Machjo

A cell phone with GPS? On the Mexican side, the US wants to build a great big wall. How can it not want even so much as a chain-link fence on the Canadian side to prevent at least accidental crossings?

If a person can accidentally cross the border from Canada to the US, then we can reasonably presume that a person can also accidentally cross the border from the US to Canada. Given how embarrassing it would be for Canada for something like that to happen, it might be a good idea for Canada to install a long-lasting chain-link fence along the Canada-US border wherever a person could accidentally cross over except over water or mountainous areas requiring special climbing equipment. While this would not prevent a person from intentionally crossing the border illegally, it would at least save Canada the embarrassment of having people cross into the country accidentally. Even on water and in mountains though, we might want to be lenient with a person whenever there are reasonable grounds to believe that person might have crossed accidentally.

It's addictive too, which just aggravates the situation.

The only way I could see someone accidentally rob a bank would be if it left its money sitting on the floor next to the rubbish bin as if it was to be thrown out and she she picked it up in the presence of the guards, they just smiled at her as she walked out with the cash.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/jogger-accidentally-crosses-u-s-border-from-b-c-gets-detained-for-2-weeks-by-authorities-1.4717060 Before investing in a wall on the Mexican border, maybe the US might want to invest in sidewalk sings on the Canadian border.Priorities I say. Now to be fair to the US authorities, it would seem prudent at the very least that whenever I know I'm near the border and that the US doesn't clearly advertise it, I might want to carry at least a passport with me in case I do accidentally cross it. But the onus should not be on me to have a Superman-like GPS built into my brain to know when I'm crossing an unmarked border. In practical terms, there isn't much I could do beyond at least carrying my passport with me. The onus is on the US defense establishment to maybe shift some of their spending on ICBMs to more basic bread-and-butter security needs like signs along cross-border sidewalks.

We've long abandoned cable. As for online content, we watch much Chinese-language content. What I do find odd though is Canada's priorities. For example, the UK now requires internet providers to block porn by default and requires customers to identify themselves and their age in person to opt in to it. In other words, the UK focuses its content-regulation policies on public-policy objectives relating to porn and other addictions for example and not on country of origin. I'm not sure, but I think it covers gambling sites too. Compare that to Canada's system, and that system focuses more on ethnic identity construction rather than on practical public-policy considerations.

True. In fact, I'd like to see us regulate alcohol similarly to how Singapore regulated gambling too.

I favour the Singaporean narcotics-prohibition model on that front. However, if we must legalize it, then I'd favour we regulate cannabis similarly to how Singapore regulates gambling: https://www.ncpg.org.sg/en/Pages/Self-Exclusion.aspx

I'd start slowly. As a first step, I'd remove party names from ballots. Once people are used to that, I'd remove any official recognition of political parties in Parliament. This would not mean that parties could not exist, but the law would simply not grant that existence any recognition. That would lead to a caucus of the whole replacing any party caucus in Parliament and it would greatly reduce the value of the political party. Only after that could we finally put political parties aside. I would bet that campaigning just to remove political parties from ballots would be an uphill battle given the special interests involved in that.

It works in Nunavut.

It's interesting that the poll shows a fifty-fifty split. I wonder how others would vote on this.

Perhaps more Canadians should join organizations like this one to counter the business lobbies: https://www.consumerscouncil.com/

Perhaps we need a consumers' lobby group.

Let's also assume that the US subsidizes agriculture by 10% to boot. The US taxpayer just subsidized this, money that could otherwise have gone to other businesses. In other words, US taxpayers would be subsidizing Canadians' food while other Canadian businesses could pay lower taxes from the savings accrued by not subsidizing Canadian agriculture.

Let's take the scenario in which Canada adopts unilateral free trade and the US decides to tariff all Canadian imports at 10%. Now let's say I'm thinking of importing a US-made machine to improve the productive efficiency of my business. To do so, I want to buy US dollars. Since Canada would impose no tariff against US products, I would find trading CAD for USD so that I could buy that machine attractive. The person holding the USD would find the CAD less attractive since it's of less use to him since he'd have to pay a tariff to use it to buy a Canadian product. As a result, he will want to trade his USD for my CAD at a rate that will compensate for the tariff so as to make the CAD more attractive to him. Since I would now need to trade more CAD for the same USD to buy that US machine, I might no longer find that machine worth that kind of money and so might decide to buy a similar Canadian-made machine instead. Assuming that the US-made machine would have fit my business needs better than the Canadian one, the US tariff would thus have hurt me as a consumer. However, the US tariff would also have hurt the US-producer from whom I'd initially intended to buy the machine by pricing him out of my market. Furthermore, we can reasonably presume that at least some loopholes would exist in the US tariffs. With a drop in the CAD relative to the USD, foreign consumers might find Canadian maple syrup better priced than US oranges and might find Canada a more attractive tourist destination than the overpriced USA too. The US could counter this by imposing a border-crossing processing fee for anyone crossing the US border into Canada and impose a tariff on any product US travellers bring back to the US with them. That would just further reduce the value of the CAD relative to the USD and so just price US products out of the market even more. Remember, no one just gives something for nothing. So if Canada adopts unilateral free trade and the US raises tariffs by 10% across the board, USD holders won't even want to give the USD Canadians need to buy US products to us, so how will we even buy US products? So in fact an import tariff's negative effect just boomerangs right back to the tariffing country.

Canada could easily fix its taxes. Just drop all taxes except 1/3 on the net profit of any Canadian business that sells: 1. nicotine, alcohol, lottery tickets, gambling, or prostitution, etc. Call it the addictive-products-and-services-business tax. 2. animal products and byproducts (to promote healthier eating) and natural resources (to promote more efficient use of our resources).

I understand why Trudeau imposed those tariffs, but i disagree with them too. The US was subsidizing it so Canada countered with tariffs. If Canadian politicians had the slightest understanding of economics, they'd welcome Americans subsidizing the products we consumer as Canadians. Again, if you're foolish enough to subsidize our gypsum with your taxes, we should be thanking you for it, not raising tariffs against you for it. If that gypsom wasn't meeting some safety standard or other, that would have been a different matter. But then it wouldn't have been about countervailing duties but an outright ban. That wasn't the case though. Canada was just angry it was being subsidized and failed to see we could use it to our advantage. Seriously, if another country wants to dump a product onto the Canadian market, as long as it meets Canadian health and safety standards, we should welcome it.

Again, that would be the beauty of unilateral free trade. Canada would simply impose the same standards on foreign products that it does on Canadian ones. Beyond that, it would adopt unilateral free trade and let other countries raise their own trade barriers all they want but Canada wouldn't reciprocate. Honestly, I think Canada was wrong in imposing import tariffs on US steel, orange juice, etc. just as a retaliatory move. It was an emotional reaction. Yes, Trump is an idiot and he has to take some blame for that too. But Trudeau didn't need to aggravate matters. Just let Trump act the fool and Canada should have looked out for the best interests of Canadian consumers and that unilateral free trade and not engaging in trade wars. Let the US raise tariffs all it wants. The market would adapt on its own.

And maybe that would be one advantage of unilateral free trade. Canada could impose the same standards on foreign products as it expects on Canadian products but adopt unilateral free trade otherwise. If other countries don't like that, then they'd be free to raise tariffs all they want and Canada would not retaliate. They could even launch a trade war and Canada wouldn't retaliate. That said, if US dairy wants to sell into Canada, it could set up some kind of certification and labeling system for US milk products that meet the Canadian standard that Canada would allow into Canada visa-free.

I make a distinction between intentional and unintentional barriers. Blocking a foreign product because it doesn't meet the same standard expected of locally produced products is not an intentional trade barrier. For example, Hong Kong blocks the importation of heroin not because it's trying to protect the domestic heroin industry but rather because heroin is just banned in Hong Kong. The same applies here. If Canada doesn't allow Canadian milk producers to sell antibiotic-ridden milk products, then why would it allow foreign producers to meet a lower standard? That is not an intentional trade barrier motivated by protectionism. That's just a matter of imposing on foreign products the same standards that domestic products must meet. We can look at Hong Kong's tariffs on alcohol, tobacco, and fuel for public-policy reasons related to public health and pollution. Of course Canada could reasonably expect a Canadian tobacco distribute to pay the same tax whether he sells US or Canadian or any other tobacco. As long as the law makes no distinction between a domestic or foreign product, then we can't count that as an intentional barrier.

That's a separate matter. Of course we should block Canadian access to any foreign product that does not meet the standards expected for domestic products. That goes without saying for US animal products and byproducts. As for US grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, and nuts and such, I'm not aware of them failing to meet Canadian standards. If they fail to meet them, then yes we block their entry. But if they meet the standard, then we should just let them in.

So with that, putting emotions and politics aside, it would make sense for Canada to unilaterally drop all agricultural subsidies and tariffs and let Canadians buy food that the US taxpayer subsidizes. I know it would be politically a tough sell because not everyone is an economist and Canadian farmers, used to living under protectionism, would be hard hit but would adapt by retraining for other industries quite simply. If the US wants to subsidize the food I buy, who am I to complain about that as a consumer?

US citizens face the same problem in agriculture. I don't eat much meat, so why should my taxes be subsidizing other people's meat consumption through agricultural subsidies? Canada subsidizes food like crazy and so does the US. Now, if Canada were smart about this, we'd exploit the US' foolishness on the matter. In other words, we'd stop subsidizing our own agriculture, drop tariffs on US products, and let the US taxpayer subsidize our food. You wouldn't mind subsidizing my food now would you paxrom? Come on, be a sport. I can't imagine that many Americans appreciate this either. For example, if you work in the service industry in the city, what do you think of paying taxes to subsidize a farmer in the country when he doesn't reciprocate to subsidize your business? I could even see such a political party rising up in NYC, Seattle, and other major US cities asking for SAR or at least FEZ status to get away from these trade wars. If Toronto became an SAR and unilaterally dropped all tariffs and subsidies, then the rest of Canada and the US could duke it out all they wanted since TSAR could then just negotiate its own trade agreements independently of the rest of Canada as a quasi-sovereign region. I'm sure many New Yorkers are also ticked at Trump starting trade wars with the world and they too would like to bow out of it and become an SARs themselves.

As for it happening, it wouldn't matter. If Torontonians and Vancouverites started to elect these candidates to Parliament, they'd send a message of discontent with the more protectionist rural Canada as a political pressure tactic. After all, urbanites can only stand to gain from agricultural free trade. Agricultural protectionism hurts Canada's urbanites.

Correct me if wrong, but I thought they were talking about outright separating from the US. I'm thinking more of a movement to designate Toronto a Special administrative Region politically and a Free Economic Zone economically. If that's too extreme, then maybe a Party for a Toronto Free Economic Zone (PTFEZ) that would enjoy unilateral free trade with the world but still politically integrated into the rest of Canada. Even a Toronto SAR though would still be a part of Canada similarly to how Hong Kong is still a part of China, just a quasi-sovereign region thereof.