Machjo

I oppose subsidies to public transit. I do support a tax of a minimum of 1/3 of the net profits of a resource-extraction business so as to deter irresponsible consumption of our resources. Beyond that, I could agree with building pedestrian, cycling, and motorized transportation infrastructure as an investment like public education. Subsidizing cholesterol is not an investment. Even public transit is not a public investment compared to walking and cycling paths and urban deregulation to allow high-density mixed development.

I'd have no qualms about my taxes providing generous funding for trades or professional education for ex-farmers to help them enter growing industries. At least that way, that money is a social investment. The same applies to universal compulsory public education. This does not apply to just preserving relic industries because of the fuzzy wuzzy feeling it gives us to know that people work with cute sheep.

OK, fine, let's just open a farm at the local zoo and hire a local farmer to raise his animals there for the tourists to watch as a part of our heritage I guess.

Am I asking the government to subsidize my industry? I work in the travel industry, which has some good points (cultural exchange) and bad (a major carbon footprint from the airline industry). Would I support the government subsidizing my industry if ever the industry took a major downturn? Hell no. I'd find other work. Let's say in the worst case scenario, I lost my job, had no other skill, and was bankrupt, of course I'd want the state to help me, maybe retrain me for some other growing industry, but I wouldn't be asking it to subsidize a product or service that the consumer clearly didn't want anymore.

And am I asking you to subsidize the food I buy?

In theory, if I bought meat, I'd benefit indirectly from any subsidy to the meat industry since a farmer could then pass that cost onto me. But if I don't eat meat, then I'm just subsidizing it but not getting subsidized at all. How does that benefit me?

You're confusing agriculture with animal husbandry. I have not bought any animal product or byproduct in years. Animal products and byproducts, unless prescribed for medical reasons, are a luxury, not a necessity. don't confuse agriculture with animal husbandry.

While I think the government should subsidize no industry without a very solid rationale for doing so, I think there are certain industries that the government absolutely should not subsidize on ethical, economic, or other grounds. I would include among them: 1. Any addictive product or service for recreational consumption (such as alcohol, tobacco, lottery tickets, etc.). I hope the reason for that is obvious. 2. Any animal product or byproduct. Research shows that a meat diet is multiple times more economically inefficient than a vegan one in terms of food production, resource consumption, land use, and overall cost. This raises both economic and ecological concerns. Excessive meat consumption can also undermine public health due to high cholesterol content and other factors. This too translates to additional health-care costs subsidized by the taxpayer. Then there are the ethical considerations concerning the treatment of the animal. 3. Resource-extraction industries. Given our finite resources, any extracted resource should be sold on the market at its true cost, just like meat and tobacco. What other products and services would you add at the top of the list of industries to not subsidize?

As far as I'm concerned, if the US wants to subsidize meat, milk, egg, tobacco, or alcohol, I say let them do it. We can develop more long-term industries instead.

If an industry needs subsidies to survive, then why would we want to maintain such an industry? Let another country's taxpayers subsidize it!

Cheap? I don't even consume milk or meat. As you yourself admitted above, the animal-husbandry industry is extremely economically inefficient and resource-dependent. Research shows that too. So why not let the US take these inefficient industries and let them get stuck with subsidizing them and let us have the healthier and more efficient industries like fruit, grain, etc.? If they want these relics, let them get stuck with subsidizing them and let Canadians buy the subsidized product from the US. Why should I be subsidizing an unhealthy and inefficient industry? Should we subsidize the tobacco and alcohol industries too?

Though I didn't know the details, I am aware of this general fact: http://www.marineconomicconsulting.com/Presentations/MeatEconomics_102115.pdf So why would we want to subsidize an inefficient industry? Vegan is to meat what the Model T Ford is to the Toyota Corolla. Do you advocate we subsidize Model-T Ford production just to maintain the industry as a historical relic? Such industries belong to history.

Not exactly. Even with open borders, Canada can choose to not subsidize the dairy cartel. The question is will it do so.

That is one thing that very much worries me. If opening our markets leads to long-term perpetual subsidies (as opposed to a one-time buy-out), then I'd rather stick to supply-management. Supply-management, for all its harms, does have one virtue: it is user-pay. Those who buy the milk pay for it and do not get subsidized by the taxpayer. I don't even buy milk so why should I be subsidizing another person's milk consumption? Supply-management does have that advantage. I hope Canada does not start to subsidize its milk producers long term. I've lived without milk for years. If a person can't afford milk, then don't buy it but don't go crying to the government for it to subsidize your milk consumption.

But I was not referring to the provision of government services above, but rather the imposition of official bilingualism onto the private sector. Though I know of no such case yet (since people generally have a motive to avoid a fine), Quebec's French Language Charter would impose sanctions against an entrepreneur who put up a sign in Algonquin and French in downtown Gatineau if the two languages appeared in the same size even if French should precede Algonquin. This would have nothing to do with the language of government administration and everything to do with ethnic identity construction in the private sector. Likewise official language laws apply to private-sector packaging and labeling (i.e. you can't sell a product labelled only in French in Quebec City or only in English in Vancouver). Media is mostly private-sector too and so are many other federally-regulated institutions on which official bilingualism is imposed. So in fact official bilingualism extends far, far beyond just government administration and extends very deeply into the market economy. On one occasion, an entitled French-Canadian couple sued Air Canada for failing to serve it a &-Up in French... on an international flight! If only the Deaf and indigenous Canadians could do the same, eh? I myself work bilingually in English and French and in fact serve Federal Government workers regularly even though I myself work in the private sector. I've even encountered situations in which I've had to communicate with businesses in Austria or Brazil and couldn't function because of my lack of German and Portuguese knowledge. On one occasion, I think my Austrian counterpart was using Google translate or something to help him communicate with me. I eventually got to understand what he was trying to say, but only after much effort. On another occasion, I had to communicate with a Brazilian counterpart. I couldn't get through to him at all but luckily for me, the person I was serving at the time was understanding, knew Portuguese, and told me that he'd resolve the problem himself. I felt like an incompetent fool there seeing that the person I couldn't even do the job I was supposed to do for that Federal worker. A friend of mine once showed me an immigration hearing transcript in which the police and CBSA reports were written in terribly broken English and even the Minister's counsel's English was terrible as revealed in the hearing transcript. I kid you not, it was shocking! So even our own Government workers (and even lawyers) do not know the official language in which they themselves are working. Ironically though, outside of work, at least in oral contexts, I use one unofficial language (mainly with my extended family) even more than I do either of my official ones and use both of my unofficial languages about as much as I use both of my official ones. In the written form, I use English the most followed by French outside of work, though I still use one of my unofficial languages a fair bit in the written form too and the fourth much less. And I live in the National Capital Region! When I'd visited Toronto, I spent two days mostly in an unofficial language. Canada is not as Anglo-French as one might think outside of Federal-government institutions and some white-picket-fence neighbourhoods.

Unfortunately, Canadian laws often hurt Canada more than any US law ever could. Though I oppose Canadian-content laws altogether, I think that at the very least, Canadian law aught to exempt unofficial languages from its Canadian-content laws. But of course since the primary purpose of these laws was precisely to give English and French Canadians a greater advantage over other linguistic communities, that would defeat the very purpose of these laws. I found the following to be quite enlightening to say the least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_bilingualism_in_Canada#Official_bilingualism_as_it_applies_to_indigenous_peoples And this too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_bilingualism_in_Canada#Educational,_linguistic,_economic,_and_other_challenges_of_official_bilingualism

One thing I think proponents of 'Canadian-content' laws overlook is how it can harm unofficial language communities. For example, English and French Canadians are populous enough in Canada to exploit at least sufficient economies of scale within a protectionist environment. This protectionism hurts the Deaf community. For example, it could make it far more difficult for Canadian ASL speakers and US ASL speakers to collaborate to establish a common North American ASL broadcasting business for example due to Canadian-content laws preventing Canadian Deaf from collaborating with their US counterparts to exploit economies of scale. I think they use ASL in Liberia too. These same Canadian-content laws prevent US and Canadian Ojibwa and Greenlandic and Canadian Inuit from doing the same. It undermines their ability to cooperate internationally to benefit from economies of scale. The same applies to Chinese and other language media too. When we look at its history within the context of the Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, the primary purpose of Canadian-content laws was always to give Canada's English and French language communities an advantage over the others within Canada.

We could make a distinction between the state and the market. If a Christian refuses to sell his house to anyone other than another Christian, that's one thing. But what about if the state (in this case the municipality as an extension of the state) imposes a law or bylaw saying that a person may not sell his property to non-Christian? What happens if a Christian himself considers the law anti-Christian in spirit and so would rather sell his property to whoever is willing to buy it but the state forces that Christian to act in what that Christian considers to be an un-Christian manner by refusing to sell to a non-Christian? I think a clear difference exists between the market and the law.

Canada has produced much cultural content, but it's not in a united form. Most English Canadians could not read most Quebec literature since little of it is translated into English (with probably more Frenchmen and Belgians reading it than English Canadians ever will). The same applies in reverse. Sure English Canada has produced much cultural content, but the average American or Briton could access it far more easily than the average unilingual French Canadian ever will. It's not that Canada does not produce cultural content, but rather that we should divide it more along linguistic lines (With English Canadian, US, and British literature sharing more in common with one another than with French Canadian literature and French Canadian literature sharing more in common with French, Belgian, and Swiss literature than it does with English Canadian). As strange as it might seem and with even unilingual Canadians themselves often not noticing it, Canadian identity is linguistic first and foremost and national only a distant second to that.

Actually, the milk market is theoretical. I do oppose protectionism in the milk market but even if we eliminated all trade barriers between Canada and the US, much US milk could not be sold in Canada due to it containing substances that are banned in Canada. That said, I can certainly see some US entrepreneurs conforming to the Canadian standards so that they can access the Canadian milk market, and I'll welcome that (even though I don't buy dairy myself). Those US milk producers that don't meet Canadian domestic standards will still not have access to the Canadian market no matter how much we open our borders and rightfully so. The deal in no way exempts importers from domestic standards as far as I know.

Your last sentence gives much to think about. In Canada, most English and French Canadians don't even share a common language with one another. That's probably the single biggest barrier to trade between Quebec and Ontario. Many Inuit know neither official language well too. So we don't even share a common language. Overall, an English Canadian identifies more with an American or Briton and a French Canadian with a Frenchman or Belgian at least culturally in terms of books, TV, film, music, newspapers, and other media. With that in mind, Canada needs to maintain close ties with English-speaking and French-speaking countries to allow us to participate in the wider world economy since even within Canada itself, Canadians have closer cultural ties with the outside world than with parts of Canada itself.

Three factors force Canada to trade with the US: 1. Canada's small population prevents economies of scale under protectionism. This forces Canada to open its borders so as to take more advantage of economies of scale. 2. Geographical proximity to the US. I'd been shopping for things online and had found some products from the UK that interested me that I couldn't fine either in Canada or the US, but the shipping costs made me rethink it. I might end up going with a somewhat inferior North-American product due to much lower shipping costs. There is just no getting around that. 3. Canada's low population density compared to the US'. It's more efficient for Canada to trade North-South than East-West even within our own country. For example, artificial barriers aside, It clearly makes more sense for Montreal to trade with NYC than with Vancouver as it makes more sense for Vancouver to trade more with Seattle than with Montreal. While the same holds true in the US (for example, the distance between NYC and Seattle make it such that at least in terms of geography, it makes more sense for them to trade with Canada than with one another), at least their larger population allows for greater economies of scale to offset that. Given the three factors above, I think trying to reduce Canadian dependence on the US is a fool's errand (even if we should decide to greatly expand our population and trade more freely with other states). Of course we should open our borders to other states so as to diversify, and of course population growth could benefit Canada too, but none of that could replace a more open border between Canada and the US. We have no control over US protectionism, but we should lower our tariffs against the US and then let the US hurt itself all it wants.

I know you weren't addressing me in this post, but just to clarify: when I say Canada needs to trade more freely with the world, I am including the US here. I know some might want freer trade with the rest of the world and then raise tariffs against the US. I don't see it that way. I actually would like to see even more free trade with the US at least in principle, but just more with the rest of the world too. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. That said, Canada never should have signed a deal that limited its freedom to negotiate trade agreements with other states. Had NAFTA died, Canada's economy would have been reeling. I don't deny that. However, Canada could then have gone unilateral free trade with the world including the US that would raise tariffs against us. There would be big growing pains, but Canada would have come out stronger in the end and the US could do nothing about it.

So what if Trump wants to hurt US consumers. Let them deal with it. The new deal restricts Canada's freedom to 'negotiate' trade agreements with 'non-market' countries. It says nothing about unilateral free trade as far as I know. If I 'm right on this, then Canada should fully exploit this loophole and start to unilaterally drop its tariffs. I could envision a Tariff-elimination law that would reduce tariffs by X% every year for the next seventy years until our tariffs are completely eliminated. That would give businesses more than enough time to adapt and give them more than enough fore-warning to plan ahead.

In many respects, this is a good deal for Canada. Two beefs I have with it: 1. The patent-protection period is too long. 2. It prevents Canada from negotiating a trade deal with a 'non-market' country. The fact that this has forced Canada to lower barriers in key areas will benefit Canada in the long run. As for the new protections that it allows the US, those will actually hurt the US in the long run. I know it might seem counter-intuitive since opening markets does impose growing pains, but this will force Canadian businesses to become more efficient while allowing protected US ones to stagnate. Without irony, I can say too bad Trump didn't twist our arms even more. Canada should consider another silver lining in this that Trump might have overlooked... to Canada's advantage. The new deal prevents Canada from 'negotiating' trade deals with 'non-market' economies without first consulting with the US and Mexico on the matter. Unilateral free trade does not require 'negotiation.' Yes it's true that unilateral free trade can take Canada only so far in that Canada could unilaterally lower tariffs and other intentional barriers, but it would still need to negotiate most non-tariff and non-quota barriers such as phyto-sanitary, packaging-and-labeling, and other standards. The restriction on Canada's freedom to 'negotiate' with other countries without the US' consent still does not prevent Canada from engaging in unilateral free trade for what it's worth even if that must limit itself only to dropping tariffs and quotas. That would still be a start.