Free Trade Costs A Lot

To discuss free trade you must have more space than you get in a blog. There are some good things about free trade. There are many bad and expensive things about free trade.
Free trade is excellent for the 1%. Rich owners of international companies who  love free trade because it permits them to move their plants across international boundaries to get cheap labor and tax breaks.

Free trade does not increase the employments advantage of Canadian workers. Ontario lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs since free trade. Owners move their plants to the USA where labour is cheaper and unions have little power.

Ontario has lost five major plants in the last months by moves where operation costs are less but workers are paid less and benefits are sometimes non-existent. Heinz, and  Kellogg's are two examples.

The automotive industry has helped Ontario to become a world leader because we have great workers protected by good unions who protect the wages and benefits of its members. Free trade works at this point in time.
 The real losers in free trade are the people in the labor pool. Here workers who traditionally were among the best off in the world now have to compete with the labor forces in the free trade geographic area. This causes our workers to accept less on nearly every contract settled during the past few years. The great middle class is shrinking at an alarming rate.

The 1% are becoming so wealthy that some individuals have a greater income than some small countries.There is a great divide here where the gap between rich and poor is widening at a fast rate.

The great problem for Canada is that the Harper government has a foreign policy totally committed to becoming the salesmen for the oil and resource industries. Our government is using our tax dollars to promote these huge international companies on the world stage. These companies are for the most part are not even Canadian.The Prime Minister is so near sighted when it comes to Alberta oil that he personally advocates on their behalf..These companies receive huge tax dollars to grow and develop our Canadian resources without a cost benefit to the working people of Canada.

The pipeline debate is a case in point and watch the pressure on behalf of these interests during the days leading up to the next election. We need some balance between government support of huge industries and small business. Small business have been and remain the chief employer in the Canadian labor market.

Our government is ignoring the real needs in this country. Our system has been hijacked by this Harper Government and democracy has been raped over and over because of the secrecy  and central power in Ottawa. There is help on the way as Canadians are fed up and will not accept this to continue. Election day puts the power back in the hands of the voters on election. I only hope that people do use this power and vote.