| Subject: Re: Hypothetical... Purely Canadian Car Industry / think out of the box |
Author:
Margo
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Date Posted: 14:41:03 03/14/03 Fri
Author Host/IP: h24-80-4-138.vc.shawcable.net/24.80.4.138
In reply to:
Dennis Laurie
's message, "Hypothetical... Purely Canadian Car Industry" on 04:38:37 03/13/03 Thu
Dennis wrote:
Suppose Canadians decided to independantly produce automobiles for example. Would we take over the existing Canadian branch plants [..snip for brevity] This would be in direct competition with an established and healthy car industry already existing,
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If it is so "healthy", Dennis, why is the Ford CEO asking for government money? (see article posted elsewhere here) - why isn't it self-sufficient? And if our government now is going to put $ into Ford and other private enterprises - why shouldn't we get a cut of the pie. I say if we are **going to** invest millions and millions into the car industry, let it be in a Canadian company producing a Canadian car. But better yet, no handouts.
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Dennis wrote:
A Canadian car plant/company could not compete with the likes of GM or Ford any time soon. Luring workers to our new companies would take massive financial incentives not readily available to an upstart company.
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Ford is already asking for massive incentives - and what would we *get* for our $$? Just jobs? Jobs that they can ditch any time they please or move to some maquilladora'd country when it suits them?
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Dennis:
I do not see how starting from scratch to compete against a well entrenched and established industry would be economical. After taking into account all the enormous start-up costs, our new cars would have to break into the market share in Canada first, then move to break into the markets of other countries.
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Maybe we should consider NOT bailing out the Ford's. Ford has its hand out today, who will it be tomorrow? And again - what do we GET in return for taxpayer dollars in these bailouts? Why not invest in our own country, our own products?
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Transport costs would be prohibitive if we could not break into the US market. All of our initial costs would be passed onto consumers of our new cars, pushing our price to levels not remotely competitive with established firms that dominate the European, Asian, American, and Canadian markets.
Many Canadians would choose to continue to buy now foreign made vehicles. Our small population and limited aggregate disposable financial resources would induce a situation where the Canadian market would not support our industry.
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How do you *know* all this for certain, Dennis? Why do you assume we would produce a lemon? How do you know we wouldn't produce the best little buggy in the world?
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The US is notorious for its vehement protectionism, as is Europe.
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Wouldn't our NAFTA be a help here? The reason people support NAFTA is that it gives us **access** to the U.S. market doesn't it? So where would this protectionism you're talking about factor in? I thought that was the whole raison d'etre of getting Canada into NAFTA?
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Would the Canadian gov't subsidize this industry? NAFTA and the FTA would frown upon that, as would the WTO most likely. Should the gov't subsidize an industry that likely would not dominate the Canadian market and definately not dominate any other market? Would tax-payers be willing to foot the bill for a new and weak industry that they all do not support and would be unnecessary in many eyes?===========
Excellent questions Dennis. Please apply them to the recent Ford requests (aka demands) for bigtime government money.
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What about the risks of investing time and money into a new venture that would have to compete with the likes of GM, Ford, Daimler-Chrysler, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, etc.?
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The last 3 you name weren't around in the 50's. And Honda and Nissan came out of a country that was defeated by the U.S. but who has the self-esteem to know they could create a better car. They didn't give up before they even thought about it....as you are asking us to do.
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Would auto workers be willing to give up good paying and relatively secure jobs with an established giant to work for an infant national car manufacturer that has no guarantee of success, and arguably has very little chance of becoming successful and self-sustaining, let alone competitive with these giants?
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Well perhaps all those folks who are being sidelined into minimum wage jobs would like to venture. You are making an assumption that a Canadian Car company could not co-exist with anything else. By that rationale, Dennis, Canada should not manufacture anything at all here - because somewhere else in the U.S. or the world it's already being made. What about all that "compete in the world market" philosophy that goes with NAFTA. You seem to be contradicting yourself here...... On the one hand you say NAFTA is our ticket to ride, on the other you're saying Ooooh we can't hack it in the world market. Which is it?
Dennis, you're sounding "protectionist" to me - but protectionist of the U.S. and Japanese markets!
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How about these concerns? Anyone in the Orchard camp care to enlighten me as to your solutions to these hastily compiled but very plain to see obstacles to one particular policy stance?
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With this sort of attitude the Canadian railways would never have been built ....... Obviously you raise some questions which would need to be addressed. What is baffling though, is that you appear to need to halt even THINKING about this. Why is that so threatening? Everywhere we turn nowadays, we are being told to "think out of the box".
One of the reasons we have to have expensive ad campaigns to tell us to "think out of the box" is that when people DO think out of the box, there are always the nay-sayers who try to shut them down. There have been studies done (published in the Harvard Bus. Review) talking about how so many good ideas have been lost to business in the past by this very dynamic: People who can only think laterally, shutting down others' creative ideas.
People that are study this have postulated that that is one of the reasons corporations have gotten into difficulties --and they now pay expensive consultants to do remedial work, to try and create a platform where the creatives can be heard and their desperately-needed ideas captured, before the naysayers can shut them down.
Nobody got anywhere by saying, "We can't...".
"From nothing, nothing comes." -- Descartes
By thinking on a Canadian Car, who knows what other ideas may emerge? Don't shut down the process. Of course you are involved in a partisan political process when you talk like this, so you feel obliged to be contrarian about ANYthing another (and evidently threatening to you) candidate says.
Instead of concentrating on knocking someone else's ideas, Dennis - why don't you tell me what creative ideas *you* have come up with over the years that would help this country?
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