Canada In The Years 1947 1957 example essay topic

... instance: Just before World War II the U.S.A. was buying goods off of us at a rate of $35 per Canadian, we were buying goods off them at $50 per Canadian. The difference comes to $15 per Canadian per year in the American's favour. Our population was 11 million at this time therefore this trade deficit translates into a profit of $165,000,000 in the American's favour, per year, at a $15 trade deficit, with an 11 million population ($15 x 11 mil. = 165 mil. ). 19 In 1947 our trade with the United States reach such proportions that it was draining from us the amazing total of $70 per person per year 20 In the 10 years from 1947 to 1957 Americans bought $20 billion worth of goods from us (figures are rounded), they sold us $27 billion worth.

In other words, we handed the United States seven billion dollars. And that same figure (seven billions) happens to be almost exactly the amount of money the Americans "invested in Canada" in the years 1947-1957. In other words: In 10 years American financiers took from the Canadian people seven billion dollars, and during that very same period they used our seven billion dollars to buy up a large portion of our country 21 This did not only happen between 1947 and 1957 but if you research any year in modern trading history between Canada and the United States you will come to the same conclusion (except the figures keep growing and growing as time progresses). Due mostly to the Americans purchasing our country "Canada is already the most foreign-dominated of any industrialized country in the world". 22 100%of the tobacco industry, 98%of the rubber industry, 92% of the automotive industry, 84% of transportation, 78% of electrical apparatus industry, 78% of the petroleum and coal industry, 76% of the chemical industry, and 75% of heavy manufacturing are foreign owned, mostly American.

23 This foreign takeover has turned Canada into a branch plant economy where parent companies in the U.S. make decisions concerning Canadian companies and Canadians rarely have the ability to reach top management positions. This current situation "erodes Canadian sovereignty and diminishes Canadian independence" it is also a "threat to our power to implement decisions within our own borders - a threat no less real, though more subtle, that if a division of Marines were marching across our border". 24 Another way of describing Canada's branch plant economy is to call it a new form of mercantilism. We are just a colony of the United States and we are acting for the betterment of the Mother country. We are the servants of a new mercantilism. The foreign subsidiary in Canada clearly exists to further the interests of the parent corporation, whose home country in most cases is the United States.

The hinterlands - like Canada- are to supply the corporations with raw materials, and organize the disposition of subsequent consumer capital goods 25 Although foreign ownership creates jobs for Canadians, it does not create the top jobs, nor does it promote economic progress or even prosperity. It actually costs Canada $35 billion each and every year in revenue taken out of the country. 26 "Americans have drained from Canada more wealth than they have hauled out of all other countries combined". And the government is still allowing more and more foreign investment. "No other country seems prepared to tolerate so high a degree of foreign ownership as exists in Canada". 27 And now, with free-trade, it has become even easier for America to control Canada and exploit it for all America's wants and needs.

New Democratic party leader, Edward Broadbent, referring to BrianMulrony and free-trade between Canada and the United States said "I can tell you that for the first time in the history of Canada, we have a man who is Prime Minister who has, without even being asked, volunteered Canada to be the 51st state in the United States... ". 28 This is essentially what free-trade meant for Canada. John A. MacDonald had called free-trade "veiled treason", and for 125 years prominent Canadian figures warned fellow Canadians that "without an economic border we soon would not have a political border either". 29 The best way to describe free-trade is to quote some of John Turner's detailed and moving speech delivered in the House of Commons. Mr. Speaker, we are here today to discuss one of the most devastating pieces of legislation ever brought before the House of Commons... a bill which will finish Canada as we know it and replace it with a Canada that will become nothing more than a colony of the United States.

In this bill... we find that Canadians can be fined, even imprisoned for contravening American law... Why are we now being forced to give has approval to legislation which represents the largest sell-out of our sovereignty since we became a nation in 1867? ... We have given up control of our capital markets...

This deal sells out our energy, the life blood of this country... The National Energy Board becomes nothing more than a monitoring agency... it is Washington that is taking control of our energy resources... With this deal we have succeeded in the fulfilment of the American Dream! Fifty-four Forty, or Fight! Manifest Destiny! At long last they found a Government in Ottawa dumb enough, stupid enough, patsies so craven in the face of American demands that they just caved in to every request made of them...

Is ay to the people of Canada that this is not a trade deal. This is "the Sale of Canada Act... ". 30 When free trade was finally implicated into the Canadian society, the first three years cost 1.4 million jobs. Archie McLean, Vice President ofMcCain's Foods, testified that 100,000 to 150,000 jobs would be lost directly from free trade in his company alone. By September 1992, Canada had the highest number of unemployed in its history. B.C. millionaire Jim Patterson said: "We " re taking everything we " ve go and pushing it into the United States...

I keep telling our people to forget the border - it doesn't exist anymore". 31 Free trade was obviously a bad deal for Canada and should have been obvious when it was laid on the table. Even the American public knew what they were getting when they obtained the free trade agreement. An American economic forecaster, Marvin Citron, wrote in his 1990 bestselling book, American Renaissance: Our Life at the Turn of the Century: Once the free-trade agreement with the United States takes full effect, the next logical step will be to accept politically what has already happened economically - the integration of Canada into the United States 32 In conclusion, it is evident that Canada is different form the United States within its government and institutions and, in most cases, have a superior system, but economically Canada is owned and dominated by America. Benjamin Franklin once said that "the man who would trade independence for security deserves neither". 33 Canada is slowly for the American vision of Manifest Destiny where not one gun has to be fired.

Ex Prime Minister John Diefenbaker expressed his opinion by stating that "We are a power, not a puppet... I want Canada to ve in control of Canadian soil. Now if that's an offence I want the people of Canada to say so". 34 We must to several thing to break free from these restraints which ar upon us. First, though, we must scrap free trade, control foreign ownership, and balance our trade with the enemy -the USA.

Canada has gone form being a colony of France, to being a colony ofBritan, to being a colony of the United States. It's time now to become a nation. 35

Bibliography

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