There are other options than tariffs! Export taxes. Changes in regulation. Contract cancelations.
Canada has many options. We could, for instance, withdraw from bilateral copyright agreements. Or limit the amount of electricity that's permitted to be exported.
Cory Doctorow suggests that we could establish Canadian app stores with a 5% cut and mandate that all phones sold in Canada be configured to use them. Lots of ideas, on a scale from good to bad, but there's options.
Yeah. For a government organization, turning a profit is stolen wages. Though a mandate to run zero profit can create a perverse incentive to 'spend money on lose it next year'. I'm not sure how to deal with that on a policy level but I'd like to see ideas on it.
I think we're on the same page. The idea that Crown corporations need to turn a profit is pretty ridiculous. It's a management framework. They should at least operate on a cost recovery basis within reason though. But the emphasis is to provide the service.
Yeah. It's a natural monopoly and should be nationalized into Crown corporations. This would allow the natural monopoly to be kept as minimal as possible and prevent it being used to leverage into other markets.
If BC Tel owned all the cellphone towers and fibre lines, we wouldn't have all these bullshit shenanigans with locking 3rd-party providers out of the market - they'd ALL be third-party providers.
It's been a while since a new Geneva Checklist item was added because of Canadian soldiers. I'm sure we could come up with some new ones if pressed.
We are of one mind on this. The USA got their balls chopped off in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, slinking off in ignominy after Raytheon made their billions. We'd kick them out of Canada, too.
It would suck, and we'd probably end up being run by dictators for a generation or two, but that's a problem we could face.
A few thousand soldiers isn't going to be spit in the wind against the US military. Might as well get some good training for them with Ukrainian drone operators against a larger foe.
I'm sure he'll be happy with the Sudetenland!
Gav. Cameo from Nukees. Dude ends up outnumbering quite a few species. As the author notes, you have to be dinka-cho careful with tokjith.
Schlock Mercenary is pretty great, I reread it every few years.
If you like military scifi it's worth a look.
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2002-07-14