Europe to Canada - Get your act together

I pulled this quote from an article in Saturday's Globe and Mail, by Doug Saunders and I truly believe that it is one of the greatest summarizations of Canada I have seen in a long time. With the existing inter-provincial trade barriers that have been in place for years how can we expect to function as a unified, single-entity economically? We can't even get wine from BC shipped to Ontario??? It's time to remove the internal trade barriers within Canada and start acting like a country because the longer we shelter and isolate ourselves within our provincial/territorial coccoons the further we will get behind the rest of the world competitively.

Enjoy this snippet;

"The problem with Canada," senior EU official involved in the talks told me, echoing a view that is heard in many of the EU member governments today, "is that it's not really one place. You think you're talking to Canada, and you make a deal, and then it turns out that someone else, in one of the provinces, has gone the other way. There's no unity."
The problem with Europe, Henry Kissinger once famously said in the seventies, is that it doesn't have a phone number. That's not true any more. Now, Brussels happily answers the phone for guys like Henry, but when Mr. Barroso tries to get on the horn with Canada, his secretary doesn't know whether to dial 613 or 450 or 403 or 604. Each line gives a different answer.
While the premiers of Quebec and Ontario both gave this deal their outspoken assent this week, the Europeans can't help noticing a major barrier to a deal that would harmonize European and Canadian standards and allow companies to do business with governments as if they were at home: Canada's provinces have never been able to get that kind of co-operation between each other. Note the tragic irony: Canada, a sovereign nation with 10 provinces and three territories, is considered fractious and lacking in unity by an organization that contains 27 independent nations and employs 3,000 full-time translators, including a woman who spends her days rendering Estonian into Maltese. But in many ways it's true: Bulgaria and Ireland play together better than Alberta and Newfoundland.
More then half the laws in any European country are EU laws; there's a near-total harmonization of standards, measures, government activities; there's complete freedom of movement, allowing companies to do business in any other member country as if it were their own. If the mayor of Lisbon wants to buy some new city buses and a company in Slovakia has the right stuff, then he has to treat it as if it was a Portuguese company. If a Polish plumber wants to set up shop in Bologna, the Italians have to give him a licence and recognize his qualifications.

You can find the rest of the article here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081004.wxdoug04/BNStory/International/home?cid=al_gam_mostemail

A New Day and Age

Australia banned the incandescent lightbulb today! Wow. When you consider the impact of this invention just over a century ago (thereabouts) it's pretty amazing to think that this will and should shortly be a thing of the past. New lightbulbs are far more efficient and last much longer. Good on ya', Aussie, for taking the first step.

The strangest part is that I didn't know that the Light Bulb was originally patented by two Canadians (Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans) in 1875 and then sold to Thomas Edison at a later date for $50,000.00. I always learn this type of valuable information about things when they are on their way out! Late bloomer, eh!

It's nice to think that we are moving in the right direction as saving energy for the next generation is of vital importance!

"I can see the light, I can see the light, shinin' on my face" Jeff Healey