The Canadian middle class is in crisis. Each year, its share of our national income shrinks, relative to that of the richest few. Recent reports show Canada's wealthiest one per cent accounted for 32 per cent of all income growth between 1997 and 2007 -- the most in recorded history. Thanks to skyrocketing executive compensation levels and an aggressive attack on well-paid, family-supporting jobs, the gap between the rich and the rest of us grows ever wider.

It's predictable. The minute the latest monthly Labour Force Survey results are released to the public, economists and politicians fall all over themselves making grand pronouncements about the health of our job market and direction of the economy.

I could hear the champagne corks popping on Parliament Hill and Bay Street back in December when the monthly Statistics Canada jobs report card announced 79,000 jobs were created in November. BMO Capital Markets Economist Jennifer Lee excitedly declared to the National Post "Our economy is in recovery mode."

If governments are using public funds to purchase goods and services in an effort to stimulate a depressed economy, then it's a no-brainer that those products should be made at home. When governments build infrastructure or purchase equipment, they must steer maximum benefit toward tax-paying citizens: creating jobs, stimulating industries and strengthening communities.

The practice of domestic procurement is both logical and common. It's widely used by countries throughout the world. And, for the most part, it's totally legal: Even under the terms of NAFTA and the WTO, sub-national governments have full powers to source locally, and national level governments have great leeway to favour domestic suppliers. Why then has the U.S.