Familiarity Breeds Respect?

It seems as though one cannot watch a stretch of television (at least in North America) without catching a commercial for some online dating / matchmaking service – and no, I am not speaking of the late night spots where some attractive young lady wants to gossip with you for $5 a minute. The commercials I’m talking about target people who profess to having trouble meeting that special someone who could be ‘the one.’

Whether or not it’s a scholarly grandfather figure, a man doing interviews on the street, or a winsome figure telling the camera that they are seeking a soulmate, the inference is the same – compatibility is what counts. With the divorce rate in most developed countries approaching 50 percent, who can dispute the appeal to such logic?

And yet…

I bring this up not because I am an expert at dating advice or marriage. I have been married for the better part of twenty years and have managed to stay out of jeopardy – which may owe more to my wife’s patience and my dumb luck than anything else. I mention it because the arguments that seem so basic and intuitive to determine who our partners in life should be do not seem to translate elsewhere.

I’m talking trade, of course.

When countries seek out trade agreements, they often remind me of people who cruise bars for a hook-up. You may find that a bit unfair, but is it?

A leader talks about doing a deal with Country X. Okay, so why? Well, they have tens of millions of consumers and billions of dollars of GDP. But isn’t that the equivalent of saying you want to hook up with someone because of their looks and the contents of their bank account? Furthermore, what if you don’t like the same music, or books or films? What if you don’t like the same food, or you can’t agree on whether or not to have children? How long can a relationship last when the best thing you can say about it is “they look great naked and their father’s filthy rich”?

Population and GDP get you noticed. Population and GDP are, to borrow the phrase from the Kelis song, the “milkshake that brings all the boys to the yard.”  But if population and GDP were enough, then why isn’t trade working better? Why are people angry? Why do they protest against the TPP? Why did Britons vote to leave the EU?

Because there is a difference between quantity and quality.

Take, for example, the United States. Its two largest trading relationships are with China and Canada. If you are the superficial type, you look at both and say “China’s got a billion people and Canada has only 35 million. To hell with the Canucks – I’m heading to Beijing with a bottle of bubbly, some flowers and a Barry White CD!”

That is a strategy, but before you uncork the Reunite on ice (very nice) and place that red gauze scarf over the lamp in order to get some mood lighting, consider the following:

According to the Office of the US Trade Representative, the total amount of two way trade between the US and China in 2015 was $599.32 billion while the amount with Canada was only $576.76 billion. China is still more impressive by this measure, but look a little further.

The United States runs a trade deficit with both countries. With Canada, the trade deficit is $15.55 billion. With China, however, the deficit is $367.17 billion.

In layman’s terms, for every dollar of trade the US does with Canada, it’s losing about 3 cents. For every dollar of trade the US does with China, it’s losing 61 cents.   But hey – a billion people…

Okay, so you say ‘that’s not fair – you’re comparing apples to mandarin oranges’. Fine, then let’s look at another country with a billion people and a comparable low wage workforce. Two way trade between the US and India over the same period was US$66.24 billion, and the deficit was $23.34 billion. But that means that for every dollar of trade, the US loses 35 cents – almost half the loss as the trade with the PRC.

Let’s look at the US with Britain. Two way trade in 2015 was US$114.08 billion. Deficit was US$1.85 billion. That’s a loss of a little under 2 cents on the dollar.

But they’re in the European Union (for now), right. Okay, so let’s take another equally large EU country, say Germany, and look at the numbers. Two way trade was US$174.8 billion, deficit was US$74.85, totaling a loss of 42 cents on the dollar.

But, but but…Germany is an industrial powerhouse. That’s not fair! How about…France? Yeah, France! Okay – two way trade was US$77.92 billion, deficit was US$17.71 billion, for a loss of 22 cents on the dollar.

Seriously, folks – I can go all night here….What? Just one more? Well, okay – since you asked nice.

Italy. Two way trade was US$60.36 billion, deficit was US$27.95 billion, for a loss of 46 cents on the dollar.

Quality over quantity, folks. Quality over quantity.

Understand that many free trade deals are about the volumes – the two way trade. When it gets big, certain people make money. They are usually the ones on your TV and in the financial papers who are telling you that life has never been better. Of course, if your pay packet is largely a commission on transactions, how could it not be better? A couple of late night’s in the corner office, and then some quality time with the secret…oops, I mean, wife…as you broil you buns on the beaches of Ibiza.

Surplus, deficit - it doesn't matter. You get paid regardless of the direction the money flows.

Problem is that the overwhelming majority of people don't. They only get paid when the money is coming in. You may not have noticed, but they are the ones who made Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump's candidacies the topic of much kvetching on the news channels. They are the ones who made Brexit a reality. They are the ones who question the value of free trade altogether.

This is unfortunate, and admittedly short sighted. Just because the store managers pay themselves a fortune, or a few people dip their hands in the till doesn’t mean that the business model is flawed. It means there is a greed and graft problem.

It’s interesting to note that long before Canada and the US ratified their free trade deal in 1988, there were other trade deals between the two – dating back as far as the 1850’s and right up to Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s ill-fated attempt in 1911. Funny enough, none of them were called ‘free trade’ treaties. They were called ‘reciprocity’ treaties.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines ‘reciprocity’ as follows: "a situation or relationship in which two people or groups agree to do something similar for each other, to allow each other to have the same rights, etc."  Of all the cases of two way trade with the US I've listed, the ones that approach what one would consider to be 'reciprocity' all have something in common. They are fellow Anglosphere jurisdictions.

To be clear, speaking English helps, but in a world with Google Translate and Rosetta Stone CD's, it should not be overstated. After all, in nearly 100 percent of divorce cases, both the respondent and the plaintiff can understand the words each are speaking.

Like in a more intimate relationship, it is about the intent behind the words, and not the syntax itself. It's not what is said, but what is meant.

The Anglosphere means a certain type of law, a certain type of government, and a certain type of relationship between individuals and civil authority. It makes a difference - even when geography and ethnicity vary. The common reference points that define what is right and what is fair have a tangible effect. 

Just look at Canada’s trade with the European Union. According to Statistics Canada, our total exports to the EU in 2015 were C$39.47 billion, but of that fully C$16.60 billion were destined specifically for Britain. That means that Britain took 42 percent of our products while the other 27 countries combined to take the other 58 percent. Of course, among the others you find Ireland and Malta, who took C$1.55 billion of our products in the same time period. That means that the 3 Anglosphere members among the 28 nation bloc accounted for C$18.15 billion, or 46 percent of the total of Canada’s exports to the EU.

In the decade that I have been advocating Commonwealth free trade, I have had people tell me that I was wrong - and sometimes in not the politest way either. That may account for some portion of my current sarcastic tone. Back then, it was 'Britain would never contemplate leaving the EU', followed by 'Well, even if they left, nobody would have anything to do with them.'

A little over two weeks - fourteen days, including weekends - since Brexit, we have the US and a dozen other countries clamoring for bilateral deals with the UK. We have not only offers of trade from Australia and New Zealand, but offers to 'lend' Britain their trade negotiators to work on the UK's behalf. As I write this, my country's International Trade Minister is in London, briefing Liam Fox on how Canada cut our own deal with the EU!

We also learn that as President Obama was giving his famous 'back of the queue' speech, his trade representative was working on a proposal for a US-UK treaty.

Our crowd has not been proven right because we possess some extraordinary intellect or power to define the future. We got it right because we know that in international affairs, as in our personal lives, compatibility still counts for something.

Some people may think 'familiarity breeds contempt.' In this case, however, maybe familiarity breeds respect.

Thoughts on Father's Day

According to the philosopher Plato, Socrates said “The unexamined life is not worth living.” That may be true, but I think that the problem is not so much in the living, but in the examination – or lack thereof. That’s been the thought foremost in my mind as we approach Father’s Day.

I’ve been a dad for a little shy of 16 years. My kids are the both the greatest frustration and the greatest source of pride for me. You would think that the day would mean a lot to me. To be honest, I don’t think about it much – or at least that much where I am concerned. For all the length of time that I’ve been a father, I’ve spent much longer being a son. Maybe that’s why I view it all from that perspective.

My dad is 79 years old. Despite years of hard work, heart attacks, strokes, and surgeries, he is still the same man – albeit at a reduced speed.

In thinking about him, I also think about the quote about ‘unexamined lives’. You see, I think he is a great man, and I’ll even go so far as to say a better one than me. That said, I have my writing, this blog, my political comings and goings to ensure that somebody, somewhere will know who I am and what I’m about. He doesn’t have that, and because I believe that his life has been – and continues to be – one worth living, I will offer an examination of my own.

He was born in the latter part of the Depression into a poor family that would eventually number eight kids. It was not a good situation. Wearing hand-me-downs from cousins and taking a lunch to school that consisted of a slather of lard between two pieces of bread was commonplace. I do not wish to go into a detailed examination of how and why things were that way. There were a confluence of events before my father and his siblings entered this world that set the stage, and that both alcoholism and mental illness played their part.

At age four, he was given to my grandfather’s nephew and his wife to raise, and for a while, that worked well. It was when that couple, not having children of their own, wished to formally adopt him that things changed. While not in a position to raise my father, and not having actually done so for more than a couple of years, my grandparents could not accept this and demanded his immediate return.

Living in a household with a family he barely knew, and in – to be diplomatic – less than ideal conditions, my father made a fateful decision.

One day, while walking to school, he threw his school books in a creek and with no money and just the clothes on his back, he set out to hitchhike to Toronto. He told me that the first person to stop for him ‘tried something’ but he managed to get away, and another person stopped to help. That stranger took him to his destination. 

Once he arrived, he found work as a hand with a moving company. As he had no money, he saved as much of the meal allowance he was given, and slept in either the warehouse or one of the trucks. The owner of the company would take him home on weekends and invited him to join his family for Sunday meals. Eventually, he managed to save enough that he could rent a room in a boarding house.

At the time this was happening, my father was the ripe old age of 12.

Over the years he would find himself back in the vicinity, and doing all sorts of jobs – from construction, to piling lumber, to working as a hand on some of the steamships that would haul coal and other materials between Kingston, Ontario and Oswego, New York.

He would eventually marry, helping his in-laws with their dairy farm when he wasn’t working another job. He would go back to school and get his papers to become a Stationary Engineer. For a spell, he would have his own modest haulage business, with two trucks and a backhoe.

When the economy turned and prospects dimmed, he and my mother would sell the house and part of the farm and, with everything of value loaded into a station wagon and a U-Haul trailer, make a trek to Northeastern BC, 2800 miles away.

Life often makes a person hard. It makes them cold and callous. You would think that under the circumstances, living under the same roof would have made for a less than pleasant childhood.

I lived in a home where I was never hurt or abused. I lived in a home where I was never witness to abuse either. I lived in a home where I was encouraged to think for myself, and where nothing I said, or did, or dreamed of doing was discouraged.

I was raised in a family where a mortgage payment might be late because the money went to paying for either my sister or I to go to something because ‘it would be good for us.’ In fact, he probably quit smoking a thousand times over the years, because if he had a choice between buying a pack of cigarettes and giving his kids money for lunch, we never went without a carton of milk.

I was raised by parents who refused to declare bankruptcy for their haulage business because it meant that local businesses would not get paid, and their reputations meant more than a quick out.

I lived in a home where strangers who needed a bed and a hot meal were never refused, even if my folks had been taken advantage of for the umpteenth time.

I lived in a home where I always heard my dad say that he loved me and was proud of me. For the record, he still does it.

When I was about to graduate University, I was asked how I wanted my name to appear on the diploma. I asked that my middle name, Hugh, be included. You see, that’s my father’s name and to have it written on that paper was important to me.

When I took a hand at writing fiction, I adopted the pen name ‘B.H. Cameron’ and often use the ‘H’ when I identify myself. When my son was born, the name Hugh was also included in his full name.

My father is not a complicated man, but he’s not a stupid one either. He wears his heart on his sleeve and does nothing by half-measures. He’ll embrace what he thinks is right, and not be shy about calling out things he feels are wrong. He is generous (to a fault) and is willing to hold a grudge to his dying day, but is equally willing to forget the whole thing upon hearing the words ‘I’m sorry’ – even if they were not offered in sincerity.

He would never place himself above others, but he’ll be damned if he’ll allow himself to be placed below either.

I’ve had the chance to build a life free of the hardship, deprivation and abuse my father suffered in his childhood, but that owes less to the choices I’ve made than to the ones he did. After all, I have his example of being a father to follow. He had to wing it. It reminds me of something a read in a book about the Bronfman family. When reportedly asked about building their fortune, Samuel Bronfman commented that turning a million dollars into a billion was not all that difficult. The hard part, he said, was getting to a million from just one dollar. I see fatherhood in very much the same light.

In a very real sense, I am my father’s son.

I’m neither impressed by how much a person has nor repelled by how little they may possess. I believe that family and friends are your most prized possession, and loyalty is the price you pay to maintain them. I believe that there are better people than me, but that’s based on the content of their character and not their bank account or how many dusty sheets of paper line the walls of their house.

I believe that the difference between a wealthy person and a poor person has more to do with luck and providence than any intrinsic ethic of labour or integrity.

I don’t have a role or station to fulfill, but I have a job to do, and affectations are merely the shiny wrapping paper and pretty ribbons that adorn it.

I believe a friend is someone who would feed you if you were hungry, clothe you when bare, and offer a place from the wet and cold. Everyone else is an associate or an acquaintance – including yourself if you’re not prepared to help when called upon.

I have a rather indelicate sense of humour, and will take time from the weighty matters of life to be a complete imbecile and butt of my kids’ jokes.

I will hold a grudge for longer than what my wife considers healthy, and yet, with a simple ‘I’m sorry’ the matter is put to rest.

All of this, I got from my dad.

In writing this – in ensuring that my father’s life is not ‘unexamined’ – I lay open a great deal. Like many families from our little part of the world, people keep things private. Such candidness is not common. Having said that, I don’t believe that any bit of this account represents a poor reflection of anyone. 

My grandparents lived complicated lives and had histories of their own to overcome. If there was a failure, it was that they were unable to do that, leaving those problems as an inheritance. In my youth, I could never understand this, but time teaches you that life isn’t simple, and that they were not the exception, but the rule.

We are born into this world naked and unaware, wholly dependent and wholly vulnerable. In that regard (and with apologies to those who believe in karmic reincarnation), being born a pauper is no more an indication of unworthiness than being born a Rockefeller is one of some intrinsic virtue. It means that our fate lies in the hands of those whose care we are placed in.

My father’s situation owed to the choices his father made. Everything I have – or will ever have – owes to his decision to do differently, to be different – even if he didn’t know what that was or how to achieve it.

My father was the ‘best man’ at my wedding. In truth, he’s been the better man all along.

Some thoughts on Brexit

It has been a little over ten years since I made a trip to London. Early May, and very warm.

A few months before that, I had published my book ‘The Case for Commonwealth Free Trade’. In the days and weeks that followed, I had made the acquaintance of a good number of people – many of which I am still proud to count as valued colleagues and friends.

During that trip I met with a great number of individuals involved in government and business who told me that they liked the book and it’s general direction (although some felt that the idea of a Free Trade bloc encompassing the entire Commonwealth was far too ambitious).

Almost to a person, they told me that it was a great idea and that Canada should partner with Australia and New Zealand, and possibly a couple of other member states. They also said that it was a shame that they could never contemplate any involvement in such a venture. They explained that membership in the EU precluded them from ever contemplating signing on, but that they wished us every success.

During a few candid moments in private, I asked whether or not they saw a day when this might change.

Almost all of them, regardless of party stripe, remarked that they didn’t see this as a possibility, although they would certainly back a change.

For years, I had the sense that the sentiments in Britain were akin to what you would see at a grade school dance. Boys lined up along one wall, with girls along the other. A slow dance is playing, but the only thing dancing are the lights reflecting from the mirrored ball.

Possessing perfect knowledge and some degree of mind reading, you determine that there are at least a half-dozen cases where a boy would not be refused a dance by the girl he likes and vice versa. A dispassionate and neutral observer might see the attractions, but they don’t. What they see is the prospect of humiliation and disappointment. Given the notorious degree of self-consciousness among adolescents, those involved sit through ‘Stairway to Heaven’, moving either to the washroom or the refreshment table, not to the opposite wall.

Almost every Briton I spoke to was unhappy with the European Union. Yes, they wanted to trade freely with the continent, but the whole incremental move toward a United States of Europe was an entirely different matter.

The thing is that in the spring of 2006, the call to have a referendum was a decidedly minority view, and the push to quit the EU even more exclusive.

Today, ten years and about five weeks later, not only is there a vote on the issue, it will be decided in less than a week and if polling is to be believed, that departure is a real possibility. In short, a significant portion of the British electorate has summoned the courage to cross the dance floor and seize the moment.

What changed?

A lot of people will have their own views on what represented a pivot moment, and many theories are equally valid. Having said that, I have my own.

In October of 2008, while celebrating our 9^th wedding anniversary, I lay in a hotel suite in a Cuban resort. The television was turned to CNN and the camera was panned to a group of Congressmen and Senators in Washington. At the same time, to the side of the image, one could see the Dow Jones and NASDAQ dropping like a two ton boulder off a sheer cliff face.

Like a great deal of the world, we were shocked and nervous, although the abundance of rum and sun were effective distractions.

The biggest crisis to the global economy dictated a concerted response, and the world through everything it had at the situation. Interest rates at near zero, deficit spending and ‘quantitative easing’ on a historic scale.

The good news is that it worked, but even the most effective medicine has some nasty side-effects. When using chemotherapy, doctors can kill cancer cells (which is good), but the tradeoff is to knock your immune system down to nearly nothing.

In fixing the global economy, governments and authorities did something else. They exposed their weaknesses. Like the proverbial receding tide at a nudist beach, modesties and shortcomings were revealed.

The Eurozone had always had its inconsistencies and contradictions. Harmonizing currencies among still sovereign states with greatly differing economies and economic policies was going to be a difficult task at the best of times. The difficulty lie in the fact that abandoning a significant symbol of nationhood – a currency – meant rolling back the cause of an ‘ever closer union’. That’s what it’s been all about – a European Parliament, European Courts, European laws, and yes – European money.

The Euro was not so much a deception, but a delusion – that you could harmonize the currency before you harmonized the forces that controlled and regulated it. But delusions are as stubbornly held as deceptions, and are defended just as vigorously. The defense is also similar in its pathology – defend a deception by laying down another one to cover it. If that doesn’t work, then add another.

The problem is that a delusion, no matter how stubbornly held it is, is just that – a delusion.

The delusions in this case led to drastic economic measures, and it is in the effects of those drastic measures that everyday citizens felt the pain – higher unemployment, bank failures and credit constrictions.

Had 2008 not happened, I doubt that Britons would be presented with the referendum. There would certainly have been calls for one, but they would have been dismissed by the powers-that-be as a ‘fringe’ opinion.

Delusions have a short shelf life, and even with that, require a great deal of energy to sustain. For those fighting to create a ‘United States of Europe’, the delusions have been plentiful, and the effort to keep them up equally demanding.

The delusions that you could ignore national and cultural identities and histories, that you could introduce a single currency without fully merging economic and political power, that you could create political institutions without giving them democratic legitimacy are all significant, but they pale in comparison to the one that – for Britain – started it all.

It is the delusion that you must give up your flag, your Head of State, your currency, your laws and your system of government in order to sell 10 percent more widgets.

This coming Wednesday, the world will learn if the delusion holds, or if it collapses under the weight of its own inherent inconsistencies.