With our American ‘friends’ using tariffs and taxes to put us on our knees, both economically and physically, I am trying to follow Assistant Leader Duggy’s advice and buy Canadian (not Made in the USA). This is tricky because the labelling for the country of origin is often in fine print, missing, or too small for my eyeglasses to see under the lights in the stores.
Duggy is saying, for instance, that we should forego orange juice from Florida or California, which by the way, is full of good stuff but also fructose, which is not so good for diabetics, and instead eat one vitamin C+D pill with my breakfast.
He also recommends not buying and drinking Kentucky bourbon, which I always wondered why any Canadian would drink when we have perfectly good Canadian rye on the shelf. Really, Duggy? Let us get serious here. Besides, how many oranges can one fellow eat? How much bourbon can you drink?
It is the business people – the exporters and the importers – who are the ones really affected by these financial barriers. On both sides of the border. The obvious ones are the big cheeses like the oil exporters and the gasoline importers. Okay, cheese producers too. I guess maybe that will affect me. Anyway, I was thinking more of the farmers, fishers, and lumber people, maybe the diggers of rare minerals too. When you have one major market and it suddenly goes kaput, what do you do?
Of course, one should have more than one customer for your product. And one should be selling value-added stuff, not raw materials. I guess we Canadians were just never hungry enough to buckle down and make some money like our former cousins south of that artificial line. That is not a line drawn in the snow, but on a piece of paper called a map. A map with incorrect names for seas and such. The new Prez is going to fix those mistakes.
Our reputation as hewers of wood and carriers of water is deserved, for we have not progressed, not kept pace, with the rest of the developing world.
Our productivity is falling behind instead of keeping up or surging ahead as it should be. No doubt that our governments have some responsibility for this malaise, but we elected them to give us a comfortable life, with safety nets all around, that other countries, businesses, and entrepreneurs put aside while forging ahead with new ideas, new ways of generating wealth.
Now we are trying to play catch-up, moving to the right side of the political spectrum.
About those potatoes. The TV news ran a piece about a potato farmer down east who had bags of potatoes that were destined for the US market. They were good quality potatoes that any restaurant would be happy to serve, or any frozen food manufacturer would love to turn into frozen fries. Heck, you could even dry, reconstitute them, and turn them into Pringles. The price was very competitive compared to those inferior spuds from Idaho.
Until they put a tariff on them.
So it will become our duty to eat more potatoes. Boiled, mashed, roasted, scalloped, and fried. You can order a large portion at the Arches. Wait, wait. Isn’t that an American company franchise? Maybe Tims will start selling fries with their pizza. Wait again. Isn’t Tims owned by Americans too? Holy cow, do we have any Canadian eateries? Does this mean we will have to cook our own potatoes to be patriotic and fight the tariffs?
We could call them Freedom Fries.
Then there was the story about the crab fisherman and his tubs of squirming, leg-waving crustaceans. How could he sell them to the Americans, who apparently love snow crab legs, if he had to add 25% to the cost? I am not an impatient man, but digging the succulent meat out of skinny crab legs is not my idea of a relaxing meal at the Bistro. Crab salad, yep, pretty darn good, but Snow Crab Legs is more of a Boston and New York City thing. The answer for the crab fisher is to get a machine to remove the meat, can it, and sell it to Canadians as ‘a tariff delicacy’.
The issue with redirecting potatoes, snow crabs, and other things is that it is going to cost the producers some money. Perhaps this has all come about because of our past trade practices and the naiveité that we thought Americans were our buds. In any case, we may have to give some financial aid to our people until this gets settled in the world of trade. In the meantime, we should be eating more of our Canadian potatoes, crabs, and other stuff. And buy them at a Canadian store – if you can find one.
And OMG, before we do anything about The Donald, let us be rid of these petty inter-provincial tariffs.
By the way, if you are thinking that this sad state of affairs will only last 4 years, what makes you think things will change when this term ends? Just saying.
