U.S. Stimulus Stifling Canada

(John Ivison — National Post)

”Buy America” rule boils down to protectionism

When Barack Obama came to Ottawa in February, Canadians lowered their defences and surrendered, seduced by the new President’s promises that the United States would stand by its international trade obligations and resist protectionism.

It was an object lesson in why politicians should be judged on results, not their intentions.

The reality is that Canada and the United States are engaging in skirmishes that threaten to erupt into an all-out trade war.

John Hayward runs an industrial equipment company, Hayward Gordon, in Halton Hills, Ont., but is in the process of transferring some of his company’s manufacturing capacity to the United States from Canada, with the loss of Canadian jobs, because he is being shut out of the American market by President Obama’s stimulus bill.

“It boils down to the fact a very large number of Canadian companies, who have been competing in the U. S. for decades, have been told overnight that they can’t sell to the U. S.,” he said. Read more here.