My Second Home

June 29, 2009

Stockwell Day’s Weekly Commentary

June 29th, 2009 - "Welcome to your second home".  That heartfelt declaration came from the mouth of a local Jordanian police officer doubling as personal tour guide.

The location was atop Mount Nebo, on Jordan's northern border, overlooking the River Jordan and the Dead Sea off in the distance.  According to my Muslim friend this was the spot described in the Bible where Moses had stood and looked out over the Promised Land, his second home.

The view of the desert valley below and its surrounding mountains is spectacular. On a clear day if you squint you can just make out a barely visible silhouette on the distant western horizon - Jerusalem, 80 kilometers away.

When I gave the officer a Canada pen as a small token of thanks for his volunteered time he actually got big tears in his eyes.  "Thank you Sir", he said, "You are always welcome here in my home" and he sounded like he meant it.

Earlier in the day I participated in the signing of a free trade agreement with Jordan. It's the first FTA we've done with an Arab country.  We also put in a proposal to construct a nuclear reactor for Jordan's energy needs and for their water needs. It's a scarce commodity in the middle of the desert.

A free trade deal means both countries eliminate the tariffs which we impose on each other’s imported products.  That means their people get a fair chance to sell us their products like cucumbers, chemicals and clothes, without the added cost of a duty or tariff attached to it.  We also get to sell them products like paper pulp (for tissue manufacturing), beef (because with their tariffs removed our prices can now compete with beef prices from Europe) and frozen potato products.

Last week I was also with Canadian business owners pursuing deals like this in Saudi Arabia, Russia and France. They were marketing everything from rail cars and wood frame homes to water systems and hockey boards.

We're in a global recession and some of the usual buyers of our products (like the Americans) just aren't able to buy as much right now.  So instead of sitting around waiting for the turn around to turn around, Canadians are turning around and looking for other opportunities to go along with the ones we've already got.

In the process of trading our products we're finding out that there are a lot of people out there in other countries wanting to do the same.

It's the job of government to open the doors, to keep taxes low and education levels high. It's the job of productive workers, researchers, investors and producers to go through those doors to keep the wheels of commerce going and in the process, our good ideas and our quality goods will find a second home and make our first one even better.