North America Works -- Part III: Detroit/Windsor border-hopping nurses

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North America Works -- Part III: Detroit/Windsor border-hopping nurses

Lee Anne Raper is living the North American life along another border, the one that separates Canada and the U.S. A nurse at the Henry Ford Hospital close to downtown Detroit, Raper doesn’t live in Detroit. Actually, she doesn’t even live in the United States. For the past 19 years, she has driven to work every day across the Ambassador Bridge from her home in Windsor, Ontario, a trip of only about six miles.

“I can see where I live from the 17th story of the hospital,” she says. “I actually know some of the (border) guards. They call me by name and ask me if I’m going to work.”

Raper is just one of about 800 Canadian nurses who cross the border every day to work in the U.S. These border-hopping nurses highlight some of the similarities but also the differences between the economies of the two North American neighbors that share a 5,525-mile border and enjoy one of the world’s longest-standing and most amicable relationships.

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Anti-trade rhetoric is key to U.S. electoral success, study shows, but rarely translates to action

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Anti-trade rhetoric is key to U.S. electoral success, study shows, but rarely translates to action

Bashing trade has always been assumed to be good politics, never more so than during this U.S. election cycle. However researchers at Georgetown University have done the math, showing exactly how anti-trade rhetoric translates into victory at the voting booth.

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have said they would significantly alter – or even rip up – key agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

That kind of rhetoric resonates with a segment of voters – low-skilled, highly paid manufacturing workers, whose jobs are at the highest risk of being outsourced to lower cost jurisdictions overseas – that have an extraordinary amount of influence when it comes to Electoral College votes.

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Reinstate top regulatory cooperation official, say business groups

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Reinstate top regulatory cooperation official, say business groups

Canadian and American business groups are calling on Ottawa to reinstate a senior official, arguing regulatory cooperation might be in jeopardy without him.

Sixteen business groups, including the Canadian and U.S. Chambers of Commerce and Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, sent a letter to David MacNaughton, Canada’s ambassador in Washington, D.C. last Friday. They asked for Robert Carberry, formerly assistant secretary for the Regulatory Cooperation Council secretariat at the Privy Council Office, to be put back in his role. 

“More than any single individual on either side of the border, Mr. Carberry’s leadership and dedication to regulatory cooperation between our countries and the many disparate agencies of our governments has been essential to the success of [this] key bilateral initiative,” the letter says.

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Lessons for Canada from New Zealand’s dairy industry

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Lessons for Canada from New Zealand’s dairy industry

Tiny New Zealand, with a population just one-eighth that of Canada, is on a quest to quench the world’s thirst for milk. Today milk is the country’s biggest export, and 95 per cent of what Kiwi farmers produce goes abroad, mostly to China.

Compare that to Canada, where dairy farmers keep fighting to protect their supply management system, which means higher milk prices for consumers and puts a strain on Canada’s trading relationships. Only five per cent of what Canada produces is exported.

While Canada is wringing its hands about what to do about the dairy sector, the question to ask is: Will ending supply management spell doom for Canadian dairy farmers?

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The consequences of Justin Trudeau’s Chinese trade decision

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The consequences of Justin Trudeau’s Chinese trade decision

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces a tough decision on Canada’s relationship with China: Will Ottawa agree to Beijing’s demand that Canada stop treating China as a “non-market” economy under the World Trade Organization?

The stakes are high. Refusing the Chinese would likely end the chances of a far-reaching trade deal with Canada’s second-biggest trading partner. A recent report puts the value of a Chinese trade deal at $7.8 billion in new economic activity for Canada. But experts say China will come to the table only if Canada first grants it market economy status.

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App aimed at easing border congestion takes top prize at Canada-U.S. hackathon

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App aimed at easing border congestion takes top prize at Canada-U.S. hackathon

A two-member team of young professionals from Chicago has a new idea for unclogging the Canada-U.S. border: an app for importers and exporters based on the popular TurboTax program that many taxpayers use to fill out their annual tax forms.

The Chicago team, called TradeSherpa and made up of Steve Martinez and Price Shoemaker, emerged this past weekend as the winner of a two-day “hackathon” sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Global Affairs Canada, at which 23 teams were challenged to produce the most useful app for cross-border trade.

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How the Windstream Energy case affects Canada’s trade future

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How the Windstream Energy case affects Canada’s trade future

If a U.S. wind-power company has its way, the federal government could end up footing the bill for part of a costly and controversial Ontario energy initiative. The case could renew the conversation around international business conflicts at a time when two major trade pacts are awaiting ratification in Canada.

Windstream Energy, based in New York state, won a contract in 2010 to build 100 offshore wind turbines near Kingston. But less than a year later, the Ontario government halted all offshore wind-power development, claiming it needed more time to study the potential risks of such projects.

The company says the provincial government acted in “an arbitrary and political manner.” Rather than pursuing its case with the province however, Windstream is demanding $475 million from the federal government under a provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement that allows companies to sue Canada over government measures that interfere with investments.

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How the TPP opens new markets for Ontario wine

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How the TPP opens new markets for Ontario wine

When Canada and the U.S. agreed to a landmark free trade deal nearly 30 years ago, John Neufeld worried that his 73-hectare vineyard was doomed. At the time, the farm supplied grapes to nearby wineries, which had little faith that their products could compete against better-known — and superior — California wines.

“The information we had at that time was that California, with the reduction [in tariffs], would just come in and take over the Ontario marketplace,” Neufeld recalls. He was so worried that he ripped out all of his vines in the late 1980s. For several years, the farm grew only peaches and other tree fruits.

He was so wrong. Not only does he grow grapes again, but his vineyard, now named Palatine Hills Estates Winery, won many awards for his own vintages.

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How the TPP could cripple Big Syrup

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How the TPP could cripple Big Syrup

WHEN DAVID AND LUCY MARVIN started Butternut Mountain Farm in the mid-1970s, they wanted to try the road less taken. So David, a trained forester, turned to maple sugaring. “It was pretty unusual at the time,” says his daughter, Emma. 

The season in Johnson, Vt., for harvesting sap only lasts a brief six weeks every spring. But that narrow margin for error belies a long-term nature of the investment: Red maple and sugar maple trees have to be about 40 years old before their sap can be harvested for the first time. They can then continue to be tapped for the rest of their lives, sometimes a couple of centuries. 

Butternut Mountain is now one of the largest producers and distributors of syrup in the country, with 17,000 taps spread over 1,200 acres, a 75,000-square-foot processing and distribution facility, and 90 full-time employees. 

Today, business for the Marvins and their fellow American syrup producers is poised to boom, thanks not just to the technological revolution in the age-old art of sugaring but because of a free trade deal on the other side of the world.

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How TPP could make things sticky for Quebec’s maple syrup producers

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How TPP could make things sticky for Quebec’s maple syrup producers

Sugaring season is still several months off yet, but American maple syrup producer Emma Marvin is already thinking about selling her syrup into the Pacific. “Japan and South Korea certainly offer really interesting markets,” she said. “There is considerable opportunity there.”

Marvin is a second-generation owner of Butternut Mountain Farm, one of the largest producers and distributors of maple syrup in Vermont. Her business is just one example of an American firm that stands to gain under the recently announced Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the trade agreement among 12 countries that surround the Pacific, including Canada and the United States, which is currently awaiting ratification.

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