[Mukluk]

Avro - what we have here is a good debate, how about stepping up your contribution a notch and not steer this into a mudslinger. I have seen you add value before, let's steer it that way.

I am pretty much in the same camp as Godz on this one. People that make money, spend the money in their communities. I don't believe that American health care is that expensive - they pay way less tax. If they'd treat private health care as an income tax and exercise discipline, they have a far superior system. The service we have received here in the US is far superior to anything received in Canada.

I will be going to see my doctor about my knee in a few weeks. From there, I get a referral to a specialist and then (hopefully, if I just bite the bullet) reconstruction. I bet this will be less than a 2 month process. If you think you can do that in Canada, I would like to hear about it.

Robair, I appreciate your personal experience in your post. I tend to think in terms of the industries that I have worked in and am familiar with. You don't move a power plant, cement factory, pulp mill etc...they stay close to raw material supply. Those are the jobs that I tend to think about. You have a good point on the head office, small manufacturing etc jobs - these are easier to move and by buying your company, they aren't buying the bricks, they are buying the design and a few of the top people.

I think the article you posted is like reading an article on statistics. It can be dangerous to pick and choose what criterion are used, and you can make anything look like something else with enough statistics. To be fair, I don't have time to read the article in a quiet room from start to end, so I may be offside. I just find it impossible that Canada is the cheapest place to do business. It is just beyond reason that this could be the case.

Scape - I used 0% as an extreme example, which I am sure you understood. Your posts are great, but a little to hard core for my level so I don't get as much out of them as I possibly should.

m

[Scape]

Mukluk Mukluk:

You don't move a power plant, cement factory, pulp mill etc...they stay close to raw material supply. Those are the jobs that I tend to think about. You have a good point on the head office, small manufacturing etc jobs - these are easier to move and by buying your company, they aren't buying the bricks, they are buying the design and a few of the top people.

No worries, 0% is just a frame of reference and a good one at that as it gives perspective. I know stats are a wee bit dull but it's how we measure. From June 30, 1985 to June 30, 2001 almost 13,000 Canadian companies were sold to foreigners - the vast majority by our cousins south of the 49th. Keep in mind this figure only includes transactions subject to the Investment Canada Act. Furthermore dollar value of companies sold in 1999 was double that of 1998 which in and of itself was a record. One must at this point grow concerned that we are losing control of our own destiny.

What is more important is who controls what. Foreigners control many industries in Canadian including cars and trucks, chemicals and chemical products, computers, electrical equipment, food processing and packaging, glass, tobacco and heavy machinery. In total over 50% of Canada's manufacturing base in now foreign owned and controlled.

Compare this to the other side of the coin: there is not one US industry that is majority foreign owned by anyone, let alone Canadians. The only 2 in the US that score even remotely close is chemicals and book publishing which are 1/3 foreign.

Back to the topic at hand or at least a close approximation. We already have 2 tier health if you consider such things as a trip to the dentist. However, you don't die if you lose a tooth. We should have the focus of life and death strictly public run, I would favor medical procedures that are mostly for the benefit of the elderly becoming privatized such as hip surgery as there will be a heavy demand that the public system simply can not adequately respond too. However, the public system must get 1st pick of the labour force at all times, at no time should we allow a route on the system and end up with high paid plastic surgeons while we have community doctors getting paid less than a city bus driver in our towns and communities.

[Robair]

Mukluk Mukluk:

I think the article you posted is like reading an article on statistics. It can be dangerous to pick and choose what criterion are used, and you can make anything look like something else with enough statistics. To be fair, I don't have time to read the article in a quiet room from start to end, so I may be offside. I just find it impossible that Canada is the cheapest place to do business. It is just beyond reason that this could be the case.

KPMG rated the cost of doing business in 11 industrialized nations. They took 27 different costs into consideration vs Goof46 taking one, the corperate tax rate. Here's another source. Don't know what else I can do to prove my point, like I said in my experience as head engineer for a manufactured product in Alberta, we were able to produce a MUCH cheaper product that was higher quality than our American compeditors. And it was easy to do. You explain it.

Now I work in the same manufacturing enviornment in KY and am constatnly running into costs that I think are through the roof. The most recent is fuel tanks. We could get fuel tanks made for our trucks in Calgary for around 270.00 a piece. The same thing down here? 800.00 plus! Insane.

The Liberals have been promoting buyouts, and that's all this is, more of the same.

[Robair]

Regarding my personal experience:

$1:

Leach is a world leader in the development, manufacture and distribution of front, side and rear loader packer bodies.

Leach Company is based in Appleton, Wisconsin, where all product support, sales administration, new product development, research and development (R&D), and the executive offices reside. In addition, the location features Primed&Ready trucks available for sale.

Manufacturing takes place at the Leach North America facility (formerly known as Wittke) in Medicine Hat, Alberta, approximately 35 miles north of the Montana border. The facility is a 13-acre, 122,000 square foot manufacturing facility comprised of 9,000 square feet of office space with a growing work force of skilled employees dedicated to building the highest-quality products, maintaining exceptional safety records and continuing their professional development with ongoing educational programs.

Nice eh?

[Diffident_Albertan]

Hey Avro:

The folks in the US buy their drugs here because the exchange rate makes them cheaper for the most part. Yes, there is a cost factor involved, but I would suspect that the exchange rate is the biggest part of it.

It took my father 2 years to get knee surgery. The average wait for a person in Canada is 18 months. I hope that your Mother is doing well and it's good to know that she got fast tracked because she needed it. But that isn't everyone's reality, especially if it is not critical.

Part of the problem that I see is that the health system is designed to treat patients reactively, instead of proactively. They should be trying preventative measures in order to keep costs down.

I think it's also important to look at other models used around the world to see if we can improve/enhance our model without increasing an already hefty tax burden (49% approx. over 3 levels of gov't). By world standards there is no other country besides North Korea that models our current system. Not even Sweden, who by far have more enhanced social programs which actually cost less per capita than the Cdn model.

Well that was my two cents.... or five cents in American money.

[Mukluk]

Hey Robair

Thanks for the links, I read these ones. Very interesting indeed, thanks for the links.

I still am in extreme disagreement that the NDP are holding the country hostage to their policies by blackmailing the Liberals. If we all wanted Canada to be a big Saskatchewan we would have all voted in the Nude Democrats.

m