Computing and Politics

[Marcus Brubaker]

This is precisely what Trudeau (unsuccessfully) tried to do.  He saw
very well that Canada needed to diversify its trading partners and
wanted to trade with Europe, Asia, etc.  Unfortunately, at the time the
trend became for geographic regions to form exclusive trading blocs. 
During the 70's and 80's Europe, South America and parts of Asia all
formed trading blocs that (largely) excluded other geographic regions. 
Unfortunately, this left Canada out in the cold and stuck, so to speak,
with the US as the best bet for a trading partner.  It was then that we
got things like the Canada-US Trade Agreement (I think was the name, my
memory is a little fuzzy right now) and, later, NAFTA.

Unfortunately now, most developed markets have long-time trading allies
and aren't exactly looking for new ones.  The un- (or under-) developed
markets are forming a bloc of their own (e.g. Brazil/Mercosur, India and
South Africa) and can domestically produce most of the goods Canada has
to export (raw materials) cheaper.  Where Canada really needs to push in
my opinion is in two directions:

	1. An information/knowledge based economy.  Chretien and Martin both
have at least paid lip service to the idea and put some money towards
it.  This is one area where the playing field is tilted in our favor
should we spend the resources to develop it.  It is something that we
can export cheaply (as opposed to lumber for example...how much does it
cost to ship several tons of softwood to China?) and won't face stiff
local competition in developing markets.

	2. Building up our secondary economy.  Primary economies are things
like raw goods, tertiary economies are things like services, finance and
IT.  Secondary is stuff in the middle, e.g. manufacturing.  This is much
harder to do and would need to be done gradually.  As it is now, we
export a large amount of resources to the US and elsewhere as raw goods
where they are then processed and imported back into Canada as a
completed product (such as a car).  If we can start building up these
secondary industries we'll lower our dependence on raw goods exporting
and hopefully begin to export more processed goods.

	Unfortunately, Canada lacks the geography and economies of scale to do
this easily, which is why we don't have much of a secondary economy. 
During the 1960's and 1970's there were attempts to encourage these
industries (both here and in many other countries around the world)
which really boiled down to protectionism and severely contributed to
western alienation in the particular case of Canada and many other
similar problems elsewhere. Those kinds of policies are no longer an
option and really the only way to bring about these kinds of changes are
by spending money but this could, quite possibly, arise the ire of our
neighbors to the south.

Anyway, this email has gotten longer than intended.  Long story short,
the issue is far more complicated and a lot harder to solve than simply
having a PM who is willing, although that is certainly necessary.

On Mon, 2004-03-29 at 10:12, Zoltan/ZEE4 wrote:
> Sure aren't. I'm all for trading with the U.S., the E.U., China, trade
> with South America (incl. Cuba) and anyone else. 
> 
> The problem in Canada is that 85% of our trade is with the U.S., The
> U.S. doesn't do 85% of trade with us, it's probably closer to 30%. This
> is where the problem comes in- because of our over-dependence on this
> trade we lose room to maneuver without harming big chunks of our
> economy. As I see it, we need to aim to trade more like Brazil: they do
> roughly 30% of trade each with NAFTA countries, the E.U. and their
> neighbors, plus a growing Chinese market.
> 
> Quite simply we need a PM who is willing to put into action that talk of
> a "trading nation" and go out and diversify our trading partners.  So
> that if things go bad in market (say softwood) it doesn't hamper our
> ability to do what needs to be done. Instead of what we have now where
> every time somethings goes bad we get surrender-monkeys running around
> saying how we have to be good neighbors and lets negotiate about how
> much of our money they should give back to us. :)
> 
> Last weeks news of opening trade talks with the E.U. (basically shared
> standards, professional designations) is one small step along that road.
> But there's got to be a lot more small steps. 
> 
> This is what I mean by putting our interests first. 
> 
> Zoltan
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, 2004-03-28 at 18:42, William Park wrote:
> > On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 06:02:49PM -0500, Zoltan/ZEE4 wrote:
> > > He was doing an interview where he said something like "The number 1
> > > job of the Canadian PM is to be manage the relationship with U.S.". 
> > > 
> > > Sorry, but I thought the number one job was putting Canadian interests
> > > first :)
> > 
> > So, you're saying managing Canada's export trade to US is not Canadian
> > interest?
> 
> --
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-- 
Marcus Brubaker <marcus.brubaker-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org>

--
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