - and did not seek - the right to strike. Wages and benefits went to binding interest arbitration.

The taxpayers' ability to pay the cost of labour is discussed here:
https://www.pao.ca/library/Ability%20to%20Pay%20Position%20Paper%202011.pdf 

 

[Edward Campbell]

Perhaps the time is ripe to go right flanking and tie Fort McMurray, Inuvik, Prudhoe and Valdez together.  It would mean mixing pipelines, directions and fluids (bitumen, distillate and gas) and it would exporting Canadian oil and gas via American ports (which we are already doing).  But the scope of the project would be so massive and of such duration that it would create a focus for activity that would create transportation corridors for road and rail.  That is a strategic outcome appreciated by both the Alaskan and the Canadian governments.

And it would have the support of the majority of the Alaskans and the northern tribes along the MacKenzie.

It might even be privately financed.

Or go the other way ...

While not referring to oil pipelines the idea is that the Atlantic coast does provide ready access to sea lanes to Asia so maybe, as some entrepreneurs have suggested, we should extend pipelines from AB to (an) Atlantic port(s).

Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/in-race-to-export-lng-a-new-atlantic-plan/article4634129/

In race to export LNG, a new Atlantic plan

BERTRAND MAROTTE
The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Oct. 24 2012

The vision to export natural gas from Canada is taking a sharp turn to the east.

Alfred Sorensen, president of Pieridae Energy Canada, has a dream to build a major liquefied natural gas export facility on Canada’s East Coast, the first of its kind. The $5-billion (U.S.) project is an eastern addition to a race unfolding in Western Canada to build LNG infrastructure that would allow major exports from the coast of British Columbia to global markets.

The former Duke Energy Corp. executive says the timing and conditions are right for construction of a complex in Goldboro, N.S. that would liquefy natural gas and ship it to markets in Europe and India. The site would have on-site storage capacity of 420,000 cubic metres.

But the plan must overcome some major challenges if it is to become reality. One is whether Pieridae can successfully lock in a sufficient number of long-term contracts to justify the project’s high price tag. Another is growing pressure for cheaper prices from overseas buyers.

A planned LNG export facility on the east coast is another element in the rapidly shifting energy flows of North America.

The project would tap into existing pipeline infrastructure in the east, possibly requiring the reversal of some routes that currently bring U.S. gas to domestic markets to instead take it to the east coast for export abroad. And the plan comes amid other efforts to bring Western Canadian oil eastward, as refiners seek to take advantage of abundant supplies.

A LNG facility proposed for Nova Scotia would be located next to the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline,
a 1,400-kilometre system that carries natural gas to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and New England.
Globe and Mail Inforgraphic

Mr. Sorensen, who spearheaded the Kitimat LNG project in British Columbia before selling it two years ago to Apache Corp. and EOG Resources for about $300-million (Canadian), says he’s confident he can make Goldboro work.

“We looked into possible other opportunities for LNG besides Kitimat and, after several important discussions with long-term users, we decided there is sufficient demand” for an East Coast LNG terminal, he said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Europe and India are targeted as the two main export markets for the planned five million tonnes a year of LNG. Europe and India “are two areas where we have either executed or are very close to executing MOUs [memorandums of understanding] with long-term buyers of natural gas,” Mr. Sorensen said.

But Europe is not an easy market to crack because it’s highly competitive given the availability of low-cost natural gas from Russia as well as the North Sea gas play, said Peter Tertzakian, chief energy economist and managing director at Calgary-based ARC Financial Corp.

Mr. Sorensen says the potential customers in Europe he has spoken to are looking to diversify their supply, and natural gas from Canada fits the bill.

Another issue facing Mr. Sorensen’s company is the strong push from buyers around the globe to abandon the standard practice of using natural gas contracts linked to the price of oil, which make for higher gas prices. Europe, in particular, is seeing a declining number of oil-linked contracts.

Then there is the question of supply. Sourcing enough natural gas from Canadian producers on the East Coast may prove difficult because of lack of availability, Mr. Tertzakian said. If most of the supply were to come from the massive Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania, then the Goldboro LNG terminal would just act as a transit facility for U.S. producers.

“We’re looking first at a Canadian solution, both onshore and offshore,” Mr. Sorensen said. Potential reserves might eventually be available from the promising Quebec shale gas play, but the province has imposed a moratorium on development pending the conclusion of lengthy environmental studies, and low North American gas prices currently make it uneconomic to develop.

“A Goldboro LNG export terminal will greatly contribute to our world-class oil and gas sector and position Nova Scotia as a strategic energy exporter,” Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter said.

A major Atlantic coast Petro-port, sending both oil and gas to the world, is an option.