Buy nationally vs buy locally

Other protections I could see would be, with regards to a free labour movement agreement, that US citizens wishing to work in Quebec must pass a French test or otherwise prove knowledge of French. Of course the US would likely respond in kind to Quebec residents, expecting them to prove a knowledge of English. Fair enough. But at least those Quebecer who do know English could benefit from the US market just as Americans who know French could benefit from the Quebec market.

with your incistance on a "gas tax", I see you have no problem trying to destroy our trucking industry. Truckers are already having problems making ends meet with our existing fuel taxes, and you want to add more.

No, I'm not intent on destroying the trucking industry for the sake of destroying the trucking industry. However, I'm not interested in creating trucking jobs for the sake of creating trucking jobs either. We ought to have as many truckers as we need to promote economic growth, no more, no less. I'm for full employment in the economy both for economic reasons (meaningful jobs produce goods and services which contribute to the GDP) and for social reasons (people who are employed and contributing to the community can feel happier and better about themselves). However, as valuable as work is, it ought never, ever be a goal in and of itself, otherwise it's just a make-work job.

I could create plenty of trucker jobs quite easily. First, ban imports. The US would retaliate and, Bingo! suddenly a Vancouverite who used to buy a certain product from Seattle might have to buy the same product from Halifax if it's not produced anywhere else in Canada. Suddenly, the trucker who needed to transport the product between Seattle and Vancouver now has to transport it from Halifax to Vancouver. I'd just have created a boom in the trucking industry. But not only that. The increased traffic would also mean higher taxes to higher more labourers to build more highways. Sure the cost of the product would rise, taxes would go up, government spending would have to increase, but hey, more jobs, right?

Or how about a better alternative? Open up our borders, allowing the economy to function more efficiently by allowing for more localized trade. Sure it might cost a trucker or two their jobs, but on the other hand, the money saved by the company would allow it to drop the price of the product, thus helping to combat inflation. Reduced traffic would also mean less government spending on highway construction. The money saved from this would be redirected towards retraining the truckers for other trades and professions that are actually of benefit to the community rather than just plain make work jobs. While make-work jobs give someone a job at everyone else's expense, value-added job creation creates not just jobs, but wealth (be it material or spiritual) to boot, which after all ought always to be the ultimate purpose of a job beyond just keeping busy at others' expense for its own sake, which is then nothing more than masked welfare. If we blocked international trade just to create trucker jobs, even if they are private sector jobs, they would still essentially be nothing more than masked welfare since it would essentially be government protectionism that would be creating these valueless jobs paid for by the poor consumer.

That's what it was like when we were there, yes. A lot of orchardists have turned over from tree fruits to ginseng, grapes, etc. simply because they were priced out of tree fruits (as well as growing populations crowding the orchards out).

Speaking of shipping, getting rid of a lot of railway was pretty stupid. Rail is a lot cheaper, safer, and better for the environment at hauling large quantities of goods than trucking those goods. Same goes for transporting people.