On November 9, Council of Canadians Board member Steven Shrybman, trade campaigner Stuart Trew, and CUPE Ontario president Sid Ryan met with the Toronto Star editorial board to advocate for a Buy Canadian policy because it’s the right thing to do and because there is nothing Canadian companies can gain from the Harper deal now being negotiated with the United States.
On November 23, the Toronto Star editorial board wrote, “It is becoming increasingly apparent that the United States Congress has no intention of backing down on the ‘Buy America’ strings attached to its stimulus funding. And the Obama administration has neither the clout nor the will to push Congress. …The provinces and municipalities could start discriminating in favour of Canadian goods on their own. Indeed, Ontario has already done that in its Green Energy Act. But beyond Ontario, Canada’s manufacturing heartland, there is little incentive for the provinces to take this step.”
The editorial added, “What’s needed is a federal Buy Canada Act that attaches strings to the money Ottawa transfers to provinces and municipalities for infrastructure projects… The New Democrats have called for such legislation. But the Conservative government is adamantly opposed to the idea, and the opposition Liberals are siding with the government on this point.”
That same day we issued ‘ACTION ALERT: Write today to the Toronto Star in support of Buy Canadian’.
On November 26, British Columbia chapter activist Nancy Clegg had her letter to the editor published in the Toronto Star. She writes, “I was very pleased to see you encouraging Canadian municipalities to support their local businesses and industries.”
She adds, “That this would help to keep good quality jobs in smaller municipalities should be self-evident. Also self-evident is that it will help us to reduce our carbon footprint if the goods that a municipality needs don’t have to be shipped halfway around the world. Perhaps less self-evident is the need to keep procurement for our provincial, municipal and local authorities out of the clutches of the WTO or from being included in the EU-Canada free trade agreement the Harper government is trying to quietly sneak in the back door. If these are passed, we wouldn’t have the right to encourage our schools and hospitals, for example, to buy locally grown food to serve in their cafeterias, or keep the delivery of our water and sewer services public. I don’t think that is what Canadians want.”
The Toronto Star editorial is at http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/729286–buy-america-lives-on. Nancy’s letter to the editor in response to it can be read at http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/730874.
The Toronto Star is Canada’s largest circulation newspaper with 436,694 daily readers.
