Apolitical Staples

I have no doubt it can be too, if Harper gives Quebec everything it wants. The Americans were happy with that style of negotion during the softwood lumber talks, why not Quebec? :)

While he’s at it, maybe Harper can open up free trade with the Provinces so that we can trade as easily on an inter-provincial basis as we do with the US.

Trade barriers within Canada, thanks mostly to unions holding us hostage, have been a problem that Ottawa has thus far been afraid to tackle. I expect Harper will link this to the “fiscal balance” solutions. I see the potential for decades old inaction and appeasement finally being tackled.

The Americans got everything they wanted. They clearly wanted to:

• Give back $4B, they were just waiting for the right time the last few years

• give us a 34% market share, they were just waiting for the right time to share it with us the last few years

The agreement we got was far worse than the one we would have been able to hammer out had we held our breath and stamped our feet and demanded absolutely everything we felt we were entitled to or nothing at all. That sort of playground negotiation was working well for the Liberals. You can tell how well it was working by the way the Americans came crawling to Martin time after time, begging him to make a deal.

Pull your head out. It’s a sunny day.

Why not make Quebec a more autonomous region? it could become a receptacle for frustrated “progressives” from other parts of the country. A sort of catch basin, if you will.

Decentalization has been party policy well before the party had a chance in Quebec. It existed in the Reform platform before they elected a single member.

Yes O.C. I am sure it just killed the U.S. to give us back 4 billion dollars of our money. Afterall a billion isn’t what it used to be and they worked so hard for it. A couple of questions about Quebec, define “autonomous” and who will pay for it? If you and Harper can answer those two questions to the whole county’s satisfaction, you deserve to rule for a long time.

Conservatives Bush and Harper wanted to compromise and reach a solution to a longstanding political problem. The Liberal/NDP did not want a solution that would remove this scab from the front pages and neutralize the anti-Americanism that plays so well to adolescent Canadians who have an identity problem

Similarly, the Bloc and PQ do not want a solution. If a solution is found, they will not be able to campaign on their victimization card. Also, Liberals will no longer be the Natural Governing Party unless Quebec is a problem. Therefore Liberals have had no incentive to solve the problem, they simply appeased it.

You nailed nomdenet, separatism is an industry. It employs a lot of people but creates no wealth.

“Yes O.C. I am sure it just killed the U.S. to give us back 4 billion dollars of our money. Afterall a billion isn’t what it used to be and they worked so hard for it.”

Not the point at all, as I suspect you understand. $4B is better than $0B, which is what we were going to get with the all or nothing Liberal/NDP flag-waving, chest thumping approach, directed more at drumming up knee jerk anti-American “progressive” sentiment than at actually resolving the matter.

“If you and Harper can answer those two questions to the whole county’s satisfaction, you deserve to rule for a long time.”

au·ton·o·mous (ô-tŏn’ə-məs) adj.

Not controlled by others or by outside forces; independent: an autonomous judiciary; an autonomous division of a corporate conglomerate. Independent in mind or judgment; self-directed.

Independent of the laws of another state or government; self-governing. Of or relating to a self-governing entity: an autonomous legislature. Self-governing with respect to local or internal affairs: an autonomous region of a country.

I said “more” autonomous. A more autonomous Quebec could pay its own expenses with transferred tax points (with the feds moving out of provincial jurisdictions it had been previously meddling in), to the extent it could afford to do so.

You’ll have to talk to Mr. Harper to get his views.

Let’s be fair — it was four billion of American consumers’ dollars.

If anyone ought to be getting upset here…

Ben - it was $4Bn, some of which came from American consumers and some of which came from Canadian producers, depending on relative supply and demand elasticities. The US homebuilding lobby groups were squarely on the side of Canadian producers, as was the lumberyard / DIY retail sector - fat lot of good it did us.

That prompts an interesting question: if no duties had been levied, would more or less than $4B in profits have been taken?