According to the US National Lightning Safety Institute,  the highest risk of being struck by lightning in North America occurs in Wyoming.  That state has a casualty rate of 7.21 per Million, or 1 in 138,696.  (By comparison, the odds of being struck by lightning in Canada is 1 in 428,571.)  You would need to fly on 116 airplanes to have the same risk as a lightning strike in Wyoming.  Let alone actually being a casualty due to the 1:138,696 odds.

According to the State of California Dept of Conservation, the annual risk of experiencing an earthquake in San Fransciso is 1 in 62.5 (80% chance in 50 years).  You would need to fly on 257,967 airplanes to run the same risk.  Funny that such a “high” risk doesn’t seem to bother the 16.4 Million visitors to San Fransisco each year.

According to the Canadian Cancer Society, the incidence rate of breast cancer is 102 per 100,000 or roughly 1 in 1000.  A woman would need to fly on 16,452 airplanes to be at the same level of risk as she already is from breast cancer.

According to Statistics Canada, the mortality rate due to all causes is 712 per 100,000 or 1 in 140.  In other words you are 115,000 times more likely to die from other causes than you are from an attack on the airplane you are on.

According to the Paling Perspective Scale published by the Risk Communications Institute, a risk level of 1 in 16 Million is an risk that is “Effectively Zero”. 

In fact, according to the Risk Communications Institute,  the risk of being at risk (due all causes of risk) is only 1 in 100,000.

You can email the Transport Minister:  John Baird

You can email the Justice Minister & Attorney General of Canada:  Rob Nicholson

You can write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.

You can post to blog sites. Blog postings are generally searchable so they will turn up in Google searches. Most newspapers have blog sites.

You can join a Facebook group such as “Stop TSA Full Body Scans” at

You can complain to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association by calling Graeme Norton, Director, Public Safety Project, 416-363-0321, x. 223. The CCLA has a rather weak policy position currently on this and could use some more backbone.

The definition of “unreasonable” under traditional legal interpretation means that it is unreasonable for you to be searched without probable cause. Under the Charter of Rights, a police officer who had reasonable cause to suspect that you were going to blow up an airplane would be justified to search you via a pat-down or, after arresting you, via a strip search.

The Charter protects us from being searched without any reason to do so. Boarding an aircraft is not a valid reason since all travellers have no intention of blowing up the aircraft.

In fact, given that attempts to blow up an airplane occur less than once a year, all travellers are innocent virtually all of the time. This is hardly probable cause for strip-searching all passengers.

Jennifer Stoddard, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, believes that the ends justify the means. In a recent letter to the Ottawa Citizen and posted to her website, she outlined the 4-point test that she applied to this question.

The 4-point test applied by Ms. Stoddard starts with (1) “Is the measure necessary to address a specific risk?”. In other words are the means necessary to achieve the ends?

If so the ends justify the means as long as (2) they work, (3) the loss of privacy is proportional to the identified need (i.e. loss of privacy caused by the means is proportionate to the ends that are to be achieved), and (4) there is no less privacy invasive way of achieving the same end. It is all about the ends justifying the means.

Perhaps the reason why the Privacy Commissioner of Canada does not defend our privacy rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is because she has no mandate to do so.

According to the Privacy Act that defines her office and duties, the Privacy Commissioner is limited to reviewing situatations only pertaining to the privacy of information about an individual and not the individual’s inaliable rights and freedoms. The letter on her website confirms that ”… it is neither our duty nor expertise to assess the aviation threat and risk assessments…”

In other words her office has no business making a decision on CATSA’s request to strip search Canadians – whether it is done virtually or otherwise.

Just because the Privacy Commissioner says it’s OK to do so doesn’t change that fact that full body scanning and pat-downs without probable cause is a violation of our Charter Rights.

British Columbia (MoE 7.32)
Conservatives: 34.2 (-0.8)
NDP: 25.9 (-2.9)
Liberals:  21.4 (-2.2)
Green: 18.5 (+6.2)

Note that with a margin of error of 7.32, the Green Party could place as high as 2nd in BC standings, but more than likely in 3rd place as only 1/2 of the MoE is needed to overtake the Liberals.

Alberta (MoE 8.95)
Conservatives: 61.7 (+1.0)
Liberals: 15.0 (+1.1)
Green: 13.2 (-1.9)
NDP: 10.0 (-0.4)

With a MoE of nearly 9, the Green Party could also place 2nd in Alberta on the high side and drop to a 2% last place on the low side.  Again only 1/2 MoE is necessary to take 2nd place.

Saskatchewan/Manitoba (MoE 11.55)
Conservatives: 48.6 (-4.5)
NDP: 27.3 (+6.8)
Liberals: 12.4 (-5.2)
Green: 11.7 (+2.9)

The MoE is almost the same as the entire Green score.  Both the Greens and Liberals are barely statistically significant in the mid-west.  Is this the Oil Sand’s effect skewing the Saskatchewan results?

Ontario (MoE 3.91)
Liberals: 36.0 (+2.5)
Conservatives: 35.4 (-3.6)
Green: 14.3 (+1.6)
NDP: 14.2 (-0.6)

The MoE of close to 4 indicates that the Greens & NDP are tied for 3rd in Ontario as are the Liberals and Conservatives for 1st.

Quebec (MoE 4.85)
Bloc Quebecois: 38.2 (+1.4)
Liberals: 27.5 (+2.9)
Conservatives: 14.6 (-2.7)
Green: 10.2 (+1.5)
NDP: 9.6 (-3.2)

Statistically, the Greens, Conservatives, and NDP are tied for 3rd in Quebec.

Atlantic Canada (10.82)
Conservatives: 32.6 (-2.6)
Liberals: 28.4 (-2.8)
NDP: 27.2 (+0.3)
Green: 11.8 (+5.1)

With a MoE of close to 11 the Green Party is not statistically relevant in Atlantic Canada and there is a 3-way horse race for 1st.

Environment Canada compiles an inventory of GHG emissions every year.  Since this takes them a while to add up, the most recent data available is for 2007.  A quick scan through this data with a calculator reveals that the top 3 sources of GHG emissions come from:

1. Transportation (cars, trucks, planes) at 200 Mega Tonnes
2. Mining, Oil & Gas, extraction and processing at 158 Mega Tonnes
3. Electricity & Heat generation at 126 MegaTonnes

(1) and (3) are not surprising considering that Canada is the largest country in the world with a sparse population living in one of the coldest regions on our planet.  GreenPeace would have us believe that (2) is because of the Oil Sands, but only 18% of these emissions actually come from Oil Sands extraction and processing. 

In fact, according to Environment Canada’s GHG Inventory. over twice this amount (41% of mining, oil & gas industry emissions) comes from “fugitive” emissions that are caused by gas escaping from traditional oil & gas extraction through flaring, venting, burn-offs, leakage, etc.  Better engineering and less carelessness by roughnecks out in the bush would go twice as far in protecting our environment than targetting the oil sands industry.

Our #1 problem, transportation, breaks down almost evenly between personal use (87 Mt) and trucking-related (81 Mt) with aviation, railways and marine use mopping up the remaining (32 Mt).  More aggressive standards on fuel-related emissions and greater incentives for using electric/hybrid, clean diesel, and alternative fuel vehicles would have made it easy for Canada to live up to its Kyoto promises.

However, digging into the contributors for Electricity production reveals that there are 2 companies that EACH produce more GHG than all of the oil sands producers put together!

The environmental watchdog, Corporate Knights, is a well-respected and independent publication that publishes an annual list of the best and worst companies as measured by their environmental practices.  Their most recent Carbon 50 report, reveals that two corporations,

• TransAlta and
• Ontario Power Generation,

EACH emit as much GHG as the entire oil sands industry.

Although both these polluters have plans to clean up their act, these plans are being measured using an Intensity-Based metric of  Total Pollution / Total Electricity Produced.

Using this metric (which was originated by the Harper & Bush administrations to avoid accountability on climate change), it is OK to increase pollution as long as you also increase the amount of electricity generated.  This enables the polluter to make faint progress, maximize public relations, and avoid accoutability.

We need to reject the intensity-based lie by refusing to allow politicians and corporations to hide behind it.  Mr. Bush is now a historical figure and Mr. Harper recently flip-flopped and is no longer using it, but we also need to hold corporate Canada accountable too.

TransAlta (TA) is Canada’s largest investor owned electric power producer, producing 55% of its current 8.8 GW output from GHG-emitting, coal-fired power plants.  Despite their corporate rhetoric about investing in green replacement sources, according to their investor information, TA has more coal-fired new production (271 MW) under near-term construction than renewable wind or hydro production (153 MW). 

In fact, even after bringing a further 692 MW of renewable energy online by 2013, only 24% of TA’s electrical production will be from renewable energy sources.

One of the reasons for their wimpy plan is that TA has failed to include GHG reduction as a corporate key performance metric.  TA has adopted non-finanical key performance measures such as Availability and Safety but not GHG reduction.  Sadly, TA’s annual report measures future progress (page 58) using GHG Intensity metrics as if they are useful metrics.  As a result, their executives can pocket bonus compensation while continuing to pollute our air. 

Clearly TA’s leadership needs to hear from their green-minded investors that how they make money is just as important has how much money they make!!  Mr. Gordon Giffin is the Board member who Chairs the  Governance & Environment Committee of the Board.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is Canada’s largest government-owned electricity producer, producing 22% of its 21.7 GW from GHG-emitting gas and coal sources.  OPG has established a target of zero production from coal by 2014 but also uses an intensity-based metric to measure progress. 

This enables OPG to crow about a 2% reduction per GWhr while pumping out 28.4 Mt of GHG in 2007 – more than the entire oil sands industry.  Under OPG’s flimsy plan, their zero-coal target can be acheived by replacing coal-sourced power with gas-sourced power.  Since fewer GHG are produced by gas than coal, their intensity-based metric will show a reduction while total GHG pollution continues to increase.

OPG’s public relations also fail to come clean on the fact that OPG’s “renewable” power sources are actually dominated by nuclear power production which is neither green nor a renewable resource.  While nuclear is “clean” from a GHG perspective, only 26% of the 21 GW produced in Ontario in August 2009 was from renewable and green sources.

OPG gets its marching orders from Mr. Gerry Phillips, Ontario’s Minister of Energy.  I’m sure he’d like to hear from you.

So how much of a problem does the BoM have with SIVs?  It’s on the same scale as the Israeli problem with Iran’s nuclear program.

According to the BOM’s published Q3 Supplementary Financial Information, the total Regulatory Capital of the bank is $24 B.  That’s the amount of real investor capital put into the BoM.  As previously described in earlier posts, banks inflate this asset by also counting the loans that they have made as “assets” since those loans generate interest revenue.

The total BoM’s “asset” base of $334 B includes $65 B of derivatives of which $49 B are securitized assets.  According to the Q3 Supplementary Report, 90% of the $49 B is impaired and a full $37 B is rated as having a high risk of default ( Risk weight >7%).

Prudently the BoM has reserved $735 M of capital against this risk, however, that provision will be about as effective as a fart in a thunderstorm should these derivatives prove worthless.

Given the recent signs of economic recovery, it is likely that not all of the $37 B will tank.  A risk weight of >7% means that roughly 1/2 of these loans will likely default in 5 years (1.07^6 = 1.50).  Many analysts believe that the $6 B in SIV loans made to support Link SIV and Parkland SIV are at greatest risk however.

To put the danger posed by $6 B in bad loans in perspective, the BoM’s entire quarterly revenue in Q3 was $3 B and its net income is currently approximately $1 B / quarter.

Hence, a $6 B default can cause a life-threatening liquidity crisis that would require a government bailout to prevent outright bank failure.

BMO’s Q3 results are not encouraging.  At best, the bank is treading water.

For example, despite having $413 B in assets, it’s cash position of $10.7 B is basically flat compared to the previous quarter.  Although liquidity improved by about $500 M, 80% of this was due to the fact that BMO issued $400 M in preferred shares during the 3rd quarter.

Thin liquidity is very dangerous for a bank.  A bank may crow about Tier 1 capital ratios, but it is liquidity that determines whether they stay in business or not.

BMO’s loan book is still toxic.   The sum of PCL+GIL (sick and sicker loans) is 3.3 B largely unchanged from Q2 to Q3.  PCL is Provision for Credit Losses (loans the bank admits are dead) and GIL is Gross Impaired Loans (loans that are not being paid back).  And of the loans that BMO has yet to admit are bad, according to the BMO’s own risk weights, $37 B (nearly 10% of the entire loan book) are so risky that they are statistically likely to default within 5 years.

To put this in perspective, BMO’s non-investment grade loans  is 10x higher than the amount (in total dollars) the Royal Bank has in the same risk categories.

Looking at BMO’s Canadian delinquency ratios, Q3 personal loan and mortgage delinquency ratios are unimproved in Q3 over the past 3 quarters, and credit card delinquency ratio has increased quarter over quarter for the past 4 quarters.  BMO’s US delinquency ratios have deteriorated in all categories quarter over quarter for the past 4 quarters.

Meanwhile BMO’s market share is slipping with quarter over quarter declines in Canadian personal loans, mortgages, retail deposits and commercial loans.

Overall Moody’s rates the BMO’s financial strength as B-grade risk with a negative outlook.  For the most part, BMO’s ratings by S&P, Moody’s,  DBRS and Fitch are generally one notch less than the Royal Bank’s ratings.