THE PROTESTS - ARE THEY FOR REAL?

Whenever there is a protest of any kind, it attracts every malcontent from the anarchists and Trotskyites to the opponents of genetically modified food, and the fur seal hunt. All they have in common is that they are angry at the establishment. They can be a rabble and they often behave like one. The WTO protesters never miss a chance to demonstrate against free trade, world trade, and favours for multinational corporations. I sound like one of them already.

With the current malaise in the European community where the have-nots – Greece Portugal, Spain and Ireland, arrayed against the mighty, principally Germany and to a great extent Francem, maybe it's time for a reality check. At issue is the future of the European Community and the survival of the Euro. Suddenly I am not so sure that free trade and the establishment of multi-national trading communities is such a great idea.

I am not going to join the WTO protesters. I’m afraid they can’t, for all their hysterics, put the toothpaste back into the tube.

But my attitude toward multi-national amalgamation and the dissolution of sovereign state boundaries is undergoing a change. And it’s not just about Greece.

Many years ago I did a story about the Canadian cheese industry, especially our own Cheddar cheese which was loved by the British to the tune of millions of pounds a year. Suddenly it was gone when the ECU set up its own trading community. A cheesemaker in Trenton told me that the town of Cheddar, where the cheese originally came from, has been displaced by a European Market-based cheese factory just outside Munich.

In fact, the European Community has “rationalized” industry and agriculture to reduce costs and make the marketing of goods go beyond national boundaries. Sounds like a good idea. An example is that in the EU there was always a lot of duplication. There was no point in everyone making – for example – butter. Let’s let the Italians or the Dutch or the Danes have the butter monopoly. It will be good for everyone. Maybe it will only be good for business.

Recently I visited Portugal and had a conversation with a Portuguese teacher/artist who lamented what the Common Market had done to the Portuguese fishing industry. As part of the bargain that let Portugal into the European Community, they were obliged to relinquish much of their hold on fishing. It was good for the Spaniards. And if you look at it in cold economic terms, it made sense.

This is where we come apart. “Cold economic terms” is not what makes real people happy. To displace industries and products from a country for the sake of economies of scale, does not deal with the enormous labour dislocation.

I’m saying all this because of the decision by the British government, Building a new cross-country high speed line, to give the business to Siemens. It makes good “Euro-sense.” The British government has said it is better for the taxpayers. In fact, it is better for multinational companies. The thousands of people who work in Derby, the location of Europe’s oldest train factory, are also taxpayers. They will be out of a job because Bombardier will have to close the plant because of lack of orders.

Britain was a great industrial power. It’s Clydeside and Belfast shipbuilders were among the best in the world. No more. Glasgow is no longer the ship building capital. In fact, my wife and I will be traveling on the Cunard Line’s flagship, Queen Mary Two. It was built in France! Not that the shipbuilders of St. Nazaire aren’t entitled to make a living, but whither British shipbuilding?

I found it especially painful, when, in the interests of globalization, Air Canada chose, a few years ago, to expand its fleet with the acquisition of new planes from Embraer because they put in a better offer than Bombardier. I know, I know – Bombardier is also a multinational company, but I asked myself at the time, how many Brazilians traveled on Air Canada.

I am not a protectionist by nature. But I am also not a “destructionist.” I still lament the departure of the textile industry from the area around Boston when they migrated to the cheap labour markets of the Old South. When that was not cheap enough the manufacturers moved to El Salvador and from there they found it even cheaper to be in Honduras.

Some time ago I wrote a piece about the descent into oblivion of the American fashion industry. At one time more than 50% of the clothes Americans wore came from American factories. Today it is less than 2 percent!

Somewhere we have lost our way. Somewhere, by rationalizing trade we have managed to uproot millions of people.

And I’m not even mentioning when the Free Trade mania does to underdeveloped countries where they have neither the capacity nor the capital to compete. They are reduced to being customers, while their labour forces molder away.

Does this mean I’ll be present when the protesters hit the next WTO meeting? You can never tell.