Scrap the Softwood Deal!
Everyone knows it was an awful deal, after all. It raised the penalty for exporting lumber to the U.S. from a combined rate of 10.8 per cent to 15 per cent; it also hit Canada with the so-called "surge mechanism," designed to discourage investment in Canadian sawmills. Then it added insult to injury by handing half a billion dollars of our money to the U.S. Coalition on Fair Lumber Imports -- the ultra-protectionists who launched the lumber fight -- and another half billion to George Bush for use as a political slush fund.
The deal increased raw log exports by saddling lumber exporters with a border tax but allowing raw logs to enter the U.S. duty-free. It encouraged investment in the U.S. rather than in Canada since our sawmills pay the 15 per cent tax while U.S. mills pay nothing. And both Ottawa and B.C. handed Canadian companies cash with no strings attached, most of which they immediately invested in the U.S. No wonder that in the now-melting-down North American building products market, Canadian producers are even more severely hammered than their U.S. competitors.
On top of all this, Canada was inches from winning the dispute before World Trade Organization tribunals, NAFTA panels and U.S. courts. Days after the deal was signed in 2006 the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled the U.S. tariffs and duties illegal, ordering the U.S. government to give back all of Canada's money. But since Stephen Harper had already caved in and signed a sweetheart deal with George Bush, that decision was moot. We threw away a sure win in the courts for sure defeat under the Harper-Bush deal.
-- from
thetyee.caWe Hate To Say We Told Ya So Dept.:
Pact lets dollars pour into mergers, not jobs and communities.
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look back to what was written in 2006. It's ALL BECOME TRUE.
And in the Things Aren't Getting Better Dept. we point out, well, in spite of smiles and back-claps and pancake breakfasts - now we may end up without one gas station in the Municipal District!
Chevron/Town Pantry bales out of the Fort -
link to the Citizenand we know Mr. G is barely hanging on. The 3 people who will actually put 'Last Gasp' pseudo-fuel in a $35,000+ vehicle can't keep that going.
AND Mackenzie -
link to the CitizenAnd the town is
right pissed. Unfortunately not too many citizens here think a modernized station would make a go of it.
Do you think a Triple-0 burger takeout inside the Town Pantry would make money? Of course not - you probably won't! But your kids would buy every burger it cranked out just because it's close to the school, and just because it's
a franchise name. Believe it or not, people would keep a McDs going in this town just because it isn't the same old unpredictable piece of shit burger.
It's time for someone to put their money where their mouth is and support a
modern franchise outlet here, whether it be 7-11, A&W or a mini-White Spot. Otherwise, just like Chevron Head Office, YOU don't think your own town deserves anything but second-rate knock-offs.
A real carwash would be good too, rather than standing in 6" of muck off a logging truck and feeding tokens in for hours while you get wetter than your car.
