It's Election Season in Canada(?)

[Kerozine]

Canada should seek closer economic relations with the USA

This I don't understand. Alberta is at best split, and Quebec is overwhelmingly for?

 

[Maniacal]

Or the spaces between the islands in BC... and Quebec is clearly seeking trade partners. Although the USA is out biggest trade partner because we are, you know, next to them. And many of the responses (although they are of course probably uneven, it was only the 2 million people who checked the CBC website) make me lose faith in people even more :/

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

We have rules about providing an English translation please

D'oh, I thought it was obvious.

 

[Rub'Rum]

You can clearly see a well delineated Quebec on most of the questions.

 

[Zelig]

It seems like a lot of people did this. What NDP policies are you against? I don't know too much about their platform..

Off the top of my head, policies I'm against:
-Increasing CPP deductions
-Taxing Netflix/ISPs
-Capping credit card interest rates at prime+5%
-HST penalty cancellations

 

[Taliesin]

The Quebecois (at least the separatist movement) are largely under the delusion that the province will get a better deal with America than from English Canada. (Presumably on the theory that total indifference is a better prospect than uneasy mutual suspicion.) To be fair, English Canada has done nearly everything possible to encourage this misapprehension.

 

[Rub'Rum]

My question isn't "why do the Quebecois want more economic relations with the US" but more like.. Why doesn't the rest of the country want it?

 

[Maniacal]

Maybe we feel its pretty damn close already, if not too close for some markets (agricultural products in BC have suffered due to free trade apparently).

 

[Lord_Iggy]

That's the actual shape of Nunavut though- all of this includes coastal territories.

 

[sysyphus]

My question isn't "why do the Quebecois want more economic relations with the US" but more like.. Why doesn't the rest of the country want it?

If relations get any closer we'll have pretty much no control over our own economy. Given that the US is in deep financial trouble right now, English Canadians generally believe that diversifying our trade is important.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Yeah well diversifying is always a good thing and I'm pretty sure if you had asked the question "should Canada diversify its trade" everybody would have said yes. I'm just not sure that closer economic relationship with the US must come at a significant expense of diversifying, and I don't think any of us is quite qualified to know at this point. It's hard to quantify the current relationship but it's only natural that people who are close are our best resource traders and best friends. We got half-saved from the last economic crisis (well, compared to the US). I don't think it had as much to do with who were our trading partners as it had to do with how we monitor and regulate banking here.

Also, Princescamp, agricultural products are a class of their own in this sort of debate and you can tell by the subjects at various free trade commissions. I think we all agree that agriculture is one field where a good level of protectionism is probably right if we want to occupy our territory.

 

[SimSimSalabim]

Is anyone else fuming about Ruth Ellen Brousseau?

 

[Rub'Rum]

Frankly I'd rather have Ruth Ellen Brosseau than yet another lawyer or MBA.

 

[Evie]

I'm not particularly concerned with the fact that she hasn't answered the media circus yet. The media sometimes have a tendency to think the world owes them, and to get in hissy fit/character assassination mode against people who don't do things their way.

I'm concerned with the allegations about her election, though of course not making any conclusion yet.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Except she did

You can listen to the interview by locating the sound clip in the middle of the page. It's in English mostly, as opposed to the text.

 

[Evie]

Ah, you're right, she just did. Well, then I'm not concerned about hwo long she took to answer the media circus. The media (still) seem to think everyone should be at their beck and call and have an obligation to answer their question whenever the media wants.

 

[Zelig]

Yeah, I don't really care, she's not going to be any worse than Rob Anders, in any case.

 

[History_Buff]

Is anyone else fuming about Ruth Ellen Brousseau?

Better her than my local MP, one Jason Kenney.

 

[Kerozine]

If relations get any closer we'll have pretty much no control over our own economy. Given that the US is in deep financial trouble right now, English Canadians generally believe that diversifying our trade is important.

Diversifying our trade doesn't need to come at the expense of increasing our economic relations* with the US. If anything, the two concepts are complements to each other, with trade diversification enabling our industries to sustain themselves during times of economic or political hardship (e.g. recession, trade disputes, etc). And Closer economic ties with the US, for instance by minimizing delays at the border, would just improve the profitability of trade in that market as soon as conditions improve.

I don't think we're anywhere near the point where increasing economic relations with the US would undermine our economic sovereignty; there's been no serious discussion about adopting a common currency and talk has so far focused on security issues.

*Just so we're all on the same page and to clarify the term's ambiguity, I'm taking 'economic relations' to mean 'easing trade restrictions' whatever those might be (e.g. common security policies, border-customs restrictions, etc).

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

Better her than my local MP, one Jason Kenney.

At least you don't have Rob Anders!