- Aug 6, 2012
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There has been a great deal of discussion about NAFTA, especially during the election campaign. The majority of the discussion has been focused on Mexico for obvious reasons which I don’t need to get into here because I am not well versed on that subject. I am however, very well versed on the challenges Canada presents to America. This will be the first of a couple of parts, I will express more specific details along the way. I welcome discussion and even recommend you contact local politicians to view these postings, I would be happy to speak about what I know accordingly.
First, I will be succinct; Canada violates NAFTA and regularly stabs America in the back. The methods that are used are right out of the Communist playbook (Canadians call it “socialism”). It is meant to be an “equalizer” of sorts for Canada, since we do not have the ambition and system focused on competition, innovation, individualism and free markets. So instead, interference is run against foreign businessese, especially and particularly American businesses at an alarming rate.
If you were to guess which nation has been named for the most United Nation Human Right abuses, in the entire world, who would you think it would be? You might be surprised that it is Canada. If you were to guess which nation is the most indebted sub-borrower in the entire world, would you guess it was Ontario? How about the most sued trading violation nation in the world? Yep, once again Canada. These are all results of Canadian abuses of free markets, human rights, nepotism, cronyism and abuse of foreign businesses. All of these examples are global assessments, in a small nation of 35 million.
NAFTA has a grievance process, it is a process that has seen Canada become by far the most sued nation in the alliance. The protectionism that Canada is now speaking out loudly against is exactly what Canada has been doing, but worse, they are doing it covertly. So, as much as Canada is sued for overt and obvious violations there are FAR more abuses which go undetected and without consequences.
As example of such tactics: if an American corporation decides to move to Canada, the Canadian government and the security apparatus, lead by the RCMP and their surrogates; will not necessarily embrace this, especially if it threatens a Canadian monopoly or oligopoly, or, government owned businesses (of which there are many). Rather than creating problems with openly extreme protectionism and exposing Canada as a quasi-communist state, it is far easier (and far more difficult to be caught) to simply undermine that business without them being knowledgeable of the act. It is a direct threat to capitalism, but it is the Canadian (and Eastern Bloc) method.
So what happens is that Canadian authorities will enter said organization and interfere with their operation. This can be anything from spreading negative opinions about the company or even the nation of America, quite often the prefered method is to start befriend employees and spreading interest in a union or something akin to distrupting their workforce. Even when such grievance or interest in a union does’t exist, it is artificially injected into the workplace by the state. Doing so ensures that the competitive advantage a company might have versus Canadian companies is lost or at the very least harmed. This desire for a union will not have come from the employees themselves in a natural manner, which is a valid and legitimate negotiation if the need exists, but, it will be artificially “created” by the State agent(s), whos objective is purely to undermine the American businesses right to self determination and employer/employee harmony. The company will either have to deal with an expensive union bargaining process, or, they will close shop and leave.
I am aware of at least two instances in which this happened, in one case, the U.S business simply closed shop and wisely left Canada without warning, leaving many without jobs. In many more cases one can infer such activities were going on with the placement of operative in a corporation and tampering with HR, Executive positions, management etc. In the aforementioned, these particular situations are abound and it isn’t difficult to extrapulate other similar sitations based on the facts of real outcomes. None less high profile than in the 1990’s when Wal-Mart was expanding in Quebec.
A number of employees at one location started to push hard for a union; almost unheard of in the retail world. In fact, I can’t name one retail business in Canada that is unionized. The end result? Wal-mart decided that this particular location wasn’t convenient and simply opened one up many miles away. Again, costing these employees a potential career but also adding major costs to Wal-Mart. Again, I do not have any evidence that provincial or National authorities were involved in this drive for a union, but one can only wonder based on the timing and the rabid concern from Canadian media about the threat to Canada’s retail companies at the time when Walmart was expanding.
To be sure, these tactics if shared with the average American business would be found to be appalling. The belief that somehow Canada is a free market capitalist state and a democracy is inaccurate, in many instances it’s not even questionable they are abusing their authority, which is why Canada is sued so often. We are a Democratic Monarchy, by it’s nature, centralized powers and government intervention in the most minute of citizen and business pursuits. A Charter of Rights and Freedoms that is neither respected by authorities nor protected. The individual and businesses considerations secondary to State objectives.
These covert methods under the guise of “security” might be the greatest and most insulting abuse of NAFTA, but it is far from the only method the Canadian government uses. It is such an egregious tactic that some time ago when having a discussion with an American business that was considering moving to Canada I suggested to him that he “might want to send over his own Human Resources Department”, even if just for the first year. It was an interesting exchange.
For the record, I am like many of you, a believer in “fair” trade. Transparent, loyal to democracy, civil rights and laissez-faire economics. If you have a position on trade, speak it openly, don’t subversively stab allies in the back, these beliefs transcend my own country of birth when they harm everyone with these insulting methods and I haven’t been silent about it (at great personal cost).
As an aside, my guess is these tactics have not gone unnoticed by Americans and as I stated I have done my part to share what I know. Sometime ago I read that Trump when discussing trade was suggesting use of “intelligence in trade”, which is a broad statement but it had a particular connotation to me.
Thanks for your time, more to follow, the undermining of American business pursuits in Canada is far more perversive than Americans would think even though Canada misrepresents itself constantly.
First, I will be succinct; Canada violates NAFTA and regularly stabs America in the back. The methods that are used are right out of the Communist playbook (Canadians call it “socialism”). It is meant to be an “equalizer” of sorts for Canada, since we do not have the ambition and system focused on competition, innovation, individualism and free markets. So instead, interference is run against foreign businessese, especially and particularly American businesses at an alarming rate.
If you were to guess which nation has been named for the most United Nation Human Right abuses, in the entire world, who would you think it would be? You might be surprised that it is Canada. If you were to guess which nation is the most indebted sub-borrower in the entire world, would you guess it was Ontario? How about the most sued trading violation nation in the world? Yep, once again Canada. These are all results of Canadian abuses of free markets, human rights, nepotism, cronyism and abuse of foreign businesses. All of these examples are global assessments, in a small nation of 35 million.
NAFTA has a grievance process, it is a process that has seen Canada become by far the most sued nation in the alliance. The protectionism that Canada is now speaking out loudly against is exactly what Canada has been doing, but worse, they are doing it covertly. So, as much as Canada is sued for overt and obvious violations there are FAR more abuses which go undetected and without consequences.
As example of such tactics: if an American corporation decides to move to Canada, the Canadian government and the security apparatus, lead by the RCMP and their surrogates; will not necessarily embrace this, especially if it threatens a Canadian monopoly or oligopoly, or, government owned businesses (of which there are many). Rather than creating problems with openly extreme protectionism and exposing Canada as a quasi-communist state, it is far easier (and far more difficult to be caught) to simply undermine that business without them being knowledgeable of the act. It is a direct threat to capitalism, but it is the Canadian (and Eastern Bloc) method.
So what happens is that Canadian authorities will enter said organization and interfere with their operation. This can be anything from spreading negative opinions about the company or even the nation of America, quite often the prefered method is to start befriend employees and spreading interest in a union or something akin to distrupting their workforce. Even when such grievance or interest in a union does’t exist, it is artificially injected into the workplace by the state. Doing so ensures that the competitive advantage a company might have versus Canadian companies is lost or at the very least harmed. This desire for a union will not have come from the employees themselves in a natural manner, which is a valid and legitimate negotiation if the need exists, but, it will be artificially “created” by the State agent(s), whos objective is purely to undermine the American businesses right to self determination and employer/employee harmony. The company will either have to deal with an expensive union bargaining process, or, they will close shop and leave.
I am aware of at least two instances in which this happened, in one case, the U.S business simply closed shop and wisely left Canada without warning, leaving many without jobs. In many more cases one can infer such activities were going on with the placement of operative in a corporation and tampering with HR, Executive positions, management etc. In the aforementioned, these particular situations are abound and it isn’t difficult to extrapulate other similar sitations based on the facts of real outcomes. None less high profile than in the 1990’s when Wal-Mart was expanding in Quebec.
A number of employees at one location started to push hard for a union; almost unheard of in the retail world. In fact, I can’t name one retail business in Canada that is unionized. The end result? Wal-mart decided that this particular location wasn’t convenient and simply opened one up many miles away. Again, costing these employees a potential career but also adding major costs to Wal-Mart. Again, I do not have any evidence that provincial or National authorities were involved in this drive for a union, but one can only wonder based on the timing and the rabid concern from Canadian media about the threat to Canada’s retail companies at the time when Walmart was expanding.
To be sure, these tactics if shared with the average American business would be found to be appalling. The belief that somehow Canada is a free market capitalist state and a democracy is inaccurate, in many instances it’s not even questionable they are abusing their authority, which is why Canada is sued so often. We are a Democratic Monarchy, by it’s nature, centralized powers and government intervention in the most minute of citizen and business pursuits. A Charter of Rights and Freedoms that is neither respected by authorities nor protected. The individual and businesses considerations secondary to State objectives.
These covert methods under the guise of “security” might be the greatest and most insulting abuse of NAFTA, but it is far from the only method the Canadian government uses. It is such an egregious tactic that some time ago when having a discussion with an American business that was considering moving to Canada I suggested to him that he “might want to send over his own Human Resources Department”, even if just for the first year. It was an interesting exchange.
For the record, I am like many of you, a believer in “fair” trade. Transparent, loyal to democracy, civil rights and laissez-faire economics. If you have a position on trade, speak it openly, don’t subversively stab allies in the back, these beliefs transcend my own country of birth when they harm everyone with these insulting methods and I haven’t been silent about it (at great personal cost).
As an aside, my guess is these tactics have not gone unnoticed by Americans and as I stated I have done my part to share what I know. Sometime ago I read that Trump when discussing trade was suggesting use of “intelligence in trade”, which is a broad statement but it had a particular connotation to me.
Thanks for your time, more to follow, the undermining of American business pursuits in Canada is far more perversive than Americans would think even though Canada misrepresents itself constantly.
