rdresser

Craig, as a transplanted westerner, born and raised in Ontario, I've spent the better part of the past quarter decade listening to western Canadians complain that easteners are ignorant of and indifferent to the west. What usually sets them off are remarks similar to those you just made. You contend that, if we want Americans to stop enacting barriers we should stop contravening trade laws. You would be marginally credible if you looked into that claim before you threw it out. There was one WTO ruling on sofwood that went against us but it had nothing to do with stumpage fees. It was about raw log exports. B.C. lumber comes almost entirely from provincial Crown lands. That makes the trees the property of the people of B.C., and theirs to decide what to do with, or so we thought. We thought we could limit, not cut off but limit, the sale of raw logs for export to increase the amount of milling and processing of those logs in this province. We thought those jobs should be developed for the benefit of the people who owned them in the first place. America, however, wanted those jobs, those lucrative industries - the sawmills, pulp and paper mills, wood products plants, etc. - in America, so they took their dispute to the tribunal and - well, let's say we got Free Traded. We can't even control the terms on which we sell our own logs. The stumpage fee business, as you ought to know given your sage suggestions, is another matter entirely. This is the fourth time we've been down this same road and we've won each of the last three battles, only to emerge weaker and poorer despite our vindication. Now we're at it again. That's why I used the word "mugged" before. You ought to take a summer holiday to the beautiful north end of my island. You could perhaps enlighten all those unemployed loggers and millworkers up there and their families too. I'd pay a buck and a quarter to see that! As for Ned in Vermont, you need to get a grip. Canada is the number one export market for 34 of your states and I suspect that includes your native Vermont. We're also the largest overall market for American goods. That, however, is kids stuff. You folks down there receive more of your imported oil from Canada than you get from Saudi Arabia or Venezuela. Yeah, that's right, check it out, and that's not even counting the massive supplies of natural gas you get from western Canada. We trade energy to you as a good neighbour. We're not awash in the stuff like the Saudis and it wouldn't hurt us greatly to keep our supplies for domestic needs. So don't give us that schoolyard bully nonsense about shutting us out and taking your business to eastern Europe although I'm sure you're looking forward to that shiny new Yugo.

Craig: People in Toronto tend to have a different view of the U.S. than Canadians in other regions. Eastern Canada reaps enormous trade benefits from America. Sadly, what you get, we pay for out here. If you've ever wondered how "free" free trade really is, ask a prairie wheat farmer or a B.C. logger. The Americans have mugged us with crippling softwood tariffs four times now. They put their boots on our necks until their complaint gets before the trade tribunal and they're told their complaints are groundless. Do they back off and let everyone get back to work? Hardly. They start all over again, building tariff walls and killing B.C. jobs. Mills are getting shut down - permanently. It doesn't make any difference that they're wrong. Their harrassment alone gets them the win they're after. What kind of friend harrasses another out of his job? Then there's the prairie grain farmers and the U.S. tariffs on their wheat. Has everyone forgotten the obscene farm subsidies introduced by Shrub? Canadian subsidies are roughly a quarter of the U.S. handouts. Despite this they have the gall to claim Canada is over-subsidizing Canadian wheat farmers. That's what our friendship with the U.S. gets us in Western Canada. Things are a lot different in your nice regional trading centre. Be grateful you've got it so good.