Weekly Bulletin #7

This week there are a fair number of things that have happened, however three of them stick out the most, which are the HST debate, Harper's trip to China and our relations there, and finally the Copenhagen summit.

As mentioned in last week's post, I fully support the HST and wish the Ontario PCs and NDP would stop playing politics and look at what is best for Ontario. Likewise I was glad to see the Liberals endorse the HST federally, even though it would have been politically convenient to oppose it. While it is true the Tories encouraged both BC and Ontario to adopt the HST, both provinces could have said no, but both said yes realizing it would benefit them economically.

On the case of Harper's trip to China, much was made about his rebuke. There is no doubt under Harper we have neglected a very important relationship, however the answer is not to get cozy with them as some argue. Our relation with China is a difficult one that we have to find the right balance between ensuring Canada has access to one of the largest and fastest growing markets, but we don't become a pushover to them. We should certainly do more to trying promote our products in China, especially one's with strong potential (i.e. automobiles, lumber). When it comes to imports, I have no problem with low tariffs on Chinese imports, but we should have the right to impose tariffs on their imports when they manipulate their currency as for free trade to work, there has to be a level playing field. In the case of a more liberalized investment regime, this must be done with extreme caution. Unlike the EU, US, or India, a large chunk of Chinese firms are state owned and may be used for political purposes. Any liberalization of investment between both countries should be reserved to firms which the state owns less than 50% of the shares and this would also likewise apply to Canadian firms investing in China. Anytime a firm is over 50% state owned by the Chinese, we have the right to review and if not in our national interest block outright. On the case of human rights, I don't support China's practices, but they are hardly unique to China. Besides it is largely an internal issue and no country likes other countries sticking their noses in their domestic affairs so quite understandable their irritation with Harper.

The final issue is the Copenhagen summit. This comes right after the climategate scandal where a hacker hacked into the East Anglia University CRU computers and found evidence we have no been hearing the whole story. I don't want to jump on this until I hear all the details. Science in every issue is always evolving and nothing is ever 100% certain, although I do believe that global warming does exist and that humans at least are contributing to some extent. The question governments though have to tackle is which has a higher cost: taking action to combat climate change or adapting to a changing climate. I don't know the answer to this, but we should discuss the pros and cons for both. This is not an issue that should be considered case closed, in fact debates on every issue are essential in a healthy democracy and also important to adopting the best policies. I also think Canada should focus on taking action at a domestic level and not worry too much about what others are doing. We should not blindly follow the EU like some on the left want as we have a much larger land mass, with a colder climate, more resources, and a more sparsely populated country so meeting the same cuts they want would be far more costly and harmful to us than them. Likewise we should not blindly follow the United States as Harper wishes. Our economy may be closely tied, but we are still a sovereign country and should adopt what climate change policy is best for us. After all, British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec have taken much stronger action on climate change than Alberta, yet that hasn't resulted in those three economies being hurt despite the fact they are in the same country. My other beef with past climate change agreements is the 1990 baseline year. Since Kyoto Protocol, was signed in 1997, 1997 would seem the most logical for the baseline year, after all what is so special about 1990. I think the real reason 1990 was chosen was nothing to do with combatting global warming, but chosen since that was the year Germany re-united and the iron curtain fell and many of the inefficient communist factories in Eastern Europe closed down, thus causing a massive drop in GHG's in the few following years, but not beyond. Otherwise choosing this year made it the least painless for the EU to make its targets. Also some like Germany experienced target reductions beyond what Kyoto asked, but Spain and Greece both had emissions rise further than Canada. The only reason they aren't penalized as the EU negotiated targets as one unit, rather than 15 separate (there were 15 countries in 1997). Also we should not be required to send money to developing countries to deal with climate change. Money spent on this should stay in Canada for the benefit of Canadians. If a deal is reached and it serves Canada's national interest, we should sign it irrespective of whether the Americans do or don't, while if doesn't serve our national interest we should not sign it irrespective of what other countries do and irrespective of how it affects our international reputation. We should never apologize for defending our national interest even if others don't like it.