We should always be buying Canadian, whenever we can. It's not easy, though.
True. Especially for those who have lost their Canadian jobs.
But whether we always buy Canadian or not, we can at least demand that our taxes be spent on stimulating Canadian production.
So I guess AJ is AOK with Jimmy Pattison getting richer off of clear cutting BC forests, which belong to the peoples of BC and Canada, by exporting the basically stolen raw logs to China for manufacturing, while Canadians go to food banks and live on income assistance?
___________________________________________________________
"watching the tide roll away"
I'm saying that for stuff we can produce ourselves, we should buy it from ourselves instead of other countries, and for stuff we can't produce ourselves, we should trade for them.
I'm just challenging this distinction you're making between the stuff we can make and the stuff we can't.
There are very few things that are impossible to make in Canada, but there are lots of things that are prohibitively expensive, or we're simply not very good at - like oranges.
On the one hand you're saying - "sure, it's expensive to make [random good currently made in China] in Canada, but we should do so anyway", while at the same time saying "it's too expensive to grow oranges here, so we should do what is cost-effective and import them".
No, there is no one currently trying to grow oranges in some kind of elaborate and labour-intensive greenhouse operation here in Canada (that I know of). But imagine there were - their oranges would be very expensive, say 10x the price of those imported.
Is that too much? If steel made in Canada cost 2x that made in China (all figures utterly fabricated - don't worry, they're being fabricated by a Canadian
), should we still buy the local product? What about aluminium that cost 3x as much as that made in Brazil? Computer chips that cost 5x as much as those made in Japan?
At what point are the alleged gains to be made by buying locally (supporting Canadian greenhouse makers and the employees of local orange growers) outweighed by the extra costs?
You make it sound like Canadians have a lot of work ahead of them, A_J.
Ah, no answer I see, just continuing on with absolute nonsense, with no thought as to "costs" in the long run.
___________________________________________________________ "watching the tide roll away"
A_J:
Canadians are one of the most well-educated populations in the world. So how could we possibly survive in the middle of what is unparalleled in the world natural resource wealth?
I ask you to use your imaginative powers. Put on your thinking cap, and don't let up for at least five minutes. We'll want an essay by tomorrow morning 9 o'clock sharp. And step on it.
I'm not sure why we're allowing A_J to reduce an important discussion to some ludicrous lowest terms.
This isn't about stopping imports, or growing our own pineapples, or anything of the sort.
[b]It's about imposing a 60% Canadian content rule on taxpayer-funded investments, except where it can be shown that that's not feasible.[/b]
Babblers ought to be encouraging Jack Layton to follow through on his stand, and put pressure on the Liberals and BQ to do likewise.
The CCPA and the trade unions should be brought on board (if they're not already). We need letters, petitions, op-ed pieces. It will have the side political benefit of showing economic leadership in a time of crisis.
Let's do it! We CAN do it!
In a modern world competition should not just be on price but on other social considerations going into production including how labour is treated and the environment.
When it comes to Chinese workers, I hardly think it would be a big problem for them if we insist on buying from Chinese factories that pay better wages for example. Ultimately this is not something that can be imposed from another country. But one day we could call for an international minimum wage. In the meantime we could promote more ethical imports. Countries who wish to criticize China's labour laws and wages are hypocritical since you could go there and hire workers in a factory paying proper wages- but we go there and pay the lowest we can get away with. And we can, without putting up a wall require better labour standards in all products sold here. Everything would cost more but the Chinese would not stop competing to deliver to us products as we want them. They will provide the higher wages if we will pay. We get Chinese exploited workers because that is what we want and pay for and any other interpretation is a complete misreading of the relationship. Our consumer desires are entirely dependent on exploitation and need to be curbed by appropriate recognition of real costs in products.
When it comes to environmental concerns we always use the environment to subsidize trade along with exploited labour. If we stopped doing this we would see that buying locally is competitive. when you factor in the environmental costs of shipping over distance then you can see why a buy Canadian campaign now has as much to do with environmental common sense as it does with nationalism.
The NDP entirely on the right track with this one and this is something people can relate to.
This isn't about stopping imports, or growing our own pineapples, or anything of the sort.[b]It's about imposing a 60% Canadian content rule on taxpayer-funded investments, except where it can be shown that that's not feasible.[/b]
You're absolutely right, no one (or only very few people) are calling on the country to cease trading with the rest of the world. Layton's proposal is simply to buy Canadian when the government spends its money - not to require everyone to buy Canadian at all times.
But like I said - presumably this is necessary because the Canadian goods are more expensive and would be overlooked in the normal bidding process, which merely asks who can provide the required good or service at the lowest price. You're asking the government to instead look beyond the bottom line and make its spending decisions not based on whether the good or service offered is the cheapest, but whether that good or service came from Canada.
The problem is that you get less out of your tax-payer funded investment this way - one bridge instead of two for the same amount of money, three subway trains instead of four, 100 school breakfasts instead of 1,000 because you bought insanely overpriced $10 Canadian oranges that were grown in the dead of winter at a multi-billion dollar hot-house complex located outside of Winnipeg
I live on Quebec's Lower North Shore, just below Labrador, and even here we are getting produce from Florida, California, and even Chile of all places!!!
I have a good size veggie garden which I shall expand as soon as spring arrives (late May) and grow more lettuce, carrots, and beets to give away to friends and neighbours (aside from what I need for myself). More folks here are taking up gardening as a protest against imported produce which spoils quickly and is over priced to begin with. I wish I could grow fruit, but our growing season is too short (aside from blueberries, raspberries, and bakeapples).
Here's a reprint of David Orchard's(Conservative) comments of 2004
[url=http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=779]How free trade changed us[/url]
Jobs are only one part of the trade equation. As the U.S. chips away at Canada’s economic independence, we’re slowly losing our sovereignty, says David Orchard The Canadian Labour Congress chief is rethinking his opposition to free trade with the U.S. and suggests we should be "thinking about industrial strategies in a North American rather than purely Canadian context."Ken Georgetti says he was misquoted and that the free trade agreements cost Canada 300,000 well-paying manufacturing jobs only to see them replaced by lower-paying ones. In fact, in the first three years of the 1989 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, Canada lost a quarter of its manufacturing base. Hundreds of industrial plants closed their doors or relocated to the U.S.
By 1992, Canada’s number of unemployed hit a historic high. However, lost in this exchange is the fact that jobs are only one part of the free-trade equation. The central issue, as Sir John A. Macdonald put it during the free-trade election of 1891, is our sovereignty. How, he asked, could Canada keep its political independence after it had thrown away its economic independence?
Instead of the promised "secure access" to the U.S. market, we have had more trade harassment than before 1989: on steel, wheat, lumber, beef, hogs, fish, lobster, blueberries and more. The much heralded recent NAFTA "victory" on softwood lumber - after the industry spent tens of millions of dollars on Washington lawyers - will (if accepted by the U.S., which is far from certain) only return us to the situation that existed before the free-trade agreement.
Before the FTA negotiations began in 1986, Canada, trading with the U.S. under the GATT framework, had free trade in softwood lumber. Nor had the Americans been able to challenge our national institutions, block our exports or put tariffs on our wheat. However, the FTA gave the U.S. unlimited rights to use its trade laws against Canada. The result: an unending series of actions taken against not only our exports, but also the very way we govern ourselves.
Laws passed by Parliament are challenged and overturned by U.S. corporations. The U.S. openly declares it will see the Canadian Wheat Board dismantled and has mounted 10 actions against the board since 1989 with more on the way. One remaining protection for western farmers, the CWB is the world’s largest marketer of wheat and barley and Canada’s biggest net earner of foreign currency. Without it, Canada’s grain industry would move overnight into the hands of the U.S. agriculture giants.
An Ontario NDP government promise of public auto insurance was abandoned in the face of U.S. industry threats of retaliation under the FTA
. After 15 years of "free trade" with the United States, fewer than a dozen major, widely held Canadian companies are left listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. More than 10,000 Canadian companies have been taken over by U.S. owners. Even the Hudson’s Bay Company, part of the country’s very foundation in 1670, is apparently to be absorbed by a U.S. retail chain, while the Molson "I am Canadian" brewery is merging with an American conglomerate.
And the number of foreign takevers is now somewhere over 12,000
No, A_J. Not at all. It means companies may have to restructure their operations to meet Canadian content rules.
When Bombardier bids on U.S. public transit contracts (subway, LRT, etc.), it rents or builds plant space or partners with others in the U.S. in order to meet the U.S. content strictures of the "Buy America Act". That way, it can do part of the work in Mexico (for example) and final assembly in the U.S.
Would it be cheaper to get it all done in Mexico? Sure, maybe. Then they could order more commuter trains, but less people would have jobs to commute to.
Yep.
AJ could have stepped right out of Peter Seller's 1959 classic, "I'm All Right Jack."
Short sighted at best AJ.
Now let's have a look at your version of government, allegedly being able to build 2 bridges instead of 1, by using the "cheapest is best model".
This ideology is based upon exporting goods and service purchases to any ol' place other than Canada, which hence means, providing jobs elsewhere, other than Canada. You say this is allegedly to "save" money, in order to have, you say, "more" government developmental power and expenditures.
Now logic dictates this idiology is an absurbity in notion, and stupidity in action of trying to spread the bs. Why?
60 thousand, at least, jobs have been lost in BC's forestry sector, while BC's forests are being cut down and the raw logs exported to China. In essence, those 60k jobs have been given to Chinese workers, plus another 10k -15k in support service industry and goods productions.
Yes, the Canadian government makes royalties off of the sale of those raw logs. However, it makes NO income tax money from 70k or so workers, a loss which continues to grow exponentially, plus many other revenue taxations are also lost. So merely allowing something like this to happen, has decreased the federal governments ability to build "2 bridges", they can now only build 1.
In fact, it is in a net loss situation, because it also has to pay to have those workers to be retrained, and it has to pay out EI, forgoing interest on the EI money.
And then, when NO jobs are found, because there aren't any, the cost of up keep of those workers, who have lost their jobs, is downloaded to the provinces. As the lost job workers, will have to go on income assistance in order to survive. This means now, that the provinces also, lose their ability to build 2 bridges.
Additional GST revenue is also lost by the federal government, and PST by the provincial government, because 70k people cannot now afford to make purchases.
Because people cannot afford to make purchases of even FOOD, then more jobs are lost in differing sectors. Then in turn, MORE jobs are lost when other industries are impacted, because of other sector job losses
Now you expand this reality to the government's purchasing of goods and services elsewhere, which is basically the same thing, and which according to you is cheaper, and thus "better' for Canadians in the long run.
It isn't! It is advocating self destruction.
Thus your short sighted ideology becomes, or is, an exponential loss activity that continues, or would continue, until there is/was nothing left.
In a supply-constrained world where all capital and labour are fully employed, free trade may be beneficial because it allows each country to specialize in producing the product(s) for which it has a comparative advantage. (Even in this case, the distribution of benefits between countries or between capital and labour can provide rationales for regulating trade.)However, in a demand-constrained world with excess capacity and unemployed workers, countries have a clear-cut interest in locating production within their own borders. The orthodox argument for free trade, which assumes full employment, is unlikely to convince Americans (or anyone else) at a time of rising unemployment.
The point of a stimulus package is, rather obviously, to stimulate the economy and stop the downward spiral of reduced demand and employment that makes up a recession. How many bridges you can build with foreign steel vs Canadian isn't the point. The point is to stimulate demand and create jobs HERE.
Great, Dogbert, thanks for this reference! Here's a comment by Stephen Shrybman (of Sack Goldblatt Mitchell LLP) on that article:
Comment from Steven Shrybman
Time: February 1, 2009, 9:37 pmAs you correctly point out, local procurement preferences are not trade measures in any conventional sense, and do not impose any restrictions on the trade in goods across international borders. Rather “Buy American” rules simply condition public procurement spending to foster local economic development - a key purpose of present stimulus plans.
Contrary to much of the current commentary on present US proposals concerning steel procurement, the right of state, provincial and local governments to adopt local preferences is specifically preserved under both NAFTA and WTO rules. It is long past time for Canada take advantage of this right to follow the US precedent with a “Buy Canadian Act”.
But the right to impose local preferences doesn’t mean that such policies are sound in every case, particularly in an integrated north american market. As you point out, there are good reasons for Canada and US to collaborate on devising a rational approach for managing North American steel trade. It may even make sense for them to consider broadening the frame of economic reference to include other nations.
The important point is that a managed, not de-regulated trade program is needed to optimize the beneficial economic gains from public procurement, particularly in the present context. Simply abandoning such key decisions to the market makes no more sense for the industrial sector than it did for banking or financial services.
"The point of a stimulus package is, rather obviously, to stimulate the economy and stop the downward spiral of reduced demand and employment that makes up a recession. How many bridges you can build with foreign steel vs Canadian isn't the point. The point is to stimulate demand and create jobs HERE."
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The literalist also demands attention to a single message in religious texts. Your take on economic textbook approach looks to be so inspired to me. Whatever happened to comparison with the U.S. (you know, the folks giving grief over beef, timber, pork, occasionally potatoes and wheat) that has taken advantage of us at every turn.
Or do you see yourself as simply conveying what Galbraith termed "conventional wisdom?"
A reader of conventional economic texts.
How would this protect the environment? If I live in Vancouver and used to buy shoes from Seattle but now must buy them from Montreal, the shoes cost more because of the extra gas needed to transport them. Now pray tell how that helps the environment? If anything, it will harm the environment while making us poorer.Excellent! I've been cheering Barack Obama all the way with his Buy American stuff lately. And the reason has been because I WELCOME protectionism wars.
Yes, things won't be quite as cheap as they used to be, but then, you know, I don't think we really NEED 10 pairs of shoes, and bulging closets and all that crap that's destroying the earth anyhow.
Protectionism, along with strong social programs to help those who are unable to afford the basics, is just what the doctor ordered.
Another point is that protectionism hurts the most vulnerable. Rising costs hurt the poor the most. And developing countries are the least likely to be able to meet expected standards, they they become hardest hit too, thus perpetuating inequalities between rich and poor within countries as well as between developed and developing countries. It's motivated by greed and nationalism, pure and simple.
The problem is that you get less out of your tax-payer funded investment this way - one bridge instead of two for the same amount of money, three subway trains instead of four, 100 school breakfasts instead of 1,000 because you bought insanely overpriced $10 Canadian oranges that were grown in the dead of winter at a multi-billion dollar hot-house complex located outside of Winnipeg
I think, if you get [i]really, really creative[/i] you just might be able to imagine a world with our very own Canadian-grown APPLE JUICE on the school lunch menu.
I know, I know - I'm such a dreamer, aren't I?
In a supply-constrained world where all capital and labour are fully employed, free trade may be beneficial because it allows each country to specialize in producing the product(s) for which it has a comparative advantage. (Even in this case, the distribution of benefits between countries or between capital and labour can provide rationales for regulating trade.)However, in a demand-constrained world with excess capacity and unemployed workers, countries have a clear-cut interest in locating production within their own borders. The orthodox argument for free trade, which assumes full employment, is unlikely to convince Americans (or anyone else) at a time of rising unemployment.
The point of a stimulus package is, rather obviously, to stimulate the economy and stop the downward spiral of reduced demand and employment that makes up a recession. How many bridges you can build with foreign steel vs Canadian isn't the point. The point is to stimulate demand and create jobs HERE.
What you forget is that other countries don't just sit there and shrug their shoulders while you're taking jobs away from them. Again, this is pure nationalism with no care for social justice outside our own borders.
The literalist also demands attention to a single message in religious texts. Your take on economic textbook approach looks to be so inspired to me. Whatever happened to comparison with the U.S. (you know, the folks giving grief over beef, timber, pork, occasionally potatoes and wheat) that has taken advantage of us at every turn.
I see myself as pointing out the obvious: that if we aim to stimulate the Canadian economy, we should take measures to ensure that we actually stimulate the Canadian economy. "Conventional economics textbooks" will tell you how Free Trade is great under every circumstance, I'd consider that to be religious dogma.
Another point is that protectionism hurts the most vulnerable. Rising costs hurt the poor the most. And developing countries are the least likely to be able to meet expected standards, they they become hardest hit too, thus perpetuating inequalities between rich and poor within countries as well as between developed and developing countries. It's motivated by greed and nationalism, pure and simple.
The poor also take the brunt of the job losses when jobs get shipped overseas. The last 30 years of free trading haven't exactly been good for the poor in Canada or anywhere else.
Now, if you want to talk about a world where both capital and labour can move freely, or where the prerequisite for trade is strong environmental or labour standards, that I'd be all in favour of. Free trade that puts capital rights ahead of anything else will lead us all into the sweat shop.
Short sighted at best AJ.
And you're also forgetting several important things too.
What about the workers who could have been employed constructing that second bridge?
What about the economic benefits of the second bridge? Perhaps it could have increased transport capacity, connected a rural town, lowered the cost of doing business in Canada and allowed a company to set up a factory and employ people.
The point of a stimulus package is, rather obviously, to stimulate the economy and stop the downward spiral of reduced demand and employment that makes up a recession. How many bridges you can build with foreign steel vs Canadian isn't the point.
If the actual projects in the stimulus package don't even matter and the only thing that does is putting money in the hands of people employed in otherwise uncompeitive sectors of the economy, why not:
1. calculate the cost of building the bridge using the cheapest materials (whether Canadian or not).
2. calculate the cost of building the bridge using Canadian materials (whether the cheapest or not).
3. *not build any bridge at all*
4. write a cheque for the difference between 1 & 2 and hand it over to the major unions in the country.
5. lather, rinse and repeat with every other item in the stimulus package.
Classic schoolroom assignment stuff, AJ.
Now grow up and come out into the real world.
I still think you are a perfect take on Sellers ' "I'm All Right Jack."
"I see myself as pointing out the obvious: that if we aim to stimulate the Canadian economy, we should take measures to ensure that we actually stimulate the Canadian economy. "Conventional economics textbooks" will tell you how Free Trade is great under every circumstance, I'd consider that to be religious dogma."
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Galbraith was talking about tunnel vision, not textbooks, bert. Letting our own steel smelters grow cold and importing the stuff is narrow thinking bert. Very, very narrow.
Another point is that protectionism hurts the most vulnerable. Rising costs hurt the poor the most. And developing countries are the least likely to be able to meet expected standards, they they become hardest hit too, thus perpetuating inequalities between rich and poor within countries as well as between developed and developing countries. It's motivated by greed and nationalism, pure and simple.
Oh my goodness, I never thought of that. Just imagine that 80 percent of chronically-hungry thirdworld capitalist hellholes whose colonials rely on exporting food to stay filthy rich have no where to ship cash crops to. This would create chaos for capitalist trading companies. What were we thinking, people?
Excellent! I've been cheering Barack Obama all the way with his Buy American stuff lately. And the reason has been because I WELCOME protectionism wars.
Yes, things won't be quite as cheap as they used to be, but then, you know, I don't think we really NEED 10 pairs of shoes, and bulging closets and all that crap that's destroying the earth anyhow.
Protectionism, along with strong social programs to help those who are unable to afford the basics, is just what the doctor ordered.
I noticed how this comment has been skipped altogether. You do all realise that the only jobs protectionism creates are make-work jobs like those of truckers who must drive goods cross-country when otherwise we coudl have bought a similar product just in the next town across the border.
How does this benefit anyone?
Of course we do not have the power we once had to impose our will but Britain's influence endures, out of all proportion to her economic and military resources. This is partly because the English language is the lingua franca of science, technology, and cAnother point is that protectionism hurts the most vulnerable. Rising costs hurt the poor the most. And developing countries are the least likely to be able to meet expected standards, they they become hardest hit too, thus perpetuating inequalities between rich and poor within countries as well as between developed and developing countries. It's motivated by greed and nationalism, pure and simple.
Yes, and if these capitalists have more money, then they can hire more people and make jobs for thhem (isn't that what protectionisms was about?), and they coudl pay more in taxes too. After all, the poor don't pay as much in taxes.
Oh my goodness, I never thought of that. Just imagine that 80 percent of chronically-hungry thirdworld capitalist hellholes whose colonials rely on exporting food to stay filthy rich have no where to ship cash crops to. This would create chaos for capitalist trading companies. What were we thinking, people?
Galbraith was talking about tunnel vision, not textbooks, bert. Letting our own steel smelters grow cold and importing the stuff is narrow thinking bert. Very, very narrow.
Yeah, I agree. So what about what I've said are you disagreeing with?
And dear Machjo
Oranges in Winnipeg I'll have to think about. Not seriously, but with my heart and blood pressure in mind.
But this one:
"How would this protect the environment? If I live in Vancouver and used to buy shoes from Seattle but now must buy them from Montreal, the shoes cost more because of the extra gas needed to transport them. Now pray tell how that helps the environment? If anything, it will harm the environment while making us poorer."
----------------------------------------
You'll find the WalMart in Vancouver selling the goddam things for the price of the Seattle shoes these days. But, of course, the normal course of things is, the Canadian economy and its workers would benefit from shoes made in Winnipeg, not China, where those bloody shoes "from Seattle" would actually originate.
But wait: "I noticed how this comment has been skipped altogether. You do all realise that the only jobs protectionism creates are make-work jobs like those of truckers who must drive goods cross-country when otherwise we coudl have bought a similar product just in the next town across the border." __________________________________________________
Now I get it. You're the consummate consumer. Born to shop . Production does not compute.
Silly billy me.
"The point of a stimulus package is, rather obviously, to stimulate the economy and stop the downward spiral of reduced demand and employment that makes up a recession. How many bridges you can build with foreign steel vs Canadian isn't the point. The point is to stimulate demand and create jobs HERE."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
That second last sentence left me in doubt. Along with the emphasis on "stimulate demand."
So nationalism and natiionalization is okay. Right? Given that understanding of the political-economic situation?
And dear Machjo
Oranges in Winnipeg I'll have to think about. Not seriously, but with my heart and blood pressure in mind.
But this one:
"How would this protect the environment? If I live in Vancouver and used to buy shoes from Seattle but now must buy them from Montreal, the shoes cost more because of the extra gas needed to transport them. Now pray tell how that helps the environment? If anything, it will harm the environment while making us poorer."
----------------------------------------
You'll find the WalMart in Vancouver selling the goddam things for the price of the Seattle shoes these days. But, of course, the normal course of things is, the Canadian economy and its workers would benefit from shoes made in Winnipeg, not China, where those bloody shoes "from Seattle" would actually originate.
But wait: "I noticed how this comment has been skipped altogether. You do all realise that the only jobs protectionism creates are make-work jobs like those of truckers who must drive goods cross-country when otherwise we coudl have bought a similar product just in the next town across the border." __________________________________________________ Now I get it. You're the consummate consumer. Born to shop . Production does not compute.
Silly billy me.
I'm vegan, prefer organic, and walk or ride a bicycle when at all possible. I'd also be in favour of a gas tax: that would make products from distant lands more expensive in Canada while still ensuring that we dont have to buy things from farther geographically because of a tariff. As for the shoe thing, thanks for the literalism. I'm sure you understood my point.
Why is it that so many people here take themselves for psychics?
No, but I'll get back to it sometime.
It's great ground for psychotics.
Not that I think I am so brilliant, but I find it fasinating that the free-trade will save the world crowd skipped right over the actual facts of what we export and don't. I mean, not conjecture, or beliefs but actual dollar and percentage values. Of course it blows their Banana Skins all to hell, but wouldn't a fact based argument be fun - just this once.
two- two mints in one
In light of depredation of this thread, "fact-based" seems beyond hope. But, then, refilling my glass every one in a while in protest is not so bad.
Or maybe that should be "on" this thread. Will return.
What you forget is that other countries don't just sit there and shrug their shoulders while you're taking jobs away from them.
Doesn't scare me. So far, it's only Stephen Harper that ideologically opposes investing in Canada and Canadian workers. That's because his nationalism is international capital and nothing else.
Again, this is pure nationalism with no care for social justice outside our own borders.
Social justice? Like, buying cheap goods from semi-slave wage labour abroad? Ah yes, the internationalist solidarity of the British industrialists, who devastated their own countryside, turned producers into wage-slaves, then, in a burst of Christian feeling and deep commitment to the Burden of the White Man, did likewise in India. The Indian people have been eternally grateful to Her Majesty for this act of charity.
In your profound analysis, the menace threatening Canada is "greed and nationalism". Thanks for that. It's such a fresh and original perspective.
It's nice to see that Harperism has its "left" defenders.
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That second last sentence left me in doubt. Along with the emphasis on "stimulate demand."
So nationalism and natiionalization is okay. Right? Given that understanding of the political-economic situation?
Sounds good to me!
And you're also forgetting several important things too.What about the workers who could have been employed constructing that second bridge?
What about the economic benefits of the second bridge? Perhaps it could have increased transport capacity, connected a rural town, lowered the cost of doing business in Canada and allowed a company to set up a factory and employ people.
No I didn't, because I proved the government would never have the money to build 2 bridges by those "cheaper is better" actions. In fact, I proved that that practise may well prevent ANY bridges from being built.
___________________________________________________________ "watching the tide roll away"
From the David Orchard article posted upthread:
Laws passed by Parliament are challenged and overturned by U.S. corporations. The U.S. openly declares it will see the Canadian Wheat Board dismantled and has mounted 10 actions against the board since 1989 with more on the way. One remaining protection for western farmers, the CWB is the world’s largest marketer of wheat and barley and Canada’s biggest net earner of foreign currency. Without it, Canada’s grain industry would move overnight into the hands of the U.S. agriculture giants.
I was surprised not to see any comments on this. Harper and his thugs are hell bent on shutting down the CWB - why?
The religion is free markets, free trade. It's part of Steve's economic principles. Chicago School. Those fellas see the Canada-U.S. border as an impediment to free trade. Canadian sovereigny means nothing in this context because Canadian government intervention in the market - in anything - is an impediment to a free market. The CWB is a sin against their religion.
Scary eh?
Yup. There's even a Facebook group against the CWB, but not one supporting the CWB as far as I know.
Yes, the right has become very good at creating astroturf movements (artificial 'grassroots'). And the media is guaranteed to grant them at least equal access, no matter how small, on the fringes, and ideologically loopy they may be.
Yup. There's even a Facebook group against the CWB, but not one supporting the CWB as far as I know.
Maybe not but there is a website http://www.savemycwb.ca/
And a major farm group - the NFU - that has all kinds of information and support for the CWB www.nfu.ca
Thanks, BA! I knew about the NFU website, but not the cwb one.
I'm curious. If the principle of protectionism is theoreticaly valid for countries, it should be valid for cities too, right?
I'm curious. If the principle of protectionism is theoreticaly valid for countries, it should be valid for cities too, right?
Or
