Free Trade Between Canada and the EU?

The Globe and Mail had a story that the Canadian government is brokering a deal to bring free trade with the EU. Great! What does this mean for the Canadian consumer? Great wines and beer at a cheaper price? French cheese? No tariffs on German cars? I had to get far down into the article to see what it would mean:

It is hoped that the free trade deal, which will seek agreements in areas including labour mobility, customs procedures, trades in services investment, food safety, sustainable development and goods, could be signed within a year.

Oh. Labour mobility is great but I have a feeling those European goods that people want will be as expensive and difficult to obtain as ever.

It's like NAFTA. Our northern climate in BC is not great for growing certain foods. But try getting anything other than a BC grown tomato, which are awful. Why can't I get California tomatoes, the best in the world? Protectionism for the few hothouse tomato farmers in the province.

For that matter, you can't buy freshly squeezed orange juice in Canada. It's all frozen concentrate. Pick up any orange juice carton in Canada and it will say product of Markham, Ont. or some such place. Why doesn't it say Florida? You can buy freshly squeezed anywhere in Seattle or Portland, not far from where I am. It's some kind of special interest scam to protect a few distributers in Canada.

Free trade, never means true free trade.

Protectionism Behind Lottery Flap

The silly "scandal" at the Ontario lottery commission has more to it than meets the eye:

The minister in charge of Ontario's scandal-ridden lottery commission has blown a gasket over a "crappy decision" to give away foreign-made Mercedes-Benz cars as casino prizes.

Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman was incredulous that the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. purchased 22 Mexican- and German-made B200 hatchbacks at a time when the province is trying to bail out General Motors Canada and Chrysler Canada to protect Canadian jobs.

Essentially, isn't this the same thing as Obama saying that they are going to use US steel only for government sponsored infastructure projects, that had us screaming up here?

With Big Government taking over more businesses look for more of this crap.

Obama Protectionist? Who Would Have Thought?

Last year, especially when campaigning for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama talked openly about re-negotiating NAFTA, and setting up trade barriers for foreign goods. Now that he appears to be doing this, Canadians are acting shocked. Originally, I was for McCain because he said he would honour NAFTA and even came up to Ottawa to make a speech about it and reassure people. It didn't make a difference though, as Obama is far more popular. It just shows what a popularity contest the whole thing is. People don't care about the issues, even if it affects them.

Armed with his new $800 billion dollar pork package, the US will have a "made in America" clause for steel that goes into new works. The Canadian steel industry is worried:

Industry Minister Tony Clement also did not hide his unease.

"We're always concerned when there are protectionist pressures in the United States," he told CBC News.

"The U.S. Congress is a place where you get manifestations of protectionist pressures, there's no doubt about that," he added.

"At the same time, the United States has treaty obligations that they have signed on to — NAFTA is one, the World Trade Organization is another — and we expect the United States to live up to its treaty obligations of open and fair trade."

Canadian steel producers and builders say they have "grave, grave concerns" about the bill.

This is absurd on many different levels. If the Canadian steel industry starts losing revenue because of this, we will no doubt prop it up with our own pork. (If we don't already.)

Protectionism is one of those populist issues that people can't get their head around. In the US they fear that the steel mills will close and people will lose jobs. The problem is, there are twenty times more people employed constructing things out of steel than making raw steel. Getting cheaper steel from abroad helps the economy much more.

What does it matter anyway? These are make work projects and they don't care about costs and profits.

Hat tip: Strack Attack