In multi-towered urban Ontario, there are more self-styled wise men per square mile of pavement than can be found anywhere else in Canada.
One of the pack of word-wizards there, Terrence Corcoran, has compared Saskatchewan to a banana republic and Brad Wall to Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela. He equates Wall's opposition to a foreign takeover of the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan to Venezuela's nationalization of the oil industry.
The comparison is invalid. Chavez, not renowned as a democrat and not popular in North America and Europe, made sure that control of Venezuela's petroleum resources would remain in Venezuela. His take-over was not reprehensible; at the very least, it ensures the country's natural resources will be plundered only by home-grown thieves. In Saskatchewan, the government is trying to derail a hostile bid for a flagship company, the dominant player in an industry which provides a large portion of the resource income which is expended for the benefit of all the people in the province.
In 2010, the religion of the federal Conservatives insists free trade is good for everybody and that any action taken in restraint of free trade is as sinful as worshipping a graven image. It was not always so.
In 1911, when the Laurier Liberals tried to sign a Reciprocity Treaty with the United States to reduce or eliminate tariffs on natural products and a limited list of manufactured goods, the Conservatives forced them out of office. What followed were decades of discontent in the West as federal tariffs denied access to closer and cheaper suppliers in the United States for goods necessary during the long settlement era in the Prairie Provinces.
When free trade became an issue again, the Progressive Conservatives were in power and were responsible for negotiating the flaw-infested treaty known as NAFTA. The provisions of NAFTA, in fact, placed limitations on Canadian sovereignty. The proposed Canada-Euro trade agreement, if signed, will only add to them.
Among those strongly in favour of the Australian take-over of the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan is American-born Thomas Flanagan, one of the cadre of influential conservative professors at the University of Calgary. In the rise of Steven Harper through the ranks the Reform Party to the leadership of the federal Conservatives and the Prime Minister's office, Flanagan was a political guru and faithful ally. His credentials as a political scientist, economist and historian are impressive. It is puzzling, therefore to see that he appears to be unmindful of the dismal record of the extractive industries.
Years ago, I took a wrong turn in Nevada and found myself in an old mining town. The inhabitants of the place were far outnumbered by the graves in even the smaller of the town's two cemeteries. Hard-rock miners with Welsh names, they burrowed the tunnels which honeycombed the hills around the town. The tunnels were empty. The robber barons were gone, taking with them the riches and leaving behind the ruin.
The most lucrative extractive industry in the state in 2010 is extracting tourist dollars.
It is more than strange that intelligent and well-educated people fail to understand that no agreements made by human beings can ever guarantee complete freedom in anything.
There is no reason for the terms of a trade agreement to be superior to the powers established by the constitution of a nation. There is no way the freedom of the many can be maintained without restrictions on the few.
Only the laws of nature are immutable. We flout them at our peril. In the debate about Saskatchewan's potash, there are no ballots for people not yet born (and who may never be born.) The concern for securing the maximum benefit for the people of Saskatchewan now should also be a concern for cherishing the environment in which future generations will live.
