Should Canada hold a referendum on free trade?

Should Canada remain a member of its present free-trade agreements or should it adopt

  • Canada should remain a member of its present free-trade agreements.

    Votes: 2 50.0%
  • Canada should adopt unilateral free trade.

    Votes: 2 50.0%

  • Total voters
    4

CaptainTrips

Nominee Member
Jul 29, 2018
87
0
6
Hong Kong's ONLY tariffs relate to tobacco, alcohol, and fuel. That though was motivated not by nationalist protectionism but rather by the desire to protect public health and the environment.

As far as I know, Singapore has no tariffs whatsoever or if it does, like in Hong Kong, it imposes them only on non-desirable products.

Feel free to prove me wrong. From all I've read, Singapore has gone to unilateral free trade:
https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Unilateral-Free-Trade.pdf

Here's an example of a Singaporean Free Trade Agreement:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-lester/excluding-tobacco-from-tr_b_12750088.html

You'll notice that Singapore and Australia are already free traders. If anything, they were negotiating reducing free protection on tobacco companies. In other words, when a country is protectionist, it's busy negotiating for the union lobby. When it's a free-trading nation, it can shift its focus on public health, safety, and other more important matters.

As I said before Singapore has a bunch of FTAs, not unilateral free trade.
 

MHz

Time Out
Mar 16, 2007
41,030
43
48
Red Deer AB
Why couldn't we hold a referendum on everything that Ottawa deals with? Vote on the Revenue Canad website, the more times you vote the bigger your pension is when you retire from your real job.
 

CaptainTrips

Nominee Member
Jul 29, 2018
87
0
6
As I said before, unilateral free trade and FTAs are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Even Canada engaged in unilateral free trade under Harper albeit to a very limited degree while still keeping its FTAs.

You are asking in your poll if Canada should adopt unilateral free trade. You are pointing to Singapore as an example of a country that has done this, which is false. Singapore trade is governed by a number of FTAs. FTAs are not unilateral free trade.
 

Walter

Hall of Fame Member
Jan 28, 2007
34,888
126
63
Why couldn't we hold a referendum on everything that Ottawa deals with? Vote on the Revenue Canad website, the more times you vote the bigger your pension is when you retire from your real job.

Then why hold elections?
 

CaptainTrips

Nominee Member
Jul 29, 2018
87
0
6
Then why hold elections?

So we can elect more women and Sikhs I suppose. SWMs won't be allowed to run in the future. The NDP have already gone in that direction with their nomination rules.

A guy in BCs interior had to claim he was gay in order to qualify for a nomination he had won fair and square. He is married with a family.
 

MHz

Time Out
Mar 16, 2007
41,030
43
48
Red Deer AB
Somebody has to answer the phone. Paying somebody to vote in your place when they vote the other way is not something that fixes itself. When the telephone replaced the pony express that ended the days when referendums were not the best method of the vote being a true reflection of all Canadian voters. These days you vote in whoever is going to fuk you over the least.

He is married with a family.
Maybe it was a 'rental'.