Did PM Harper count too much on Canadian oil??? NO.

[TOM4CWB]

The Liberal Media party and ND/Liberal opposition are wrong. Canada has been diversifying its economy... not putting all our eggs in the oil/gas/mining basket. As usual the Left is pulling out all the stops: Deceptions, intimidation, and guilt trips spewed liberally;
that any rational person would have trouble ignoring.

Have a look:

[mustardman]

Tom, ,Tom , the rebel news ?? Seriously dude? sun news and rebel news 'An Unlimited Supply of MIsinformation'

[FarmRanger]

I know it's a lot easier to just dismiss the creators of the item because they don't hold the same worldview as you, but did you actually watch the clip mustard?
Where's the misinformation?

[cottonpicken]

Ahh what are the hidden deficits of the provinces?
What is our current account at?(this one drives me nuts personally)
The oilsands producers are a high cost?
Our currency crashed why?
We dont have a housing bubble that just popped

What was marcelles Wallace's quote in the film pulp fiction after he had been ****d and Bruce Willis asked if he was "ok". "No man I'm pretty ****in far from ok"

[hobbyfrmr]

Cotton, LOL ! Thats the quote! Thats very funny.

[westernvicki]

All media has its bias, included, heaven forbid: the CBC.

[sawfly]

are you on salary Tom.
every other day more propaganda

[ajl]

Actually the Canadian economy is less diverse than 20 yrs ago. Voting for Trudope and Madcare will not help that at all but there is less manufacturing in Canada today. Used to be combines made in Canada for instance: no more. Used to be a Canadian smartphone company and the list goes on. Oil accounts for more than 8% of the economy in Canada. The Feds did balance the budget last year on the back of lots of resource related revenue from the past but will be in deficit soon as the economy shrinks. The real Canadian debt is at the provincial level as cotton has pointed out so things are not as good as this report would indicate.

[cottonpicken]

What Marcellus says after that is pretty good to

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2RfQyR59oiM

Harper did as good as he could with hand he was delt. We are like a big oil tanker that takes miles to turn around or in this case years and years.

[riders2010]

free trade deals with countries where the wages are a fraction of ours what the hell do we think is going to happen?

Yet we don't get these goods cheap anyway so its all bullshit. look after your own country first. No trade unless wages are at par then go for it.

[FarmRanger]

Wages has very little to do with free trade deals.

To put it into a format a farmer might understand.
Remove tariffs on my grain, I sell more grain into another country and get more for it because all of the money that the importer in that country goes towward the purchase of my grain. I get more, the consumer in that country gets more for less.

For the goods coming back, I buy something that grows better in that country than here and I get it cheaper, while that farmer gets more, again, because no tariffs here either. Everyone is better off.

When governments create tariffs, they're usually picking favorites and harming others in the meantime. When other governments retaliate, everyone becomes poorer. It's usually the most protected industries (or individuals) that howl the most when trade agreements are created. Big Labour would be the most likely to complain about "cheap labour", because it might affect their ability to extract more than their economic value from the market, so I know where you ultimately got your talking from, Riders.

[riders2010]

To put it in a language you can understand where is a company going to put a manufacturing plant in a country where wages are 10 an hour or 2 an hour? The 2 an hour gang can t pay any decent price for our grain can they?
But I see where you got your talking points from all the corporates that want to take advantage of the low wages and still sell to us at ridiculous prices.

[riders2010]

I see these so called benefits of free trade every time I go as a dumb farmer to buy parts at the local dealership. Made in India made in china made in Pakistan I rarely can walk out with anything important for less than a 1,000 bucks. The other day a bloody 3/8 bolt made in china for 4.50.

But I guess when you want to sell oil to these countries other industries get sacrificed for that sale.

[TOM4CWB]

And every one wants to Crucify PM Harper over the CBC...

The MotherCorp CBC would not even carry the Leadership Debate last night. Over $1B spent per year... and the CBC complains when a little 10 percent cut in their gov funding... when they cost $120/family/yr. And we don't have a choice.

the CBC and NDP are like two peas in a pod... neither have a care about the cost to Canadians they engage... just that they are entitled to belly up to the trough...

[FarmRanger]

riders,
A company is going to set up shop wherever it makes the most economic sense to do so. If wages were the only factor that mattered, then all manufacturing would happen in low wage countries. Obviously that is not the case.

You say you paid $4.5 for a made in China 3/8 bolt. If you think you can make it cheaper, then by all means do so. It always amazes me though that the solution that is always proposed by the protectionist crowd, is that we tariff out that bolt to protect some domestic manufacturer, so you can now pay $9 for the same bolt.

How does increasing your cost for that bolt help you or the country? You've just increased the costs to every domestic user of that bolt (decreasing their competitiveness) to protect a Canadian bolt manufacturer who has no chance to compete with the Chinese bolt manufacturer anywhere else but in closed border Canada. We all become weaker (and poorer) because of counterproductive protectionist policies. The only beneficiaries are the few protected favourites of misguided governments who don't understand economic consequences.

Unfortunately this scenario is not theoretical, it is happening in Canada for political reasons and gullible voters are being mislead by the anti trade rhetoric. Ironically the worst misinformation comes from the political entities that are also most likely to have the anti-corporate policies which further weaken the competitiveness of surviving industries in Canada.