Somewhere Tennisace is throwing knives at a poster sized image of Wallonia's leaders and telling his army of inflatable Justin Trudeau sex dolls everything is going to be ok.
Somewhere Tennisace is throwing knives at a poster sized image of Wallonia's leaders and telling his army of inflatable Justin Trudeau sex dolls everything is going to be ok.
The Fresh Prince of Baudelaire
Banned at least 10 times. Don't give a fuck, going to keep saying what I want how I want to.
Eat meat. Drink water. Do cardio and burpees. The good life.
It's a lower degree of integration. EFTA (what Norway, Switzerland, etc. have) is part to the single market, granting free movement of goods, services, labor (people), and capital.
CETA only eliminates barriers (like import quotas and tariffs) to trade.
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Me personally, I'm not an enthusiast, or much of a detractor, or even ambivalent. Canada and the EU are (turbot war silliness aside), for the most part on the same page on most issues that concern me. So I'm kind of just rather apathetic on this one.
But I'm nevertheless interested in understanding those that feel passionate about these things.
If you were entirely opposed to eroding sovereignty, I'd understand your concern. But you're a globalist through and through, so it's a matter of how much you're willing to give up.
The drawbacks are to be expected, and dealt with. The point is net benefit -which your source doesn't even debate-, not minor annoyances.
Whatever the case may be, I think we should start focusing in offering help with transition to the folks that will directly experience the ills of globalization. From comprehensive urban planning on rural areas, to education towards more service-oriented jobs, etc.
Last edited by nextormento; 2016-10-24 at 10:29 PM.
@Tennisace
but why, Tenn
It's not bad, but Maude Barlow's biases as part of her work with the CoC are seeping through a lot. She's attributed a lot of shit to NAFTA, while conveniently never addressing the "other reasons" beyond a self-serving throw away line.
According to Caterpillar, they shuttered their London Ontario diesel locomotive plant because of high energy costs. Granted you could call bullshit on it, though it's been one of the more common reasons for manufacturing jobs leaving Ontario. In addition to, over the last 35ish years; a stronger canadian dollar at varying times (according to the BoC), weaker US demand (according to Industry Canada), temporary foreign workers, and so on. All of those same concerns spill over to her discussion about net job losses, yet again, she's blames it entirely on NAFTA. Or excuse me "NAFTA is not the only reason, but it's a big one"...so I guess that's all there is to it?
Doomsayers have said the same shit since 94. "Food standards will be lower!" Except they're really not. While it's easier now for some of the crap south of the border to be sold in stores here. Processed "cheese", hormone filled beef and so on, it's not as if it's the only choice (unless you're making a grilled cheese). Granted as a kid I didn't pay much attention to grocery shopping, but I don't remember there being such a push for organics and sustainable products. Products which are now in abundance everywhere. Even if hormone laden US beef is coming here, I'm not buying it. I stick to my Sterling packs, non hormone non antibiotic beef, because I have that choice. I can shop a sea of organic fruits and veg year round, many of which do come from the US and don't cost such an extortionate amount thanks to there being no tariffs. I'd argue that food quality and abundance has improved, whether that's in spite of NAFTA or not idk. Even if there's less restrictions and regulations on low quality goods, consumers ultimately decide what products are in demand and what isn't acceptable. Consumers like quality, they like food with high standards. If anything it self regulates, I can buy whatever peanut butter or cheese I want.
Now the whole ISDS issue, I certainly agree. I dislike the notion that businesses get some fast track line to sue a government for its policies under special tribunal. It's pretty shitty. That being said, according to the video, we've been sued 37 times under NAFTA. 37 times in 22 years. We've lost or had to settle a grand total of 7 times, that's 30 cases that got dumped. Yes it costs money, quick google search has a huffpo article suggesting we've spent about $67MM (as of 2015) in legal fees and have paid out $170MM in damages. So, $237MM in 22 years. That's a lot of money to you or I I'm sure, $10.7MM per year, sweet cheddar. That turd of a biomass power plant in Thunder Bay costs more per month. The "Museum of Human Rights" costs upwards of $80MM/year to mostly employ a bunch of nobodies in the offices there. BC wasted more money on the fast ferries scandal. There's probably 100 things in that time that cost more and did more harm to taxpayers and the public in general than the sum total of the lawsuits we've faced under NAFTA. Does that make it ok? Not really, not at all. But maybe time to pick battles? Does the $237MM over 22 years outweigh the financial advantages and growth open borders have provided? Not even remotely.
On the plus side, thanks to TransCanada's multibillion dollar chapter 11 suit against the US Government over Keystone XL, there's probably a lot more political will in the US to fix that one.
I didn't say they don't have environmental standards, or labor regulations. I said cheaper labor and weaker standards. There are sectors of the EU that definitely have a cheaper labor pool for manufacturing simply because of their location and cost of living. It's like Mexico in NAFTA. Canada has lost a lot of manufacturing to Mexico, and a lot of it is because of the cheaper cost of doing business (labor and environmental standards being two of them).
That's typically how manufacturing goes. It moves to the cheap places. Tariffs and taxes can slow the drain, but if you're signing FTA's, then the barriers are gone. The hope is that while a fully developed country may lose some mindless grunt work, they'll gain back those jobs and more in other, more skilled areas. Kind of a mixed bag on that happening though.
Regarding that video posted:
I'm not sure I buy the premise that NAFTA and free trade are interchangeable terms. By definition, free trade requires no legislation, merely a lack of limits put on free trade by government. The problems that video is putting forth, were created by the legislation, not the free trade.
Also, the video attributes global competition to only existing with a trade agreement. Sure, the legislation creates ways for corporations to sue for fair competition. However, if the agreement did not exist, those corporations would have still moved production to where it was the cheapest.
Some pretty big leaps are being made, to say the least.
Last edited by Tijuana; 2016-10-24 at 11:27 PM.
It usually requires legislation to prevent one nation from doing what China is doing and/or passing ridiculous regulation that essentially acts as barriers to trade and investment. Take for example this case, in which the US prevents a French company from building a high speed railway in Maryland.
So how do trade agreements create the desire to limit production costs again? If Canada has no trade agreement at all with say, Nigeria, how do they prevent a non-Canadian corporation from leaving Canada for Nigeria? The leap of logic the video makes is enough to give you whiplash.
I'm sure Canada has a comparative advantage over the EU on something. So what happens on free trade is: for the sake of this argument let's say Canada is better producing Gizmos (I know it doesn't make sense, but just roll with it) and the EU is better producing Widgets. So Canada outsources jobs that are related to producing Widgets to the EU and the EU outsources its jobs related to Gizmos to Canada. Now Canada can get cheaper Widgets because the EU is better at it and the EU gets cheaper Widgets, jobs related to Gizmos grow in Canada and jobs related to Widgets grow in the EU; while at the same time increasing jobs in import related jobs, which is why free trade usually doens't create or destroy jobs, it just shifts them. Canada I think spends around 0.6% of its GDP in retraining programs, which is fine for the rate in which disemployment generated by trade is, unlike the US and China who is an entirely different story.
If countries that are in similarly structured you have to take into account increasing returns to scale.
On that video, it's example of MMT is bad. IIRC Canada was unable to prove it was toxic so the case was ruled in favor of the company.
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They can prevent that with tariffs. If I put a tariff high enough to make producing in Canada more desirable than producing in Nigeria then companies won't move.
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Last edited by Tyrianth; 2016-10-25 at 12:31 AM.
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Good, best not to get hooked into a trade deal that devalues Canadian products, especially one that Harper wanted.
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Manufacturing is one of the reasons why trade agreements even exist. If the law said you had to have X amount (say 75%) of a product made within your own country in order for it to be considered a domestic product, it would wipe out a lot of manufacturing in places like China and Mexico, because the markets would suddenly shrink from global to regional markets.
So much for that I guess?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/belgium...deal-1.3823624
Aww OP, poor fella...Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said his national government had reached a deal with the holdout region of Wallonia. The region held a veto over the country's ability to back the trans-Atlantic trade agreement. And the EU, in turn, needed unanimity among all its members.
The deal will go through regional legislatures by Friday night.