By Tim Bousquet

http://www.timbousquet.com/blog/2007_10_23_Atlantica.htm

At this point, there's no surprise that those paid handsomely to pimp the pro-big business (read: anti-labour and anti-environment) Atlantica concept will use any inane argument in an attempt to pretty up their whoredom. What is surprising is that the inanity is repeated verbatim as the picture of logical purity in the province's largest newspaper.

Consider this "logic" from Mary Brooks, a Dal professor who publishes often for the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies, the right-wing think tank that bankrolls much of the Atlantica propaganda, but this time for the Conference Board of Canada, as relayed by the Chronicle-Herald:

Canada’s geographic advantage stems from the fact that Shanghai is closer to Prince Rupert and Vancouver than it is to Los Angeles, and Halifax is closer to Antwerp, Belgium, than ports on the U.S. eastern seaboard.

Both Vancouver and Halifax are closer to Asian ports than their West- and East Coast American competitors — in most cases by a full day or more.

The "argument" being, evidently, that it makes immense sense for companies in Asia or Europe who want to ship to the American Midwest to use the ports of Vancouver and Halifax, because they're the closest ports.

The rest of Brooks' line is that shippers will use the closest ports if only the customs hassles and administrative costs of the land side of the shipping--that is, the second part of the trip, from Halifax to the American Midwest, are reduced.

A bright five-year-old can see through this logic. .

Think about it. I'm a merchant in Europe, and I need to ship a container to Chicago. What am I worried about-- the entire cost of shipping, or just the first part of the trip? The entire cost of shipping, of course. So, I can put the container on a ship that gets really close to Chicago-- say, New York City, or I can put it on a ship that lands farther away from Chicago, but closer to my home in Europe-- Halifax, maybe.

If I send the container to Halifax I'll save some money on the water part of the trip, but then I have to pay lots more money and take a lot more time to put it on a truck going to Chicago. But if I send it to New York, I'll pay a little more on the longer sea voyage, but I'll save a lot more money on the shorter truck part of the trip.

Which route will I use?

The only way around this reality is to lower the costs of land transport through Canada to ridiculous levels. And reducing customs and administrative costs just won't make much of a difference-- the real costs are in fuel and labour.

You could do away entirely with Canadian fuel taxes, but given that the price of diesel is very high in both countries, that won't make much of a difference. You can get more savings, though, if you allow triple-rig "truck trains" on Canada's highways, which is exactly what AIMS proposes. Here's how Brian Lee Crowley, the founding President of AIMS, explains it in a paper published on AIMS' website (page 7 of 11):

[W]e need to look at both regulatory and labour issues. For example, if we can make the practical geographic reach of trucks greater, we can help to compensate for our rail weakness. The answer here lies in part in understanding that efficiency and driver shortages need that we need to look at road trains,--that is, more than one trailer per tractor. This requires concerted regulatroy action throughout the region.

If you click through the link, you'll find a graphic of LCVs-- "longer combination vehicles"-- including "turnpike doubles" and triple trailer arrangements.

That leaves labour costs. There is a nominal shortage of truck drivers in Canada, which is another way of saying that Canadian truck drivers are paid more than Atlantica backers would like. AIMS solution? Use Mexican truck drivers:

The shortage of drivers is a difficult issue, but the solution is not to go into our high schools and bleat about the great careers in long-distance hauling. The answer is that our drivers are going to be called Alejandro Gutierrez and Juan Ortiz. People seem to have forgotten that there are three NAFTA partners, not two, and while Canada and the U.S. wrestle with a deepening labour crises because there aren't enough workers, our NAFTA partner Mexico has a huge labour surplus. Mexican president Vincente Fox was in Canada not long ago asking us to work with him to create a guest worker program. We should take him up on the offer.
So, in the pro-Atlantica fantasy world, it makes perfect sense to use the most illogical shipping route. But only if Canadians agree to fill their highways with triple rig death traps driven by underpaid Mexican truck drivers.

You make the call.