Free Trade Agreements

[Michael Hardner]

For example, a manufacturer could set up shop in Ontario and pay its workers $5/hr. The government would top up this income by paying the workers another $5.25/hr to guarantee a minimum income of $10.25/hr. The government could even take an equity stake in the manufacturing company to help pay for the employees "minimum income". The taxation of export profits would also help pay for this expense.

This may contravene free trade agreements, but it would certainly help bring some of these jobs back from overseas.

I'd rather my tax dollars went towards subsidizing workers than subsidizing laziness.

What an interesting idea, but it sounds very NDP to me. Not that that's a bad thing...

[cybercoma]

Employees share the profits of a company. Sounds like socialist hogwash to me.

[CPCFTW]

Employees share the profits of a company. Sounds like socialist hogwash to me.

How do the employees share the profits of the company? They get paid a fixed "minimum income". The government, as a shareholder, shares the profits.

The idea is to keep management in the hands of the private sector, and to keep the company's focus on generating profits rather than the plethora of public interests a government owned enterprise would be subject to. The profits from this portfolio would be used to pay for the public interests of the socialists, rather than borrowing funds from China.

Currently our society is:

Use tax revenue to provide public services, borrow from china to make up shortfall.

I'm proposing we change it to:

Use tax revenue and borrowed funds to invest in a portfolio of assets managed by professionals. Use income generated by these assets to pay for public services.

Who knows... Maybe if our portfolio did well enough, we could actually afford those crazy ideas like defined benefit pensions for all.

[cybercoma]

How do the employees share the profits of the company?

Like this:

The government could even take an equity stake in the manufacturing company to help pay for the employees "minimum income".

You want a co-op model through the government, so people's wages are pegged at a maximum without sharing fully in the profits. Instead of the employees owning a portion of the company directly, their ownership comes through the government.

It's a good idea, except for the government involvement part.

[Evening Star]

What an interesting idea, but it sounds very NDP to me. Not that that's a bad thing...

It actually sounded further left than the NDP to me. I also find it intriguing though!

[CPCFTW]

Like this:

You want a co-op model through the government, so people's wages are pegged at a maximum without sharing fully in the profits. Instead of the employees owning a portion of the company directly, their ownership comes through the government.

It's a good idea, except for the government involvement part.

Sure you can look at it that way except that it is every canadian citizen who is an owner, not the employee. The government involvement is the whole point... Tax dollars going towards private jobs rather than welfare cheques.