David Knight Legg
@KnightLegg • 16,000 subscribers
Energy/Security/Economic Development. Advisor to governments, energy, finance & tech firms. Chairman of Elements Capital Advisors, Chairman IQ2
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Two different stories: “Threats on Quebec language and and Quebec culture and on Canadian culture” - PM Carney “That’s a fake story” - USTR Greer The USTRep (and now Secretary Bessent) are openly asking if the PM is actively misrepresenting the US trade deal for his own political purposes. They say he is falsely characterising the longstanding Netflix tax and packaging disputes as an “attack on Quebec”. And calling demands against the Chinese trans-shipment scam an attack on Canadian sovereignty. Those are very big and very direct claims. If USTR Greer is a liar, release the text of the trade deal. Were being shown ‘polls’ that Canadians blindly agree with Carney’s retributive approach to the US deal when they have been given no information of what was in it. Release the trade deal.
David Knight Legg38,335 Aufrufe • vor 10 Tagen
How to lose a trade negotiation Step 1: travel to minor, inconsequential markets for a year. Fail to reverse the decade of Liberal policies making Canada the second poorest US state after Mississippi. Step 2: play up a performative “middle power resistance” schtick and mis-cite Vaclev Havel - whose antagonism to political cynicism would hate this ‘elbows up’ embarrassment. Step 3: run out of time and strategic options while Mexico creates a bilateral alternative to CUSMA. In 1812, our generals weren’t playing with figurines their New York friends gave them and talking about previous battles to prepare the nation for an anticipated failure from their own lack of preparation and focus. Canada has a generational opportunity to create the largest and most consequential free trade zone with the largest economy in the world. This video is a national embarrassment.
David Knight Legg400,526 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten
“Fairness” = give the bureaucracy more money? Canada’s Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is raising the tax on capital investments to the highest level in the G7. This video reveals a sad, dystopian view of Canadians. She uses the resentful ‘class war’ language of the 1970s, where Canada will be filled with a sad majority feeling ‘wrath’ unless you accept her new tax. Who writes these speeches? Have they travelled? Famously egalitarian nations Belgium and Switzerland and Singapore have zero cap gains taxes. Do they hate fairness? Seriously, this is her proposal: Take $18 billion in risk capital proceeds away from Canada’s small but critical investor class with a globally uncompetitive tax rate. Then give that money - along with another $40 billion in debt - to a federal bureaucracy that currently does not show up for work in person more than twice a week. They will invest it instead. The nation will heal. Thats not fairness. It’s losing. Again. On an international scale. Here’s why this tax will add to her economic losing streak: 1. It kills economic growth. Taxing capital investment discourages the cash that backs the entrepreneurial ideas that turn into the jobs and companies that grow the economy and improve productivity and living standards. Every other large advanced economy will have a lower cap gains tax than Canada. Are they less ‘fair’ than Minister Freeland? Or do they have an economic strategy of shared prosperity that allows for individual success without the sad language of class resentment and envy? Every company whose services we love today - no matter how large - started with an entrepreneur - and some investors crazy enough to fund them with risk capital. Most nations do whatever they can to attract entrepreneurs and investors because they bring growth and economic vitality and jobs. This Minister is taxing them away in the name of fairness. But federal fiscal incoherence is costing Canadians $54 billion interest losses degrading public services and the worst declining GDP performance in the G7 2019-2024 and the worst GDP per capita of all 40 advanced nations in the OECD modelled out to 2030. Fairness for Canadians starts with federal fiscal competence. 2. It kills jobs (the real ones): The private sector creates jobs when good ideas or expansion is funded by risk capital - that is why positive jobs reports are usually signals of economic growth. But Canada’s jobs reports aren’t signals of economic growth anymore because they feature a failing economy where most of the jobs being reported are actually government roles bought with debt. This kills economic productivity. When governments use debt to buy jobs it turns a single debt-funded position into a permanent unfunded annual govt operating cost. Every one of these jobs costs more in tax, debt and interest than it can ever contribute back. Taxing the risk capital that creates real jobs while borrowing money to buy public sector jobs with debt - the current modus operandi of this government and its “jobs” announcements - kills GDP productivity. 3. It takes Canada backwards Canada’s private sector is the only mechanism to fund Canadian prosperity. Risk capital funds the companies and jobs that are the engine that pays for everything - including all government employees and services - and all debt and interest. A previous Liberal government knew this. They dropped this tax back in 2000 to help Canada compete with the rest of the world, who in turn compete hard for the mobile investment capital of the smartest and most successful investors because it has such a positive impact on economic growth. For everyone. Economic prosperity is the best form of fairness. Going backwards to economic policies from the last century, wrapped in the dystopian language of big government ‘fairness’ isn’t helping anyone. Cut taxes, spending and the bloated state. Fairness = fiscal competence.
David Knight Legg266,308 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren
The Liberal Party’s Green Delusionist can’t help himself… Mr. Guilbeault can’t seem to let go. The global facts on energy consumption, human development economics, population, and the environmental impact of Canada’s cleaner natural gas on the global coal-fired grid make his falsehoods on peak oil and pipeline capacity obvious. His years in Environment featured a 90% miss on emissions reduction, the burning down of Jasper after years of warnings to his failed Parks team, and the end of his punitive, hated carbon tax by a PM desperate to win an election by running as a conservative. So Mr. Guilbeault is lashing out. It shouldn’t be necessary to state the obvious but given the lazy press - and the fact that this climate fraud remains in this Cabinet full of the usual suspects that killed our economy for a decade, here is global energy in three simple charts: 1. FACT: Global energy demand and fossil fuel use is relentlessly rising. The world is using more of every form of energy including coal, oil and gas. 2. WHY? Because the greatest humanitarian human development moment in world history has been the energy intensive promotion of 1 billion people out of grinding poverty into the middle class in China, India and across Asia the past three decades. This is what is causing vastly higher energy consumption and rising global emissions. 3. HOW IS CANADA RELEVANT IN THE PLANET? With only 0.5% of global population and vast land and energy resources, what can we do to impact global emissions? - Alberta has more oil than the USA, Russia and China combined. We have more than enough gas to supply the needs of 4 billion people in India, China, Indonesia and across Asia. - We have the capacity and economic and proximity advantages to structurally displace a large amount of the dependence on thermal coal on the electrical grid across Asia - Because the retrofit of coal to gas is straightforward, our clean gas can cut the global emissions off the electrical grid of 4 billion people, at a scale equivalent to 2-3 times our entire national carbon footprint. Canada has been so blessed with so much. We have in front of us one of the biggest opportunities in history: To enhance human economic development commercially, environmentally, and diplomatically with trillions of dollars in trade and the soft power of becoming a critical part of global energy security. While cutting global emissions at scale. So why are green ideologues like Steven Guilbeault so angry? Because it must be killing him softly that the #1 climate action and most profound impact of Canada on global emissions in the coming decade will be trade from Alberta to Asia by the very same entrepreneurs and builders whose only request for a decade is that Stephen Guilbeault and his sad dystopian punitive green worldview just get out of the way.
David Knight Legg36,518 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
The tariffs aren’t coming today. Thank Premier Smith for being in DC this wknd actively making the case for avoiding a tariff war by sitting down with the Presidents closest advisors. You can see her at galas and at the embassy. My friend Andrew Coyne thinks this is appeasement. I think it’s committed diplomacy. She’s making a clear case, not selling out. And where are the feds? Who are they meeting with? I’m at the Inauguration with some friends who will serve in the new Administration. I’ve been at some receptions and galas a conversations about Canada and tariffs always come up. Yesterday morning the Trump team delayed tariffs and made it clear again: they are about getting Mexico and Canada to solve for border security. In private people say Mexico is preparing a clinical response to the border/drug issues and Canada is MIA except for Premier Smith talking about energy security. Here’s what else I’m hearing: 1. Virtually no one in D.C. could tell you who or what the federal Canadian is doing to fix the broken border and the security, military, trade and the NATO freeloading issues that are the basis of the original tariff threat. The state dept guy said we are notorious for our security problems now and tolerance was fading. 2. Premier Smith is making friends and influencing people. She is focused on direct conversations with the Presidents closest advisors who will decide energy and foreign trade policy including Bergum, Rubio and Wright. Canadian Fed naysayers meanwhile aren’t here, preferring to talk tough on CBC while she’s taking open interviews on Fox and defending Canada directly with Cabinet members. 3. Canada’s leadership vacuum is obvious. No one here understands how a PM can resign & suspend a democracy for three months so his party can have a leadership race. 4. The American priority is security: economic, border, Arctic and NATO. Anyone in Cdn politics who wants to talk tough needs to explain how we will actually fix our broken borders and weak national security. - CTV/CBC, needs to ask every idiot repeating that ‘everything is on the table’ ask them how they will convince the US we are fixing the broken border & our reckless asylum, visa and immigration fraud that invited our growing extremism and criminal and terror syndicate activity to explode. How will the Feds guarantee the Americans they won’t interdict another 1000 watchlist terrorists (90pc+ of all US terror interdictions) in the next few years? I’d love to hear what Joly would say to the state dept guys I just had brunch with. Because their critique of our national security posture is devastating which is why the Americans are intrigued to know how we will fix our immigration/asylum/terror/crime/security/law enforcement issues. 5. While the feds have no coherent messsages or presence on the core security issue Premier Smith is actively addressing energy security with an all-Canada argument: - that our energy is key to US energy security - that they get it today as a discounted input to thousands of jobs and hundreds of billions in U.S. value-added refined and traded goods - when the energy trade is deducted from all other sectors, the Americans actually enjoy a trade surplus with Canada of over $50 billion. Great argument and if you check the video below she makes it clear. So here’s a question for the feds: She’s actively meeting and explaining energy economics to defend against tariffs on all Canadian goods. So what exactly are you doing? The tariff threat isn’t gone just delayed to see progress on the border. Maybe it’s time to get to DC and start talking to US media and the White House instead of trying to take cheap shots on CBC? It’s a much tougher crowd down here. You’ll need real answers. But it would be the right thing to do for team Canada, our economy and our security. Danielle can show you the ropes. She’s a team player. Just doesn’t stay on the bench… 🇨🇦
David Knight Legg26,174 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
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