The best course of action for Canada to persue in these troubled economic times would of course be to retool our internal economy to serve domestic needs, in other words build all those things that freetrade took away from us, such as, shoes, boots, tables, chairs, cars, food, pencils , pens, ships, chocho trains and kitchen sinks. As long as we allow our parasiticle capitalists to offshore our jobs and industries we will never enjoy anything but a decending standard of living and our children will eventually be owned by banks. Think I'm kidding? The student belongs to private banks right now and works for them till death. Capitalism must die before it kills us all.
Stop them in the villages, stop them in the towns, stop them in the big citys, now is the time for all free human beings to throw off the yoke of usury that will destroy your children and the elderly. This is the momentous act of human benevolence that can free the human race from it's opressive elite and herald an new age of enlightenment that has no room for compound interest or the useless murderous overclass that has retarded human progress for all time. Don't leave it to your children, crush them now while you can before the concentration camps.
While I do agree with much of what was said above, and I could continue to bang on the Revolutionary War Drum as I have in the past..... to keep the topic focused: yes I agree we should be developing and marketing more internally.
Sure it may have seemed like a great idea way back when, to shut down a high quality company here in Canada that made a great product, in exchange for the cheap knock off from some other country who could make something similar...... but how much does it cost for that product, when you add to it's general price, the cost of shipping it over here, shipping it through distribution accross the nation, and how much does it cost to replace that cheaper product when it breaks down?
Are you paying two or three times for one product that has a shelf life of a year, compared to a better quality product made within the country that might have a warranty of 5 years before replacing? Add the shipping of that cheaper product to the internal one?
When something goes wrong with that product, is it easy to get ahold of the company to address your concerns? In Canada sure...... but if the company you're contacting within Canada doesn't make their product and it's made overseas, then they'll usually pass the buck and say it's in their dept...... so who the hell do you contact then?
Do they even speak'a tha English?
What about quality check?
If the product is made in Canada, there are certain standards that need to be met..... as we have seen with much of the Pet foods from China, their lead toys, the milk now, etc..... things don't seem to be quality checked prior to being distributed and sold in our Country..... all these companies just rely on the reports given to them by the companies they're buying from and that's good enough it would seem.
How about the whole Taser issue?
It appears that we can not regulate products, or companies are just too lazy to regulate their products when they are made overseas.
I don't see why our own people couldn't get work in designing and creating these products within our country.
In the long run, it would be cheaper.