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PM Justin Trudeau's Canada

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http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-drug-prices-1.3959759

The new president also took aim at what he called "global freeloading" whereby prices of drugs invented and manufactured by U.S. companies eventually get sold in other countries for a fraction of the original cost, either right away or once they have come off patent.

"Our trade policy will prioritize that foreign countries pay their fair share for U.S. manufactured drugs so our drug companies have greater financial resources to accelerate the development of new cures," he said. "Right now, it's very unfair what other countries are doing to us."
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This could be a major problem for Canada and our overstretched healthcare system. Combine this with Trump asking us to spend more on military, an economy with a ton of headwinds, and fiscal headaches at both federal and provincial levels...

Canada is slowly heading towards fiscal disaster like in the 90s when Chretien and Martin slashed and burned everything to fix the budget.
 
Patent laws around pharmaceuticals are insane and dangerous. Terrible direction the world is heading in if Trump get's his way on this.

Luckily, India won't back down to the United States on this issue. They have too large of a population and cannot afford to provide medicine to their population at American prices and will continue using and supporting their domestic no-name drug brands. Maybe our health care system should do the fiscally responsible thing and begin importing drugs from India instead.
 
WislaHD said:
Patent laws around pharmaceuticals are insane and dangerous. Terrible direction the world is heading in if Trump get's his way on this.

Luckily, India won't back down to the United States on this issue. They have too large of a population and cannot afford to provide medicine to their population at American prices and will continue using and supporting their domestic no-name drug brands. Maybe our health care system should do the fiscally responsible thing and begin importing drugs from India instead.
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And Canada isn't his problem so far as pharmaceuticals are concerned - we actually have the second highest cost in the world:

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...-second-highest-medication-costs-in-the-world

Speaking of the fiscal cliff, I wouldn't worry about here as much as the US. Good luck dealing with that - you will need it.

AoD
 
I think Trump has made a huge miscalculation here. His brand of extreme nationalism and protectionism is going to cause other nations to shift their trading priorities...less trade with the US and more trade with other less hostile nations. Assuming Trump isn't impeached and makes it through all four years of his term, the US will have less economic clout than it does now. It may cause some short term pain as the balance of power shifts away from the US, but I think the world will be the better off for it in the long term.
 
WislaHD said:
Patent laws around pharmaceuticals are insane and dangerous. Terrible direction the world is heading in if Trump get's his way on this.

Luckily, India won't back down to the United States on this issue. They have too large of a population and cannot afford to provide medicine to their population at American prices and will continue using and supporting their domestic no-name drug brands. Maybe our health care system should do the fiscally responsible thing and begin importing drugs from India instead.
Click to expand...

You really want to import drugs from India?

When the FDA probed issues at an Apotex factory in Bangalore, it successfully banned import of drug products to the United States after finding that Apotex staff had manipulated data, retested samples until they got favourable results, and destroyed records.
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https://www.thestar.com/news/canada...ada_bans_drugs_from_two_indian_factories.html

I'll pay the extra few cents a pill to have my medication produced in a country with some ethics and regulations, thank you.
 
ttk77 said:
I think Trump has made a huge miscalculation here. His brand of extreme nationalism and protectionism is going to cause other nations to shift their trading priorities...less trade with the US and more trade with other less hostile nations. Assuming Trump isn't impeached makes it through all four years of his term, the US will have less economic clout than it does now. It may cause some short term pain as the balance of power shifts away from the US, but I think the world will be the better off for it in the long term.
Click to expand...

It's only a miscalculation if you assume that's his end game.

AoD
 
ttk77 said:
I think Trump has made a huge miscalculation here. His brand of extreme nationalism and protectionism is going to cause other nations to shift their trading priorities...less trade with the US and more trade with other less hostile nations. Assuming Trump isn't impeached and makes it through all four years of his term, the US will have less economic clout than it does now. It may cause some short term pain as the balance of power shifts away from the US, but I think the world will be the better off for it in the long term.
Click to expand...

Is running a $500+ billion trade deficit a good thing for America? I'm not so sure on that. Trade can be good, but it seems to be one-way street with many of their partners like China, Germany, Japan, and Mexico. As by far the most important economy in the world, the US has the upperhand in every trade negotiation and should use that power to benefit their citizens.
 
ttk77 said:
Is this statement in reference to some of the more nefarious conspiracy theories going around lately?
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Nope, those are extreme scenarios. Just think of his life-history and you'd be able to tell what a person's priorities are. Public service was never it. Now, you may also want to look into Bannon's history too and how he currently fits into the whole grand scheme of things.

AoD
 
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ttk77 said:
I think Trump has made a huge miscalculation here. His brand of extreme nationalism and protectionism is going to cause other nations to shift their trading priorities...less trade with the US and more trade with other less hostile nations. Assuming Trump isn't impeached and makes it through all four years of his term, the US will have less economic clout than it does now. It may cause some short term pain as the balance of power shifts away from the US, but I think the world will be the better off for it in the long term.
Click to expand...
We've seen this before.

This is exactly what happened to Argentina under Juan Peron. Nationalism + Protectionism.

And of course, Argentina went from a country that was wealthier than Canada to a country with poverty over the course of 40 years, so make of that what you will.
 
At one point, I would have been disappointed in the Liberals for abandoning electoral reform, but given that the NDP and Conservatives have shown no willingness to work with the government on this issue and seem more intent on using the issue whatever the outcome as a battering ram against the government, and the fact that complete lack of consensus means that any process moving forward, including a potential referendum, was going to be a costly clusterf*ck which was undoubtedly going to preserve the status quo, at this point I think they made a wise call. The Liberals have been bungling this file to date, and they needed a more experienced and deft hand at the helm than Monsef, but honestly I don't see that they had many options. I don't blame them for making the election promise, but if faced with an intractable and divided opposition, I'd prefer they break that promise and focus on greater priorities.
 
Looks like the Liberals make promises with no intention of keeping them. The $10B max ($25B over 4 years) deficits is another example.

It was surprising how seriously the committee took their work (both NDP and CPC included). They sampled significant public input and provided for a path forward for the government. The Liberal not going forward from here is strong proof that it was just one of those promises to get elected, and not really one they believe in.
 
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