The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.
“The problem for Americans as well as Canadians is that foreign governments, and their vassal
corporate entities, have established themselves in Canada and are nibbling away at resource
assets … Their targets include resources, farmland, market access and iconic corporations,
assets that they do not allow Canadian or American individuals, corporations or governments
to acquire in their own countries.” (Diane Francis, National Post, September 30, 2013)
In her new book, National Post columnist Diane Francis makes the case for the U.S. and Canada forming a united North America
The 9/11 attacks and the financial crisis that started in 2008 damaged the economies of Canada and the United States, and accelerated the decline of most wealthy democracies. Throughout it all, emerging economies, led by China and India, did not skip a beat. Between 2000 and 2010, they grew by an average of 6% per year, while developed nations posted an average of only 3.6%, according to The Economist’s “Power shift” report.
By 2030, Brazil, Russia, India and China could overtake the U.S., Japan, Germany, Italy, Britain, France and Canada in economic size. And these seven nations, the original G7, cannot catch up because of debt, demographics, resistance to change and an inability to recognize and counteract the strategies of their rivals.
This unprecedented transfer of wealth, from richer to poorer nations, will only escalate because the free-market/free-trade/free-enterprise model does not work as well as controlled and planned economic models such as China’s. The methods employed in such countries will beat developed economies to resources and economic growth.
In his book Losing Control: The Emerging Threats to Western Prosperity, Stephen D. King, the global chief economist of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, said the pursuit of scarce resources such as energy or food may lead to war, hoist prices and impose a “redistribution of wealth and power across the globe [that] will force consumers in the U.S. Europe to stop living beyond their means.”
Nations in distress, and facing uncertainty, must behave like businesses and weigh all options; they must also think laterally and outside the box. The problem for Americans as well as Canadians is that foreign governments, and their vassal corporate entities, have established themselves in Canada and are nibbling away at resource assets or using Canada as a backdoor entry to make direct foreign investments in the United States, sometimes without detection.
Their targets include resources, farmland, market access and iconic corporations, assets that they do not allow Canadian or American individuals, corporations or governments to acquire in their own countries. This non-reciprocal and sly strategy is aimed at acquiring assets, undermining competitors and gaining political influence in host countries.
The best option for the U.S. and Canada to survive the new economic reality would be to alter course by devising protective policies and to merge into one gigantic nation. This book, a thought experiment, details the economic benefits of joining forces, the way a deal could be structured in fairness to both nations, the political obstacles littering its path and, lastly, strategies if a merger is impossible. This book is written from my viewpoint, as a dual citizen and business writer, that the interests and values of the two nations are aligned and that a merger makes good business sense.
Many Canadians will be shocked at the notion of being united with America, given how that nation is perceived in the world, its mass murders, gun laws, gangsta rap, movie-star antics, televangelism and political dysfunction. For instance, the U.S. had 9,146 gun deaths in 2007, while Canada, with 10% of the population, had proportionally fewer — a mere 173 gun murders instead of 914. Such statistics are worrisome, but Canadians have few choices but to park their prejudices and figure out how to meet the future together with the Americans.
Besides, the United states is not the dangerous, wacky place depicted by Hollywood or by television shows, as the millions of Canadians who study, work, retire, travel or live there can attest.
For the rest of this article, click here: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/09/30/diane-francis-the-merger-of-the-century/