Did Trudeau use jobs as bargaining chips?
FUCK I hate politics!
Nothing is more infuriating to me than this sort of nonsense.
Conservatives, the party which Ford heads up the provincial branch of, clamored for MONTHS for Trudeau to just bend over and take whatever deal the US was asking for. Which no doubt contained exactly the same concessions which are now (supposedly) infuriating them. In fact, the current deal undoubtedly contains far FEWER concessions even than when they were telling Trudeau to just take a deal.
Even Harper, the former Conservative PM seems happy with the deal. Even though he was a major shit disturber while the whole thing was still in turmoil. You would think, in a rational world, that this would mean that Conservatives should be happy. But, this isn't a rational world. Honestly, if anything, this exposes to me the fact that I just disagree with Harper but he may actually be a genuine person since this attitude would be consistent with a person who was afraid of the risks of a drawn out trade war, but happy that the tactics worked for Canada in the end. But no longer being in politics he has the luxury of not needing to try to put spin on things.
Ford doesn't lead a government that gives two shits about the people despite his boasting otherwise. If he did, he would concede that the deal is better than it would have been as Harper did.
This shouldn't be partisan politics. Because the reality is, it seems as though there is NOTHING Trudeau could have done which would have satisfied Ford. If he had dragged out the process longer, the PM would be dragged through the mud for forcing workers to suffer the impacts of his decision to fight. If he buckled sooner he would have been blamed for conceding too much. If he had negotiated terms which provided greater safeguards to these industries but lesser safe guards to others then the message would be the same.
This is fighting for the sake of fighting. This is fighting for the sake of division. This is total and utter stupidity and madness.
I can EASILY see both sides of the equation. And frankly, I think the current administration did FAR more for Canadian's than the prior administration would have. I will admit, it was not done without some amount of risk. It was also not the maximum amount of risk that could have been taken.
Strategically, I felt that Trudeau should have actually held out longer. But, realistically, I understand why he didn't.
Strategically, the US and Mexico both need this wrapped up as much as Canada does. In fact, in a lot of ways, BOTH the US and Mexico need it wrapped up MORE. Mexico wanted the deal ratified quickly, before the new administration takes over so they can blame the unfavorable parts on the old administration. And Trump was facing the possibility of his party losing control in the upcoming midterm elections. Mexico was threatening to withdraw their support for the bill if it didn't wrap up in time. Which put the fire to the US even more.
In short, it is LIKELY (but no guaranteed) that the longer that things went on, that the US would continue to make concessions. They needed it wrapped up before the elections and before Mexico decided to change their minds.
Realistically, congress has started vocally claiming they might support a bi-lateral agreement (probably BS) and the rhetoric was growing increasingly with vicious on the US side. If the US gave up on Canada and actually managed to pull off a bi-lateral agreement with Mexico, we would have lost all of our bargaining power. We likely would have ended joining in much later, after much more suffering and with a worse deal likely than we were even offered originally.
In other words, while the likelihood was that we could have gotten more concessions, the risk was growing and the fallout of a failed deal, especially if the US did establish a bi-lateral agreement was pretty massive. There was definitely uncertainty. And a responsible government should not treat that potential lightly.
This also means, that to some extent, at least the national conservatives arguing that the country should have taken a deal far earlier can at least claim that they felt it was responsible. I would argue against that, but it is certainly a debatable point. From my perspective, it wasn't until the final week or so that congress had shown any intent whatsoever to ratify a deal between just the US and Mexico. Without that, the threats were fairly empty. Congress was basically inviting Canada to fight for more up until that point.
But, this kind of response after the fact? This is total partisan BS. It is WELL understood based on this that if a Conservative government were in power (and could be trusted to act as they implied they would) that we would have gotten a worse deal with far more concessions.
Challenging the government on the level of risk they were willing to take is one thing.
But bitching about the outcome when it is already well established that your party advocated for giving up FAR more?
No! OBJECTIVELY speaking; the Liberal government's outcome is BETTER than what the Conservatives screamed for.
There is no question on this. It is not subjective. It is not partisan politics. Harper, Scheer and Ford ALL bitched about Trudeau taking the risk the government did. But, in the end the risks DID yield concessions. Had Trudeau taken the risk and either ended up with the same outcome in the beginning or worse, then absolutely, other parties would have a right to complain about the outcome.
I KNOW I KNOW. I sound like a broken record. But, I'll repeat it once more.
You can complain all you want about the risks the government took. There WAS risk. And it COULD have been avoided. Just because the got the better outcome it doesn't mean that the tactics were correct. I don't think they were wrong, but that is definitely subjective and open for debate.
You CANNOT complain about the outcome however. Every other party and leader was screaming at the top of their lungs for us to concede more to get a deal done earlier.
The end result was a deal reached in a timely fashion which was better for Canada as a whole than what was originally offered. Period.
So, to answer the question in the title; well, yes. EVERY trade agreement is at some level EXACTLY THAT. Bargaining with jobs. But, no, I don't think it is true in any malicious or novel way here. I don't think the government was being particularly negligent of jobs or taking extreme risks of any sort. All in all, like I said, I think they folded sooner than they should have in order to ensure they didn't risk what they had gained.
Nothing is more infuriating to me than this sort of nonsense.
Conservatives, the party which Ford heads up the provincial branch of, clamored for MONTHS for Trudeau to just bend over and take whatever deal the US was asking for. Which no doubt contained exactly the same concessions which are now (supposedly) infuriating them. In fact, the current deal undoubtedly contains far FEWER concessions even than when they were telling Trudeau to just take a deal.
Even Harper, the former Conservative PM seems happy with the deal. Even though he was a major shit disturber while the whole thing was still in turmoil. You would think, in a rational world, that this would mean that Conservatives should be happy. But, this isn't a rational world. Honestly, if anything, this exposes to me the fact that I just disagree with Harper but he may actually be a genuine person since this attitude would be consistent with a person who was afraid of the risks of a drawn out trade war, but happy that the tactics worked for Canada in the end. But no longer being in politics he has the luxury of not needing to try to put spin on things.
Ford doesn't lead a government that gives two shits about the people despite his boasting otherwise. If he did, he would concede that the deal is better than it would have been as Harper did.
This shouldn't be partisan politics. Because the reality is, it seems as though there is NOTHING Trudeau could have done which would have satisfied Ford. If he had dragged out the process longer, the PM would be dragged through the mud for forcing workers to suffer the impacts of his decision to fight. If he buckled sooner he would have been blamed for conceding too much. If he had negotiated terms which provided greater safeguards to these industries but lesser safe guards to others then the message would be the same.
This is fighting for the sake of fighting. This is fighting for the sake of division. This is total and utter stupidity and madness.
I can EASILY see both sides of the equation. And frankly, I think the current administration did FAR more for Canadian's than the prior administration would have. I will admit, it was not done without some amount of risk. It was also not the maximum amount of risk that could have been taken.
Strategically, I felt that Trudeau should have actually held out longer. But, realistically, I understand why he didn't.
Strategically, the US and Mexico both need this wrapped up as much as Canada does. In fact, in a lot of ways, BOTH the US and Mexico need it wrapped up MORE. Mexico wanted the deal ratified quickly, before the new administration takes over so they can blame the unfavorable parts on the old administration. And Trump was facing the possibility of his party losing control in the upcoming midterm elections. Mexico was threatening to withdraw their support for the bill if it didn't wrap up in time. Which put the fire to the US even more.
In short, it is LIKELY (but no guaranteed) that the longer that things went on, that the US would continue to make concessions. They needed it wrapped up before the elections and before Mexico decided to change their minds.
Realistically, congress has started vocally claiming they might support a bi-lateral agreement (probably BS) and the rhetoric was growing increasingly with vicious on the US side. If the US gave up on Canada and actually managed to pull off a bi-lateral agreement with Mexico, we would have lost all of our bargaining power. We likely would have ended joining in much later, after much more suffering and with a worse deal likely than we were even offered originally.
In other words, while the likelihood was that we could have gotten more concessions, the risk was growing and the fallout of a failed deal, especially if the US did establish a bi-lateral agreement was pretty massive. There was definitely uncertainty. And a responsible government should not treat that potential lightly.
This also means, that to some extent, at least the national conservatives arguing that the country should have taken a deal far earlier can at least claim that they felt it was responsible. I would argue against that, but it is certainly a debatable point. From my perspective, it wasn't until the final week or so that congress had shown any intent whatsoever to ratify a deal between just the US and Mexico. Without that, the threats were fairly empty. Congress was basically inviting Canada to fight for more up until that point.
But, this kind of response after the fact? This is total partisan BS. It is WELL understood based on this that if a Conservative government were in power (and could be trusted to act as they implied they would) that we would have gotten a worse deal with far more concessions.
Challenging the government on the level of risk they were willing to take is one thing.
But bitching about the outcome when it is already well established that your party advocated for giving up FAR more?
No! OBJECTIVELY speaking; the Liberal government's outcome is BETTER than what the Conservatives screamed for.
There is no question on this. It is not subjective. It is not partisan politics. Harper, Scheer and Ford ALL bitched about Trudeau taking the risk the government did. But, in the end the risks DID yield concessions. Had Trudeau taken the risk and either ended up with the same outcome in the beginning or worse, then absolutely, other parties would have a right to complain about the outcome.
I KNOW I KNOW. I sound like a broken record. But, I'll repeat it once more.
You can complain all you want about the risks the government took. There WAS risk. And it COULD have been avoided. Just because the got the better outcome it doesn't mean that the tactics were correct. I don't think they were wrong, but that is definitely subjective and open for debate.
You CANNOT complain about the outcome however. Every other party and leader was screaming at the top of their lungs for us to concede more to get a deal done earlier.
The end result was a deal reached in a timely fashion which was better for Canada as a whole than what was originally offered. Period.
So, to answer the question in the title; well, yes. EVERY trade agreement is at some level EXACTLY THAT. Bargaining with jobs. But, no, I don't think it is true in any malicious or novel way here. I don't think the government was being particularly negligent of jobs or taking extreme risks of any sort. All in all, like I said, I think they folded sooner than they should have in order to ensure they didn't risk what they had gained.
Comments
Post a Comment