Short-term pain, long-term gain
Why Canada needs to focus on the issues that really matter
MIKE SILICZ
Another exciting event is about to explode onto the Canadian-American relations front: a trade war over corn! Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more actionpacked, with cows going mad and trees being stumped, corn is about to steal the trade-war spotlight. With the softwood lumber issue settled (we acquiesced) and the mad cow issue that cannot be solved due to commercial interdependence (countries love banning foreign mad cow, because their own domestic mad cow is much tastier), it is finally time for a new issue to make headlines. And why not corn? All the other fruits and vegetables get their fair share of exposure: pumpkins own October, green vegetables have the jolly Green Giant, and there’s a song by the Presidents of the United States about peaches . . . when’s the last time corn got some love?
According to the CBC, “Canada has requested consultations with the United States at the World Trade Organization on subsidies provided to U.S. corn growers . . . the United States has been providing subsidies to its agricultural producers that create unfair market advantages,” said David Emerson, international trade minister.
The CBC also reports that the U.S. has been subsidizing its domestic corn producers to the sum of $9 billion over the last two years alone. With this grave injustice in mind, let me be the first to say thank you, Steven Harper government, for tackling the preeminent issue on my and all other Canadians’ minds: corn subsidization!
I mean, seriously, how many times have you lost sleep at night thinking to yourself, “damn Yankees, first they invade us in 1812, then they steal our Nordiques and Jets, and now they have the audacity to subsidize their farmers with $9 billion worth of aid while simultaneously depressing international crop prices on the world market illegally?” I can’t be the only one! Corn is on everyone’s minds these days; it’s not like there’s anything else important going on in the world that should take precedence over this insulting American subsidization.
There’s no reason to discuss or even think about the war in Afghanistan; I mean it’s not like it’s an Iraq yet. There’s also no need to worry about the political imbalance between the provinces. We can solve stuff like that by calling people “nations” and throwing money at problems that are already beyond fiscal solution. And most imperatively, it’s not like we have to worry about global warming or anything; that’s like 20 years or so away from really mattering. As the above three issues demonstrate, Canada is only addressing the trivialities of the present while ignoring the grave dangers of the future. We’re about to pick a fight over corn, when, within the next 50 years, it may very well become impossible to grow that very resource in North America if the worst climate-change scenarios come to fruition.
One hundred and fifty years ago, some very wise British economists argued that tariffs should be eliminated to increase the utility of society as a whole. This is a good thing, and is the theoretical issue underlying corn subsidization. But there are far more fundamental problems out there than corn. Those same economists who advocated free trade did so on behalf of the whole of society over the long term, a critical point that has been lost in modern economic thought. Many British farmers paid dearly for the abolition of the grain tariffs in 1846, but the number who benefited over the next 150 years far outweighs those farmers’ sacrifice. Where is this mentality today? Why are the economists and policymakers of today ignoring the future of our children just to maintain an impressive bottom line in the short term?
Take Kyoto as an example. We are told over and over again that to meet Kyoto standards, Canada’s economy would suffer irreversibly. Yet this was the exact same argument made by domestic farming interests in Britain a century and a half ago. The critical difference this time around is that it is the ecology of the planet that is at stake, not just the interests of a few dominant economic players. Maybe it’s time for the Canadian government to tackle the quintessential subsidization issue that really matters not just in the present, but more importantly, in the future: the subsidization of a way of life that needs to be rebalanced to sustain itself.
So, corn, enjoy your time in the spotlight. Unfortunately, unless Canadian (and world) decision-makers start addressing the real subsidization problems inherent in our culture that ignores productivity’s negative effects on the environment, corn’s time may be short-lived. As the potentialities of climate change occur on a global scale before our eyes, at least the Harper government will ensure Canadians have cheap popcorn to munch on while the drama unfolds. And for that, our children will surely be thankful. Michael Silicz is a first-year law student with a background in political studies and history.
