Ollie:
I've got strong opinions but maybe not quite as strong as yours. First let me say that in this part of Canada, you would have to hunt pretty hard to find anybody that supports our current government. We are prairie people and think very much along the same lines as the people in Montana, North Dakota, or Wyoming. That little line in the dust doesn't mean much to us. The people who run this country live north of New York and Detroit. Over half of Canada's population lives in that little piece over the great lakes. We vote and we get to see who they elected. We just hope that our Conservative minority fights the good fight for us. On the matter of the war, if I remember correctly, in World War 2, the Americans didn't come in until after Pearl Harbor. This is long after the Canadians were fully engaged. This just shows that we are still independent countries and we have free will when it comes to these things. We did, however, follow you into Afghanistan and more recently into Haiti. For what its worth, most of us in the west felt that we should have been in Iraq at least as back up. When I talk about protectionism, I'm talking about these constant challenges put forth by your government accusing our government of subsidizing our industries. First it was the softwood lumber challenge. That industry is not subsidized at all but we can produce cheaper than you because about 1/3 of Canada is covered with trees, yet for some reason the American government seems to think that if we are producing cheaper we must be subsidizing. Then there were a whole series of challenges from the US on our wheat board. Yes, we can produce wheat cheaper as well. Land up here is relatively cheap because its cold and I've seen snow in every month except June and July. who would want to live here? We are a large producer of fertilizer. When the Canadian dollar was worth $.66 american, we were making $1.50 for every American dollar. Now, the US government is putting forward a challenge on our hogs. Most of the big barns are run by Hutterite colonies which is kind of like a big communal family farm. They are cheaper because the labor is cheaper, but there are no government subsidies. All of these legal challenges are costing our producers money. Last year, the farmers in Canada overall lost money. We can't afford this extra stuff. The funny thing is there are never any challenges about how come we can supply oil and gas or electricity to the US so cheap because that seems to be what you need and it isn't affecting any American jobs. Anyway, I'm still threatening to do a big diatribe on why the protectionists are wrong and the free enterprisers are right. Maybe tomorrow.
