Foreign Trade Agreements

Discussion Question: How do we compete with low wage, low employment standard countries and states?
(ROB)

Various Comments:

Countries with lower labour standards take away the business.

Why are governments signing trade agreements? To develop the economies of developing countries. But we need to do so with protections for our economy. We also shouldn't be taking advantage of those countries - and vice versa.

the gov't has to do it; they are being driven by CCE (?) agenda... in order to stop that, we need to renegotiate these trade agreements to take into account all these standards (manufacturing, trade, environmental)

Where are our labour standards? Can we keep them?

Do we educate workers about where their products are made?

I can find out which companies share my values.

The majority of people just go where the prices are lowest.

If you're unemployed, you're going to go where the goods are cheaps.

I tell my friends about the bad things that Walmart does, and they still go there because it's cheap.

We have few good mediums for educating people. The route could be locating products and services locally.

Those recalls from China are expensive.

The inability of people to chose more expensive Canadian-made or fairly-traded products is part of a downward spiral of economic depression.

Since we've joined NAFTA, the standard of living has gone down.

No, it has gone up.

The capital is going to go where the wages are the lowest. Can you opt out of this system?

The government can do some things to protect us.

The Chinese and still the western countries are seeing their standard of living improve.

We can compete by doing different things.

Should we make it for less? Or make it better? Presumably, we want to do different things.

What are the different things?

Asians are working for a quarter of the cost, and working Saturdays for free.

Some emlployers are regretting this bargain -- in higher tech industries.

Do we have an edge in higher safety standards? Yes, and on quality, too.

Profits are higher in the North American auto industry.

The major responsibility of corporations are to make money for shareholders.

Why is that a bad thing?

The majority of North Americans aren't shareholders.

We've become a bit of an investor class, but the work is not being well-paid.

Who is the we in this question we are asking?

How do we keep jobs that support families?

Harper will tell you that they've created more jobs, but they're not good quality, high-paying jobs.

Look at some of the other countries. Free trade deals are not fair trade deals.

What does a country like Columbia have to offer us? Some natural resources, but...

We could use our own resources to make more things here, and sell them to other countries as finished goods.

Use tarrifs to price imports to make them more expensive, so consumers are forced to buy locally -- which free-trade is undermining.

We should be able to use each others markets productively.

You improve environmental standards in developing countries by first building the wealth of those countries.

Are labour standards really declining because of free trade? Yes! Example? Food safety. Water safety. We just lowered our pesticide residue to the U.S. standard.

Canada is only 30 million people. We can't just trade internally. $2M jobs in Canada depend on exports to US. $5.2M of US economy depends on trade with Canada.

International law is only binding to extent that the parties agree to it.

Green energy products produced in Canada would strengthen our economy.

There is a local disribitor of German green energy products. Why aren't we making them here? They are high value-added products. What is it that Germany has done? What other regions have turned around their economies. It costs a lot to buy a German car.

In Minnesota, they make wind turbines, it's a big industry that has created hundreds of jobs.

Do we rely on policy makers or leave it to commerce?

Does everyone just make what they are good at? You can't diversify overnight. No, but you can make a move over time.

It doesn't make sense for us to be manufacturing here. What does Canada and the US have? Higher-value added products. But those jobs are moving, too.

Individuals will suffer, that's the emotional aspect.

By and large, for most of the people, the standard goes up.

Certain parts of the economy are spiraling down, but there are opportunities for other parts to spiral up.

Steve Paikin (to the discussion-leader): What are you going to do if you lose your job? The Ontario government has a training program related to changing fields.

People in Windsor are very hard hit, because choosing a plan B career is more possible and attractive if you know you can sell your house and move out of Windsor. Now, with the economy and markets in turmoil, and borrowing looking unattractive, it's impossible to sell your house, especially in Windsor. We feel trapped.

There's a whole new industry that's going to start in Windsor -- retirement communities. The bus should be free to seniors so that they can get around, go downtown, spend money.

But what is the job that you are going to serve them? Go into nursing. Go inter the medical field. Open a shop that sells the things that seniors are going to need? Is that sustainable? Once the manufacturing sector that we have is gone, the pensions are going to go down, or go away. Pensions also depend on how much the plants have contributed. Retirement industry is only sustainable for ten years.

Do we innovate, or just rely on market forces?

Windsor has advantage over places like Toronto in that the cost of living is lower.  I think companies will see that head offices could migrate to Windsor.