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| Maybe ... someday |
Alex Usher's HESA blog "One Thought to Start your Day" today offers a more trenchant summary of North American geopolitics than most of our news outlets seem able to work out:
A maniac is in possession of our southern border. He wants something from us. It’s not trade concessions; he does not care about softwood lumber or supply management or anything like that. It’s probably not territory (taking territory is one thing, holding it is another). No, it’s more like craven obedience. There is no appeasing this man: the only choice is to resist. Understanding this is key to understanding what our country’s new strategic options are.
Usher goes on to declare we need to re-orient our trade away from the United States. He also laments that "we are bad at selling things abroad.... lazy... timid." He suggests we need better performance from our business schools, whose grads, he says "have left the country with such an anemic business sector."
Okay, he's writing a universities blog, so prodding the business schools make sense. But I'm not sure that's where the blame lies, really. The free trade agreement we signed with the United States in 1988 confirmed what was already evident: our Canadian business sector is mostly just the American Business Sector (Canada) Ltd. Who will re-orient our trade away from the United States when vital decisions for most Canadian businesses are taken by head office in the United States?
It seems to be forgotten that Pierre Trudeau spent much of his time in office trying to diversify Canadian trade away from the United States. His inability to achieve much in that vein set the stage for Brian Mulroney's renewed focus on our American ties.
Have we a business school that could address that situation? Hmmmm.
