SOONER THAN I THOUGHT
So a few months back you might recall me bemoaning the softwood lumber agreement with the US that our current PM and Trade minister hold in such high regards. At the time I said that this agreement would come back to bite us and that it was the unofficial end to anything even remotely resembling free trade in North America.
Now Canada is doing this:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070109.wxrwto09/BNStory/Business/home
Taking the US to the WTO tribunal over corn subsidies. That's fine except it won't matter. By settling on Softwood the US knows we are willing to settle and take in on the chin every time we have a greivance. We backed down on softwood when the NAFTA panel and at least 50% of the rulings from the WTO were in our favour. Why would the US think we would do anythign different this time?
Therefore while settling the softwood issue (again if only temporarily): a) certainly puts immediate money back in the pockets of our industry (even though they are still taking a loss compared to where they should be), b) demonstrated an actual RESOLUTION to a long standing dispute, and c) allowed a new PM to show he was doing something.
At the end of the day all of this has undermined Canada's negotiating position in any future trade disputes and mark my words, in this new corn case we will be the losers partially because we have shown we're happy to back down, take an unjustified loss, and throw principles of free trade out the window all because the PM wants to show how decisive he is. Great.
President Dubya was decisive in Iraq... that worked well didn't. Being decisive only works if its based on sound judgement. In Canada's New Trade Policy and in Iraq, short term judgement was used at the expense of good long term policy planning.
Cheers,
P
So a few months back you might recall me bemoaning the softwood lumber agreement with the US that our current PM and Trade minister hold in such high regards. At the time I said that this agreement would come back to bite us and that it was the unofficial end to anything even remotely resembling free trade in North America.
Now Canada is doing this:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070109.wxrwto09/BNStory/Business/home
Taking the US to the WTO tribunal over corn subsidies. That's fine except it won't matter. By settling on Softwood the US knows we are willing to settle and take in on the chin every time we have a greivance. We backed down on softwood when the NAFTA panel and at least 50% of the rulings from the WTO were in our favour. Why would the US think we would do anythign different this time?
Therefore while settling the softwood issue (again if only temporarily): a) certainly puts immediate money back in the pockets of our industry (even though they are still taking a loss compared to where they should be), b) demonstrated an actual RESOLUTION to a long standing dispute, and c) allowed a new PM to show he was doing something.
At the end of the day all of this has undermined Canada's negotiating position in any future trade disputes and mark my words, in this new corn case we will be the losers partially because we have shown we're happy to back down, take an unjustified loss, and throw principles of free trade out the window all because the PM wants to show how decisive he is. Great.
President Dubya was decisive in Iraq... that worked well didn't. Being decisive only works if its based on sound judgement. In Canada's New Trade Policy and in Iraq, short term judgement was used at the expense of good long term policy planning.
Cheers,
P
posted by Patrick at
9:36 AM
2 Comments:
The questions is: is something better than nothing? In this case you argue it is better to have nothing than to cave. Maybe Harper has something else in mind, like, we were nice to you on softwood, but you'll get the corn shoved up... ahem... well, we can hope he's got a good plan. If he follow the same plan as softwood, then we will definitely see a pattern and have to worry more.
By
Daniel, at 1:14 PM
Daniel,
I'm afraid the pattern is there. This government is happy to do anything by half measure, or bad measure that they think will give the appearance that they are 'acting' and 'doing something'.
The pattern is that this government could care less about Canada or Canadians.
Cheers,
P
By
Patrick, at 8:13 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home