Archive for Canadian politics

The Myth of the Muslim Tide by Doug Saunders

November 28, 2012 at 2:39 am · Filed under British politics, Canadian politics, Civil Liberties

Doug Saunders is a Canadian journalist based in London. In this book he takes apart the mythology, current in both Europe and North America, that Muslim immigration threatens Western culture. The book is divided into four sections:

In the first titled ‘Popular Fiction’ he examines the mythology as it is presented by various right-wing ideologues in Britain, North America and Europe. Its main proponent in the UK is of course Melanie Philips who set out her ideas in her book Londonistan.

In the second section ‘The Facts’ he shows how way-off reality the myth-makers are.  This section is very well researched, peppered with statistics and makes for some fascinating reading.

In third section ‘We’ve been here before’ Saunders looks at the historical reaction to Irish and Jewish immigration, and draws parallels with the present.  I found this section quite chilling in that there seems to be so little historical progress in the way we view immigrant groups with different cultures to our own.

Finally, in ‘What we ought to worry about’ he examines what the real problems are in immigrant communities and makes some suggestions about what we should be doing about it.

I learned a lot from this book, including the uncomfortable realisation that I’d had some misapprehensions and prejudices of my own. I highly recommend it. It would also make an ideal Christmas gift for your irritating Daily Mail reading in-law.

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Review of The Carbon Crunch by Dieter Helm

October 26, 2012 at 4:31 am · Filed under Alberta, British politics, Canadian politics, Economics, Environment ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Climate change is speeding up, exceeding the worst predictions of the IPCC. The arctic could be ice-free in summer within five years.  Without ice, the sea warms up more quickly, melting the undersea tundra, and releasing huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere.  Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon-dioxide.  We may  already have reached the tipping point beyond which lies catastrophe.  Two degrees of warming is inevitable, but six degrees, by the end of this century, is a real possibility — a level which threatens the continuance of our species, but if humanity does survive, there will be far fewer of us, living in very changed and worsened conditions on far less of the planet’s surface.

International attempts to tackle the problem have failed utterly. Emissions keep going up.  We Europeans were apt to be smug because we were meeting our Kyoto targets, but that had nothing to do with the EU emissions trading system, which is dead in the water. Our emissions went down because of de-industrialisation. If we take into account the carbon emitted in the goods we import, then UK emissions have gone up by around 20%. The conferences at Copenhagen and Durban were a disaster.  To quote Dieter Helm:

“what was ‘agreed’ was that the parties would try to agree by 2015 what they may do after 2020.  This really would be hard to make up!”.

So what is the way forward?  Is there a way forward at all?  Helm thinks there is and that is one reason to read this book. Another reason is if you are unsure how shale gas fits into the picture.  As a relatively low carbon fuel does it buy us time, or is the environmental cost too high? And finally, Helm is reputed (according to Simon Jenkins) to have the ‘ear of the Treasury’, which in itself makes what he has to say interesting.

Dieter Helm, Professor of Energy Policy at Oxford, has written extensively on climate change, but this is his first book for the general reader.  If he wanted to reach a wide audience, it was possibly a mistake to be so politically partisan, particularly in the early chapters. His centre-right perspective may give him more leverage with Conservative politicians, but it is off-putting if, like me, you are not so committed to one side of the political divide. While he painstakingly teases out the different strands of Conservative thought (basically Roger Scruton’s traditional Conservatism = good, Neo-Cons = regrettable), he has Scruton’s tendency to lump everyone else  together, as impossibly idealistic and often authoritarian socialists. Contrast Helm’s sympathetic treatment of  Nigel Lawson who, he tells us “found it hard to get his book on climate change published, even though he accepted that climate change was likely to occur” (and also showed a profound lack of understanding of the science, questioned whether climate change was in fact occurring, asking whether a 3 degree rise really mattered, called for the IPCC to be disbanded, and set up a climate change sceptic organisation), with Helm’s treatment of John Sauven, who is labelled intolerant for calling the delegates to Copenhagen ‘criminals’.  Although I’d agree that Greenpeace is  often intolerant,  an exhausted and frustrated lobbyist lapsing into hyperbole at the end of the Copenhagen debacle is not the best example.

Because solutions to climate change are long term, any realistic strategy must command  a large degree of consensus across the political spectrum. It would have been helpful for Helm to acknowledge the heterogeneity of environmentalism. They are not all socialists who want to ration carbon worldwide to one tonne  per person per annum. Helm thinks that almost everything  done so far has been either useless or counter-productive, but he would not have difficulty finding environmentalists who agree with his criticisms: nuclear is needed — ask Mark Lynas; wind turbines are an expensive irrelevance — try James Lovelock; solar power also —  George Monbiot agrees; carbon emissions trading has failed, and we need a carbon tax — widespread agreement; coal is the main problem — over the pond, James Hanson has been shouting it from the rooftops for years; insulating people’s home may reduce fuel poverty but won’t reduce emissions — try the Canadian Mark Jaccard, and so on.

Helm proposes a three-fold strategy to set us on the right track. Firstly we need shale gas as an interim transitional fuel. He stresses that extraction must be properly regulated (he is, unsurprisingly, pro-nuclear, but doesn’t see it making a significant contribution for another 20 years).  Secondly we need a carbon tax, charged at the point of consumption not production, which would include a tax on imports. Thirdly we need a major programme of R&D, funded by the carbon tax,  to find technological solutions.

I’m not competent to make a detailed critique of what he proposes, but there is one glaring problem — that of persuading  the public, and governments, that carbon taxes are necessary.  Recent history is not encouraging.  In the UK the Labour government was forced to back down on road charging.  In Canada, the Liberal Party’s ‘Green Shift’ manifesto, which proposed a carbon tax, lost them an election. In the current US presidential race neither candidate dares even mention the subject of climate change. Helm is critical of leftist greens for making politically unachievable demands. but on the other hand, he is critical of governments for misleading the public by telling them that we can tackle climate change without any cost.  He wants politicians to come clean and admit that it will cost money and jobs, and cause a drop in standard of living for us all. Given the public reaction to austerity budgets, what chance is there that any government that tries to impose a carbon tax will stay in power?

To allow import taxes on carbon, Helm proposes WTO rules should be amended if necessary.  How many decades would it take to get international consensus for that?

If Dieter Helm does have “the ear of the Treasury”, I’d love to be a fly on the wall  to hear the conversation. It follows from Helm’s position that Britain should vote to implement the EU Fuel Quality Directive.  I hope he points that out, and the government listens. It is a small thing, but something they can do without angering the electorate.

For a more informed review than mine — by development economist Simon Maxwell — see here.

The Carbon Crunch by Dieter Helm - link to Amazon.co.uk

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Another CAPP ad

October 21, 2012 at 8:15 pm · Filed under Alberta, Canadian politics, Environment ·Tagged , , , , ,

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has restarted its campaign to green-wash the tar-sands. I will be failing in my duty if I do not comment on the latest ad.

The star is Chelsie Klasson, who works in community relations for Imperial Oil.  She beams from the page in a head and shoulder shot accompanied by the headline: ‘Every day I see the positive impact oil sands development is having on our communities’.  

She continues: ‘Working in community relations I get to see how tax dollars and royalty payments from oil sands development are making a difference. It’s funding hospitals, schools and social programs. I tell everyone I possibly can about how the oil sands are having a really positive impact on our communities.’

CAPP ad connoisseurs (we happy few) will notice the difference between this ad and the previous series.  Chelsie stands against a blurred background — though you can just read the word ‘hospital’.  Gone are the pristine lakes and woodland scenery, which were such inappropriate backdrops for justifying an industry which is transforming northern Alberta into Mordor. Does this represent a move by CAPP to meet its critics half-way? If only.

I cannot disagree with Chelsie that the profits from the tar-sands are providing jobs and having a short-term positive impact on public finances in Alberta, and the rest of Canada. Not everybody feels their community is benefiting, and as so often in Canada the losers are First Nations people,

Imperial Oil is a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest company ‘able to determine America’s foreign policy and the fate of entire nations’. (Daily Telegraph). Chelsie might find that the residents of Chad would also disagree with her about the benefits of the company’s activities. Would you want to be the public face of this company?

Canada is not immune from the effects of climate change, but there is a facile fantasy here that the country will benefit, or at least adapt.  Canada may be losing its pine forests to red pine bark beetle; the prairies may become too subject to drought for agriculture, but elsewhere agricultural productivity will increase, new land will become cultivatable further north, and the melting ice means that the mineral riches of the Arctic can be exploited. However, all this depends on the rest of the world’s economy continuing to function in some fashion for Canada to trade with. It depends on Canada avoiding the effects of world conflict (which may become nuclear) over diminishing resources.

It also depends on climate change happening slowly enough for adaptation to take place, even though Canada is doing nothing to help slow the process down, and everything it can to make sure that there is no meaningful mitigation. The warming is accelerating. The arctic was forecast to be ice free by 2050.  The latest prediction is 2020.  At that point we lose the albedo effect of the ice cap  that reflects sunlight back into space, and methane is released from the melting tundra further speeding up warming, which may become unstoppable. The window of opportunity for Canadians to bask in the ‘positive impacts’ of the tar-sands industry is growing smaller. If Chelsie lives to old age, she will probably have witnessed the deaths of billions caused by climate change, and I predict that by then she will regret having been the public face of the tar-sands industry.

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Alberta Election

April 27, 2012 at 8:47 pm · Filed under Alberta, Canadian politics

The biggest losers were the pollsters, who got it totally wrong

Contrary to their predictions, the Tories got a safe majority, and Wildrose only got 17 seats, although that makes them the official opposition.

One of the possible reasons for the pollsters cock-up is interesting. They rely on “robocalls”.  Personally, as soon as I hear a recorded message, I hang up without waiting to hear whether they are offering me credit, cut price double glazing, or want to know which way I’ll vote, and apparently I’m not unusual.  But, not Wildrose voters apparently. I wonder why.  Do you think it might have something to do with IQ?

When I lived in Staffordshire, I used to look forward to reading the correspondence from Mrs Biddulph, the local press spokewoman for UKIP, in the local press.  The Biddulph  Weltanschauung was great fun. She apparently believed that Christianity started in England, and that membership of the EU meant we were threatened by ungodly countries like Italy. I’ve really missed Mrs Biddulph since I moved here. Now I have great hopes of Wildrose to provide me with entertainment during my last two years in Canada.  Without a majority, they are likely to be an undisciplined group of wackos, given the opportunity to voice their obsessions in prime time. Even though the “caucasian advantage” and the “gays will burn in hell — fact” candidates didn’t get elected,  I’ve heard Wildrose  leader Danielle Smith is not only a climate change sceptic, she doesn’t believe smoking causes cancer, so it’s an opposition led by the female equivalent of Christopher Brooker.

Amended 5.48 pm — eliminated typo.

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Weak Tea

April 22, 2012 at 6:19 pm · Filed under Alberta, Canadian politics ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Albertans vote tomorrow in a Provincial election.  The Progressive Conservatives have governed Alberta for the last 41 years., but it is predicted that tomorrow they will be replaced by the Wildrose Alliance Party, Alberta’s home-grown Tea-party-lite (weak tea).  Wildrose’s candidates include two clergymen, one of whom is rabidly homophobe. who thinks that gays will suffer for all eternity in a lake of fire, and another who talks about the “Caucasian advantage”  (n.b.  The next time a Canadian boasts about how free of racism Canada is, just say “Ron Leech”).

Both right-wing parties are heavily funded by the energy industry.  Neither mentions the environmental problems posed by the tar-sands in their manifesto. Danielle Smith, the Wildrose leader, is an overt climate change sceptic.  The PC’s leader Alison Redford isn’t (overt).  Whichever party wins, Alberta will remain Planet Exxon-Mobil.

What Wildrose represents above all, is a return to government in the style of Ralph Klein, who led the PC from 1992 to 2006. The right split dates back to Klein’s successor Ed Stelmach’s decision to increase the royalties charged on the oil patch.  The fury this aroused was not abated by the fact that the oil patch continues to thrive and expand. Klein was criticized for his failure to build up the Heritage Fund, created by premier Ralph Lougheed, to receive a proportion of Alberta’s non-renewable resource royalties. Instead Klein preferred to send Albertans a proportion of the oil royalties as a cheque in the post, and Wildrose are promising to do the same.

The opposition parties are nowhere in the polls. The NDP have 10%, the Liberals 9%, and the Alberta Party (liberals in disguise)  have 2%. There is also the Evergreen Party, formerly Alberta’s Green Party, which doesn’t get a mention; I think it has 2 candidates. Of their manifestos I prefer the Liberals’, who would impose a carbon tax.

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The Robocall Scandal.

February 26, 2012 at 6:17 pm · Filed under Alberta, Canadian politics ·Tagged , ,

The ruling Conservative Party of Canada is currently embroiled in an election scandal.

The background is the federal election of 2011, when Stephen Harper won an absolute majority for the first time. The election was a disaster for the Liberal Party which lost 43 seats, and an even bigger disaster for the Bloc Québécois which also lost 43 seats, leaving it with only 4.

It is now claimed that the Conservative victory was achieved by using illegal voter suppression tactics in at least 27 seats. The Conservative majority is 24 seats. Potential Liberal voters received “robocalls” directing them to the wrong polling station, or harassing calls that purported to be from Liberal canvassers, late at night, early in the morning, or in the case of Jewish voters, on the Sabbath. At least some of the calls have been traced to a call centre in Edmonton, the heart of Conservative Alberta, and which has been used by the Conservative Party in the past.

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Kanadischen Klimabomben

February 26, 2012 at 12:14 am · Filed under Alberta, British politics, Canadian politics, Environment, Liberal Democrats ·Tagged , , , ,

Austria was one of the countries which voted for implementation of the Fuel Quality Directive, whereas the UK only abstained.  If passed the FQD would effectively put an import  ban on Canadian tar sands oil into Europe.

The environment minister for Austria is Niki Berlakovich, of the Austrian People’s Party, which has a right of centre ideology. After the vote his spokesperson described the Canadian tar sands as “kanadischen Klimabomben“ — “Canadian Climate-bombs”, and described oil sands and oil shale as the energy sources of yesterday.

This is not a party political issue.  It is purely to do with Britain and Europe reaching its emission reduction targets, and also with rightly condemning an industry which is dirty and unsustainable and should be closed down.  I’d like to see the British government condemn the tar sands industry in the same forthright terms as Berlakovich.

I’m relieved that Britain abstained rather than vote against implementation.  Now the vote goes to the Council of Ministers, and I very much hope that, at that point, Britain does the right thing.

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The Fuel Quality Directive (again)

February 23, 2012 at 1:06 am · Filed under Alberta, British politics, Canadian politics, Environment, Liberal Democrats ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

I am simultaneously a resident of Alberta, home of the tar sands, and a member of Lewes Liberal Democrats.  This unique combination gives me a strong interest in the issue of the implementation of the EU Fuel Quality Directive, which should ban tar sands oil from entering Europe, and Norman Baker’s role, which numerous environmental groups have alleged, has been to secretly aid Canada in its attempts to prevent the ban.

In my opinion the campaign against Norman has been febrile and ill-informed, and I would also apply both of those adjectives to Damian Carrington’s reports in his Guardian blog.

I was particularly amused by Carrington’s grudging approval of the UK government’s donation to the Pembina Institute, which he described as an “anti-tar sands” organisation.  Pembina, based in Calgary, only calls for a moratorium on new tar-sands developments, not for the tar-sands exploitation to end. In fact, Pembina insists that the tar-sands can be made sustainable (against all the evidence).  Essentially it inhabits the same alternative reality as the Canadian and Albertan governments, in which you can have your cake and eat it, exploit tar-sands oil and combat climate change. I can understand why the UK might decide to give Pembina a donation rather than another environmental group.  Pembina’s stance means it  gets listened to occasionally, meaning it can influence issues such as environmental monitoring, whereas the other environmental groups are regarded with horror and contempt on a par with Al Qaeda; but describing Pembina as “anti tar-sands” is either ignorant or delusional.

But I digress.

Norman has answered the allegations against him on his website and in letters to the Guardian, and I am satisfied that there were no secret meetings and there is no conspiracy.  However, I still have some concerns about the UK’s position on the FQD implementation, and Norman’s position in particular.  Norman is critical of the methodology which accords a high rating to tar sands oil, but fails to take into account the high emissions of heavy conventional crudes, such as those from Nigeria, Angola or Venezuela. He states:

 I persuaded the British government to put to our EU partners a system whereby all fossil fuel sources were placed in either a high, medium or low band, with specific values being advocated as and when the detailed information became available. Under my scenario, such a value would be given to Canadian tar sands right away but within this banding arrangement that captured all other fossil fuel sources from day one.

Lush portray this policy as “attempting to kill this legislation by delaying it for years”. Yet my officials at the Department for Transport advise me that a banding system could be up and running within six months to a year. By contrast, if the EU fails to put a system in place now to cover all crudes, it is unlikely that the matter will be revisited for years, and all we will have is a specific value for one source that at the moment barely exists, as far as Europe is concerned.

My problem with Norman’s stance is as follows: T&E is an environmental organisation I trust. In its briefing on the FQD implementation it states that the methodology criticized by Norman, will only be in place until December 2015 at the latest, when it will be reviewed –

The proposals also include the possibility of allowing additional default values for higher GHG intensity conventional sources, once the data has been established and if it is proven to be scientifically warranted. Furthermore, the review will allow existing default values to be adjusted in line with the latest scientific and technical information.

Norman claims that the banding system he proposes would take just six months to put in place. thus saving just two and a half years on the 2015 review. I’m not convinced that is worth arguing for.  Even if little or no Canadian tar sands oil is imported into Europe, the ban, as T&E argue, will have an immediate effect on the perceived viability of tar sands exploitation, and discourage investment.

The environmental groups accuse the British government of conspiring with Canada to kick implementation of the FQD into the long grass. I don’t believe that, and nor do I think that it could do that even if it wanted to. At worst, I  think there may be some muddle in the government’s approach, as evidenced by the donation to the Pembina Institute, and influenced  by our close relationship with Canada, and the degree of investment in the tar-sands by British companies, including RBS, BP, and HSBC.

Nevertheless, I believe it would be better if the UK votes for implementation of the FQD now, and not be responsible for any further delay

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The Fuel Quality Directive Dispute.

December 8, 2011 at 12:22 am · Filed under Alberta, British politics, Canadian politics, Environment, Liberal Democrats ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I am simultaneously a resident of Alberta, home of the horrible tar-sands, and a member of Lewes Liberal Democrats, who has campaigned for Norman Baker.  So, I consider that I’m duty bound to get my head round the barney between Norman and environmentalists, on whether the UK is giving unreasonable support to Canada on implementation of the EU FQD.

The line-up of Norman’s critics appears formidable.  There is Greenpeace, The Co-operative Bank, Bill McKibbon, Zac Goldsmith,  Damian Carrington and, most worryingly, Chris Davies MEP. To that you can add the gamut of Canadian environmental groups and campaigning journalists.

Their criticisms of the Government’s stance on the FQD are multiple.

The first charge is that the British Government has has “secret meetings” with the Canadians. In his blog on 27th November, Damian Carrington alleged that there had been 15 such  ”high level” meetings since September. The document on which this allegation was based can be downloaded from this article in the Canadian online paper The Tyee.

The first point is that there was no secret; there was no leak. The document was obtained by a freedom of information request, by FoE and the Co-op Bank. Secondly, 15 meetings over two months appears a lot, until you see that half of them took place in Canada, and include David Cameron’s visit and meeting with Stephen Harper.  It is common knowledge that the Canadians have been lobbying hard on this issue, and the British High Commissioner in Canada can hardly refuse to listen, and nor can Lord Howell as Foreign and Commonwealth Minister.  It was inevitable that Canada would concentrate its lobbying efforts on the UK, the EU country with which it has the closest relationship. The 15 meetings also have to be put into the context of the extraordinary energy Canada puts in to lobbying for the tar sands.  For example EurActiv reports that between September 2009 and July 2011, Canadian government and oil industry representatives organised more than 110 lobby events in Brussels – over one per week – to promote the tar sands industry.

My conclusion is that the “secret meetings” allegation doesn’t amount to more than an attempt to whip up conspiracy paranoia. An interesting detail of the document is that no Canadian politician or diplomat appears to have had access to either  Norman Baker or Chris Huhne. When Joe Oliver, Canada’s minister of natural resources, visited London, he only got to see Charles Hendry. If the UK was really in cahoots with Canada on the FQD, you would have expected Norman, as the Minister responsible, to have met with the Canadian High Commissioner at least once.

The important question is whether the UK Government is actually supporting Canada’s attempt to get round the FQD. This allegation is more substantial, but the issue is complicated. In his article in Lib-Dem Voice, Norman Baker stated his position:

“Some ‘green’ campaigners want a specific value to Canadian tar sands but only a general default single value to all conventional crudes, despite the fact that the greenhouse gas impacts vary enormously across conventional crudes. Yet there is at present virtually no fuel derived from tar sands in Europe, and they would be in effect ignoring probably 99% of the fossil fuels we use.  I want to use the Fuel Quality Directive to drive down the use of all heavy crudes, not just one source. I simply cannot understand why some environmentalists seem completely uninterested in conventional crudes.”

The green campaigners, for their part, have been rather vague about what they think the UK is doing to promote Canada’s interests, but I can see three reasons why they might be suspicious of the UK’s position.

The first is delay.  Norman Baker says that assigning a value to the heavy conventional crudes could take six months or a year, and he points out, quite correctly, that a negligible amount of Canadian oil is getting into the European supply at the moment, so such a short delay can’t matter. The campaigners whose mouthpiece is Damian Carrington, wedded to their conspiracy theory, think that it is a deliberate delaying tactic that would put off implementation indefinitely. Since they don’t put forward any evidence for why that would happen, it is impossible to judge whether their fears are justified.

The second is Dr James Hansen’s influential view that we can use all the conventional crude oil that is left and still avoid dangerous climate change, as long as we leave the unconventional crudes in the ground, and stop using coal. From that perspective, there is less to be gained from attaching a value to heavy conventional crudes, because we are going to be using them anyway, which may account for the environmental groups’ lack of interest in what Norman Baker is proposing.

Thirdly, there is the wording of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office document, which refers to the UK position as a “compromise”, suggesting that the UK is in fact trying to meet Canada halfway.  However, the document also makes clear that the Canadians themselves see no advantage in what the UK is proposing, and even object on the grounds that they would be penalised for keeping good records. I think one has to take some account of the fact that diplomacy involves using diplomatic language.

So, overall, I think the criticisms of the UK position, and Norman Baker, in relation to the FQD, lack substance.

However, that doesn’t mean I’m happy with the UK’s position on the tarsands.  There is the matter of Lord Sassoon’s visit to Calgary and  the upgrading of the consulate in Calgary to look after UK interests.  The UK government may not be able to stop British companies such as the HSBC investing in the tar-sands, but it doesn’t have to help them. I’d also like to see robust statements by the UK government, critical of Canada’s environmental policies.  When Cameron went to China, we were assured he was going to raise the issue of human rights with Wen Jiabao.  Where was the similar assurance about raising the issue of climate change with Harper?

Finally, I’m puzzled by the piece on Chris Davies‘ blog written by his campaign manager Richard Marbrow. Although it is written by Marbrow, Damian Carrington quotes Davies directly in the Guardian, so I think we can assume Marbrow is conveying Davies’ views. As the Lib-Dem spokesman on Environment and Public Health in the European Parliament, I would have expected Davies to have had a conversation with Norman Baker, before now, about the FQD.  Maybe they have, but if so, Marbrow seems to be ignorant of what was said. I’d like to know whether Davies is concerned about the “15 secret meetings”, or does he also object to heavy conventional crudes being categorised?

The last paragraph of the article where Marbrow wishes that the matter was being dealt with by the DECC rather than Transport seems to suggest that he’d prefer Chris Huhne to be dealing with it rather than Norman Baker.  I think it is a rather catty remark.

Amended 6.08 pm.  I’d not noticed that the article on Chris Davies site was actually written by his campaign manager Richard Marbrow.

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The high cost of cheese

December 4, 2011 at 7:47 pm · Filed under British politics, Canadian politics

When I set up Mint, I didn’t realise that it would send me a weekly email reporting on my financial state.  This week it decided to warn me that I’m spending a lot on groceries.  I had noticed.  Mint suggests using supermarket loyalty cards more.  Actually, I’d save the most if I just gave up cheese.

I can show why from this week’s shopping. We bought the following Canadian cheeses: Cheddar 0.284 kg $17.58, Riopelle de L’Isle (a Brie type cheese from Quebec) 0.21 4kg $18.17, Ciel de Charlevoix (a St Agur type blue cheese) 0.168 kg $9.99. Additionally, we bought 2 cartons of Italian Buffalo Mozarella @ $6.98 each, and Parmesan Reggiano 0.35 kg $11.54.

So that’s $64.16 — about £40 — for enough cheese to last little more than a fortnight. Canadian cheddar is much cheaper in the UK than it is here.

The reason is the way Canada protects its dairy industry, by setting a price for domestic dairy products and  imposing equivalent import taxes on dairy imports, so there is no competition, allowing dairy farmers to charge  up to 155% the world price.

Despite their cost, I’ve become very fond of the Quebec cheeses.  I tried giving up the most expensive Ciel de Charlevoix for a while, but missed it so much I had dreams about it. Nevertheless, I’ve decided I must economise and give up my usual lunch of cheese and biscuits or welsh rarebit, for beans or egg or sardines on toast.

The effect of the protectionism for the Canadian diet is that most Canadians rarely eat the gorgeous cheeses their country is so good at producing. Instead they eat ghastly Kraft type pseudo cheese products.  I wonder if CETA,  the Canada — European Union Economic and Trade Agreement will make a difference. It surprises me that Canadians have been prepared to pay such a massive subsidy to their dairy industry, through their grocery bills,  for so long.

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