Unions Call for 'Buy Canadian' Policy

[Oleg Bach]

Oh God ---- great humor...so were you watching me kick Guyser around the block? He was toying with me and wanting me to be the red neck hater and second rate white supremist rube - I refused to take the role - So I will make it a project to make HIM the rube.... They just don't get it...He who seeks to enslave a man always in the end - ends up serving the slave. Which makes this rube the master...

Waiting for a very clever retrot as per usual...well ----- RETORT....```WHERE IS MY LAUGH? You know what it is..... these book smarties find it distressing that someone with no formal education that is dilgent aware and like learning slowly figured out their pitiful system ---- I apoligize for thinking!

[madmax]

"Buy Canadian" is bad policy,unless the Canadian product in question is the best available and provides the best value.This sends the wrong message to countries which buy our exports.Just more drivel from the powerful union bosses.I want the freedom to choose what I want to buy thank you very much.Protectionism is NOT the answer!

powerful union bosses??? Jimmy Hoffa was offed about 40 years ago.

... if you have an operation locally that employs 500 people and your tax money is used by government to make an infrastructure investment, and they choose to save a peanut, but the investment could keep these people employed for years, go ahead, make the choice. Add them to you local unemployed pool.

You can choose to buy elsewhere and put Canadians out of work with your tax purchase. You can choose to not support local business.

One thing I think is pretty funny, is the crazy beliefs people have about toothless unions or union power in the private sector.

Quite Frankly, the purchases that many municipalities make can be from very small non unionized shops, but they choose not to support a 20 man operation, and hide behind Free Trade statements that are just Bullshit lies. They can purchase from whoever they wish, and if the tendering shows that they are going to spend $100,000 and the local one is 2nd cheapest and $500 more then the lowest bid, do you think I give a rats ass about sending $100 gs of my money to China??? KISS MY ASS!!! I don't care whether the shop is union or not either. That is a diversion.

I want that money spent locally, where the local manufacturer and the small group of workers are going to spend there money locally and support the local economy.

You can enjoy all the foreign products you like. I can see sucking Billions out of the economy is doing wonders.

Now, all this damn panicking is leaving governments pretending they can deal with monster corps like GM.

I expect GM to take the money and run, or not take the money and move CDN operations into bankruptcy until they finish moving production.

Most people wouldn't know "BEST VALUE" if it bit them in the ass. Its why we have alot of consumer protection laws. It is why best value is DOLLAR CHOCLATE COINS laced with melamine. Its why our own government sells our country out, by inspecting food exports to the US with greater intensity and choosing not to inspect domestic products with the same intensity level. Why is that??? Is that same mentallity used for imported food??? Surprise....

Some people like choice. I also like choice. I like to use the smaller general and local stores, the homehardwares vs the any big box store. Some people really like Home Depot. Some People really like Future Shop. Sorry, just not for me.

I prefer ma and pa operations. It is my choice. My Money.

And like you, what you claim to be your tax money, is also my tax money.

There is a difference between protectionism and stupid.

Between Trade and Trade agreements.

Trade agreements are NOT balanced.

And much like someone said, the likely hood of waiting for Chinas employment, health and safety and environmental concerns rise to our level, aren't going to happen in our lifetime.

Buy Canadian is good policy. Buying crap is bad policy regardless of its source.

What isn't understandable to me, is "what does Buy Canadian mean", and could a criteria be created for a Canadian Product? Content of so many operations incorporates so much of the Global Economy, that establishing a Canadian Content would be far more difficult to implement then back in the 60s when content was going to be North AMerican. It was either from the US or here. Pretty simple shit.

[Oleg Bach]

Well said. Simple rule would be to buy Canadian if the quality is good. As for the choice factor..and there are sooo many of them. Learn to tell the difference between a piece of plastic junk that lasts a month and a piece of plastic junk that lasts a year - of course choose the one designed to self destruct after a year..that's not much of a choice but people like to be pro-choice - makes them feel powerful. False empowerment though supposed useful choosing is the consumerist cancer that swamps and overloads the environment causing us to choose if we want to dump product from abroad in a meadow north of the city or off to Michigan. The Canadian craftsman and woman - builder and assembler of product...need encouragement and pride in craft re-instilled and our product will improve...why send our buisness to a third world nation where people get paid a tiny bit - pollute their own water supplies and grow tumors the size of basket balls on their arms? It was better for them - with no choice but to have a simple life - and it was better for us to have a simple life with things of good quality - THAT WOULD BE MY CHOICE!

[xul]

Even if there were not problems with trade rules or WTO measures, the "Buy Canadian" Policy might still not work properly.

To those simple products such as knives and spoonds, it may works, but I don't think Canadian economy mainly depond on such kind of industries and there are a lot of Canadian works as knife makers.

To those complicated products the policy can not work. Cars, for one. Auto sector in Canada employs so many Canadian workers that no politicians dare to say not to bailout this part of industry, but most these auto comanies are American companies and I guess the parts of their products comes from everywhere in the world. In fact Canada government is raising money to bail out these foreign companies and it seems Canada is the only main country in the world has to bail out foreign companies and I'm afraid Canadian government has no power to force these American companies only buying Canadian parts.

I think it is the price that Canadian chose to give up their own high-tech industries to trade integrating into American economy as well-payed machine parts suppliers 50 years ago. Things are always easy earlier but hard later.

Edited February 18, 2009 by xul

[xul]

Chinas currency was fixed to the US dollar. If the Canadian Dollar rose or fell, the renminbi would reflect what the US currency was doing. They export mainly to the US. Canada didn't matter. In IIRC 2005, the Chinese under pressure from the US, DODGED floating their currency, and moved up the value of the currency, by fixing it to the value of a handful of currencies. It is still fixed, just the basket is larger. So it went up a penny. Big F098ing deal.

Chinese currency is not floated on the open market.

Exchange Rates Bank of China

February 18th, 2005: US$100=RMB827.65

February 18th, 2006: US$100=RMB804.93

February 18th, 2007: US$100=RMB774.08

February 18th, 2008: US$100=RMB716.67

February 18th, 2009: US$100=RMB683.63

I agree Chinese currency is not entirely on the open market like western country because China government still keeps the political power of intervention of financial market if any possiblely large-scale monetary speculation happened which could crash financial market like what happened in several Asian countries during Asian financial crisis. But before China government uses the political power to intervene the market, the exchange rate is mainly the reflection of the real value between RMB and USD. (Since 2005 up till now, Chinese government has not used the power once yet.)

Today in China, each citizen can exchange USD50,000 each year for non-business purpose, and if he could offer evidence to prove he needs more for proper use(such as buy goods from foreign store, enroll in foreign school or university, treatment in foreign hospital), there are not limits. To those business owners, there are not limits if he can prove the needs is just for trade(not for monetary speculation).

Usually if a government manipulates market, there will be a huge so-called black market to reflect the real value of goods or currency, even Brezhnev and KGB could not crash such black market in Soviet. But where is the currency black market in China today?(There did exist one before 2005, but has vanished.) How much is its exchange rate?

And not every Canadian will gain from the appreciation of RMB. Those works in agricultural, logging, fishing, oil....sectors will lose because China can buy their goods with less money and they must pay more money to exchange less China made goods.

Edited February 18, 2009 by xul

[Shady]

Yes, please let us legislate a 'Buy Canadian' policy. And while we're doing that, how about we name it The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. With any luck, other countries will reciprocate, and we can turn a bad recession into a deep depression.

[Realist]

Yes, please let us legislate a 'Buy Canadian' policy. And while we're doing that, how about we name it The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. With any luck, other countries will reciprocate, and we can turn a bad recession into a deep depression.

Bad news all around. On that topic though, how has the Buy American Policy constrained our goods to the States? I'm afraid that if the States fires first, we have little choice but to seek fair trade elsewhere.

[madmax]

Bad news all around. On that topic though, how has the Buy American Policy constrained our goods to the States? I'm afraid that if the States fires first, we have little choice but to seek fair trade elsewhere.

We don't have fair trade. We have trade agreements. Perhaps the worst thing with NAFTA is the length of time it takes to resolve a trade dispute and the enforcement mechanism is ineffective.

Some people are confusing Buy Canadian or Buy American for tariffs.

Any government has the right to procure goods from their own country and local markets. This policy exists in NAFTA!

[Realist]

We don't have fair trade. We have trade agreements. Perhaps the worst thing with NAFTA is the length of time it takes to resolve a trade dispute and the enforcement mechanism is ineffective.

Some people are confusing Buy Canadian or Buy American for tariffs.

Any government has the right to procure goods from their own country and local markets. This policy exists in NAFTA!

Is that all the 'Buy American' policy entails? An active effort by government to procure goods for their market?

[blueblood]

We don't have fair trade. We have trade agreements. Perhaps the worst thing with NAFTA is the length of time it takes to resolve a trade dispute and the enforcement mechanism is ineffective.

Some people are confusing Buy Canadian or Buy American for tariffs.

Any government has the right to procure goods from their own country and local markets. This policy exists in NAFTA!

Correct, Canada has a Buy Canadian policy concerning dairy and poultry products. Not only that, those producers are not allowed to export.

If it's a buy american thing for steel products, that's almost a non issue. The manufacturers will be screaming for that to be lifted once the steel industry starts soaking them. This is what happened in the later stages of the BSE crisis.