KAYNE said:
SMALLS
WHAT IS THIS SHIT ABOUT THE U.S. ASKING AND CANADA JUMPING??? ARE YOU OUT OF YOU FUCKING MIND. YOU ARE MAKING US OUT TO BE LIKE A DICTATORSHIP TOWARDS CANADA. YOU FUCKING PEOPLE BENEFIT FROM US JUST THE SAME AS WE BENEFIT FROM YALL. WHY DONT YOU GO LOOK UP SOME TRADE POLICIES B/ THE U.S. AND CANADA. I.E. THE LOUVRE AGREEMENT, THE PLAZA ACCORDS, AND THE FUCKING AUTO PACTS THAT THEY SIGNED.
I'M GOING TO BED. I HAVE NVR THOUGHT OF CANADIANS AS ANY DIFFERENT THAN AMERICANS. HOWEVER, SOME OF YOU FUCKS ARE QUICKLY CHANGING THAT TRAIN OF THOUGHT.
KAYNE
canadians are different from americans kayne... that is a giant misnomer when it comes to the american perception of canada.
there is a reason that trudeau likened our relationship with the US to sleeping with an elephant.
nice that you are calling canadians "fucks"... love the respect babe!
i never agreed with brian mulroney's policies.. they were crooked as anything... but free trade was obviously made to benefit the US.
anyway, here's a link regarding the farmers and free trade:
The year 1998 was a very difficult time for farmers and their families in many parts of Canada. Along with the usual problems of pests and poor weather conditions, the global economic crisis delivered a body-blow to farm incomes. Producers of hogs and grain were especially hard-hit by the downturn in the Asian economies resulting from the financial meltdown that began there in 1997. With world export markets for these agricultural products plummeting, many farmers who had shifted their production into these sectors in the hopes of cashing in on the once-booming Asian market were facing bankruptcy. Pigs were being slaughtered and buried in order to avoid the cost of feeding them, and huge inventories of unsold wheat and other cereal crops were filling grain elevators across the Prairie provinces.
While farmers all across Canada were hurting, it was the West, Canada’s traditional breadbasket, that was feeling the brunt of the farm crisis especially. Saskatchewan farmers were facing the most disastrous drop in their incomes since the days of the Great Depression of the 1930s. To some observers, the current situation appeared even more serious than the “dust bowl” of those grim years, and there were predictions that if present trends continued, farming as a way of life for many people in the Prairie provinces might disappear forever.
Across Canada, farmers took action to dramatize their cause and focus public attention on what they have long felt to be a problem that has been too readily ignored by politicians and the mass media. In Quebec, angry hog farmers blocked a major highway for four days during September 1998, refusing to lift their roadblock until the provincial government seriously dealt with their problems. Meanwhile, in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, 700 protesting farmers organized a 225-truck convoy to dramatize their demands for financial aid from their province. Agricultural protest even became an international issue when American farmers, supported by their state and federal government officials, organized a blockade of Canadian wheat shipments across the border between Saskatchewan and North Dakota. U.S. farmers were angry that Canada was taking advantage of its low dollar and Canadian Wheat Board subsidies in order to dump cheap wheat onto the U.S. market.
Although the specific issues behind these protests differed, all of them helped to focus public and political attention on the serious economic problems many farmers currently face. Not all farmers in Canada are suffering however; some are even doing very well producing for the newly expanding “niche markets” for agricultural goods in high demand both domestically and globally. But it is clear that too many others are facing a real threat to their livelihoods and their lifestyles. Many agricultural analysts believe that urgent government action is required. Federal Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief recognized this when he announced a farm-aid financial bailout that would eventually amount to $900-million. He also urged his provincial counterparts, especially those in Saskatchewan and other hard-hit provinces, to top up the federal contribution by another $600-million from their own coffers to help save the farmers and the farming way of life in Canada.
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The United States moved one step closer Friday toward resolving a long-standing agricultural trade dispute with Canada, striking a deal that will ease export restrictions for grain-producing border states.
But some industry insiders say farmers in Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota, those most effected by Canada's import restrictions, aren't expected to let the issue rest there.
"Anytime you do something that opens a few doors I guess that's positive, but in this case it's not going to satisfy producers here," said Neal Fisher, administrator of the North Dakota Wheat Commission. "The elements of this agreement that I have seen may be helpful in some respects, but certainly it's not what producers here are expecting. It doesn't solve the problem."
The deal
The agreement, details of which are still being released, will topple a number of regulatory hurdles for farmers in North Dakota and Montana, allowing them to ship goods directly into Canada.
It also will provide for the revision of Canada's animal health import regulations and include greater cooperation on cattle trade data. Under the agreement, the U.S. also will begin developing a new mechanism for measuring grain imports from Canada, an issue that goes to the heart of the trade dispute.
"While we clearly have more to do, the measures we have achieved today will help solve many of the problems faced by grain growers, the cattle industry, and pork producers," said U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky.
The bread and butter of trade
U.S. grain and livestock farmers have complained for years that Canadian trade authorities restrict access to their shipping infrastructure and overall market. At the same time, they argue, Canadian exports of wheat, cattle and pigs have skyrocketed in the domestic market, forcing prices to drop further in an already depressed market.
"Canadian producers have full access to our infrastructure," he said. "In some cases they go right down the Mississippi River and sell into Mexico and other Central American markets, sometimes at cheaper rates (than U.S. producers along the Mexican border could offer). Yet, we have no access to their [infrastructure] system and market and even if we did, with such a small population and their own production, why would they need to buy our [wheat]."
That's the problem, Fisher said. "They may open their market, but a market to what?"
Despite the latest trade agreement, Canadian leaders are giving U.S. producers little hope for outright reform.
Canada's agriculture minister, Lyle Vanclief, told the Journal of Commerce Thursday, ahead of the trade announcement, that the nation would not agree to limit is exports of grain and livestock into the United States.
He also said Canada refused to terminate the marketing of its wheat and barley goods abroad through the Canadian Wheat Board, a central agency through which Western Canadian grain growers pool their products and their receipts for its sale outside the country, according to the report.
Moreover, Vanclief urged U.S. agriculture representatives to take their complaints to the World Trade Organization.
Wheat germs
The United States and Canada have enjoyed, and still do for the most part, a relatively trouble-free trade relationship. Some $15 billion in farm goods crossed the U.S.-Canadian border last year alone.
The grain dispute, however, which expanded this year to include livestock imports, has been festering for nearly a decade, said Thomas Cochrane, executive director of the Minnesota Agri-Growth Council Inc.
Angry farmers in Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota, in fact, had planned a boarder line blockade Sunday aimed at halting imports of Canadian goods.
That, along with a recent livestock and grain inspection blockade orchestrated late this summer by South Dakota Governor William J. Janklow gave Washington two good reasons to get involved.
"That sent up a red flag in Washington and got the attention of the powers that be," Cochrane said. "This grain thing has been festering here for five or 10 years, easily."
He added the U.S. grain market is highly susceptible to overseas pressure, including the economic decline this year in Asia.
"That's the discouraging part, because our wheat and barley markets are as low as they've been in 20 years," he said. "This is a serious issue. The U.S. markets recently have been extremely attractive to Canadian producers, both of grain and livestock."
Dumping or free market competition?
U.S. wheat growers are suspicious that their Northern counterparts may be illegally "dumping" low-priced products into the U.S. market, upsetting the balance of supply and demand.
Dumping occurs when a country sells its commodities below cost, or below prevailing market prices, rendering rivals in the import country unable to compete. The U.S. has laws against that.
"We've always thought it would go a long way if Canada would volunteer price information so our producers would know if they are being beaten on price or on other factors, like quality," Fisher said.
So far, however, Canada has been unwilling to divulge that information.
Those tied to the agriculture industry say Canada has successfully blocked U.S. producers from using its transportation system by saying U.S. products don't measure up to its agricultural standards.
U.S. farmers say that's just a crutch, but trade groups say crop disease has been a major issue for domestic agriculture in years past.
Fisher emphasized that the strains of wheat being grown in this country today are "equal or better" than that which is traded on the open market.
Market share
Currently, Canadian producers corner about 20 percent to 30 percent of the U.S. market for spring wheat (high quality grain used in breads) and durum (wheat products used in pasta)
In the early 1980s, Canada producers exported almost no wheat to the United States, those tracking the industry say.
Since the passage of NAFTA, however, (the North American Free Trade Agreement) Canadian wheat exports have soared, peaking at around 92 million bushels four or five years ago. That provoked U.S. trade officials to impose import quotas, which cut Canada's bushel shipments by more than half.
Today, however, Fisher said those shipments are back up to around 70 million bushels.
"There are some who blame NAFTA," he said.
-- by staff writer Shelly K. Schwartz
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Canada, U.S. settle border dispute
Last Updated 00:00:19 1998/10/03
A government official in Ottawa says Canada and the United States have settled their differences in the Canada-U.S. agriculture border dispute. Several U.S. states have been harassing Canadian truckers carrying grain, cattle and hogs across the border.
U.S. farmers allege that subsidies and looser pesticide restrictions give Canadian producers an unfair trade advantage.
Leslie Swartman, a spokeswoman for Trade Minister Sergio Marchi, said Canada has dropped any plans for trade action under the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization.
She said the move was made in response to an agreement by Bill Janklow, governor of South Dakota, and other northern U.S. states to give Canadian trucks free passage.
The states agreed to stop the harassment after Washington's intervention.
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American famers protest low commodity prices
Last Updated Sat Jul 10 14:25:13 1999
PORTAL, NORTH DAKOTA - American farmers rallied at the Canada-U.S border in North Dakota on Friday to protest low commodity prices and the growing concentration of the livestock and grain industries.
The protest was organized by the Montana-based Campaign to Reclaim Rural America.
The organization is calling for fair trade not free trade. It claims that big business is killing traditional family farms and leading to new risks for the U.S. food supply.
On Thursday the U.S. justice department approved the merger of Cargill Inc. and its chief competitor Continental. The merger creates a company that controls a huge share of North America's corn, soybean and wheat exports.
American famers such as Jean Worts say big business has too much power. "They're running the show in Canada and they're running the show down here," Worts said.
One of the few Canadian famers who attended the rally, Bob Thomas, says government on both sides of the border need to unite.
"The Canadian government is playing against the American government and the American government is playing against the Canadian government. And that is only hurting farmers," Thomas said.
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