Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ubc-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!ubc-vision!ubc-ean!ubc-cs!acton From: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton) Newsgroups: can.politics Subject: Eastern Myopia Message-ID: <854@ubc-cs.UUCP> Date: Mon, 3-Dec-84 14:24:48 EST Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.854 Posted: Mon Dec 3 14:24:48 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 01:42:39 EST Organization: UBC CS, Vancouver, B.C., Canada Lines: 61 I see that can.politics has again slipped into a coma, not that some of us on the West coast haven't tried to prevent it from happening. Over the last several weeks Jim Robinson and I have posted several articles concerning such things as oil prices, tax policies, value added taxes, who is government for and free trade. The response, to say the least, has not been overwhelming. Yes, two or three other people have expressed opinions but they hardly provided enough material to spark a debate. Unfortunately, I see this as being a symptom of what is partly wrong with Canada. The disease is Eastern (central) Canada myopia and it regularly rears its ugly head in politics, business, the media and now it appears to have attacked the average citizen in those regions. The disease results in the victim refusing to acknowledge the existence of the other parts of Canada. If they do acknowledge the existence of Canada beyond the borders of Ontario and Quebec, they view it as an area that is suppose to serve the every command and whim of this central region. How do I know the disease exists? That is the easy part. All one has to do is look at what happens in politics. Western Canada makes requests of Ottawa and nothing happens, we are just ignored. We repeat the requests and are again ignored. The same happens on the net, we in the west express concerns about issues that are important to us but there is no response. I interpret this as meaning the issues aren't important to me so I won't discuss them and that is exactly what happens in politics. The power belongs to the MPs of Ontario and Quebec thus if the issue is not of political benefit to them it is not discussed. When the issue does become important to them (ex price of oil) then they are willing take action, but as usual the action is at the expense of the West. Another example of this, as pointed out by Jim Robinson, is in the area of trade. Nearly every commodity that the West produces is traded on the world market and subject to world prices. Examples of this are wheat, coal, minerals, lumber and pulp and paper. The markets for these products would expand even further if Canada would lift its tariffs off manufactured goods. An example of this occurred last year when BC negotiated a deal with Indonesia (I think) to increase lumber exports there. The deal, however, was conditional on Indonesia being allowed to sell some of its products, namely textiles, in Canada. The Canadian government, controlled by Ontario and Quebec, of course refused to allow this to happen because that would have meant that the textile industries in those provinces would have had to compete for a change. The net result is BC loses millions of dollars in lumber sales and consumers continue to pay needlessly high prices for government protected and subsidized products. You might say that protected the jobs in those industries and I say to you "Does that mean the a job to someone in eastern Canada is more important than to someone in the West?". From the politicians point of view it obviously is. That above action even goes one further, it says that it is more important to protect jobs in industries that aren't competitive then to create jobs in areas that are competitive in the unprotected world market and will continue to sustain themselves without government aid either in the form of direct subsidies or tariffs. Oil pricing on the other hand works in the opposite way. The West would like to sell its product at a higher price by simply allowing the price to approach world levels. But no, that would cost consumers in the East money and that could reduce a politicians vote count in the next election. So, the West is forced to sell at a lower price and to pay a tax to subsidize the oil bought on the world market for eastern Canada. What would higher prices do? It would increase exploration for oil and research into oil extraction methods for tar sands, it would (heaven forbid) create jobs and more wealth for western Canadians and it would encourage Canada to become self sufficient in energy. If these latest comments don't spark some discussion then I don't know what will. Donald Acton