Spain To Spike Euro-Deal With Canada Over Ontario Infrastructure

why was our highway sold to non-residents in the first place?

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"George Bush has declared the war on terrorism to be the cause of his generation. The cause of Canadian sovereignty will be ours." - John Godfrey, MP for Don Va

Another legacy of Mike "the knife" Harris. In order to make some quick money, he sold it for a price far below its actually value just so he could say the budget was balanced. But this wasn't the only time he eyed the sale of profitable public assets... he also considered getting rid of the LCBO even though it earns hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the province!

What I don't understand is that if the tolls are too high, than why the hell do people insist on using it? They have the power to boycott this... ahem... "high-way robbery" (pun intended) if they think it is unjust. If not, than they deserve to be sucked dry if that's what it takes to make them to see the light. After all, those wealthy Torontonians can probably afford it.

Well, McGuintyi is actually even refusing to enforce the tolls! Wonder what happens when a highway goes out of business.

As for Spain, screw them. Just proves that the E.U. is a HUGE problem. It's preposterous that a dispute with Spain becomes a dispute with all of Europe. Pathetic. Most Europeans would probably side with us, so it just proves who runs the show in Europe--the elites. Why don't the Europeans just rebel or something?

I agree with n-say. Selling the 407 wasn't the brighest of ideas in the first place. Sounds like Harris sold it without having the sale looked at by a proper contracts lawyer too (which makes Canada look ridiculous). <br /><br />It's no wonder Spain are putting pressure on - they can and we've not got a leg to stand on really. They are laughing all the way to the bank. (I bet the Americans are wishing they'd bought it now.... <br /><br />But I don't think this is symptom of "a Huge EU problem" as peturbed thinks, but more a "corporate ownership of public infrastructure" problem in general. I'm not a big fan of privatization, but, deregulation of public infrastruture where appropriate should not mean "selling" our assets to outsiders wholesale - but rather the opposite; give outsiders the chance to build new infrastructure alongside the old themselves... and set up shop in competition.

Another glowing example of the benefits to be garnered from privatizing areas that belong in the public domain.

I agree with you about de-regualtion, it's horrible, but I do think that this is evidence the E.U. will be nothing but another corporatist pain-in-the-ass.

It's not "that a dispute with Spain becomes a dispute with all of Europe." From what I've been reading there has to be unanimous agreement between all EU countries before they can begin trade talks.

This is the first I ever heard of this highway being sold. Wow. It boggles my mind.

Indeed, this does make Canada look ridiculous but then this is nothing new. For the past two decades at least Canada has sold themselves short at any trade talks they have engaged in, apparently believing that they have no other choice but to give in to others demands (it doesn't seem to occur to them that an option in negotiating is to say no). The end result is that the world is coming to see us as weak negotiators who will never say no and as such they take advantage of us. A prime example is before us in recent news. For how many decades has Canada withstood demands of major powers in the world to dismantle the Canadian Wheat Board? Now at the WTO it looks like Canada is going to cave in to these ridiculous demands without a fight even though the ones making them have the most heavily subsidized agricultural industries and are only making vague statements that they may reduce them.

Canada is slowly losing the respect of the world simply because we have gutless politicians who are afraid to say no.

For our politicians, its easier to sell out and line their own pockets in the process, as opposed to honestly earning their pay and defending Canada`s interests. But I can easily see here that one of the goals of the pro-American, pro-corporate people is to instill a general feeling of deflation and embarassment among Canadians. They`ve been at this for years. One of the things that made me a patriot was my investigation into the notion that everything Canada did was second rate. But to my delightful suprise, I found out quite the opposite - WE FAR FROM SUCK!!! What we actually contributed to the world, for our small population, is quite remarkable!!!

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Dave Ruston