[bootlegga]

$1:

The US government's decision to quash a $5.50 tax exemption for Canadians entering the United States by air or sea shows the Harper Tories aren't defending our interests in Washington DC, according to the Liberals and New Democrats.

The opposition parties may have a case.

Rescission of the tax exemption, which disappeared last Friday when the U.S. signed free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, is just the latest in a series of measures that could potentially hurt Canadians' pocketbooks.

It comes at a time when the Harper Government has voiced its opposition to proposed legislation that would impose a tax on cargo entering America from B.C. ports. Canada had been exempted from paying the fee since 1997.

It also follows a revelation that Barack Obama's $447 billion jobs bill includes a Buy America provision that would exclude Canada from bidding on state and municipal infrastructure projects.

"The troubling part of all these events is the government's response," MP Robert Chisholm, the NDP critic for International Trade, told Yahoo! Canada News, adding the recent measures may indicate the US doesn't take Canada, their largest trading partner, seriously.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-p ... 21154.html

[PublicAnimalNo9]

I've never been under the impression that the US has ever taken Canada seriously.

[DanSC]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

I've never been under the impression that the US has ever taken Canada seriously.

You are correct.

[herbie]

No a third world drug bunghole deal is more important than their largest source of tourism.

[andyt]

Why are you all bitching? This is good for Canada, will help to keep Canadians spending their money at home. Now lets give visitors arriving by land a $10 gift certificate, must be spent on a Canadian made product, if they can find one.

[stokes]

herbie herbie:

No a third world drug bunghole deal is more important than their largest source of tourism.

We give them more than tourism dollars, we give them natural resources that they desperately need. Maybe its time to put the shoe on the other foot and give them back what they give us. I am not talking about stupid threats I am talking about charging them $6.00 to come to us from air, sea and land plus a provision that they can not use the raw materials from Canada in their "Buy American" plans. It may sound a like I am going to far but it will oly hurt for a little while til they realize we arent here to screw them over.

[stokes]

andyt andyt:

Why are you all bitching? This is good for Canada, will help to keep Canadians spending their money at home. Now lets give visitors arriving by land a $10 gift certificate, must be spent on a Canadian made product, if they can find one.

Your idea is better than mine...

[CommanderSock]

China will buy more from Canada than the US in the next several decades anyhow. We may need deals with China more so than the USA.

Canadian consumers might as well be able to get their manufactured goods straight from the source.

[desertdude]

I was under the impression the US never took Canada seriously.

[Gunnair]

andyt andyt:

Why are you all bitching? This is good for Canada, will help to keep Canadians spending their money at home. Now lets give visitors arriving by land a $10 gift certificate, must be spent on a Canadian made product, if they can find one.

Agreed. Quit your bitching' and spend your tourist dollars here. Yanks want to have a cover charge, then maybe they should get a better band first.

[bootlegga]

andyt andyt:

Why are you all bitching? This is good for Canada, will help to keep Canadians spending their money at home. Now lets give visitors arriving by land a $10 gift certificate, must be spent on a Canadian made product, if they can find one.

Gunnair Gunnair:

Agreed. Quit your bitching' and spend your tourist dollars here. Yanks want to have a cover charge, then maybe they should get a better band first.

You're both deluding yourselves - do you really think that someone is going to say, "Oh no, I have to pay $5.50 on top of the $1000 I'm paying for my flight and the $500 for my hotel" and not fly to the States for a vacation?

Of course they will.

Give your heads a shake - this is nothing more than greed, pure and simple.

I'd say charge the same thing here, but the passport border change recently already means we're seeing less American tourists than we used to. This is yet another case of Canada having to sit quiet and take it.

[Gunnair]

bootlegga bootlegga:

andyt andyt:

Why are you all bitching? This is good for Canada, will help to keep Canadians spending their money at home. Now lets give visitors arriving by land a $10 gift certificate, must be spent on a Canadian made product, if they can find one.

Gunnair Gunnair:

Agreed. Quit your bitching' and spend your tourist dollars here. Yanks want to have a cover charge, then maybe they should get a better band first.

You're both deluding yourselves - do you really think that someone is going to say, "Oh no, I have to pay $5.50 on top of the $1000 I'm paying for my flight and the $500 for my hotel" and not fly to the States for a vacation?

Of course they will.

Give your heads a shake - this is nothing more than greed, pure and simple.

I'd say charge the same thing here, but the passport border change recently already means we're seeing less American tourists than we used to. This is yet another case of Canada having to sit quiet and take it.

Trip over yourself to pay a head tax.

Not everyone wants to.

[Ruxpercnd]

If we had set the border at the 54th parallel, where it should have been set in the first place, then we could take Canada more seriously, because a lot of it would be stateside.

Don't feel badly, we don't give a lot of attention to Alaska, either. As a matter of fact. The people back East hardly pay much attention to us Americans on the West coast. We don't even count during presidential elections.

That's ok, we are now one big happy NAFTA family.

[Thanos]

desertdude desertdude:

I was under the impression the US never took Canada seriously.

No doubt. I don't know why everyone's getting all torqued out of shape about it now considering it's been like this forever. They're a (mostly) good people that are unfortunately plagued by an abyssmal education system that's created endemic nationwide ignorance and they're continuously being self-victimized by a political/business apparatus that richly rewards the most venal and evil among them. It probably will be like that in the US forever and, even if any of them wanted to fix things, it's not the job of Canadians to change it for them. Our whining about it on the northern side of the border is a utterly pointless waste of time for any Canadian to engage in.

[Zipperfish]

Gunnair Gunnair:

Agreed. Quit your bitching' and spend your tourist dollars here. Yanks want to have a cover charge, then maybe they should get a better band first.

That is hilarious. Not to mention the cavity search by the doorman just to get into the club.