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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watmath.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!wjafyfe
From: wjafyfe@watmath.UUCP (Andy Fyfe)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Eastern Myopia
Message-ID: <10346@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Dec-84 04:48:22 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.10346
Posted: Wed Dec 12 04:48:22 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Dec-84 00:39:28 EST
References: <854@ubc-cs.UUCP> <653@watcgl.UUCP> <874@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: wjafyfe@watmath.UUCP (Andy Fyfe)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 35
Summary: 

In article <874@ubc-cs.UUCP> acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton) writes:
>About exporting lumber, isn't
>it our due to be allowed to export it?  The steel makers of Ontario think 
>it is their right to be able to export steel in an unfettered manner to the US.
>Now that the US is talking restrictions they are lobbying the government hard
>to put pressure on the US to have Canada exempted from any restrictions. 
>The government is of course obliging, all in the name of free trade.
>Doesn't it seem only fair that similar treatment be afforded BC when it
>tries to develop and sell its resources or does free trade only exist in
>one direction, to other countries?

When you talk about exporting lumber, what, beyond cutting down the
trees, is being done in BC?  At least with the steel industry, the iron
ore is mined, refined, and (from what I understand) shipped to the US
as a finished product.  If the government were fighting for the East's 
right to export iron ore, then I'd be worried.  The last figures I saw
for the rate of disappearance of Canadian forests were quite scary.  Are
you sure exporting lumber is in BC's LONG term interest?  (I live in a
part of the country where you have to look hard to find a real forest!)

I'm much happier if we can export a finished product, rather than the
means for someone else to make it for us (to import later, no doubt!).

Remember, the lumber deal was give and take.  "Not only does BC have
the right to develop its trade, it has the right to change the current
rules of the game (right or wrong as they may be) in the rest of the
country in order to get what it wants."  Is that what you mean when you
ask that BC be given its due?  Now that doesn't sound at all fair.
What did BC (or anyone else) have to give up to protect the steel
industry?  (The US response was to those counties that export cheaper,
government subsidized steel, something Canada doesn't do.)

May as well fuel the fire...

Andy Fyfe, U of Waterloo