Dear Editor,

With so many cheap goods to be had for nearly everything in Canada, the unemployment rate in our country does tend to be higher as result.

Many of our citizens do not have manufacturing jobs as so many jobs have gone offshore.

China is not known for its decent wages. And human rights are said to be far worse than ideal – no doubt “awful” would be a more appropriate word.

Huge container ships arrive with just about every imaginable kind of merchandise. They unload in a few days, then return to their point of origin for another load.

They leave our shores empty! That’s not “trade,” as the term is supposed to mean.

The inequity is idiotic. Would “stupid” be a better word?

The lack of balance can only happen because Ottawa condones and encourages it.

It’s yet another illustration of the fact that they choose not to listen to us, causing voter apathy. It is not that they don’t hear, it is that they choose to ignore us – except at election time, of course.

Several times a month, one can almost hear a huge sucking sound emanating from our ports – the sound of an enormous outflow of our dollars leaving Canada by the barrel-load, or front-end loader.

Why aren’t China and other countries of the western Pacific compelled to buy Canadian products and services? I always thought trade was a two-way street.

And while I’m on about this one-way movement of goods, surely, selling our logs is not very clever either. They manufacture wood products from our logs, then sell the product back to us.

The price they pay for our logs may be just fine and dandy for the federal treasuries, but does absolutely nothing for the joblessness of our citizens.

People who are employed pay taxes and buy products and services. Only a short-sighted businessman could love it.

Canada used to be an exporter of goods of various kinds. Our unemployment tended to be relatively low. Good jobs were to be had.

Now we are too much of a service economy, and at the minimum wage.

It took a whole lot of high-priced intellect to create that, eh?

Robert W. Stirling, Maple Ridge