Martin Regg Cohn On The Wider Implications of the Electro-Motive Debacle

So the first lesson of the London massacre: Ottawa must be vigilant about vetting foreign investment and retaining jobs, but also mindful of valuing — and anchoring — our homegrown intellectual property. Why underwrite our companies if we willingly sell off our embedded brainpower to foreign bidders who leave Canada cash-rich, patent poor and jobless?

That, and the following, essentially sum up an excellent article by Cohn found in today's Star:

Another lesson: When it comes to the economy, empathy isn’t enough. Premier Dalton McGuinty adopted a reflexively tepid tone from the start, expressing the vain hope that both sides would come to their senses. Belatedly last week, he ratcheted up the rhetoric by exhorting the plant’s owners to play fair.

But he never picked up the phone to the employer. Nor did he reach out to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to forge a non-partisan common front. When a company treats its workers like dirt, a premier should leave no stone unturned.

But of course, the one error Cohn makes in his piece is the underlying assumption that either Harper or McGuinty really give a damn about ordinary people in this country. Proof that this is a misguided assumption: our 'leaders'' virtual silence on yet another instance of unfettered capitalism wreaking havoc in this country, and the aiding and abetting role they played.