CalgaryAMC

Sugar is a special case in the US (Sugar Act, 1934).

Most western countries (New Zealand is a notable exception) are guilty of agricultural subsidies that have environmental consequences as well as economic ones. Subsidy wars between Canada and the US don't bother me much. Both countries can afford it. The biggest harm comes to third world countries; for that reason subsidies are unconscionable.

Interested

How Dumb, as if that would ever happen.

oceanMDX

Don't give the politicians any ideas. Canada will want do that next - just to prove we're not racist.

oceanMDX

Agreed!

However, I'm sure that the US has lots of "special cases".

willmore

Then that is part of why they can't compete and why we are paying good money after bad to subsidize the canadian farmer to make sure the goods are sold.

When was the last time you went shopping in the States. We did very recently and even with the exchange rate their milk, cheese, bread and other goods including meat and chicken in some cases are cheaper.

Were you up in the Okanagan this summer and bought the fresh fruit? We had friends who were and brought us back some. They told us that they heard complaint after complaint from tourists about the cost of the fruit/vegetables. You would think that at that time of year fruit/vege would be cheap - not the case. We were very surprised - but then everything is far more expensive in Victoria.

When canadian produce is transportated into the states the american farmers call foul because canadian farmers are so much more subsidized than them. It's the same with the softwood lumber situation, why the states put such an incredible duty on t he wood - because they felt Canada subsidized it too heavily

MikeUK

Don't forget that the US has just lost a major case in the WTO...

They tax the import and then hand the tax over to one of there own manufacturers to make help it be more competitive...

In effect they use the import taxes to subsidise their economy..

And don’t forget the US is running up a huge deficit as well .......


they're running a credit based economy which can’t go on forever.. cheap now but pay later….

oceanMDX

A few days ago I shopped in the US - I'm only about 5 miles from the US border.

Beef prices are much higher in the US than in Canada, but eggs, chicken, milk, cheese and other items covered by marketing boards are much more expensive in Canada. That doesn't mean that Canadian farmers can't complete. I means that limiting production allows the marketing boards to set prices, which is exactly what they do. Essentally, farmers don't compete (when marketing boards are involved), but how can you say that they couldn't if the boards where eliminated?

The blueberries were dirt cheap around here. I know, because I made a piggy out of myself this summer on them.

Sorry, but the oppose is true and the trade rulings prove it.


The US lumber industry couldn't compete because the Canadian plants were more modern in addition to the cheap Canadian currency. The US used allegations of subsidizes to rationalize the imposition of duties to save an industry that couldn't compete with Canada. Canada has also won those trade rulings. The Canadian lumber industry is not subsidized - and that is a fact according to the NAFTA panel.

willmore

Beef prices are much higher in the US than in Canada, but eggs, chicken, milk, cheese and other items covered by marketing boards are much more expensive in Canada. That doesn't mean that Canadian farmers can't complete. I means that limiting production allows the marketing boards to set prices, which is exactly what they do. Essentally, farmers don't compete (when marketing boards are involved), but how can you say that they couldn't if the boards where eliminated?

If you agree that alot of the products were cheaper than in the US - then why are you arguing the point? We were in Bellingham 2 weeks ago and meat was alot cheaper but then we were comparing to Victoria prices.

That's right, and that's why the marketing boards were set up....so assist the farmers compete in the "real world".....and yet we still have to subsidize them to sell our food.



The blueberries were dirt cheap around here. I know, because I made a piggy out of myself this summer on them.

I wasn't talking about the blueberries (although they were delicious weren't they)...they were dirt cheap even in Victoria, so they had to be dirt cheap eveywhere else. I was talking about peaches, cherries (at $2.99 a lb - cheapest price they found and other fruit and vege). Hardly competitive - I won't even mention the cost in Victoria.

The canadian plants weren't more modern.....several had to close on the island....because they needed to be modernized and because of the problems in the industry were closed instead. Well, I don't know where you heard that the lumber industry wasn't subsidized because Dolman Industries certainly made it a major point with them

oceanMDX

You say that "meat" was cheaper. What meat? Beef, pork, turkey or chicken?

The point that I'm arguing is that Canadian producers can compete with US producers when they are allowed to. The fact that Canada has a trade surplus with the US in agricultural goods proves my point.

Some of the plants on the island may have been uncompetitive - especially after the US slapped them with huge duties that they were not able to justify. The plants on the mainland were very modern and are competing even with the duties applied.

The fact is the US applied duties because the US plants couldn't compete - not because the Canadian industry was subsidized.

chippy

The EU ideals are generally good, but there are far too many practical issues that will never permit these ideals to work.

Don't even know what His Tonyness says any more, let alone listen!

SANDRAPAUL

My half penny worth.

One of the reasons I want to join Canada at the hip is due to the European Union becoming a beast within the world. I can see why businesses like the idea of cross border free trade. It creates larger markets and larger profits and it will not be for the joey on the street!. They - the business leaders and the politicians do not give a damn about the average person on the street. The people to suffer will be those (the minority) higher up the ladder, wealth speaking, who will have the value of their worth reduced to a common value across Europe. As more people flood from those in the poorly paid eastern european countries (as a comparitive) into the western european countries beit legally or illlegally it will create opportunities for businesses to gradually replace home grown workers with cheap labour (it is going on already!). The US is doing it already and has been for years. Someone has to clean the toilets and the cheaper the better for the governement in power at any time. The only utopia will be in the heads of megalomaniac political leaders wishing to rub shoulders on an equal level with those in the US and China. Canada is perhaps also importing cheap labour. The Ex-Pats. Maybe there is some undercurrent motive as relates to the difference in wages that I have read about. Europe will not work for the masses as the hatred and mistrust goes very deep. If France cannot see eye-to-eye with the UK or many other EU countries how will other less influential countries possibly have as say in the future. European growth is a backlash to the break-up of the USSR. Countries with low wages, little industry and lots of people. Thier governments realise that they need partners to survive long term. They want to attract business into their countries by promoting cheap professional labour forces. That means jog losses in western european countries. Short sightedness will not necessarily cost you your living but it might your childrens. Europe is a nice place to go on holiday. How many of the 60 million UK residents want to learn French or German or Greek in order to survive in a European market. Labour requirements require workers to go where they can get work. Why has France, Italy and Germany fought against an open door policy? Look ahead 20 years - look back 20 years and then stick your finger in the air and guess.

Just a point of view.

I could go on all day.

P

Rhodes

It could be argued, perhaps. that the apparent obsession with Canadian experience when looking for jobs is racist. I know that isn't the Government demanding Canadian experience, but even so...

oceanMDX

As a former employer myself, I don't think it's a racist issue at all. Employers here want to contact a previous employer about the applicant's work record and they don't want to have to phone someone in Pakistan or China to do so. They want to talk to someone from a culture they are familiar with. Of course an employee with Canadian experience will have an advantage. It's unreasonable to think that they shouldn't have some advantage.

MikeUK

I think Canadian’s like to employ Canadians because they understand each other better they have the same culture, same working mentality, and same love of "their" ways... we don't… in no stretch of imagination can you go from scratch to thinking like a Canadian…
It takes time and that’s what I believe Canadian experience is about..

Rhodes

Perhaps, but from what I have read on here, the Canadians go for experience of their own culture a lot more than, say, we do in England. Here, if employers regularly rejected well quaslified people on the grounds that they were brought up in a different culture, they would probably be regarded as petty-minded at best. It just surprises me that a country like Canada, which seems so 'PC' in many respects, finds it dificult to accommodate broader experiences.