"Ideological opposition to free trade in Canada is really, today, part of a very small part of the political spectrum - a very small and extreme part - and for that reason, I think you will find very few Canadians who are opposed in principle to having a free-trade agreement with Europe, which is one of the most progressive organizations in the world."
So, according to Prime Minister Harper, I must be part of small and extreme group. Or, at very least, I am sitting on the fringes. So be it.
He is right. It is not "free trade" that I have a problem with. It is the unintended consequences of free trade that cause me concern.
Let's face it. The world's markets are blending together into a singular mass. Goods are shipped around the world in a matter of days or weeks. In rare cases, it could even be just a few hours.
Want a rare Hawaiian flower to add to a bridal bouquet? No problem. It can be packaged, loaded on a plane, and delivered the very same day.
Want to have cherries in the mid-December? Just ship them from Chile where it is summer.
Want an expensive European sports car? It can be delivered in a few weeks.
The ability to get any product from anywhere in the world enriches our lives. The ability to do so without paying restrictive tariffs, in theory, makes the market place free and saves us money.
But it comes at a cost.
Wages, benefits, employee safety, and a host of other employment related issues are not the same around the world. The economic equation becomes one of balancing the cost of local manufacture versus cheap labour and shipping.
For many items - clothing being a good example - the wages and benefits that we enjoy in North America have steadily resulted in the demise of the garment industry. Clothes are designed in New York but they are manufactured in Bangladesh. Labour costs are a fraction of those in North America and benefit packages are non-existent. The $100 shirt manufactured domestically sells for $10 when imported.
The purpose of tariffs was to prevent exactly this sort of price undercutting from occurring. By putting a $90 tariff in place, both shirts would retail for the same price and domestic North American manufacturing could compete.
Such tariffs distort the market place, though, and are harmful to trade. The argument presented is often along the lines of: "By not importing from country X, their workers don't have jobs, they don't have incomes, and they are impoverished. We need to help by offering a market for their goods."
Except we have no control over the working conditions of foreign workers and they are often living of wages and working in conditions that most of us would consider beneath human dignity.
Of course, this is not the case in a free trade deal with Europe. The European Union is relatively prosperous. The Government's documents put the size of the EU's economy at $16.6 trillion dollars in 2012 compared to about $1.8 trillion for Canada.
But take those same numbers, express them in a slightly different way and things don't look quite as rosy. On a GDP-per-capita basis, the EU averages out to $33,200 compared to Canada at $52,519.
Canadians make more money than Europeans.
Indeed, we are sixth in the world. Four members of the EU (Norway, Switzerland, Luxemborg, and Denmark) along with Australia are ahead of us. Many EU states are way below us.
These inequities mean that many things will be more cheaply sourced in the EU than they can be sourced at home. Good news for Canadian consumers but bad news for our manufacturing sectors. It is really bad news for our fellow Canadians who are employed in the manufacturing sector. Manufacturers will import goods and make more money but workers will lose out.
Ironically, the price of goods that those workers consume will come down but without a job, they won't be able to afford them.
There is much hand wringing south of the border over the fate of Detroit. It is a city that lived on manufacturing cars. But with the ability to ship the factories themselves to cheaper labour markets and have the same cars made and assembled at lower costs, Detroit simply became too expensive.
Last year, it declared bankruptcy. And the automotive manufacturing sector in Ontario might not be far behind.
The rest of us, who still have jobs, are better off as we can buy cheaper cars. But it comes at a cost.
In the end, maybe I am not opposed to "free trade in principle" but if the past 25 years under the FTA and NAFTA has taught us anything, it is: "Be careful what you wish for because sometimes those wishes come true."
