SNC-Lavalin: A Fantasy of Numbers

This is a story that a newspaper refused to publish, and a noted columnist ignored.  So, I guess this is the only forum I have left.

“Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.”
  - George Bernard Shaw

In the ongoing debate about SNC-Lavalin affair, one fact has been bantered about where the apparent justification for the government interference has been the supposed loss of 9000 jobs.  The actual number is about 8700 jobs but when you’re trying to scare people a little upward rounding doesn’t hurt, I guess.  If we are to believe this, we are to imagine that 9000 (8700) jobs are going to disappear overnight if anything happens to SNC such as being unable to bid on Canadian government contracts or the company moves its headquarters to another country.  But let’s look at the real situation.

“The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth.”
  - Edith Sitwell

Except for the headquarters function, mostly located in Montreal, almost all the work done by the company in Canada involves the building, operating and maintaining of infrastructure.  There are no manufacturing plants that can be moved to other countries. 

 

SNC Nuclear builds and maintains nuclear power plants.  These plants are not going to be moved overseas.  They will still be here and need the same level of maintenance that they require now.

SNC has built LRT systems across Canada and in most cases, they continue to run and maintain them after they are delivered.  Despite the saga of the Ottawa LRT, SNC has had some very good results in this realm.  In Vancouver, for example, they built and run an LRT system from Richmond and the Vancouver airport to downtown that was require for the 2010 Winter Olympics.  This set a very real deadline for the work to be completed.  In the end, the system was built and running one month early. These LRT systems are not going anywhere either.

SNC builds highways and bridges and maintains those also.  One example is the so called Brunway:  the trans-Canada through New Brunswick from the Quebec border to Fredricton where the company twinned the highway and now has a contract to maintain it with everything from snow clearance to renewal when the road deteriorates. Highways and bridges don’t move out of the country.

SNC provides engineering, maintenance and logistics support for over 60 minor warships and auxiliaries for the Royal Canadian Navy.  They provide that service even when the ships are deployed out of the country.  The need for these services is not going anywhere as well.

Most of these support contracts are quite long term so the contracts will not disappear immediately.  And most support contracts are not with the federal government, but by provinces and cities. Even if SNC loses some of these projects, the work will remain in Canada.  Companies that acquire these contracts will also be from Canada and will employ Canadian workers, including many of the same people who are doing the work now.

So, let’s not let this myth of 9000 (8700) lost jobs persist.  If any people are going to be hurt by any loss of work by SNC it is their shareholders.  That may be unfortunate, but you should note that through the whole controversy these past few weeks, SNC shares have been surviving quite well.

“Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians.”
  - Chester Bowles

The Wall

How many of you remember the Berlin Wall?  That was the wall, built by East Germany, that for 28 years became the symbol of the breach between the Communist eastern Europe and the democratic (mostly) western Europe.  It was condemned by every non-Communist country in the world as a symbol of repression and division.  When it was finally torn down by East and West Germans in 1989 it was the as if repression and Soviet Communism had been defeated once and for all. 

 

Later, when Israel built a wall to mark its encroachment into the West Bank, it too was condemned by both friend and foe of Israel.  It is still there but is still not considered acceptable to fair minded peoples.

And now we have Mr. Trump’s wall.  He has had to flout Congress and a majority of the American people to get it, but by God there will be a wall.  Will it be known as Mr. Trump’s wall, or the Great American Wall, or Trump’s Folly?  Who knows?  Mr. Trump has had to declare a National Emergency to get past the limitations put in place by Congress.  He wanted $5.7 billion, they gave him $1.4 billion.  Now by robbing Peter, he has laid claim to about $8 billion.  Much of that money will come out of existing approved programs.

And what will this wall look like?  Will it be another, but higher, Berlin Wall that we all decried as a monstrous blight on freedom?  Will it have guard towers with armed agents at regular intervals like the Berlin Wall?  Will people be shot for crossing it like the Berlin Wall?  No doubt many of its supporters would like to see all that.  How can we condemn one wall and praise another? 

Some people are trying to compare Mr. Trump’s use of a national emergency with its use by past presidents.  But previous presidents used it for legitimate reasons such as George W. Bush when the 9/11 attacks took place.  Other uses have included natural disasters and wars.  This “emergency” does not look like any of them.  It is just Mr. Trump’s way of grabbing power to get what he, not what the people, wants.  The next few days and weeks will be very interesting.

Grandpa (tell me ‘bout the good old days)

That’s the title of I song I recently listened to.  It got me thinking about the ‘good old days.’  What exactly were the good old days?  It is probably a bit different for each of us.  But it does have one theme, things were better then.  For the military person it probably was the days of unfettered use of corporal punishment or the last glorious war (although it’s too bad for old Willie and Sam who were killed in it).  For the athlete it was the days when he was in his prime wanted by every team in the league.  For the rich businessman it was probably the days when there was no government interference in his quest for more riches.  For the retired auto worker, it was undoubtedly the days before robotic machines took his job. For many North Americans it was the days when we were all white (a day that never existed). There were always the good old days.

This in turn got me thinking about the current populist movement in many countries, including Canada.  However, they express it, their real desire is to return to ‘them good old days’. Turn back the clock to some glorious past when there weren’t so many complications.  All of course as long as they can still enjoy their 65-inch HD televisions.  They want a day when there were no immigrants, or at least nothing but white immigrants.  The days when those of African descent knew their place (unless they were good athletes or singers).  The days when there was lots of manual jobs in factories in your own country. The days when you knew your family doctor who made house calls and you never got around to paying your bills.  The days when there was no LGBTQ community because everyone knew they did not exist.  The days when cars didn’t have those fancy things in the dashboard but did have carburetors that you could tinker with every Saturday (Eric excepted).  The days when there did not seem to have wars, civil or otherwise, that we had to interfere in.  The days when life was just so much simpler.

But was it ever thus?  How about the good old days when there were no unions in factories or mines, so the working conditions were brutal and the pay inadequate?  Or the days when an illness could wipe you out financially?  How about the days when an African-American or Canadian could not become a General or Admiral, a politician or a business executive? How about the days when only the “elite” could get a good university education?  Or the days when your car was bound to break down every couple of thousand miles and needed oil every thousand?    Is that what we really want?

Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” says it all.  Populists want to make things great again. They don’t want to make the future great.  They want to make the past great again. They don’t realize that you cannot do that.  You cannot have affordable 65-inch televisions, reliable cars and health care (sorry to my American friends) and go back to the good old days.  You cannot prevent people from all ethnic and religious groups from seeking safety and security in ‘your’ country from wars, famines and lawlessness that western countries helped to foster.  You cannot prevent world-wide trade in a system that you created.  I’m 75 years old and only yearn for the future.  The ‘good old days, don’t really have any appeal to me. As a friend of mine once said, “You cannot walk backwards into the future”.