I see where Tiffany Gooch, full-time Liberal Party strategist and part-time Toronto Star op-ed writer, has crafted a paean to the derring-do of the Trudeau-Freeland negotiating team for their masterful take-down of Team Trump in the USMCA negotiations.
Yup, "our prime minister aimed high and held true to his commitment that he would only sign a deal that was good for Canadians."
Well, maybe, but I guess you'd have to ask yourself, which Canadians? The first NAFTA deal was good for some Canadians too, mainly the ones in the corner offices and on the shareholder roll. For Canadians on the shop floor, not so much.
Canadian auto-parts giant Magna built their first Mexican factory in the early '90s. Today they've got thirty-two plants in Mexico employing 28,000 Mexicans. That's the logical result of making a free-trade agreement with a third world economy. Why pay a Canadian twenty bucks an hour when a Mexican will do the same work for twenty bucks a day?
But our media and the political class still tell us every chance they get that NAFTA was good for us, and so of course this "new" deal will be too.
Being a Liberal Party shill means Gooch has to toss in the obligatory bit of virtue signalling re: this being a "progressive" trade agreement. Why, it defends the rights of workers against gender-based discrimination, don't ya know!
Protection against gender discrimination has been enshrined in Canadian law since the Charter of Rights, which predates the original NAFTA, so this is hardly a win for Canadian workers.
But isn't it nice that we're doing something for those 28,000 Mexicans working at Canadian owned auto plants in Mexico!
No comments:
Post a Comment