It's Just An Economy

A few things to think about before the election in October:

A formal review of cheese quotas under Canada’s trade deal with the European Union is quietly underway amid concerns that Europe’s cheesemakers are getting short shrift.

The EU invoked a review clause in the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) in April, citing longstanding concerns, according to documents obtained by the National Post. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with top EU officials in Montreal Thursday, one expert with knowledge of the trade irritant predicts it “will not be a happy visit.”

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Since the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union went into provisional force in September 2017, Canadian farmers and agri-food exporters have not seen their sales to Europe increase as expected. In fact, according to the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance (CAFTA), EU imports of Canadian agri-food products have actually decreased by 10 per cent, to a total of $2.6 billion, since the trade deal was implemented.

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As U.S. President Donald Trump was getting set to sign an executive order that would hit Canadian industry hard, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was getting tough on Trump, but for the wrong reason. 

Trudeau wasn’t speaking out against Trump on his latest protectionist move, the PM was speaking out against a series of tweets from Trump denouncing his Democratic opponents. 

“I think Canadians and indeed people around the world know exactly what I think about those particular comments. That is not how we do things in Canada,” Trudeau said in response to the tweets. ...

The province Trudeau calls home, the one he represents in the House of Commons, recently passed Bill 21, which would make it illegal for Congresswoman Ilona Omar to wear her hijab at work. The PM has now spoken out more stridently against a tweet by the American president than he has against an actual bigoted and unconstitutional law in his own country. 

Secondly, why isn’t he speaking out against Trump’s job killing moves that will undoubtedly hurt actual Canadians and cost jobs?

The latest executive order from the president increases the overall requirement that infrastructure projects be made up of American made goods from 50% to 75%. That requirement actually jumps to 95% for any steel or iron used in a project.  

“We’re standing up for the American worker like our country has never stood up for the worker before,” Trump said, as he signed the order. 

Where is Trudeau in standing up for Canadian workers?

Last week, when more than 600 jobs were lost at Bombardier rail plants in Ontario and Quebec due to protectionist measures, the only jobs Trudeau and his crew were standing up for were their own. 

Rather than picking up the phone and calling Trump, Trudeau’s team issued a news release blaming those job losses on a lack of transit investment by Ontario Premier Doug Ford. 

Indeed, why didn't Justin speak out against the job losses or anything going on in Canada, the country in which he is running for re-election?

Because it's easier to distract the public with virtue-signalling nonsense and mud-slinging than it is to do some actual governance.

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If Justin really believed he was elected to fight for Canada's interests, he would have no time to be a lazy, finger-pointing @$$hole:

Justin Trudeau failed Canadians by surrendering so much and getting pushed-around by President Trump during the NAFTA re-negotiations, and now we are seeing it happen once again with the United States’ Executive Order on Buy America.
 
When Justin Trudeau had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to negotiate a better deal for Canadians, he gave up concession after concession to Donald Trump without securing anything in return. Canada’s hard-working steel and manufacturing workers are now paying the price.

Just last week, Canada’s Premiers came together to call-on the Trudeau government to secure Canadian exemptions from Buy America policies. We have already seen the damage these Buy America policies can cause, and even though the Premiers raised their concerns, things have gotten worse.

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People who think that "free stuff" is actually free are part of the problem.

So there's that:

If you earn minimum wage and live in Vancouver, you would need to work 112 hours a week to afford a decent two-bedroom apartment, a new study says.

According to a new Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report, minimum wage earners in most major cities would need to work much longer hours in order to rent an average two-bedroom unit.

... says the policy group that argued that a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage would be a good thing.

Oops:

When Seattle officials voted three years ago to incrementally boost the city's minimum wage up to $15 an hour, they'd hoped to improve the lives of low-income workers. Yet according to a major new study that could force economists to reassess past research on the issue, the hike has had the opposite effect.

The city is gradually increasing the hourly minimum to $15 over several years. Already, though, some employers have not been able to afford the increased minimums. They've cut their payrolls, putting off new hiring, reducing hours or letting their workers go, the study found.

(Merci beaucoup)