I like his reporting, but he is missing one major point, the stuff we sell to the US is what allows them to sell stuff to others. Without Canada the US is shit up the creak without a paddle.
You're significantly over-estimating the significance of our exports to the USA, to the USA. Canada, as a country, is heavily reliant on trade One of the biggest problems "buy Canadian" movements have, is finding actual Canadian products -- even if we 'replace' the USA as a source, we're still heavily reliant on trade. It's tied to like 2/3s of every dollar earned in Canada, or something ridiculous along those lines. Like Alberta's busy cozying up to Trump, because more of Alberta's GDP is based on US Trade, than it is on the Canadian market. We only refine half of the oil we use domestically, we import the other half we use, while selling something like 2-3 times the amount we use domestically to foreign buyers like the USA and China: ie. we don't even have the refining capability to cover our domestic market, and instead we trade a huge surplus of crude oil, while buying our domestic mfg shortfall up on the market....so even one of our 'bigger' industries is unable to provide for the domestic market without foreign assistance / sources.
That's not the case in the states, where they're more self-sufficient overall, using products / services that they make themselves.
And really, that "services" part is the real major point that almost all of these 'trade' negotiations are missing. There's a trade deficit on goods, but if services are included, we send heaps of money to the USA annually, and our service industry is absolutely saturated with US companies, who've killed off any real Canadian competition. Not only does bringing in the services trade numbers push things into the US's favour, but it also highlights how boned Canada is in general, should we have a "hard cut" of relations with the USA. Our government would literally shut down if Microsoft were forced to pull the plug on the Canadian market.
we don’t even have the refining capability to cover our domestic market, and instead we trade a huge surplus of crude oil, while buying our domestic mfg shortfall up on the market…so even one of our ‘bigger’ industries is unable to provide for the domestic market without foreign assistance / sources.
Yeah. We thought that we'd be post-oil by now, but the oil people successfully lobbied for their own job protection.
Pick another industry that shouldn't be dead by now?
3 Comments
Reannlegge@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 7d
I like his reporting, but he is missing one major point, the stuff we sell to the US is what allows them to sell stuff to others. Without Canada the US is shit up the creak without a paddle.
wampus@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 7d
You're significantly over-estimating the significance of our exports to the USA, to the USA. Canada, as a country, is heavily reliant on trade One of the biggest problems "buy Canadian" movements have, is finding actual Canadian products -- even if we 'replace' the USA as a source, we're still heavily reliant on trade. It's tied to like 2/3s of every dollar earned in Canada, or something ridiculous along those lines. Like Alberta's busy cozying up to Trump, because more of Alberta's GDP is based on US Trade, than it is on the Canadian market. We only refine half of the oil we use domestically, we import the other half we use, while selling something like 2-3 times the amount we use domestically to foreign buyers like the USA and China: ie. we don't even have the refining capability to cover our domestic market, and instead we trade a huge surplus of crude oil, while buying our domestic mfg shortfall up on the market....so even one of our 'bigger' industries is unable to provide for the domestic market without foreign assistance / sources.
That's not the case in the states, where they're more self-sufficient overall, using products / services that they make themselves.
And really, that "services" part is the real major point that almost all of these 'trade' negotiations are missing. There's a trade deficit on goods, but if services are included, we send heaps of money to the USA annually, and our service industry is absolutely saturated with US companies, who've killed off any real Canadian competition. Not only does bringing in the services trade numbers push things into the US's favour, but it also highlights how boned Canada is in general, should we have a "hard cut" of relations with the USA. Our government would literally shut down if Microsoft were forced to pull the plug on the Canadian market.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 5d
Yeah. We thought that we'd be post-oil by now, but the oil people successfully lobbied for their own job protection.
Pick another industry that shouldn't be dead by now?