Same thing as when we fuck over the nation as a whole to keep Ellsworth Airforce Base open in Butt-Fucking Egypt, South Dakota.
And yet, as my re-quoting of the initial statements show, I didn’t say ‘undemocratic’, I said ‘non-proportional’. I did say ‘undemocratic’ in an offhand way in a subsequent post, but have since withdrawn that characterization twice. And I challenge you do point out anything in this thread which indicates a lack of understanding of your political structure.
I’ve heard that about certain parts of the U.S. too.
That would be Bum-fuck Egypt. Since this thread has dissolved into pedantic crap, I thought I might as well come on in. 
It is a term that appears in print in the early 1960’s and from the military.
Well excuuuusssseee meeee!
I thought that Bumfuck was in North Dakota.
Major article in the Times about just this issue. Uhm, in Saturday’s paper, during August, but still.
All I can say about this is that it’s about time we had some more trade missions to Europe and South America. And we’ve got a large and growing population of Mandarin-speakers; let’s hope they can come in handy in getting our businesses trading with Asia.
Enough of being disproportionately economically bound to the double-talking treaty-tearing United States. They can keep running up their zillion-dollar deficits all they like; when their economy finally collapses, let’s hope we’ve planned ahead and tied ourselves to the growing markets of the EU, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America, and decoupled ourselves from the Yanks.
Enough of their threats. Enough of holding off on reasonable liberalisation of marijuana laws because we’re afraid of what the Americans will do. Enough of rolling over when they play their stupid games on the lobbied-industry product of the week, be it beef or salmon or lumber.
Hitting them where it hurts (energy) is risky, but it’s about time they got the message. Natural gas will hurt Alberta a bit, but other regions, too, and it might be worth it to settle the lumber issue. Electricity could bring in-kind retaliation that will hurt power-thirsty Ontario; I’ll live will brownouts if need be. What happened to all that rhetoric about Canada and the US being best of friends? Doesn’t seem to extend any farther than their industries’ inabilities to compete with the world’s largest forests.
This and the Maher Arar tripe are getting me really pissed off at that country to our south. I suppose I’ll start selecting Zuidafrikan pears and Chilean grapes over American ones at Loblaws. Not much else I can do but send angry letters to DFAIT. :mad: [/angry vent]
No, that’s Butthump, ND, which is right across the border from Upper Rubber Boot, MN, and just down from Sweet Fuck All, Manitoba.
wolfstu, here in Alberta, I am hoping that we have learned an extremely valuable lesson from the beef border closing, and will no longer continue to put all of our eggs in one fragile basket. Unfortunately, politics seems to be almost completely reactive instead of proactive, and we might get absolutely nowhere with diversifying our markets.
Thing is, you can talk diversification of markets all you like, but the fact will remain that all the other markets are on different continents. It’s not like it’s an accident that most of our exports go south.
Great article, Mehitabel. It takes an American vacationing in Canada to notice that we’re really not thrilled with the U.S. right now, but it’s a start.
That is, unfortunately, completely true.
Naw, not even close. Sure, the Adminstration hasn’t always done what was promised, but other nations have sometimes completely flat-out reneged on EVERYTHING, debts and all- and others are even more hypocritical when it comes to how they handle their trade policies. Don’t get me wrong- the USA isn’t blameless in this regard at all, but I doubt if we are even in the 'top ten".
My favorite example is the Government of Mexico always crying about how we treat Mexican “illegals” and wanting an "open border’- and comparing that to how Mexico treats dudes who come over their southern border.
Gorsnak,
I don’t want any hard feelings & I’m sure you don’t either. Your comments about proportional representation have gotten me wondering something along the lines of GD material. I’ll start a thread regarding it in GD.
When you factor in both their hypocrisies by the amount of power they have to put pressure on other countries in order to put hypocritical policies into action, the United States is right near the top. The US is the leading force in global trade “liberalization,” both in terms of rhetoric and in terms of political and economic pressure exerted on its behalf. It also constantly portrays itself as the leader in this regard. If America constantly claims to hold itself to the highest sstandards, then we should do no less.
canada has always been a trading country, but historically our trade to gdp ratio has been in the 40% range, some 20 points off the current 60% (from memory) at any rate, we need a much improved east-west trade scheme within the country and without, to offset the all-eggs-in-one-basket north-south scheme that currently dominates our economy - whether that is “free trade” or not.
we also need an east-west energy scheme, which would not exclude energy exporting, but at the least provide ourselves with our own energy sources first. but that is another story all together. (although a protracted trade war with the united states - especially is we use energy as our bargaining chip - may be the necessary catalyst to build such a domestic scheme.)
That’s what I’m saying. Companies that deal exclusively with the U.S. are guilty of taking the lazy way out. They need to look abroad and deal with other provinces, and deal with China too. Surely all those container ships aren’t empty when they head back over the Pacific?
Take some of that federal surplus and start encouraging more manufacturing in the Great White North. Companies want to build in Canada – I believe Toyota just opened a plant in Ontario rather than Arkansas because workers are more educated, and overall health costs are lower – so damn well start doing more of that, and wean us off the U.S. teat.
I live in the U.S. for the moment. There are problems here (like there are everywhere), but pretending the U.S. economy will grow forever is plain stupid.
Of course Canadian companies are looking abroad. I work with a hundred different companies and they’re all looking into overseas markets. The reason U.S. trade has been so big is that that was the first logical place to start growing; it’s doesn’t mean anyone’s ignoring the opportunities in China. Canadian companies desperately want those markets, but they’re remarkably hard to work with at times.
It’s simply the case that if you’re going to look abroad, the first market you should look at is the one where you can send a truck there in four hours rather than the one that requires a container ship.
Where do ya think most of those Toyotas will be sold? Hint: They have stars and stripes on their flag. Woodstock was attractive to Toyota not only because of the lower health care costs and good taxes, but because it’s in the middle of the trucking center of North America, with easy access to transportation into the U.S. market.
I don’t understand how building auto plants in Ontario is “Weaning us off the U.S. tit” when the entire reason we have auto plants in Ontario is to sell cars to the United States. This has been going on for years; building factories in Canada to make money off the U.S. has resulted in us enjoying a gargantuan trade surplus with the States. Even without the new Toyota assembly plant, Ontario’s the biggest automobile and auto part producer of ANY state or province, but that’s because it sells so many cars back to the USA. Logically, if you wanted to wean us off the U.S., you’d build more auto plants in Halifax and start shipping cars to Europe.
Look, free trade works; there’s just no way around it. Money is just pouring in; our trade surplus is now what, a billion dollars every week? What matters is whether or not we’re smart enough to engage in fiscal and social policy decisions that will result in this money getting invested in productivity and new markets, but we should keep the money pipeline open as long as possible.
Special interest powers are more a matter of interest than money or even local power. If Senator A really wants a piece of legislation, and Senator B doesn’t even care about the entire segment of the economy that legislation affects, Senator A has an advantage.