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Stephen Harper, the self-professed economist (can you call yourself that when you don't have a Ph.D.?) who 'claims' such sterling management to the economy, has received another blow to his exaggerated and unwarranted reputation of competence:
A European Union analysis of the just-completed trade agreement with Canada suggests the EU gained more than it expected — and might have settled for less had Ottawa pushed harder.
The internal document, obtained by The Canadian Press, indicates EU exporters expect to make great inroads in the Canada market. Negotiators hope the gains can be used to their advantage in other trade negotiations, including talks with the United States that have just begun.
Could that be the real reason the CETA negotiations were conducted in such unprecedented secrecy?
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In his speech he bragged profusely about his European Union free-trade agreement. It is one of his the best achievements as a Prime Minister. Canadians will become very rich because of that.
ReplyDeleteHis 'spinning' really is getting out of control, LD. I suspect even he must need powerful anti-nauseants at times.
ReplyDeleteMore millstone than milestone.
ReplyDeleteA number of European nations have to ratify. How will The use of Canadian Embassies to spy on the leaders of these countries help.
Hating furriners is all fun and games until the furriners find out.
Good point, Rumley. There are a number of variables at play here.
DeleteThe EU negotiators and the business interests that controlled the process that produced the draft agreement were fully aware that they were dealing with a Canadian partner under extreme political pressure to arrive at a stage at which some degree of accomplishment could be claimed.
ReplyDeleteForeign governments and transnational business and investment interests have long understood that Canadian leaders eager for a political prize are easy dupes. There can be no doubt that Harper’s well-known ideological predispositions and his childish will to be perceived as the visionary father of “enlightened sovereignty” were received by the negotiating partners as added advantages to their efforts in the process.
Don’t be surprised if it turns out that Harper has been played the same way that Mulroney was played a generation ago by the interests that controlled the Canada-USA FTA negotiations. Similarly, don’t be surprized if, just as it was in the case of Mulroney and the NAFTA, the value of the Canadian agreement to our new partners is, more than any other outcome, the template that it may provide for a future more important venture involving the US.
The most damaging cost to Canada may eventually be realized in our potential surrender of sovereignty to the transnational labour mobility project for wage suppression. The project has been the fondest wet-dream of the market libertarian cult for over fifty years. In Canada the business collective has been pleased to discover a government that has been unable to control the abuses of the TFWP that have occurred under its watch. This government will have no hope of dealing for the benefit of the Canadian public with plans that have already been initiated by contractors and consultants trading in the labour mobility practice. That is, of course, to assume that this government would even have the will.
Thanks for your informed analysis, John. It is sounding more and more like Harper's ideological obsessions and his penchant for maintaining power at any cost are things that all Canadians will be paying heavily for in the foreseeable future. Perhaps the saddest part is that future governments, no matter their political stripe, will be unwilling and/or unable to reopen the terms of the agreement.
DeleteJohn's comments are quite germane. Harper's objective is to establish irreversible changes to the country. In the end, he seeks to entrench an unassailable oligarchy.
ReplyDeleteHarper's misbegotten notion that facilitating the corporate agenda is government's main purpose will cost us all a great deal, Owen, well into the future.
DeleteThe Euros got the measure of Harper from how he rolled over to the Chinese takeover of Nexen. The Nexen board couldn't find a North American buyer willing to pay much more than break-up value. The Chinese showed up offering substantially more than book value and so Harper rolled, promising never to do it again. Unmentioned was the pipeline commitment that went with the Politburo's Nexen takeover.
ReplyDeleteWhen has Harper done anything that was economically or fiscally shrewd? Yet a good many Canadians have bought the propaganda that he's a competent manager.
It continues to astound me, Mound, that so many still believe the Conservative propaganda of fiscal competence. When Harper states that Canada's economy withstood the 2008 crash better than most countries, he conveniently ignores the fact that it was largely due to our banking system, which, if the geniuses in the Conservative brain trust had had their way with banking deregulation, would have been as vulnerable as others to the economic chaos.
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