phgnome

Sometime this week, I read an article in The Toronto Star by David Crane, who said that the G8 is considering dropping Canada's status as a member country!!! Why this isn't in front page news is beyond me -- this is big. The G8 wants to drop Canada because they said that our volume of international trade isn't great enough to influence the global economy AND that Canada's percentage of world population is not signficant enough. In short, the G8 wants to drop Canada as a member country and bring in members such as China and India (who have in the ranges of 20% of world population and about 12% each of the world trade activity). In response, the Cdn government wants to take the initiative to form a G20 committee, including developing countries like China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and other developing countries. This is a good idea, considering we may be left out of the global economy altogether. The reason Canada is being left out of the global economy: approximately 80% of our trading is done with only the United States. I've long been an advocate of trade diversification. I don't think that we should put all our eggs in one American basket. As we can see, the state of the US economy will heavily affect our own if we continue on this path. As well, I think NAFTA is a seriously bad idea because it stops us from achieving economies of scale in agricultural production and restricts our development in the capital equipment sector, which is a key component of capital-rich countries such as Canada (vs. labor-rich countries such as China or India). We are somewhat in the same boat as labor-rich developing countries and we can work with them and trade with them so that we establish some sort of equilibrium (in terms of the ratio between labor and capital). There are so many niches for Canada in the global economy, yet we're holding back because of our self-imposed economic reliance on the US through NAFTA. Same with Japan. Same with Mexico. I hate being blackmailed by NAFTA and forcibly reducing our efficiency in the ability to produce and making artifically inflated prices because inflation of the US forbids it from producing things cheaper (because they're a bigger economy, it takes the US a lot more effort and a lot more time to achieve economies of scale) and NAFTA binds Canada to be measured by those same means and sell our products for no less than their inflated prices. Thus, in foreign countries, we're unable to sell for any less than the US can sell it for producing those same products at inflated prices due to its high currency and exorbitantly high standard of living. These are just some of my preliminary thoughts on this. Any thoughts from anyone else on this matter?

Does it seem to everyone that all the existing parties have shifted right? There is no left party to balance the whole thing. That's pretty scary. We used to have PC's at the right, Liberals in the middle, and NDP leaning left. But Liberal policies seem to have shifted towards right of center and PC's have gone far right where the Alliance party was (the shift towards more right was more evident when they actually merged the two parties), and NDP seems to have gone towards the middle. I'll admit NDP used to bow to the unions a lot but I don't feel that's the case anymore. We need a left party to balance the whole thing because all the parties are too right leaning and there is no voice representing far left to put a check on all the right-leaning policies being introduced in government. Scary times these are, I tell ya.

McGuinty's such a spineless liar. Even when he was opposition, he did NOTHING. Now, he's just doing everything to cater to the whims of the unions and adding to the inflation in the province, and at the end of the day, in the country. I read an article the day the budget was released. You know how his government claims that it's "spending more on education"? Where's all that money going? I read a quote from a source in the Elementary Teachers Federation. The quote said something like they (still) need more funding now to get books for the kids! WTF?!? You mean this $800 million more being spent on education is NOT going towards books? So, what McGuinty's actually doing is throwing more money towards the teachers unions -- increasing pay WHILE they get a smaller class size, WHILE there are now TWO education professionals to the classroom. Where the hell is this going to stop??? I was in Earl Haig junior high in Toronto a little over a year ago. I couldn't believe what this school was equipped with! It was opulent. What the hell is being done with our tax dollars? Teacher's Pet Jellyfish McGuinty can kiss my arse. It infuriates me that he lets them blackmail our system like that. I was no big fan of Ernie Eves either but at least he had backbone. McGuinty's got absolutely no backbone and those without backbone shouldn't be in political office.