Wanderings – Reversing course is a better option

We are facing an extraordinary wake-up call as Canada enters a federal election period, with a very clear fork in the road for Canadians to decide. The hostile actions by U.S. President Donald Trump towards Canada are but the tip of the iceberg of a long period of changes – not necessarily for the better.

For nearly four decades, Canada – and most other countries – has moved into free trade agreements and expanded global trade. As our capacity to trade with others increased, labour markets made it less expensive to manufacture or build things here. Our worth on the global market changed.

Canada has long been a source of natural resources for others. Our country was discovered and mapped by the fur trade, followed by the lumber trade. Beavers were not turned into hats and sent to England; the raw pelts were sent in ships for English companies to produce things. The same with our lumber, and so on.

From the 1840s until the 1980s, Canada’s manufacturing base expanded due to some isolationist policies internally, and trade rules globally. Beginning with the Free Trade Agreement in 1988, the requirement for Canadian divisions of U.S. companies was nullified. For 20 years, we saw manufacturing jobs leave for the United States, and once Mexico was brought into the fold, the impact grew. Good-paying middle-class jobs in manufacturing were replaced with lower-paying call centre jobs, and so on. Our east-west view of trade in Canada turned north-south, to our detriment.

We are not isolated in this. The U.S. saw a similar movement to Mexico. Global trade expansion meant it was cheaper to pay the tariffs and outsource manufacturing to Asia, even with transportation costs. When products became more expensive to make in China, some companies moved work to India, or even Africa.

In Canada, our natural resources are our strength. But again, decades of looking north-south rather than east-west or internally means we miss out on the middle. Our oil is sold at a discount from Alberta, refined in the U.S., and we buy it back. This shakedown by Donald Trump, attempting annexation through economic terrorism, is no different than his belittling of Ukraine and hinging military aid on U.S. mineral rights agreements.

There is a solution to this for Canada: rebuild. Not because our country is broken; it is not and has never been broken – thanks, Pierre. We need to rebuild because being reliant on global trade and our supposed friends to the south has put us in the situation we are in now. No country should be beholden to any other country for anything.

In order to do this, we need to build and rebuild. This means building a national oil pipeline of some sort, and increasing capacity in our natural gas pipelines. This will take time, but it also shouldn’t.

Alberta’s oil production is currently four million barrels of crude oil, some of which is exported via the west coast. It takes 6,000 rail tank cars to ship one million barrels of oil per day. An extensive push to build a new pipeline to eastern Canada, while shipping some oil by rail, would mean more domestic use and reduce our reliance on imported gasoline.

On pipelines, why do we have to reinvent the wheel and slow the process? There are thousands of kilometres of rail lines, abandoned rail line rights-of-way, and even more kilometres of highways. Why create a new route? Lay some pipelines in the ground along the existing routes we have. And this will also create good-paying jobs.

Canadian and provincial governments can’t trip over themselves fast enough to offer a subsidy to some company willing to set up manufacturing here. We should use those powers to grow more domestic goods manufacturing in-house. By spending money to create or expand the facilities needed to convert our natural resources into finished products, which we then can sell in Canada, or decide to export, we will support more Canadian jobs.

This also applies to our food supply. For decades, experts have said we rely too much on U.S. imports for food and trade – especially food.

We live in a northern climate. Citrus trees surprisingly do not grow in sub-zero weather. Frankly, nothing grows in winter unless it’s in a greenhouse. These take space and energy. There have been some innovations. In the Cornwall area, there is a company that grows herbs and microgreens in shipping containers. Haul one in, and start growing. But for a country of 38 million, that’s a lot of shipping containers and micro-sprouts – and who likes to eat kale? (Yuck!)

Another company in Montréal has the right idea: rooftop greenhouses. The company runs a food delivery service as some local market producers do. Subscribe and get a weekly basket of fruit and veggies. In this company’s case, though, they grow their food on the roof of a logistics warehouse – several warehouses, in fact. That has the scalability to feed more Canadians and do so in-house and year-round. And these all create jobs.

We’ve tried it the global way by relying on partners who we perceived as friends. Clearly, it is not working out.