My contention has always been that Obama is insane and utterly hates the USA. I think even the socialists get this.
Not to mention a vicious totalitarian thug, a curse on human history and the Worst President of the United States, bar none.
Posted on 04/23/2010 11:44:13 AM PDT by FormerACLUmember
Ian Lee is very blunt about what Ottawa should be doing to grow its economy. He wants us to take advantage of the struggling American economy and get companies to move here from the U.S.
"We have the opportunity," says Lee, "to steal some of their businesses."
Lee, the outspoken director of the MBA program at Carleton University's Sprott School of Business, says for the first time ever, Canada is a much more attractive place to do business than the U.S.
"Never in the history of our country have we been ahead of the United States," he says. "The United States has always been richer, more powerful, more aggressive, more dynamic, more successful, more entrepreneurship. And right now they're going off of the cliff.
"Their banking is a mess. Their real estate is a mess. Their tax system is a mess. The place is going bankrupt before your eyes."
Lee remembers when the Wall Street Journal portrayed Canada's economy as Third World. Now Canada has become a model of stability and it's the fundamentals in the U.S., he says, that are in terrible shape. And we should capitalize. "Without celebrating the mess they're in, at the same time, we have to be hard-nosed and strategic," he says. And we shouldn't feel bad, Lee says, because "the Americans have been doing this for years."
Lee remembers talking to an Ottawa business owner several years ago who was being recruited to move his company to Ogdensburg, New York. He was invited to a meeting with all three levels of government, plus some economic development agencies, all of whom were encouraging him to relocate.
"They were all together in one room on one day in one meeting with one Canadian businessman with one purpose: bring that Canadian business stateside," Lee says. "They sat in front of him and negotiated how much each could bring to the table to get him to move his business to the States. They were very market-driven and very entrepreneurial.
"We've got to do something like that here, where OCRI and the Chamber of Commerce and the economic development ministries federally and provincially jump in like that."
Lee says Canada has several advantages over the U.S. right now.
Corporate taxes are already lower, and that's before anticipated hikes to deal with record budget deficits south of the border.
"The hook is that it's going to be cheaper to do business in Canada than in the United States and it's going to be more stable," he says. "We have a trained, stable workforce with a low cost of doing business. And no looming tax hikes."
To succeed in growing our economy by importing American businesses, Lee says all three levels of government would have to work together and get aggressive, and the city would need to cut red tape and make the process simple.
But no matter how bad the economic fundamentals in the U.S., how realistic is it for an American business owner to simply pull up stakes from his or her homeland and move across the border to the land of Timbits and maple syrup? Isn't that the equivalent of trying to get Sidney Crosby to quit the Penguins for the Senators?
"I'm not talking about companies from Virginia or Alabama or Mississippi who don't even know where Canada is," he says.
"I'm talking about businesses within 300 miles of the Canadian border. Especially those in states that are going through a living hell right now.
"There have to be some businesses that are taxed up the wazoo who must be looking at Canada because they're so close. The idea must have crossed their minds to look at the possibility of shifting into Canada."
Erin Kelly, the executive director of the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, says there's nothing wrong with trying to woo American businesses. But she says that's a small part of the equation.
The bulk of the growth in Ottawa's economy, she says, will come from the expansion of existing companies, especially established mid-size firms. Kelly says with facilities like the Entrepreneurship Centre, the city puts a lot of emphasis on helping start-ups get off the ground, but not a lot of thought into helping mid-size companies expand.
And she says the city should look closely at the model of Invest Toronto, an agency that attracts foreign investment and expansion rather than just recruiting companies to relocate.
Borrowing a phrase from U.S. president Barack Obama's campaign, however, Lee says there is no harm in trying to get American companies to uproot and relocate to Canada's capital.
"Maybe it will turn out that it's not viable. But I think if they can do it," he says, "yes we can, too."
Yep. Pretty much sums it up.
It’s funny you know, Obama was lauded by the lefties to no end up here when he was elected. Now, however, things have gone very quiet. Nobody is damning him, but the praise has completely ceased. It’s very, very quiet amongst the left up here these days.
Unless of course, you discount their constant attacks on the Pope of course, which is their new past time.
He’s read 0bama’s economic policies exactly right.
No thank you mister "superior"socialist.
We will fight to regain our freedom without your condescending help.
The Canucks get it, why doesn't the USA?
Canada? That socialist hell-hole? Why, if it weren’t for their pinko-commie-marxist banking regulations, they’d be stting just as pretty as we are.
My contention has always been that Obama is insane and utterly hates the USA. I think even the socialists get this.
Not to mention a vicious totalitarian thug, a curse on human history and the Worst President of the United States, bar none.
The USA is starting to get it.
That’s a chilling picture of Obama. Truly exposes the man.
Other than golf, he appears to have no recreations, no intellectual interests, no personal friends, no religious feeling, nothing but cold arrogance, vanity and resentment. Not a pretty picture.
I know what you mean, but this phrase should never apply to citizens of the USA. there should be no "starting to get it" when it applies to our freedoms.
"I'm talking about businesses within 300 miles of the Canadian border. Especially those in states that are going through a living hell right now.
There are still businesses within 300 miles of the Canadian border? That are worth "poaching"? Hmm.
Oh, and Ian.... some of us "down South" most assuredly know all about Canada. For example, we know that the GDP of the state of Texas matches that of Canada. ALL of Canada.
But he's not trying to help. He's trying to get some more business for Canada. Can you blame him? And isn't his assessment of business conditions down here right?
That’s actually good news to hear from you. Wonder what’s going on in those Canadian lefty minds....
Hey, our people were bamboozled by a “light skinned” negro “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”(Harry Reed). For a while anyways.
I forget. How are the Canadians on guns?
Anyone?
“Corporate taxes are already lower, and that’s before anticipated hikes to deal with record budget deficits south of the border.”
That is a scary sentence. And if it’s true, we deserve it.
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