Canadians for Trump

 

As a Canadian, I am cheering for Trump in the current trade dispute with Canada.

This may sound treasonous to some. Canadians are currently swept with the ugly mass hysteria of nationalism, driving us, like so many countries before, to act against our own interests.

Canada cannot win a trade war with the US. Canada’s greatest economic advantage, not to mention its greatest national security advantage, is living next door to the USA: the world’s richest market. And we are going to fight with our customers? Dumb.

 The USA has trade grievances with Canada; and doing what the US wants would not just be good for America: it would also be good for Canadians. Trump is fighting for Canadians’ interests against our own government. 

The biggest butt carbuncle is Canadian “supply management” of eggs, poultry, and dairy. This is a tax on the Canadian poor, for the benefit of a small number of farmers—or farm corporations. Drop it, and the cheapest forms or protein become cheaper. A blessed relief in an era of food price inflation. At the same time, more Canadians could farm; more competition. American and European producers could enter the market, again lowering prices, and giving Canadian consumers more choices—think of all those European cheeses becoming much cheaper.

Of benefit to consumers, clearly. And most of us are consumers, not producers. But also quite possibly of benefit to producers. They too have lost great opportunities as a result of the production quotas. Canada was once the world’s largest supplier, for example, of cheddar. The quota system forced us out of that market. Many rural dairies had to close; now if you buy cheddar abroad, it is invariably from Ireland or New Zealand. Canada has lost a major export industry, for the benefit of a few thousand established suppliers. With no incentive to improve the product or their efficiency.

Then there are the restrictions on foreign ownership of Canadian companies. The Americans hate this. These can be reasonable when national security is at stake—but American ownership ought to be exempt from such concerns. Probably NATO allies should be exempt. We want investment. By their nature, restrictions on foreign investment are a restraint on trade, a brake on the economy, and force prices up for Canadian consumers. Canadians, and Canadian businesses, suffer from unreasonably high ISP and telecommunications costs as a result of these restrictions.  It would be at least as much in Canadians’ as in Americans’ interest to lift them all for American investments in Canada. 

Then there are the various “Canadian content” restrictions supposed to protect Canadian culture. These too look to the Americans like a non-tariff protectionist measure. They might make sense if 1: Canadian culture were substantially different from American culture, and 2: the content so protected were distinctly Canadian. But neither of these premises hold. American content coming across the border, is actually a better reflection of Canadian culture than the “multicultural” content the Canadian government favours. And the bureaucratic costs of policing, enforcing, and conforming to these restrictions is significant, and kills creativity.

Canadian talent has always been able to compete very well internationally, thank you very much; including before there were any Canadian content regulations. Robert W. Service, Stephen Leacock, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Alice Munro, Leonard Cohen, Cirque du Soleil, Celine Dion, Mack Sennet, Neil Young, The Guess Who, Louis B. Meyer, ... none of them needed protectionism. Those who do probably do not deserve it. The truth is, Canada has long “punched above its weight” in the international culture. Probably largely from the advantage of living next door to the USA. 

Of course, Trump also wants a crackdown on fentanyl trafficking. And we are against this why? I see the homeless every time I go uptown. We did not use to live this way. Do we really want to live this way?

Now the US economy is growing at about twice the rate of Canada’s. And we are pouting in a corner and missing this great opportunity to engage.