To the Editor:
Those who know me fairly well know I have traveled to all 6 continents and visited over 80 Countries and protectorates. You also know that I retired as a senior executive of a major tire manufacturer, and that over my work career, I visited almost every nook and cranny in Canada that had a decent-sized tire shop, including all 10 provinces and the 3 territories.
Tire shops are a critical part of any meaningful large business and public service operation everywhere in our country. There are thousands of very skilled, technically trained people mounting, dismounting, repairing, and retreading tires of every size every day both above ground and underground. They play a major role in the creation of wealth that we all benefit from.
For me, every day of the more than 40 years that I worked in the tire industry was a learning experience. Most importantly, what I learned was the business side of what drives our economy and provides the basis of the wealth that our vast country can provide. Our economy is driven by the mineral, oil, and gas resources that are in the ground and what we grow on top of the ground, coupled with how we transport these goods and how they are processed.
Most of this activity in Canada has been to feed the massive processing machine to the south of us in the USA. Yes, we do ship a lot to other countries but 2/3 of the total production we ship goes to our southern neighbour. It makes it easy to load it and ship it to them by truck or rail. They add the value it takes to finish it and get it to the consumer market. In Canada, our Gross Domestic Product per capita in 2024 was $54,573, and in the US it was $85,812. Yes, the difference is 57%.
At this point, I struggle to see how we can be ripping them off and taking advantage of the trade relationship.
What I can conclude are two things in particular:
1. We sell our natural resources and agricultural products UNPROCESSED to the US who benefit greatly from the creation and distribution of finished products. They have been great innovators and creators.
2. We have done a poor job of developing a market for the billions of dollars that could have been sold to other countries in the world that do not possess the resources that we have.
Our politicians have failed for decades to plan and think long-term. Both parties have always been concerned with the next election and keeping their jobs rather than having a long-term strategy for the country and sticking to it. See China as an example.
What we need in Canada is more tire shops in more nooks and crannies and in more port cities to ship our commodities to the World.
G. William Streeter,
Southampton.
