2022 CPC Leadership Discussion: Et tu Redeux

[QV]

Yes, so nearly the entire population and economy of Ontario, which you even then acknowledged after I related how much of the national economy that chunk of Ontario comprises. It was very clear what you were talking about, and it wasn’t Timmins or Thunder Bay.

And I maintain if the GTA became the 51st state, the loss can be replicated. Where if we lost the bulk of a specific resource, it cannot be replicated - it must be sourced from elsewhere.

 

[Brad Sallows]

If we lost a financial centre like Toronto to the US, I doubt we'd be able to re-establish it. We'd be entering a competitive market long after the sector leaders have been established, without any disruptive innovation, which is often a good predictor of failure.

 

[Good2Golf]

Resources are more important. From there we can make everything else.

In the absence of resources, you have to hope they are available from somewhere else. Hope is not a valid COA.

Luxembourg agrees with you completely…umm…well…it doesn’t. Taiwan agrees completely…oops…they don’t either. Anyway…importation of raw materials is not impossible, as many productive countries have aptly demonstrated.

 

[Navy_Pete]

And I maintain if the GTA became the 51st state, the loss can be replicated. Where if we lost the bulk of a specific resource, it cannot be replicated - it must be sourced from elsewhere.

That's just a stupid argument. Raw materials on their own are useless without processing/fabricating and vice versa. No one is going to invest trillions in redeveloping the massive infrastructure that is there to support that in the GTA area, as well as the expertise. If it was to be lost with the GTA it would be gone from Canada forever.

Hint; location and geography is a key part of that infrastructure; being located on ports connected to a lot of major US cities via the great lakes, as well as the rail and highway infrastructure is why it works. There is a lot of heavy industry that very specifically is built up along the high power lines from Darlington and Niagara falls, and still a lot of marine traffic on the lakes.

Logistics is a key part of the whole production scheme, and you really don't have any idea of what you are talking about if you think that infrastructure, geographic location and things like customs, import/export requirements etc don't all play a key part in figuring out the supply chain to make something useful out of raw materials.

I'm not sure if you are just deliberately trolling at this point though.

 

[torg003]

If Toronto ever tries to leave Canada and join the US (not that it would be an easy thing to do, constitutionally), we should trade TO for Alaska (and maybe a bag of magic beans).

 

[lenaitch]

Curious thought experiment. There's no provision in the Constitution to kick somebody out and I'm not aware of any groundswell from southern Ontario to jump ship. If anything, some feel that it should be it's own province but what the 'it' includes becomes a matter of debate. The scale in the picture kinda sucks but The Red Line looks to be around the 46th parallel (ish), so does enclose all of the agricultural economy of southwestern and eastern Ontario which is significant but I don't know what percentage it is of our total ag output. The fact that the line also captures southern New Brunswick and Nova Scotia I'll just chalk up to lazy cartography.

People toss around 'GTA', but that is just Toronto, Durham, Halton Peel and York. While there is manufacturing, there is little of what I would call 'heavy industry'. Only one auto plant; very little that can't go out in a seacan. When you start to broaden out to the rest of the alphabet you get into the GTHA (Greater Toronto Hamilton Area), which adds Hamilton to the mix and which has a fair bit of heavy industry. Farther still the GGH (Greater Golden Hoseshoe) which adds Niagara, Haldimand and Waterloo (a lot of tech) regions as well as the counties of Brant, Wellington, Dufferin, Simcoe (another auto plant), Kawartha Lakes, Peterborough and Northumberland (i.e. the whole centre cut).

Toronto in particular is an economic hub, but a lot of wealth reported is either 'paper' (banking) or actually generated elsewhere (mining) because their head offices are there. Even for manufacturing and retail, much of it is because of head office location. Canadian Tire's head office is in Toronto. What little they actually manufacture under their own flag is from offshore. If they moved their head office to Tobermory tomorrow, their economic reporting would go with it.

I had to laugh when I saw the argument that one of Toronto's strengths is its location on the Seaway. The only things that flow through the Port of Toronto is sugar, road salt and some cement - all inbound. I don't think anything has been exported by water in a couple of decades.

One of the concerns I have with our economy is the amount of manufacturing that are branch plants that are parented outside of our borders. Every time there is an economic hiccup, our branch plants are under a bigger microscope than either home-based sites or ones that are in low labour cost countries. If nothing else, the GTA/GTHA/GGH is a vast wealth of income tax revenue and votes.

 

[QV]

Luxembourg agrees with you completely…umm…well…it doesn’t. Taiwan agrees completely…oops…they don’t either. Anyway…importation of raw materials is not impossible, as many productive countries have aptly demonstrated.

Ideally, it would be nice to avoid the situation Germany is in with energy at the moment.

 

[QV]

That's just a stupid argument. Raw materials on their own are useless without processing/fabricating and vice versa. No one is going to invest trillions in redeveloping the massive infrastructure that is there to support that in the GTA area, as well as the expertise. If it was to be lost with the GTA it would be gone from Canada forever.

Hint; location and geography is a key part of that infrastructure; being located on ports connected to a lot of major US cities via the great lakes, as well as the rail and highway infrastructure is why it works. There is a lot of heavy industry that very specifically is built up along the high power lines from Darlington and Niagara falls, and still a lot of marine traffic on the lakes.

Logistics is a key part of the whole production scheme, and you really don't have any idea of what you are talking about if you think that infrastructure, geographic location and things like customs, import/export requirements etc don't all play a key part in figuring out the supply chain to make something useful out of raw materials.

I'm not sure if you are just deliberately trolling at this point though.

See lenaitch’s response? That’s how you play nice. You should try it sometime instead of insults.

 

[torg003]

The idea that southern Ontario/Golden Horseshoe would leave Canada is silly in that they believe they ARE Canada (aside from Quebec) and all other provinces (aside from Quebec, again) joined them. So they wouldn't be leaving, they'd be kicking everyone else out of Canada. Toronto would be named the official capital of "Canada" and all the other provinces would have to decide if they want to form a new country, or separate into individual nation states.

 

[mariomike]

The idea that southern Ontario/Golden Horseshoe would leave Canada is silly < snip >

Even secession - Metro/GTA/GTHA/GGH - from Ontario ( let alone Canada ) would be "one of the hardest political maneuvers in Canadian history".

How hard would it actually be for Toronto to become its own province?

It’s not impossible, but it would be one of the hardest political maneuvers in Canadian history

nationalpost.com

 

[Happy Guy]

What it takes to make Conservative Party a contender again ​

Interesting podcast on the National Post today with an interview with Ms. Tasha Kheiriddin, who once considered running for the leadership of the CPC. The topic was "What it takes to make the Conservative Party a contender again."

I agree with her many of her opinions but I know that some people will in this forum will not especially with her proposal of Canada once again becoming the "hewers of wood and drawers of water” for world again.

She also eloquently stated, in a significantly more polite way, why the many people (like myself) intensely dislike the current Prime Minister.

 

[Kirkhill]

You just wrote off a third of Canada’s GDP.

As well as a huge chunk of power generation, and a key transportation hub, a huge amount of food production, fuel processing etc. R&D hubs, specialist companies etc as well. Also GM, Ford, Toyota etc are all in that region.

Not sure why people think it's a net draw; there aren't 5M people sitting idle with their thumbs up their ass. Not the manufacturing powerhouse of the 70s, but doesn't mean there isn't still a lot of stuff being made and processed. Not cranking out a million widgets but the ones left are high quality and high tech.

• Gross domestic product (GDP) is the monetary value of all finished goods and services made within a country during a specific period.
• GDP provides an economic snapshot of a country, used to estimate the size of an economy and growth rate.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Formula and How to Use It

Gross domestic product is the monetary value of all finished goods and services made within a country during a specific period.

www.investopedia.com

Part of the problem with this discussion is the use of the GDP.

GDP is influenced by the amount of people buying and selling, the number of transactions and the goods and services they exchange. That can all happen in a closed economy.

As well as a huge chunk of power generation,

Power is generated in southern ontario by southern ontarians for southern ontarians. Some goes to industry, a lot in fact, but some goes to keep lights on and people warm.

and a key transportation hub,

Which like power generation is staffed by southern ontarians for southern ontarians.

a huge amount of food production,

I'll come back to this

fuel processing etc.

Imported fuel which is locally processed for the local market and which produces by products which are used locally and re-exported to the points of origin of the imported fuels.

R&D hubs, specialist companies etc as well.

Very true. A matter of concern to other places in Canada that would like to compete.

Also GM, Ford, Toyota etc are all in that region.

Vehicle production that largely feeds the local market, that was based on international trade agreements and placed where the population was densest, supplying both a labour force and a local market.

Coming back to the food processing - most of the raw material is imported to the GTA - either from within Canada, from the US or overseas. It is then turned into products that suit the local southern ontario market by southern ontarians. Those plants then export those foods back, like the petroleum by products, to those parts of Canada that don't have the production capabilities. In other words back to the point of origin.

Every year, no, every month, I come across another Western entrepreneur who wants to convert local raw materials - grains, pulses, meat, potatoes, beets, berries, milk, eggs into value added goods that can be "exported" within Canada. And they all die. Internal trade barriers. Lack of Capital. Lack of Labour. Lack of Interest from head offices located in the St Lawrence Lowlands.

Although, to be fair, most of those Laurentian head offices are being eaten up by Brazilian, Swiss, German, French, Italian, British and US companies making it harder yet for people outside of the area to get their ideas considered.

The internationals aren't overly concerned about the GDP in the area. Except insofar as it influences how much they can skim from that circulating pool of funds and export back to their banks where they control their home governments and can influence the tax regime.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I would just be happy if Ontario realized that there is a whole chunk of province above the 50 degree Longitude that they forgot about.

 

[FJAG]

I would just be happy if Ontario realized that there is a whole chunk of province above the 50 degree Longitude that they forgot about.

Ha! That's a good one. When I grew up in Toronto we firmly believed that there was nothing north of the 401.

 

[mariomike]

We've been riding this merry-go-round for years. A divorce is impossible.

For any part of Toronto and the surrounding region to secede from Ontario to create a new province would require an amendment to the Constitution of Canada. The constitutional amendment would require resolutions from the House of Commons of Canada and the Senate of Canada, and resolutions from the legislative bodies of 7 of the provinces representing at least 50% of the population.

 

[Good2Golf]

Ideally, it would be nice to avoid the situation Germany is in with energy at the moment.

I don’t disagree. But having a whole bunch of oil/NG and little else isn’t a recipe for a productive nation.

 

[Kirkhill]

We've been riding this merry-go-round for years. A divorce is impossible.

Not a problem - if Vancouver and Montreal split from BC and QC as well. I'm sure you would get your 7/50 support no problem at all.

 

[Good2Golf]

Ha! That's a good one. When I grew up in Toronto we firmly believed that there was nothing north of the 401 Hwy 7.

 

[Kirkhill]

I don’t disagree. But having a whole bunch of oil/NG and little else isn’t a recipe for a productive nation.

What's that bit about money not being able to buy you happiness ... but it beats the alternative.

 

[Kirkhill]

Ha! That's a good one. When I grew up in Toronto we firmly believed that there was nothing north of the 401.

First trip out of Toronto in 1966 was on the Dayliner to Peterboro. Toronto ended at Scarborough and the wilderness began at AAAAAA-gin-COOOOOurt.