Diversifying away from the US

And hopefully this will result in some lower priced dairy and poultry products.

But what about the poor rich dairy farmers.... WON'T SOMEONE THINK ABOUT THE POOR RICH DAIRY FARMERS! /sarcoff

Harper is only trading with white people? Dat's raciss!

Meanwhile, in Costco in Honolulu you can buy a 5 pound brick of sharp (old) cheddar for about 13 bucks. Here in Edmonton it's $29.00. A 4 liter jug of milk.....$4.50. Costco Honolulu.....two for one. Regular gas? $1.05 per liter in Hawaii ($3.99 per US gal)Here in socialist Edmonton....$1.14.

Tax me (and bend me over) for I am Canadian.

We've been milked for far too long.

Ya well we signed a free trade agreement with Columbia and the price of coffee went up, so don't count your chickens yet. If the retailers do not pass the savings on to customers it all means nothing. I do not think the retailers will be so kind. This is just a huge payday for business, which is not an entirely bad thing... But it sure would be nice for consumers to benefit for a change.

Yes, diversify away from the doomed US. Build pipelines to the coasts, not into the US where there is so much political opposition to economic growth.

In Saskatchewan we have a hugely profitable dairy industry and wildly expensive cheese. Maybe it is time for a change.

This took longer than it should have, but is phenomenal news (assuming it gets ratified). Yet how many newspapers in Canada will have this on the front page tomorrow?

We have included your post in our 'Around the Blogs' section at Looniepolitics.com.

Let's hope he didn't agree to any climate!crisis! nuttiness in order to get the deal...

This is pretty much a nothing deal. I see little net benefit. If we both tore apart our agricultural support/subsidies, great. Their 20 acre wheat farmers are still making more money than our 1200 acre wheat farmers and our their manufacturing gets the last kick at any industry left after the Chinese destroyed it with unfair trade practices. Why is free trade never simply free trade?

A small step. The Conservatives still haven't addressed supply-side management of most of our dairy and poultry products, and probably never will.

Like the LGR,they cancelled it,allegedly,although the RCMP seems to have a copy,but the real villain,Bill C-68, hasn't been touched.

Remember when the Canadian dollar was stronger than the US? Car prices changed by how much?

Unless the trade balance swings in our favour, the deal essentially means nothing on the large scale. There will be jobs lost and gained and all this bill will allow is the opportunity to make money. Which is all one can really ask. Personally, the trade imbalance with the Asian countries is of real significance and harms our productivity. There we need to throw up a few more barriers and encourage more manufacturing back here in Canada.

The environmentalists would cry a river about poisoning Canada, but at least here we care about what we are doing to the environment and take steps to alleviate the contamination. China's toxicity makes smoggy L.A. look like a hyperbaric chamber by comparison.

I will believe we will be getting cheaper stuff aka milk products , when I see it and even though I have 20/10 vision I will never see it!

Hmm...

According to batshit crazy Tim Harper at the Toronto Star, a $35B trade deal 4 years in the making is just a distraction from the Duffy scandal.

Nice of the European President to play along eh?

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/10/18/tories_wield_huge_trade_deal_to_ward_off_senate_scandal_tim_harper.html

The triumphant Prime Minister declares "Cheese in our time!" ..............

Few people care about cheese.

Why are we even talking about cheese subsidies???

Because when our PM signed the deal ,the media went out and found one of the few sectors that will not benefit from a market that is more open,and they ran with it.

It is cheeses this time,it will be something else next time.The media always finds the dark lining in any Conservative action. It is what they do,they cannot help themselves. If PM Harper ran into a burning building and rescued 9 out of ten children,they would write about how he allowed a child to die.

Why can't the media see this as a huge opportunity to tap into the largest market in the world? In what I think is a very smart move, Harper is opening up markets for canadian products. By doing so he is giving opportunities to our producers and also paving the road to ending the expensive subsidies we provide to some of them.

Why is it that I pay about the same or more for canadian cheese (of similar quality) than european cheese? Inquiring minds want to know. Unfortunately, none of the inquiring minds reside within our press corps.

They are too focused on petty senate scandals, silly protests against vital energy infrastructure improvements and mayors who enjoy the odd brewskie than the real issues that face us today.

Tax me I'm Canadian.
It won't matter a bit how much we diversify our economy.
It will only cushion our fall when America defaults eventually.That only for the Elite Political class& Unions.
Our taxes will be the same no matter what. Because I the end we have to pay for entitlements to a Behemoth of a Government with a Political class with endless appetites. At our expense.
No lower taxes , no benefit to the citizen. Than again the Politicians could care less about you.In fact are trying to replace you.

Maybe I'm too old, but didn't Trudeau do this back in the day? Isn't that why we have accursed METRIC here instead of Imperial? European market?

And it worked so well when Trudeau did it, right? Right?

Besides, what's out upside here? Europe is going to crash before the Yanks do. Not much before, but still.

If this doesn't result in better prices to the consumer for single malt scotch whisky, what's the point?

Knight 99;
I suspect that LAS is speaking from a Libertarian perspective.

One might ask what the people working in the SE Asia 'sweat shops' would be doing if not in those jobs? Bottom line is that the per capita income of these countries is steadily increasing. Europeans cannot be considered anymore virtuous than any others. They exploit eastern Europeans, Turks and Arabs. They have also been pretty good at having others fight their wars for them as well.

I'm old enough to remember when Great Britain dropped us like a hot potato when offered the EU access. Today as the EU self destructs I have little sympathy. Harper can sign a deal in hopes of an enhanced trade relationship with those that survive. The future of Canada will be with those SE Asia countries that you condemn.

What I disagree with is selling off Canadian assets to foreign interests, populating Canada with hostile cultural interests

Leave us out of your collectivist fear-fantasies.

They would rise up on their own merits and take their countries for their own. We artificially prop their false western economies and fund the corruption that administers their enslavement.

Can someone translate this gibberish? I don't speak imbecile.