We share your fears about working conditions in Mexico. But, whether truthfully or not, we have many of the same concerns about the US, given the truth that unions and working people USED to have more influence in Canada than in the US. We see how Mr. Bush and, to a certain extent, previous presidents and various other governments have aided in the destruction of unions and workers' rights.
Just the other day some think tank or another published what I thought was a hysterical attack on Canada's supply management policies for dairy and poultry products. "It's costing consumers money!!!! Especially poorer consumers!!!!!!!" Well, cry me a river. Food is cheaper in Canada than anywhere in the world BUT the US, and I am sick to death of this constant attack on the farmers of North America, especially Canadians.
Sure, our farmers are protected. And why the hell shouldn't they be? Public health concerns ALONE ought to be enough to want Canadians eating Canadian food. Right at this very minute, believe it or not, the Canadian food inspection people are considering allowing Chinese poultry products into Canada!!!!!!! My eyes nearly fell out of my head when I read that. They can't even make godamned dog food without killing dogs and we're going to let them send us CHICKEN? I get spasmodic when I think about it.
Call it what you will, protectionism or subsidies or anything else, but I think people should eat food grown by their own farmers. I think this is true for Americans as well as Canadians. But Americans, since they "manage" their farm subsidies and protectionism differently, keep ranting and raving that we aren't playing "fair" by keeping American milk and eggs out of Canada -- so far. Fair? What has fair got to do with it? Americans only shout "not fair" when they're not winning. Sorry if that sounds harsh and it certainly isn't an attack on Americans here at B77, but when it comes to farm trade? It's true.
I do not want to be eating Chinese chicken and drinking American milk. I don't mind eating Mexican strawberries when there are no BC strawberries, but I bitterly resent that right now I can't buy BC plums or apples in our chain stores: they are full of plums and apples from the US or Mexico or even Chile for the luvva pete.
Some people care about eating local food. But there aren't enough of us. And that's true in the US as well as here. When the farms are all gone, or are all in the hands of Cargill and Monsanto, what will we do? We will do what our governments will have forced upon us: rely on industrial food produced on industrial farms or imported from nations where standards of cleanliness and environmental concerns don't even exist. Where the people who grow our food are little better than slaves, who won't even be able to eat what they grow.
Jeez.