zang
Senior Member
Italy has been suffering a brain drain for years. I feel Trump's (and even Canada's) recent anti-immigration movements are going to end up helping a lot of the EU with problems like this.
|
|
|
- Thread starter Monarch Butterfly
- Start date
zang
Senior Member
Well, if any grandparent is from the UK, there's an avenue for citizenship by descent.
That said, I'd prefer we join the EU. It's literally already on our doorstep, and would make immigration to anywhere less insane much easier.
zang
Senior Member
Because in a time when we more fully realize that natural resources aren't infinite, things like holding land only for say, fishing rights is a lot more important. See; St. Pierre et Miquelon.Speaking of Greenland and Denmark, I find it interesting that we never see mention of the last time the USA acquired Danish territory.
Treaty of the Danish West Indies - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
If Denmark was willing to sell off its overseas territory and its resident citizens to the USA in the 1916, Trump could reasonably ask, why not do it again 110 years later?
Last edited:
evandyk
Senior Member
The provinces can't even agree on harmonizing their own regulations to make intraprovincial trade smoother. And we are going to join the EU? LOL.
zang
Senior Member
C'mon. The interprovincial trade "barriers" complaint is a whole lot of BS being pushed by the same kind of conservatives who'd have voted for Trump were they from the U.S.
Unless we're going to scrap provincial governments and borders altogether, there will always be differences in regulation across provincial jurisdiction. It doesn't stop the vast majority of trade across the provinces and removing barriers will ultimately end up creating a lowest common denominator in regulations, making it hard for stronger, safer regulation to come into play. The only people who will truly benefit will be large corporations.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Small grammar pendant but migration "to" someplace is 'emigration'.
evandyk
Senior Member
The EU harmonizes regulations across 27 countries in a way that we can't even get 10 provinces to agree on. I don't see any province agreeing to let the EU take over their area of currently exclusive jurisdiction.
Richard White
Senior Member
Hence why our system is so broken.
At some point we may need to look at rejigging the jurisdiction of alot of things. Interprovincial trade and healthcare spending should be a federal issue not provincial while other things like policing should be left up to the provinces (think RCMP providing local services).
evandyk
Senior Member
It is broken. But it's just a joke to think that if the provinces won't agree to some sort of national scheme to harmonize regulation, they'd agree to be part of the EU. It's funny to joke about Canada being part of the EU, but I saw some people commenting who seem to think it's something serious that is actually an option in terms of reducing our dependency on the US.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Richard White
Senior Member
I consider the EU to be the new USSR only less Communist and more Social-Democrat. It is the one thing that provides balance to the US like the USSR did.
When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the US was left to its own devices with unchecked power. It was not until the early 2000s when the former Warsaw Pact countries joined the EU that the EU became a major geopolitical power.
Without the EU, there is nothing to stop the US from doing whatever they please. At least with the EU there is an alternative.
Do I think we will join the EU? No. Do I think it will be better to have closer ties with them? Yes.
evandyk
Senior Member
We have a free trade agreement with the EU that could be a whole lot better, which is the place to start.
evandyk
Senior Member
Sure, there are Canadian producers for a whole lot of the products we import from the US. But if we all start buying them right away, the price will increase substantially, which is kind of the point of tariffs as industrial policy. Trump's tariffs are designed to do exactly that for US consumers.
Those lists are problematic because what defines made in Canada? 100% Canadian products produced, manufactured, packaged etc all in Canada? And then there are US companies that employ a lot of people in Canada -- do we put their jobs at risk? Plenty of shades of grey to contend with, and people are busily virtue signalling and arguing about it everywhere.
zang
Senior Member
As someone with Maritimer in-laws, I'd like to point out that King Cole Tea is also Canadian, and makes one of the best Orange Pekoes on the market. Their parent company (G.E. Barbour) are from New Brunswick and date back to Confederation. They have been pressing hard to expand outside of the Maritimes.