The Rural Voice, 1988-09, Page 91i3
COMPLETE LINE OF
ANIMAL FEED
– Hog
– Veal
– Dairy
– Beef
– Poultry
– Pet
111
treleaven's
feed mill ltd.
box 182, lucknow, ont. NOG 2H0
519-528-3000
1.800.265.3006
14 THE RURAL VOICE
FREE TRADE:
TO PUT IT BLUNTLY ...
To put it bluntly, the loyalties of
those of us who believe in freer trade
with the U.S. are as much, or more,
attached to Canada as those of the
opponents.
Those opponents fear that we
cannot compete with the Americans.
That's pure nonsense. We have com-
peted with them for 100 years and no
one can say that we did poorly. We
believe our people to be as capable or
more so than those in Washington.
I have read the FTA and find no
evidence that either our culture or our
industry is more threatened now than
it was before.
Instead of looking at the agreement
with an open mind we are subjected to
the spectacle of politicians supporting
or opposing along party lines — not
the most dependable debate.
To make sure that his stance was
correct, PC Mulroney appointed a
royal commission, headed by Liberal
Donald MacDonald, to collect all the
positive and negative points of a trade
deal. For two years the commission
asked any Canadian who wanted to
tell how free trade would affect them.
MacDonald's group sifted the
evidence and found that the positive
was greater than the negative for the
majority of Canadians.
Mulroney, presented with these
facts, was strong enough to change his
mind. In the wake of this the leader of
the opposition also changed his mind
from in favour to against, while the
traditionally inward -looking NDP un-
der Broadbent held on to its position.
Virtually all politicians obediently
followed their respective leaders. It is
time, but don't hold your breath, that
politicians put Canada's welfare ahead
of the welfare of their parties.
Let's take a sober look at the issue.
After World War II, the world did
not forget the economic mess it had
been in for the previous 15 or so years,
the so-called Great Depression. In
1948 a dozen countries put their heads
together to get rid of the trade obstruc-
tions that had induced the depression.
Among the foremost fighters for
economic freedom and trade liberation
was Canada. (We can have confidence
in the foresight of our own.) These
countries negotiated the first General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT). We haven't had a real
depression since and other countries
have begged to be let in on the deal.
The result has been stupendous.
Never in the world's history has it
been so prosperous. Where are the old
rusty cars we older folks used to
drive? We have TVs, radios, ghetto -
blasters, air conditioners. Virtually
everyone takes regular vacations. You
name it, we have it or we can afford to
buy it. We have social security our
parents didn't dare to dream of. All of
this because of the freeing up of trade.
Take the timorous fear that the
FTA would kill our social programs
because our industries would be un-
able to compete with American indus-
tries. That this is false speculation we,
Canadians, have shown by building up
our trade with the U.S. over the past
four decades to some 80 per cent of all
our trade, while still improving on our
social programs.
At the time of the birth of the
GATT, the Europeans began to form
free -trade areas that went beyond the
GATT — something like our FTA.
The three Benelux countries
started the idea, and you know what?
The Belgians, half of whom speak
Dutch and half of whom speak French,
didn't lose their culture and still
haven't lost it after 40 years of border
freedom. So much for the "we'll lose
our culture" argument.
The big European countries saw
the progress the three small ones were
making and French politicians began
to agitate for a European coal and steel
(cont'd)