So, I recently began corresponding fairly regularly with a long lost old friend, whom I actually grew up with back in Nova Scotia. Yep. I'm Canadian. I've been working here in the US for years, but remain on a work visa. An I94 non-immigrant professional nafta visa. His better half, lets call her, oh, Vicki Robertson, supplied me recently with her take on the recent Nafta-bashing circus happening here, from the Canadian perspective....
An open letter to Americans who THINK they are against NAFTA:
In the past weeks, there has been a cold wind blowing in from the south – typically, I enjoy your southerly breezes this time of year, but the blustering from the US has left me chilled. Every time I turn on CNN and hear politicians and anchors talk about how terrible NAFTA has been for the US, I have to scream into a pillow. Soon, one of my 423 cats will have me institutionalized. And the next time Hillary Clinton strings together the phrase NAFTA and lead-laden toys, I’m going to throw an atlas at her so that she can see for herself that China is NOT part of North America, so therefore, not part of the North America Free Trade Agreement.
So while I’m waiting for my “World’s Heaviest Atlas” to arrive from Amazon.com, I want to remind my fellow North Americans of a few key things about our trade agreement between the US and Canada.
• It has been around since 1988, not 1993. In 1993, Mexico was included on your insistence– don’t blame us for that one.
• During the period of 1993 to 2000, the US had their longest period of peace and prosperity – apparently IN SPITE of the fact that NAFTA was in place. The only explanation for this good fortune? Bill Clinton was getting laid regularly, and as a result, he could turn the world economy on with his smile.
• Three words – Alberta Oil Sands. Don’t know what it is? Google it. Better yet, Google “Alberta oil exports to US reaches over 1 million barrels per day”. Want more specific search criteria? Try this one – “Asian countries looking to import more oil from Canada by 2015”.
Yep – that’s right – we are an oil-producing nation and while you may be our preferred customer right now, we do have other options, including countries flush with cheap American dollars to spend wisely.
In between pictures of children playing with lead-painted toys introduced by your favourite Canadian-born US news anchor, there’s the unfair “dumping” thing. It’s true - we do have mile-high piles of softwood lumber that we tried to sell to you at worldwide commodity prices, but even though court after court has said it’s illegal, you have applied staggering import duties on it. To make matters worse, US builders would prefer to use our lumber – it’s higher quality than yours – but NAFTA be damned, they can’t import it without paying through their turned-up nose. Maybe when you protect your borders with that big honkin’ fence, you’ll come looking for it.
And while we’re speaking of kids’ safety, we also believe there should be better labour standards entrenched in every free trade agreement, including ours. The stories of the sweat shops with undocumented workers who are paid a pittance and forced to work long hours are concerning. But the horror stories aren’t ours – they’re YOURS! Don’t believe me – get your Google on again and look for “August 2, 1995 illegal workers chain link and razor wire El Monte, California.” It’s enough to make the stomach churn.
And when you’re reaching for your prescription-strength antacid, remember that old fight about re-importing of cheap drugs from Canada? Think it’s a shame to pay twice as much for the same drug from a US pharmacy? (Hmmm...wonder what would happen to that if there was no NAFTA…)
So it works both ways. How do I know this? Well, my Washington-based word processing software development mega company just reminded me that I had misspelled “labour” – at least, according to their dictionary. When y’all start getting little red squiggly lines for spelling your bank account as “chequing”, let me know. In the meanwhile, understand that your ability to easily export to us is helping you out. For example, there’s that late-night show that sells pimple cream that worked for all the young starts -- they sell an awful lot of their junk to Canadians. I know this because I’ve stood in the warehouse from where it’s being shipped. Apparently, we all want that all-American girl-next-door look and we’re willing to pay you big bucks for it.
(I never claimed we were particularly smart – just good consumers.)
But there is no doubt that you have economic issues right now, and naturally, you want to find someone to blame – but it’s not because of NAFTA, and despite the South Park characters protests to the contrary, it’s not Canada. There are a lot of renowned economists who have a lot of plausible theories, but I think you need only watch Dr. Phil to get the picture. Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself why you bought a $500,000 home with no money down on a $45,000 salary. Square that circle, my friend.
Or you can blame it on the Chinese government to whom you owe about a gazillion dollars - either/or.
Far be it from us standing-tall liberal Canadians to defend a clumsily self-proclaimed proud conservative liberal errr conservative Republican, but John McCain brought up a good point – Afghanistan. We have lost more combat soldiers there since 2002 than we have in 50 years and at least six were killed by your so-called “friendly” fire. Needless to say, we’re in no mood to be vilified by your news anchors as the “Canadian problem”, or by Clinton’s suggestion that we’re trying to kill your kids, or Obama’s suggestion that we do not have labour standards.
Truth is - we’re not your problem – we’re your solution. Our economy has been pretty good, and as a result, we have lots o’ money to spend, and with your dollar value being in the shitter, your goods are getting cheaper every day. Do you really want to make it hard for us to web-order our parkas from LL Bean? Didn’t think so.
At its core, economic theory is based on an oft-used cliché – you scratch our backs, we’ll scratch yours. You can also try the go-it-alone route if you think you have sufficient resources within your own borders to survive. I say give it a go. When you get low on gas, water and food, we’ll be there to help you out. By then, your dollar will be worthless and we’ll be rolling in Euros and Japanese Yen. So you may need to bring your money to the border in the biggest horse buggy you can find. We’ll be on the other side waiting, pimples and all.
In the past weeks, there has been a cold wind blowing in from the south – typically, I enjoy your southerly breezes this time of year, but the blustering from the US has left me chilled. Every time I turn on CNN and hear politicians and anchors talk about how terrible NAFTA has been for the US, I have to scream into a pillow. Soon, one of my 423 cats will have me institutionalized. And the next time Hillary Clinton strings together the phrase NAFTA and lead-laden toys, I’m going to throw an atlas at her so that she can see for herself that China is NOT part of North America, so therefore, not part of the North America Free Trade Agreement.
So while I’m waiting for my “World’s Heaviest Atlas” to arrive from Amazon.com, I want to remind my fellow North Americans of a few key things about our trade agreement between the US and Canada.
• It has been around since 1988, not 1993. In 1993, Mexico was included on your insistence– don’t blame us for that one.
• During the period of 1993 to 2000, the US had their longest period of peace and prosperity – apparently IN SPITE of the fact that NAFTA was in place. The only explanation for this good fortune? Bill Clinton was getting laid regularly, and as a result, he could turn the world economy on with his smile.
• Three words – Alberta Oil Sands. Don’t know what it is? Google it. Better yet, Google “Alberta oil exports to US reaches over 1 million barrels per day”. Want more specific search criteria? Try this one – “Asian countries looking to import more oil from Canada by 2015”.
Yep – that’s right – we are an oil-producing nation and while you may be our preferred customer right now, we do have other options, including countries flush with cheap American dollars to spend wisely.
In between pictures of children playing with lead-painted toys introduced by your favourite Canadian-born US news anchor, there’s the unfair “dumping” thing. It’s true - we do have mile-high piles of softwood lumber that we tried to sell to you at worldwide commodity prices, but even though court after court has said it’s illegal, you have applied staggering import duties on it. To make matters worse, US builders would prefer to use our lumber – it’s higher quality than yours – but NAFTA be damned, they can’t import it without paying through their turned-up nose. Maybe when you protect your borders with that big honkin’ fence, you’ll come looking for it.
And while we’re speaking of kids’ safety, we also believe there should be better labour standards entrenched in every free trade agreement, including ours. The stories of the sweat shops with undocumented workers who are paid a pittance and forced to work long hours are concerning. But the horror stories aren’t ours – they’re YOURS! Don’t believe me – get your Google on again and look for “August 2, 1995 illegal workers chain link and razor wire El Monte, California.” It’s enough to make the stomach churn.
And when you’re reaching for your prescription-strength antacid, remember that old fight about re-importing of cheap drugs from Canada? Think it’s a shame to pay twice as much for the same drug from a US pharmacy? (Hmmm...wonder what would happen to that if there was no NAFTA…)
So it works both ways. How do I know this? Well, my Washington-based word processing software development mega company just reminded me that I had misspelled “labour” – at least, according to their dictionary. When y’all start getting little red squiggly lines for spelling your bank account as “chequing”, let me know. In the meanwhile, understand that your ability to easily export to us is helping you out. For example, there’s that late-night show that sells pimple cream that worked for all the young starts -- they sell an awful lot of their junk to Canadians. I know this because I’ve stood in the warehouse from where it’s being shipped. Apparently, we all want that all-American girl-next-door look and we’re willing to pay you big bucks for it.
(I never claimed we were particularly smart – just good consumers.)
But there is no doubt that you have economic issues right now, and naturally, you want to find someone to blame – but it’s not because of NAFTA, and despite the South Park characters protests to the contrary, it’s not Canada. There are a lot of renowned economists who have a lot of plausible theories, but I think you need only watch Dr. Phil to get the picture. Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself why you bought a $500,000 home with no money down on a $45,000 salary. Square that circle, my friend.
Or you can blame it on the Chinese government to whom you owe about a gazillion dollars - either/or.
Far be it from us standing-tall liberal Canadians to defend a clumsily self-proclaimed proud conservative liberal errr conservative Republican, but John McCain brought up a good point – Afghanistan. We have lost more combat soldiers there since 2002 than we have in 50 years and at least six were killed by your so-called “friendly” fire. Needless to say, we’re in no mood to be vilified by your news anchors as the “Canadian problem”, or by Clinton’s suggestion that we’re trying to kill your kids, or Obama’s suggestion that we do not have labour standards.
Truth is - we’re not your problem – we’re your solution. Our economy has been pretty good, and as a result, we have lots o’ money to spend, and with your dollar value being in the shitter, your goods are getting cheaper every day. Do you really want to make it hard for us to web-order our parkas from LL Bean? Didn’t think so.
At its core, economic theory is based on an oft-used cliché – you scratch our backs, we’ll scratch yours. You can also try the go-it-alone route if you think you have sufficient resources within your own borders to survive. I say give it a go. When you get low on gas, water and food, we’ll be there to help you out. By then, your dollar will be worthless and we’ll be rolling in Euros and Japanese Yen. So you may need to bring your money to the border in the biggest horse buggy you can find. We’ll be on the other side waiting, pimples and all.
Like her stuff? Vicki wrote fairly extensively for CBC news in 2004-2006, all available Here.
Labels: Culture Commentary, Headshake, One sheep follows another
posted by Cyemm at 6:35 AM
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