Newsline Canada

Ottawa Could Limit Immigrants: Minister http://www.orilliapacket.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1429851 OTTAWA -- The government is watching Canada's economy closely and won't hesitate, if necessary, to reduce the number of immigrants it lets into the country, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Tuesday. Speaking to a committee and later to reporters, Kenney said his department is thinking of both Canadian workers and immigrants. "We don't want people to be coming to Canada and facing unemployment, so we need to be sensitive to the changing labour market and if we have to make modifications, we will. But we don't want to turn off the tap of the future growth that is represented by immigration." The provincial nominee program and the temporary foreign labour program only allow someone to enter Canada if it can be proven no Canadian is willing to do the job

Unemployment in Canada Soars http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/090206/dq090206a-eng.htm January 2009 Employment fell by 129,000 in January (-0.8%), almost all in full time, pushing the unemployment rate up 0.6 percentage points to 7.2%. This drop in employment exceeds any monthly decline during the previous economic downturns of the 1980s and 1990s. The loss in January follows other declines in recent months. Since October, employment has fallen by 213,000 (-1.2%), the result of full-time losses. In January, the drop in employment was most pronounced in manufacturing, where the net loss totalled 101,000. There were declines in a number of other industries as well. The only industry with notable gains was health care and social assistance, where employment increased by 31,000. Canada's three largest provinces accounted for the entire employment decrease in January. While just over half of employment losses were in Ontario (-71,000), there were also large declines in both British Columbia (-35,000) and Quebec (-26,000). Employment was little changed in all other provinces. Employment fell mostly among core-age adults, 25 to 54 years, as well as among youths aged 15 to 24.

Oil Falls Towards $39 As U.S. Job Losses Mount http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090206/business/cbusiness_us_markets_oil By David Sheppard LONDON (Reuters) - Oil fell $2 a barrel toward $39 on Friday after news of more job losses in the United States heightened the prospect for still weaker demand in the world's biggest oil consumer. Nearly 600,000 workers lost their jobs in the United States last month -- more than Wall Street economists had expected. The global economic slowdown has curbed demand for fuel around the world, knocking oil prices sharply lower since they peaked at almost $150 in July. "It gets worse and worse and worse," said Greg Salvaggio of Tempus Consulting in Washington. "The economy is just falling into oblivion." U.S. light crude for March delivery fell $2 to $39.17 a barrel by 1407 GMT (9:07 a.m. EST), while London Brent, which usually trades below its U.S. counterpart, fell $1.20 cents to $45.26. U.S. crude is trading well below Brent as inventories in Cushing, Oklahoma -- the delivery point for the U.S. crude contract -- are at record levels. U.S. crude for delivery in two months time is trading just above $44 a barrel. The head of Italy's largest oil company predicted on Friday that oil could stay as low as $40 for the rest of 2009. "A price of $40 a barrel, it's roughly my forecast for this year," Eni Chief Executive Paolo Scaroni said. That level is too low for members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to generate enough revenue or encourage investment in new supply. In a bid to boost prices, OPEC agreed to cut a further 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from January. The reduction comes on top of curbs of 2 million bpd in place since September. OPEC sources have indicated the group could cut a further 1 million bpd from output when it next meets on March 15. "These are significant output cuts and if they can implement more then we should see global stock cover start to come down. Until then prices seem well supported above $40 a barrel by the cuts so far," said Julian Keites at Newedge. U.S. Democrats in the Senate on Thursday pushed toward passage of a huge economic stimulus package despite scant Republican support, hoping to boost the U.S. economy, which could help stem a decline in fuel demand. (Additional reporting by Annika Breidthardt in Singapore; editing by Christopher Johnson)

President Obama wants Canadian trip to be all business, short on ceremony By Lee-Anne Goodman, The Canadian Press http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090205/national/obama_canada_visit WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama's Feb. 19 visit to Canada will be an all-business affair that's short on pomp and circumstance because of the economic crisis gripping his country, sources involved in organizing the trip have told The Canadian Press. Prime Minister Stephen Harper had hoped for a longer stay, but Obama is determined that his first foreign trip as president be a six-hour working visit, the sources said Thursday. That's because the president feels he'd have a hard time justifying being away from the U.S. and at the centre of parliamentary pageantry in the midst of a devastating recession that's wreaking havoc on the American economy. Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean will greet Obama at the Ottawa airport and then he'll head to Parliament Hill for discussions with Harper. He'll meet with embassy officials and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, in his capacity as head of the opposition, at the airport. He'll leave Ottawa at 4 p.m. after arriving at 10 a.m. A high-profile, glitzy visit would send the wrong message to Americans who are struggling to hold onto their jobs and their homes, the sources said, and therefore Obama wants the visit to be a quick, brass-tacks affair so he can return home as soon as possible. For that reason, the president also has no interest in making a speech or addressing Parliament, the sources said. He will, however, hold a news conference on Parliament Hill.

Admiration Turns to Anger as Wall St. Bosses Feather Nests By Frank Ahrens Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 31, 2009 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ In times of prosperity, Wall Street executives are highly paid heroes to be emulated. Eye-popping corporate profits and pocket-lining dividends are celebrated like Super Bowl wins and Oscar sweeps. In bad times, like now, the Wall Street Gotbucks find themselves fallen idols on the wrong side of a quick and vicious shift, chastised by President Obama, powerful senators and subpoena-wielding lawmen. Not to mention angry taxpayers who lost savings on Wall Street and who now fund its bailout. President Obama called "shameful" a Thursday report from the New York comptroller that showed Wall Street firms awarded $18.4 billion in bonuses in 2008, one of the worst years ever on the Street. With U.S. unemployment at 7.2 percent and climbing, 401(k) accounts dwindling, bankruptcies piling up and foreclosures still spreading, many Americans might agree with Obama. To that end, Democratic lawmakers have attempted to limit bonuses at companies getting a piece of the $700 billion federal government bailout. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), head of the Banking Committee, vowed on Thursday to use "every possible legal means" to recoup the $18.4 billion in Wall Street bonuses. New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo has subpoenaed former Merrill Lynch chief executive John A. Thain over $4 billion in bonuses he pushed through just before Merrill was acquired by Bank of America last year. The outrage extends beyond bonuses. Companies on the federal dole should be forced to radically cut their dividends, Obama economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers said. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner flatly told Citigroup, which has received $45 billion in taxpayer money so far, not to buy a new $50 million jet. Exxon Mobil reported a record 2008 profit of $45 billion yesterday, stoking the outrage. In the middle of a recession, such headlines stir up populist outrage and illustrate a fundamental disconnect between Main Street and Wall Street. Unlike working stiffs who toil for a regular paycheck -- and that's it -- top-ranking executives at big companies get the bulk of their compensation from a complex suite of bonuses. For instance, in 2007, Exxon Mobil chief executive Rex W. Tillerson received $16.7 million in total compensation. But Tillerson's salary was only $1.8 million; most of the rest came from bonuses and awards. Big companies have long paid their top executives in performance-based bonuses: the better their company does, the more money they get. Companies have maintained that bonuses are an essential tool for recruiting, rewarding and retaining talented executives. But are some people worth more than others? That much more? "Most people would agree that some people should make more than others, whether that's based on skill level or education," said Alexander Cwirko-Godycki, research manager at Equilar, an executive compensation analysis firm. "It comes down to each individual's perception of what appropriate is. Is it $100,000? 10 million? 100 million?" Which is why, he said, "putting outright caps on compensation is very problematic." The unpredictability of the economy is making it difficult for companies to set bonus requirements going forward, Cwirko-Godycki said. Typically, companies evaluate an executive's performance over at least one year. But some companies now are setting six- or even three-month goals for bonuses, he said. Lost in the heated rhetoric of the comptroller's $18.4 billion bonus total for 2008 was this fact: Even though that number represented the sixth-highest bonus year on record, it was down 44 percent from the total amount of bonuses paid on Wall Street in 2007. The falloff is proportional to the drop in the Dow Jones industrial average from its high of 14,164 in October 2007 to 8000, where the Dow closed yesterday. Also: The 2008 bonus bust will cost New York state nearly $1 billion in personal income tax revenue and New York City another $275 million. Executive compensation had been slowing across the entire range of the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index companies even before the recent outrage, Cwirko-Godycki said. Total chief executive pay among the S&P 500 rose 6 percent from 2005 to 2006, Cwirko-Godycki said. But it increased only 1.3 percent from 2006 to 2007. Reason? The median bonus for the S&P 500 chief executive dropped 4.9 percent from 2006 to 2007, he said. Can or should anything be done about executive bonuses? Yes, said Nell Minow, chairman of the Corporate Library, a research firm on corporate governance, who noted that Wall Street bonuses are forcing her to "keep recalibrating my outrage." Minow, an expert on boards of directors, noted that boards approve all bonuses. All too often, she said, they were not rigorous enough in their review or smart enough to understand their company. As an example, she cited Bear Stearns, the first big investment bank to fail and a voracious consumer of subprime mortgages, which the bank packaged and sold to great profit. Bear Stearns executives got their bonuses based on the quantity of mortgages they securitized, Minow said, not the quality. Further, she said, even though the BearStearns board set up nine criteria on which to evaluate executive performance, it could award bonuses even if none were met. Minow said all executives should follow the bonus structure of former Chrysler chief Lee Iacocca and former Disney chairman Michael Eisner, who took their bonuses in "steeply escalated" stock options over several years, betting on themselves and on their company. "You want to get rich? Fine. We want you to get rich; the sky's the limit," Minow said, "But you're going to get rich by doing a really great job. No one complains that Bill Gates made too much money -- he created value."

Canada Warns Indian Airline Company Over Fake Visas http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/02/03 TORONTO, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- A private airline in India has been warned it will be banned from flying into Canada because of a surge of fake passports and visas being allowed through. Jet Airways was warned of the ban after Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Canada Border Service Agency said they detected "dozens" of passengers arriving at Toronto's international airport with obviously-doctored passports, the Toronto Star reported Tuesday. Jet Airways flies daily from Indian cities with a layover in Brussels before continuing to Canada. Airline officials said beginning this week, staff in Belgium would be retrained in screening and security, the report said. Since the first scams were found a year, ago, border agents began using the Internet to check hotel reservations as a tip-off to those intending to seek refugee status using fake documents, a sources told the newspaper. Many of the reservations were at hotels on the commercial airport strip in Mississauga, the source said. "If you're spending all that money to travel around the world and come to Canada in November, why would you book a reservation for two weeks on the airport strip?" he said.

Move To Unify Recognition of Foreign Credentials Wednesday February 4 2009 http://www.southasianfocus.ca/community/article/64466 A common framework between all the provinces and the federal government to recognize foreign credentials will be in place by September 2009, with an interim report scheduled by June set to ensure it is on the rails and proceeding in the right direction. The decision to improve foreign credentials recognition processes and set up a common framework, aimed at enabling Canada to benefit more from the experience and talents of newcomers, was agreed upon at the First Ministers' meeting recently, Citizenship and Immigration Canada said in a release. Under this agreement, governments have set a goal whereby any foreign trained worker who submits a full application to be licensed or registered to work in their profession, would be informed of a decision within one year of the application. At that point, the worker would learn whether their qualifications will be recognized, or advised about any additional requirements deemed to be necessary to be fully recognized or directed to alternative pathways or related occupations that would use their skills and experience. The first year for decisions will be 2010 for a limited number of high priority occupations, to be selected collaboratively with provinces and territories, indicated Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. The Foreign Credentials Referral Office (FCRO) was launched in May 2007 to help internationally trained individuals who want to work in Canada get their credentials assessed and recognized more quickly. Budget 2007 set aside $32.2 million for the operations of the FCRO. A website designed to help foreign-trained workers succeed in Canada was also launched through this initiative. Prospective newcomers to Canada, as well as newcomers, can visit it at www.credentials.gc.ca