The Prime Minister's trip to China last week sparked a flurry of media coverage regarding prospects for "closer" economic ties between Canada and China. Some even speculated that another free trade agreement is in the works (as soon as the Harper government inks its planned deals, of course, with the EU, India, Korea, and the TPP!).

The pandas are cute, sure. But what are the dimensions of the current economic links between these two economies? Does that relationship benefit average Canadians? And do we want something even "closer"?

Here are a few factoids to throw into that particular discussion:

- Canada imported almost $50 billion in merchandise from China in 2011, almost all manufactured goods.

The CAW has just released a 20-minute video featuring none other than yours truly giving a short lecture about the economics of the proposed Canada-EU free trade agreement (a.k.a. CETA).

This link takes you to the film, which can be downloaded for free and shown at information meetings or any other organizing events.

Canadians are taking the recession into our own hands, and we have the employment numbers to prove it. Have we hit bottom? Not necessarily, but, hey, we the people aren't using this time of economic stagnation to stand still and do nothing.

That's the poetry of the new job numbers for April that came out last week.

The surprising tally shows that instead of declining, the number of jobs rose by 35,900 last month, despite constant news of layoffs both threatened and real.