Undergraduate / QUEEN'S Supplementary ESSAY #1 - a contribution based on research about the program [2]

Based on your research about the program, what contribution do you plan to make to Queen's Commerce? Please answer in 300 words or fewer.
Response:

From my research on Queen's Commerce Society and its committees, I believe I can make the biggest difference as a leader in Queen's Global China Connection (QGCC) Committee. In my first year of Attending Queen's Commerce program, I will build a solid business knowledge foundation from its curriculums and join many Queen's DECA competitions offered by Queens to advance my interpersonal skills and business experiences. I will also apply to become a frosh representative for QGCC to work on the committee and build leadership skills. In my senior year, I will run for the QGCC Chair position and develop my visions for future QGCC into reality. I hope to offer Queen's student summer exchange programs with China's top universities, such as Peking and Tsinghua Universities. I hope to provide Queen's students more exclusive internship opportunities overseas in multinational corporations, such as Lenovo. Furthermore, I have an idea to team up with Chinese native companies that are looking to expand its market into Canada, and Canadian native companies that are seeking to expand it's market into China. I want Queen's students to be able to join as interns in these businesses in their oversea expansion projects. I believe Queen's students have the multicultural background and solid business knowledge foundations that will help these companies carry out a successful expansion into the foreign market. These opportunities will not only give our students practical experiences but also allows them to have a competitive edge in their future business careers. I will try my best to make these ideals possible by using my fluent Mandarin skills and my cultural background to communicate and build relationships in with these companies to gain an opportunity for our students. This is my visions for my future contributions at Queen's Commerce, and I will use my hard work and persistence to achieve these goals and help advance QGCC into a better campus resource for Queen's business students.

Writing Feedback / Body of Economic Paper - decrease subsidies in Canada's fossil fuel/gas sectors [2]

Firstly, one of Canada's primary economic goal aims to increase economic productivity and efficiency. By wisely managing limited money, Canada will be able to fulfill its objectives to meet domestic demand and keep domestic industries competitive in international markets. Federal and provincial governments believe to achieve these economic goals by investing government budgets in the fossil fuel and gas industries with millions of Canadian dollars without realizing the inefficient use of money.

In recent years, Canadian government heavily subsidised fossil fuel industries with almost $3.6 billion CDN each year in means of supporting fossil fuel researches and developments in Canada (Linnitt, 2015). A very remarkable fossil fuel development projects that accounted for a big portion of this investment was the carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology (Linnitt, 2015). The federal government invested as much as $226 million US in Saskatchewan while Alberta received $156 million US investments, solely for CCS development and research projects (Linnitt, 2015). Saskatchewan and Alberta's provincial governments also contributed as much as $122.2 million US for CCS technology development (Linnitt, 2015). However, this massive investment was unproductive and inefficient (Linnitt, 2015). CCS technology's sole purpose is to remove carbon from the atmosphere in the industrial process of fossil fuel and gas production (Linnitt, 2015). Research states the new technology fails to remove carbon as it's proven to release more carbon into the atmosphere through facilitating enhanced oil and gas extraction, in which defeats the infrastructure's only purpose (Linnitt, 2015). Furthermore, CCS technology ideally should have benefited Canada's economy by increasing "global export of energy technology and service", increasing "sales of energy products enabled by new technology", and also increasing "domestic GDP through increasing competitiveness of" the domestic fossil fuel and gas industry (Natural Resources Canada, 2012, p. 2). In spite of million of dollars of subsidies into the fossil fuel and gas industries, CCS technology did not bring any of the economic value should a new technology to a Country, therefore, further validating the infrastructure's inefficiency (Natural Resources Canada, 2012). Alternatively, the federal government could invest $504 million US into more productive and efficient infrastructure developments. The foregone subsidies could adequately fund both Vancouver and Toronto's public transportation infrastructures, such as urban subway lines as well as light rail transport constructions (Anderson, 2014). Unlike CCS technology, public transit services are needed for every household and investing in these more efficient projects could help meet domestic demand for upgraded infrastructure (Anderson, 2014). Additionally, investing in public transit could also save Canada billions in reduced congestion costs (Anderson, 2014). Furthermore, Canada should transition from supporting fossil fuel and gas industries to investing in the development of cleaner and greener energy technologies because these technologies are efficient technologies that will help Canada's domestic energy industry obtain competitiveness internationally (Asadollahi, 2014).

Secondly, Canada aims to achieve full employment of the labour force to reach optimal production targets. Federal government wish to achieve the goal of full employment through aiding the major production industry in Canada: the fossil fuel and gas industry. However, these investments in the fossil fuel and gas industries contributed to mass amount of job losses (Taliano, 2014). In the years of 2000 to 2011, fossil fuel and gas sector offered Canadians 16,500 jobs (Taliano, 2014). While employment rate seemed to increase ostensibly, half a million of jobs were lost in the manufacturing industries (Taliano, 2014). The mass amount of job loss was caused by the effect of the unstable price of petroleum (Taliano, 2014). Since Canada heavily base its domestic revenue on the fossil fuel and gas industries, the value of Canadian dollar is impacted significantly as oil prices fall (Taliano, 2014). When Canadian currency devalues, it negatively affects Canada's exports, which ultimately influence the manufacturing industries in Canada, resulting in millions of layoffs (Taliano, 2014). Despite the fact that heavily reliance on the fossil fuel and gas industries contributes more negative than positive impacts to the Canadian economy, the federal government continues to subsidize the industries, resulting in more job losses (Taliano, 2014). In contrast, if federal government subsidize the clean technology industries, the investments could bring the rewards of millions of new green jobs into Canada (Gillis, 2015). Successful examples of countries benefiting from strong domestic clean technology industries include China, United States, Germany, Denmark, Spain, and Brazil, with millions of new jobs created by this domestic industry (Gillis, 2015). In fact, with the development of clean technology industry, China doubled its share in the export market, owning 20% of the current export market (McCarthy, 2015). Furthermore, Clean Energy Canada suggest that Canada now created more jobs for Canadians through clean technology investments than the oil sands subsidies (Gillis, 2015). If federal government begin to subsidize clean technology developments instead of fossil fuel and as industries, Canada will reach its economic goal of full employment and environmental stewardship while having a more stable currency and economy with less reliance on petroleum (Gillis, 2015).