Lessons from New Mexico
By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express
Oshawa’s MP Colin Carrie describes the three-day meeting as an “eye-opener.”
From July 19 to 21, Carrie, the shadow cabinet secretary for Canada/U.S. relations, was in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the annual summer meeting of the U.S. National Governor’s Association. The association is a conglomerate founded more than a century ago and brings together U.S. Governors from 50 states, three territories and two commonwealths to discuss policy and common issues.
Many of those issues, Carrie says, are similar to ones being seen in Canada.
“It was a real eye opener to see leaders from each state get together and how they meet and also see how they’re trying to take these proactive approaches to issues affecting their population at the grassroots,” he says.
Over the course of the three days, Carrie says they discussed everything from technological innovations in the auto industry, dealing with education and training for evolving industries, managing infrastructure, and even the opioid crisis.
However, one of the hot topics during discussion was on the ongoing threat from President Donald Trump to place a 25 per cent tariff on automobile imports. Carrie notes that there was an overwhelming consensus that these would be beneficial to nobody in the auto industry, and that it was time to get back to negotiating a way to end the ongoing trade war.
“I think there’s a lot of consensus out there that we would like to see the governments get back to the table to see what they can do to resolve these issues that we have in common so that we can get back to more normal relations,” Carrie says. “This uncertainty we’re going through right now is not good.”
Carrie also says the experience in New Mexico highlighted something else for him, that being that Canada needs to be looking into other markets and diversifying its foreign markets.
“We can’t be resting on our laurels, we can’t be taking for granted our relationship with the United States, we need to broaden our opportunities around the world, not only trade with the U.S., but we need to diversify,” he says. “We need to be taking a more aggressive proactive approach to attract foreign direct investment into our country, but also to keep investment here because the world is now a world economy and Canada has be to competitive.”
Particularly, Carrie is critical of the government’s lack of action and movement on the Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that would ease trade for Canada with 10 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
Carrie says he’s hopeful that some lessons he’s learned in New Mexico will be useful for him in Ottawa.
“The lessons I learned here will basically help us put together policy to help address these challenges that we’re facing,” he says.