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Tariff threats are already driving investment out of Canada (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 1 week ago by HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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"Whether or not they ever be put into place, the damage is done," said Greig Mordue, a former auto industry executive and associate professor at the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology at McMaster University.

He says Trump's threats have already changed the landscape. Whether he goes ahead with the tariffs or not, or whether he carves out specific exemptions, the threat alone will drive investment out of Canada and into the U.S.

"For at least the next four years, there will be no serious investment in the Canadian automotive industry," said Mordue.

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[-] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 29 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Keep in mind that we don't need private investment to do anything. We can always replace any amount of private investment with public. We cannot run out of Canadian dollars so financial capital is never a limiting factor unless we are ideologically opposed to public investment. Real economic resources such as people, materials, factories, know-how and so on are the limit and those haven't changed much. Talk about fleeting financial capital presumes the primacy of private capital. This position is purely ideological. Canada itself has a history of relying on public investment to build the country and its services in the form of crown corporations, many of which got privatized with the ideological shift in the neoliberal era. Nothing except this entrenched ideology is stopping us from doing that again.

[-] Dearche@lemmy.ca 5 points 5 days ago

A nice little addition is that we control most of the raw resources that goes into producing almost everything we need in the first place, so a weakened dollar due to borrowing and printing for the sake of massive public investments into our own industries actually makes us more competitive on the world market, especially for high end manufacturing or low and medium end that has very little labour input.

And such build-up will benefit the country massively in the long term as well, presuming that we're not neglectful in keeping them up to date as technology moves on. Not to mention all the employment opportunities this brings.

Canada is a superpower when it comes to energy, minerals, lumber, and agriculture. Not to mention that we've done surprisingly little in value added production of our raw resources, especially for selling oil without refining any of it. And delivering to the world market is easy, thanks to the build-up of the St Lawrence over the previous century, as well as BC's harbours.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 5 days ago

Real economic resources such as people, materials, factories, know-how and so on are the limit and those haven’t changed much.

Yes but, well basically that. The government doesn't have all that shit, and is so stripped to the bone they can't even fund a website without getting conned by their contractors.

This is a reason the dip is self-limiting, and we shouldn't completely panic. This isn't a reason to go full Mao.

[-] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

When I refer to us having those resources, I'm referring to the overall Canadian economy, not whether the government alone has them. If the money that mobilize those resources (e.g. someone from the Bay area paying me to do work) goes away and to a different country, the Canadian government can replace that money and get me to do work, directly or indirectly. For example building some of them gov't websites. Or working for some startup that got public funding. Among other possibilities.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Yes, I did get that. But when you start talking about public funding as a substitute for private, of course that's the government.

If you did mean going full Mao, you need to make it clear what that actually even means. Modern industrial economies are too complicated to just manually run, and historical alternatives have been suspiciously like a market with a lot of extra steps.

If you just meant emergency short-term stopgap programs, sure, they could and probably will do something like that.

It's Lemmy, so I can't actually tell.

[-] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Not sure where you're getting full Mao from, you mentioned it not me. I explicitly referenced Canada's history (and present) of running crown corporations. Besides that I was talking about replacing private dollars with public dollars. Canada's government has always done public investment in all sorts of firms. It can simply do more to offset missing private investment, instead of enduring the economic shock due to the unemployment resultant from the missing private dollars. Or it could fund building future firms (public or private) if private investment considers that too risky. For example think of public investment instead of venture capital funding startups.

On a separate note, speaking of public investment and crown corporations, a great way to make ourselves more efficient is to put common infrastructure (things that most need) under crown corporations which provide it at cost. We already do a lot of that but we've also privatized a lot of it since the late 80s. E.g. we no longer have public rail. Instead, everyone who ships products has to pay for the significant profits CN Rail makes. These days telecommunications is another example that would benefit everyone if provided at cost. Housing... Reducing all of these costs means lower costs for most other business activity.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Not sure where you’re getting full Mao from

On Lemmy, it's as likely as not that's what's meant. No hate intended in either direction - this is the internet, we can talk about whatever.

It can simply do more to offset missing private investment, instead of enduring the economic shock due to the unemployment resultant from the missing private dollars.

Ah, so you just mean subsidies. Yes, we can do that up to a point, but the thing is you have to fund it somehow. More taxes or a higher debt load actually scare those investment dollars right off again, so at very high levels it becomes counterproductive.

In reality, it's not all going to go away anyway. Like you said, Canada is full of good stuff. That puts a natural floor on how much business will actually leave.

On a separate note, speaking of public investment and crown corporations, a great way to make ourselves more efficient is to put common infrastructure (things that most need) under crown corporations which provide it at cost.

Yes, there is a strong argument that makes sense for anything that suffers from the network effect - American social media platforms are also very relevant to what's going on. Some things are provided below cost right now as well. Free roads and waste disposal have been blamed for too many cars and too much packaging.

[-] Sicsurfer@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 days ago

Mao isn’t the definition of socialism, which is what OP is talking about. Think the Nordic countries for a quality example on socialism, or early Canada. Communism is always defined by the dictators by people who have no understanding of communism

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

If you go on to .ml or Hexbear, they'll straighten you out about Norway being socialist really fast. They're not right necessarily, since words mean whatever we make them, but they're around and their definition is actually the older one.

Communism is always defined by the dictators by people who have no understanding of communism

However, people who call themselves "communist" as opposed to just "socialist" are definitely not aiming for Norway, in my experience.

[-] wirebeads@lemmy.ca 21 points 6 days ago

So are we able to get business to turn those existing plants into plants that can build Asian or European cars over here? Might be an opportunity there, or not. Perhaps we need to do what China did and start to build our cars for our own people.

[-] HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works 15 points 6 days ago

We already have a Canadian-made EV in the works.

https://www.projectarrow.ca/

[-] Sturgist@lemmy.ca 13 points 6 days ago

That's awesome 👍

Personally, I think it has the same issue loads of other current EV offerings have. It's trying too hard to look futuristic. Which, again this my personal opinion on what I want in a vehicle, that type of look is just bad. I really hate it. It looks like something a highschool student designed as their first CAD project.
Again, personal preference for car design, not trying to start an argument.

I think it's really important that Canada starts building up our own brands again. We used to have a bunch, they all got bought by American companies. We need to have our own brands.....

[-] Snowpix@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 days ago

I agree. I personally can't stand all of the futuristic designs, they all look like giant metal blobs that barely resemble a car. Too much emphasis on ugly headlights and taillights as well. I would LOVE an EV that just looks like a regular sedan. I doubt most of these "futuristic" designs will age very well.

[-] Grimpen@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 days ago

I'm less offended by the overall designs than the pointless gimmicks. Pet peeve is those flat door handles. What's wrong with boring old regular handles?

So many EV's are designed as luxury vehicles mostly. We need more Chevy Bolt and less Tesla.

[-] Auli@lemmy.ca 4 points 6 days ago

Anything about production? I couldn't see it and it's their second one? Just a concept car it seems.

[-] HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 days ago

Yes it's a concept vehicle ... in the works.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I haven't seen anything about actual production - the original car seemed like just a promotion - but you have to think if there's suddenly tons of car parts coming off the line and nobody to buy them this would be a quick, already worked out way to fix that.

[-] ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca 10 points 6 days ago

The government seems to be wanting to foster a domestic EV battery production industry. Might as well make entire cars while we're at it.

[-] BCsven@lemmy.ca 4 points 6 days ago

They could. For example the Chrysler plant many years back switched to running Volkswagen also. But would other brands come here is the question

this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
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