Operation Sidewinder: In Canada Spies Are Us

Thoughts?

Oh. Yeah. Right. It's the <em>Chinese</em> intelligence service that's influencing/infiltrating our businesses and bureaucracies. <p><em>Not</em> the CIA, nosireebob. Nope. They only infiltrate <em>South</em> Mercan gummints. Move along now.

Maybe both?

The officially Communist Government of China is very active in controlling parts of Canada's economy and politics, they can even dictate Canadian foreign policy with respect to Tibet and Taiwan. And Canada gives China millions of dollars every year in foreign aid.

This is obviously such a great relationship for Canada that we mustn't risk it by even alluding to the fact that the Chinese government kills and imprisons people rather indiscriminately, we must be culturally sensitive so they don't lose 'face'. The Chinese aren't Euro-descended white folk, so they must be better than us right?

Oh please. We import finished products from a developing country and send them paper. hahahahahah

Imagine owning a store and you have only one customer. Obviously, you would always be wringing your hands about your relationship with that one customer, it would consume your thoughts. Canada should be trading with as many countries/regions as possible- Asia, South America, etc. Frankly, I welcome trade with China or any other country that would expand our customer base. We have alot to offer the whole world. Deeply binding ourselves to one country is foolish and dangerous, especially so if the customer is both abusive and disrespectful.

A small piece of education may be helpful to you as you don't seem to be appraised of our (Canada) position.
Very simply put; Canada has difficulty expanding into Europe due to the EU trading block. We obviously are not welcomed there. Asia is the same story. We are expanding to some extent our trade around the world but our growth into the United States is aided by Canadian government who keeps our dollar artificially low to make imports into the US attractive. Therefore imports into US always increases.
Canada has also been slow to embrace technology as we have hidden behind artificially low dollar. The dollar rising has put Canada in difficult position. US companies embraced high tech as they had higher valued dollar. You will now find the percent of imports into US will be reduced with corresponding reduction of Canadian workers employed. Hence you will have your wish of lowering business with our friends to the south. In the free world Canada is the most reliant on another country and we enjoy one of the higher standards of living.
Hopefully this will give you a better understanding and hence the end of the first lesson.

But it is not sustainable, and we are simply handing our resources to everybody.

YES the E.U. is protectionist, but if Europe, America and Asia are protectionist, as well as Latin America, what does that leave, Russia?

If other countries are protectionist, we have to be too, and we can expand our domestic market, east-west trade and look at ways of increasing our population.

Globalism will not last forever, we can do business domestically, and add value to our resources before they leave the country. We make products of such high quality there would be a market for them here, and likely elsewhere.

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The midget, Bush, and that Rumsfield deserve only to be beaten with shoes by freedom loving people everywhere.

- Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, The Iraqi Informat

You assumed I wished to reduce business with our neighbour and perhaps I noted your pleasure in saying so. That was not my point. Canada should, for its own good, expand into more markets. As you say, this is difficult, but not impossible, and is worth the effort.
We can put up with an odd customer (or neighbour) but it is not in our best interest to limit our customer base. I welcome the Prime Ministers' effort in China regarding oil. Perhaps they would like a little nickel, lumber, or beef.

The fact that a large majority (yes majority) of Canadian manufacturing businesses (and a huge number of other sectors) are owned by firms from the US is a serious part of the reason for not trying to expand to other markets around the world. Perhaps it is these very business who artificially keep Canada slightly behind technologically in order to keep costs low while being able to export maximum profits to the motherland.

Talus, what they're doing with China is bad. We should own this oil privately or publically and reap the profits. Right now we'll get nothing, and the prvinces allow most of it to go to American and European firms at a 0% royalty, and even subsidize them at the same time.

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The midget, Bush, and that Rumsfield deserve only to be beaten with shoes by freedom loving people everywhere.

- Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, The Iraqi Informat

Perturbed, I looked at the royalty formulas (they are complicated) some time ago but I do not know their present status, so I cannot comment on this. Certainly, I agree that Canadians should be getting fair value from this resource. Chavez (V.) seems to be doing rather well in this respect and I have no doubt that if he lives into a second term one will see more than a few Canadian politicians voicing their concerns on this matter. In fact, the social compact in the western hemisphere may be impacted by the events unfolding in South America- something to watch.

To contradict the above poster, our dollar is not 'artificially low', there are no artificialities and it's international currency traders who determine the value of the dollar in relation to other currencies based on hundreds of factors. One can try to make the tenuous link between the value of the dollar and the Bank of Canada rate, but that's only one variable and the only way I can see government intervention on this issue is the basic function of government-meaning that certain policies may mean currency traders favour or disfavour our currency over others. Keep in mind too that there is more than one exchange rate depending on the industry, (agricultural exchange rate, manufacturing exchange rate, etc) and while government subsidies may play a part that is not direct control.

As far as trading goes, the comment about Europe was interesting and to an extent true that 'we are not welcome' there. It all depends on the industry, however. In virtually 9 out of 10 economic initiatives Canada plays along with the states internationally and we bear the consequences. In other words it is OUR actions that make us unwelcome, not some protectionist conspiracy. Let's look at agriculture. For most of the last decade many of our products have been restricted because they are genetically modified. It's quite obvious that there are very good reasons for this and in fact most canadians do not support government policy on this, as it has pretty much given control to Dupont and Monasanto. There are plenty of other types of seeds available, europe has plenty of them, and there is no 'necessity' to use GM foods. In fact, McCains single handedly turned PEI from the biggest producer of GM foods (potatoes) right around by refusing to purchase them. I have heard that PEI is now considering becoming canada's first gm free province. However, instead of doing what the market demands-which would be common sense if you're in business, they have done like the states and spent the last ten years trying to force them to purchase our experimental foods.

Likewise we can look at another subsidized commodity-asbestos. Canada forces third world countries to import it, places where the absolutely necessary safety precautions have no hope of being implemented. Again, Canada spent millions of dollars and years trying to force european countries to buy this toxin.

With beef and the mad cow story it was again similar, Canada cut off trading with every other country where mad cow showed up, then when it happened here cried foul. This even though the japanese quite accurately pointed out the horrendous cattle feeding practises and inadequate testing procedures.

The list could go on and on of why our trading 'is not welcome'. The documentary I recommended called 'crapshoot' shows our split with europe very well, so too does the recent story about PBDE's (or something like that). Whereas Europe now takes a pretty hard stance on environmental issues, no doubt due to their long experience with environmental destruction, Canada and the US are going in the exact opposite direction. Take a look at virtually every toxin you can find and you will discover far less government concern and more 'trading'.

Those articles seem to equate company ownership with intelligence. If I want sidewinder missiles and buy a company that makes them, that's hardly an 'intelligence operation'.

These are horribly confusing issues and can't be summarized in one article. Government's and their leading corporations work together all over the world. The wealthy of Canada have more in commmon with chinese millionaires than they do with average canadians. The chinese have nuclear bombs partly thanks to our subsidizing the building of their Candu reactors in the fifties and sixties. Many have pointed out that the canadian government of the last thirty years has been an extension of the Power Corporation. These guys use government money in the form of subsidies and loan guarantees and have been developing the energy sector in China for years now, why should we be surprised if its a two way street?