[cmrdporcupine]

Unfortunately that (rip and ship energy / resource exporter economy) is what the conservative party wants, what the political leadership in the prairie provinces want, and it's what the US wants for us. And it's hinted at increasingly by Carney ("energy superpower") etc. You're right it's myopic and not good.

But parent poster is correct that blindly subsidizing and funding a local industry with no market will also just lead to boondoggles and failures.

Especially in the context of an uncooperative trading partner which could have been a potential export market for our production in the past but now is a hostile state trying to break apart national unity and destroy what little manufacturing sector successes we have.

We've already had major issues around the massive battery construction plants proposed here in Ontario and Quebec, that got major government support and investment.

Unfortunately this is the very difficult place the manufacturing sector in Canada finds itself in. And the Canadian working class as a whole.

I wouldn't call it myopic to be skeptical here. If there was an easy answer Canada would have taken it decades ago.

[petermcneeley]

I mean if you just control your borders you dont need government investment and support. This is the backwards way of creating tariffs. The problem is that it is asymmentric. A larger country can do that way better than a smaller. Aka they could make their product cost zero if they really want.

I hate to say it but the boondoggles of Canada are just graft. These arent investments in any real sense.

As for this line 'Unfortunately this is the very difficult place the manufacturing sector in Canada finds itself in. And the Canadian working class as a whole.'

look this is just neoliberalism. Maybe stop doing that and things will suck less.