I would LOVE to see HBC reborn as a costco style membership club that sells good quality Canadian products at reasonable prices, and is incentivized by the membership system to focus on providing customer satisfaction not short-term profits.
I’ve given up Costco for the boycott, but it hurts so much buying overpriced stuff from the grocery cartels. Imagine if a reborn HBC could fill that role?
These types of claims are incredibly difficult for a layperson to evaluate. There are at least two explanations for charging very little profit as is suggested BYD and similar companies are doing now.
Incumbent monopolists will absolutely use prices to bully competition out of the market so they can enjoy a longer period without pricing pressure later. This has been well documented across many industries. However it’s also a normal occurrence where a disrupting upstart will apply a low profit margin or even operate at a loss in order to build market share and achieve higher efficiencies of scale.
I am at least mildly concerned that the Chinese EVs seem better fit the mold of the disrupting upstarts, and not that of the incumbent monopolists. If they are serving a lower-price-point aspect of the EV market that the traditional manufacturers are not filling – that is a good thing. This is a role that many of the brands now considered mainstream once filled when they were newer to the western markets.
However, your points towards forced labour are absolutely on point. This is a greater issue that affects all trade with China, and it’s one that we have largely been ignoring for a long time. Every time we buy something made there with it’s unknown providence, we are participating in a system that must be described as evil. I wouldn’t want to drive one either.
I apologize for my ignorance then, and appreciate the correction. Lets build upon this foundation, it seems a lot more useful than 88 ludicrously expensive foreign jets supplied by our biggest threat.
But personally I believe the US would descend into civil war before this happens
Which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t prepare for this possibility, starting yesterday.
We can use the money we were pissing away on F35s to create a national corps, who would be trained in the types of guerrilla warfare we’d need in this scenario. And be cross-trained to respond to climate emergencies such as floods and hurricanes and fires. And help build out infrastructure to shore up our east-west corridors and access to the north.
We can see from their Russian masters how an American invasion would take.
They’d try to grab and hold strategic areas and resources, while using missiles and aircraft to cripple the economy and infrastructure and spread fear nationwide.
However, we can remember that the US has tried to invade many other countries and they’ve failed every time. And while we may never have the tanks and aircraft to match them in open warfare, even much poorer countries than Canada were able to successfully repel the American forces.
And in this scenario we’d have a massive untamed border to use to make counter strikes, and would likely get significant military support from allies around the world and in the US as well.
So it would be monumentally devastating on both sides. It would be a catastrophically stupid endeavour. Which doesn’t rule it out, they have extremely stupid people in charge.
But personally I believe the US would descend into civil war before this happens, with “blue” states having suppressed voting rights trying to secede.
Only excluded because I wasn’t thinking straight due to blind rage and insomnia.
Sigh… yeah it’s crazy one can have so many reasons and still not even mention that.
It is crazy.
It’s crazy that a serial liar, who defrauds his customers with false marketing claims and naked market manipulation isn’t in jail.
It’s crazy that anyone would spend money on a product one of his companies makes, given how he has shown such extremely poor judgment and discipline.
It’s crazy that someone who defames people trying to help people in need, someone who promotes hate and bullying, someone who would lie about something as petty as pretending to be among the worlds best video gamers — it’s crazy he could have a cult following.
It is crazy that Americans handed this lunatic access to their own social safety net, and crazy that they have dismantled the checks and balances to prevent it despite clear warning signs.
It’s crazy that any single Canadian would purchase a car or service from someone who said that ours is not a real country, and works side by side with the person working to invade our country.
It is crazy that someone who does these treasonous things is allowed to maintain Canadian citizenship, despite no ties to the community.
It’s crazy that a single penny of our taxpayer dollars would go to this man.
It’s crazy that it’s even a topic for discussion.
You’re goddamn right it’s crazy.
Canadians had become accustomed to expect special treatment, which in this context means the barest shred of humanity coming through.
I don’t get a vote if Canada gets special treatment by their country or not. If it was up to me, I’d rather that Canadians not get hauled off in chains for making a mistake, but that’s up to Americans and that’s what they chose.
But what I will do is remind Canadians that they aren’t getting special treatment anymore.
Obligatory reminder that “no special treatment” means you get treated like a Haitian or Mexican or Muslim trying to enter the US. Yes, even a white Canadian.
In no way am i blaming the victim here, but we can learn a lesson from her experience: Don’t go.
We have been lazy, and worried more about not offending America than doing what’s best for us. If nothing else the current situation has started to wake us up to that fact.
I don’t feel like you were accusing me specifically, but the shoe fits.
Subconsciously I think I thought we were safe in Canada. Too white, too much cultural and shared history. Sure we knew we had to separate ourselves but we could do that tomorrow and we had other problems today.
And like you said it’s been a wake-up. For me certainly.
The time to wonder how they’d respond has passed. They already have responded; they are working to destroy us.
I don’t know what they’ll do. They’ve lost every time they’ve tried to occupy a country and they will have the same experience here. But that hasn’t stopped them from repeatedly trying.
It would bring ruination upon both countries but we cannot control them. I hope they realize that before they try.
And at the risk of being a jerk — you should feel scared. I’m scared. It’s scary stuff! But I can find some comfort in standing up what’s right for our people.
This sucks and is it the specific reason why some of the business-oriented interests have been pushing for the trade war.
There’s no way to avoid this; it’s just going to be a painful and sizeable adjustment period.
But as we restructure our economy away from relying on America, we will build new jobs and businesses.
They need our minerals, water, trees, and our energy. We don’t need them for anything. So it will suck in the short term but it will get better. It’s the start of something new, and that’s scary and uncertain but let’s do it.
Many of us are not informed well enough to really understand if the negativity surrounding the F35 is accurate. There’s a lot of technicality and conflicting information and biases that a layperson kinda gets lost in it.
To be honest you paint a compelling picture and I’m inclined to believe it, especially as this has been described as a wasteful failure for quite some time by many sources.
But the neat thing is that now it doesn’t even matter because even if the damn thing was fantastic we don’t want it anyhow. You don’t let your biggest national security threat supply you arms. That’s just stupid.
So yeah you’re probably right. But either way we decline.
I have a Hyundai EV and I love it. It’s a fantastic vehicle.
But also, the Chinese EVs are extremely cheap relative to these. If they are trustworthy or safe or good is open to interpretation but they have been extremely popular in Australia for example.
My concern is that we’re antagonizing a potential trade ally to protect a domestic industry which feels to me like it cannot thrive in the medium and long-term. It relies too much on the Americans and they have been unreliable and chaotic which is bad for an integrated production system.
I expect the authoritarian posturing and nationalism will be successful inside America as the world unites against them. And that any further hopes they have of opposition will be strangled by increasing anti-democratic measures as time goes on. That’s the playbook that has been successful elsewhere and I see no basis for believing in American exceptionalism here.
Will be extremely happy to be wrong on this, but I can’t see a world where waiting until 2028 works out for Democrats.
That’s super cool. I’d absolutely spend extra for Montreal bananas.
My home province of BC has been doing pretty good at growing stuff in hothouses, I’ve even routinely buying local lettuce and peppers and mushrooms from big stores like Costco even before the boycott started.
So we can do this. It will take some time to ramp up and getting imports from allies will help with us this transition period and beyond.
This is an extremely good point. Perhaps I should have addressed this in my rant opinion piece, because it’s absolutely true. I’ve been confused by the Green Party’s whiplash and underwhelmed by the federal NDP’s muted approach.
I will admit that I have enjoyed seeing Singh getting sharper in his criticism in recent months, and wish we could have seen more of that for the past years. He is saying things that need to be said, and I commend him for that. But I imagine a world where Charlie Angus won in 2017 and that feels like a better world than this one.
I hope out of the ashes of all this we can get someone on the left we deserve too. Call me naive but I have this intangible gut feeling that we will? That if Singh resigns, the current mood is such that we have a chance of getting someone really inspiring to take charge of the left going forward? I sincerely hope we do.
Exactly.
And what pisses me off is the calculation that you implicitly state, that by not reacting now the Democrats know they are “safe” because the ire is pointed somewhere else. It pisses me off because I recognize the same impulses in myself. I didn’t think Canada was in danger when the ire was on Mexicans and Haitians and Muslims. Just like they don’t see the danger now.
But when the barrel is pointed at you, you see more clearly. We are today, and the cowering Democrats are next. The longer they wait, the harder it will get – but that’s how divide and conquer works. The groups all accept the evils being done to the current group to buy their own safety, and they get picked off one by one.
And as you say – in Canada we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to break this cycle here. We see what’s coming now, and we won’t break.
You do realize what you’re saying, right?
You’re saying it would be a tragedy of optics to try to stop a dictator from seizing power. That if democrats do nothing they can avoid being targeted in the short term, while Trump chases after others.
Yes. This specific attitude is what I’m furious about. And I’m going to work my damnedest to stop it happening here in my country.
A couple decades ago I used to have an hour long commute and would listen to The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti almost every day.
She would interview people who would go on with their talking point nonsense, and I’d whip myself up with frustration about what they were saying. And then Tremonti would just… say what was in my head, and make the person actually respond to reality and stop just spouting their rehearsed bullshit talking points.
It was so breathtakingly wonderful, and it happened time and time again. I miss that so much.
We need biased reporters. Biased towards reality and truth, biased against lies and empty slogans. Challenge the mistruths and misrepresentations made by almost any media-savvy participant, be it political or corporate or anything else.