It’s time, ladies and gentlemen, to either stand up and be Canadian or roll over and become American.
Should you wish for us to remain Canadian and proud of it, then we all must go back to a slogan made illegal by NAFTA many years ago.
Ever wonder what happened to it? It used to be emblazoned on every Canadian product and it was a government campaign proudly encouraging us to: Buy Canadian.
That slogan had to go by the wayside because one of the requirements of the so-called Free Trade Agreement was that the dividing line between Canadian and American markets had to be erased and products and services from both had to be freely available and advertised in both without distinction. There could be no discrimination based on country of source and it was made illegal for governments to support such discrimination (they could be – and were – sued for unfair trading practices).
And now see where that’s got us? We sold or slaughtered our local businesses, drove our farmers out of business (pushing their land into the holdings of huge American agri-businesses), sold our industries to Americans, sub-contracted out to American service providers and construction companies (when a company or government tendered a job for contract, American companies had to be invited, and were hired if they were cheapest), sold our resources down the creek and out of our sovereign control – and now they want more.
So now we need to support Canadian businesses that have not turned tail and become American closet-businesses. It’s time, ladies and gentlemen, to Buy Canadian (or at least, don’t buy from the U.S. or its new allies, the new Superpowers: Russia, China, and North Korea).
It’s time to boycott the Yankees.
R. Dean Helm
Victoria
