Canada - U.S. relations  re: International Business Management

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INTRODUCTION

Some Canadian universities have entire courses devoted to the complex subject of Canada-U.S. relations. It is arguably the largest bilateral relationship in the world.  This unit serves the purpose of discussing some of the main aspects of Canada-U.S. relations as it applies to being an effective International Business Manager operating with a company in Canada. WTGR

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this unit, and attending the classroom lecture, students will    o understand that U.S. politics effects Canadian export opportunities - and know some specific examples    o know some of the specific trade issues of contention that Canada has with the U.S.    o appreciate some of the social-cultural differences between Canada and the U.S. , which causes    o American business people to behave differently than Canadians    o American customers to think about consumer products differently than Canadians - which effects how you sell to the U.S. WTGR

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Canada-U.S. trade frictions examining the sources of some problems

One of the things that has always made the U.S. nervous about a close relationship between Canada and the U.S. is in the context of the economic environment and the technological environment. Since the early years of the new millennium, Canada has started to decrease it's overwhelming dependence on business with the U.S.  and begun to do more business with the rest of the world.

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Canada-U.S. trade frictions examining the sources of some problems

As a consequence of Canada doing business with other countries, there have developed some ramifications that effect U.S. companies doing business in Canada, and collaborating with Canadian companies in areas of high tech research. Example: The National Post and the CBC reported in October 2007  that the U.S. is irked about Chinese attack helicopters being made with Canadian built engines CBC reported "The U.S. State Department is investigating how aircraft engines made near Montreal ended up in attack helicopters in China. The maker, Pratt and Whitney Canada, says it did nothing illegal. It delivered 10 engines to Beijing in 2001 and 2002 on condition they be used only in civilian aircraft. The Liberal government of the day approved the deal, a decision the present Conservative government is supporting." CBC added "But Washington is not happy. If the engines contain U.S. technology or parts, the company could be hit with big fines for violating U.S. export laws. It has been confirmed that the Chinese military put the Canadian engines in Z-10 attack helicopters" ( www.sinodefence.com/airforce/helicopter/z10.asp ) military analyst Richard Fisher explains that "the Z-10 attack helicopters is just one major military program, amongst hundreds, that China is pursuing in order to prepare for a possible war against Taiwan".

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Canada-U.S. trade frictions examining the sources of some problems

CBC says "Under U.S. arms trafficking laws, Washington must give its approval for U.S. products and technology to be used for military purposes in a third country."  www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/10/19/pratt-engines.html    KEY POINTS Why would Canadians be interested in this issue? In 2007, the Canadian government has expressed deep concern about how the military/government forces are suppressing the people in Sudan and Burma - which are two countries in which Chinese military exports are significant. Why is neither the Conservative government, or the former Liberal government appear to be concerned about what happened? Pratt and Whitney Canada is based in Quebec and is one of the key "players" in the Quebec based aircraft industry, which is very "job sensitive" and highly political.

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Canada-U.S. relations  Academic Resources

University of Toronto has its own Canada-U.S. studies centre, it is called the "Centre for the Study of the United States" click on the screen capture to access the Centre's website be advised the centre has some business info, but it is not oriented to Canada-U.S. business topics, it is more historical in perspective, as suggested by topics on its site such as "Twenty-Fifth Anniversary  Retrospectives on the Hostage Crisis in Iran", and "The Weaver's Craft: Cloth, Commerce, and Industry in  Early Pennsylvania"

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Canada-U.S. relations  Academic Resources

Prof. Andrew Johnston teaches History at the University of Western Ontario and is co-director of The Centre for American Studies at UWO  http://cas.ssc.uwo.ca/ Prof. Johnston wrote an article in The Toronto Star 2004 Dec 28th titled "Anatomy of anti-Americanism" Parts of this article are well worth reading.   Key Points  for  Understanding Just like the people who want to be successful in exporting to China, therefore they learn about Chinese Culture and try to get past the stereotypes, it is similar important for Canadians (who want to successfully do business in the U.S.) to get past the stereotypes and really understand the U.S. Johnston explains "Canadians subsist on a thin diet of stereotypes about the U.S., though much of it also comes from patriotic boosterism originating in the United States. A more serious problem is that it is almost impossible to talk about America at all without being pulled into the vortex of Canadian angst." Johnston continues "The recurring problem here is that the pro- and anti-American dichotomy suffocates our public life by bringing it back to stereotypes of what is, in fact, a heterogeneous nation. To explore another country's culture is to discover its ugly secrets and its grand celebrations, but, above all, to destroy our capacity to imagine that the word American can be reduced to a single ideology. The complexity of America is lost on all sides of this. It's a flattering cliché that anti-Americanism says more about the self-image of its protagonists than about the U.S. In Canada, we complain ceaselessly about our milquetoast nationalism that seems capable of only defining itself negatively. But if we were as careful about understanding the United States as our critics wish us to be, we would not only give our own nationalism a break, we might discover how incomplete American nationalism is too. The ideas of American character that we take for granted — individualism, materialism, inventiveness, productivity — were not the founding characteristics of the "nation," but emerged through a dialogue between the Yankee North and the slaveholding South (In 1828, Andrew Jackson's vice-president John C. Calhoun said: "I never use the word nation. We are not a nation, but a union, a confederacy of equal and sovereign states.")"

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Canada-U.S. relations in the context of the Nov 2004 Presidential election

In the Saturday Star Oct 30, 2004 there was a special section on our relations with . There are several pieces that are relevant to our work in C44, the article   Nowhere to hide by James Travers, and Canada at risk from U.S. malaise by Thomas Walkom Walkom and Travers are national journalists for The Star and have headings on the section  " Star Columnists" Travers article suggested what we could expect of our relations if Senator Kerry won the U.S. election in Nov 2004 - a moot point now in Jan 2005 because we know he lost. Walkom suggests that it doesn't matter who wins, there will be damage from a context that is too close. Walkom says "... for Canada, a legitimacy crisis in America is downright dangerous. Our relations are tricky enough when the U.S. functions properly. A systemically dysfunctional America promises nightmares. "

 

Canada-U.S. Differences

This is a list based on the personal opinion of Tim Richardson and the points on the list are not necessarily something my students or colleagues are obliged to agree with. I say again "De gustibus non est disputandum" My personal opinion of Canada-U.S. differences One of the big differences between Canada and the U.S., in my opinion, is how they treat immigrants. In fact, in Canada, we are so concerned about appearing racist and prejudiced, we have even changed the term immigrants and now the politically correct phrase we use here is "new Canadians" WTGR

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Canada-U.S. Differences

1. Americans are a melting pot  - when you come to the U.S. you can be proud of where you came from, but you have to quickly "be an American", pledge allegiance and support the U.S. way of doing things - Americans want immigrants to adapt to their culture, they resist adapting to you.

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Canada-U.S. Differences

2. Canadians celebrate multi-culturalism, which in practice seems to mean you come here from country "X", and you are welcomed to continue to think of yourself as still in that country with X's hairstyles, clothing, language, religion etc. - to the point where the local, provincial and federal government does many things to accomodate you, like letting you write your drivers test in dozens of different languages. There is, for many people, no strong identifiable Canadian culture that immigrants are encouraged to "become", instead they stay as "Jamaican-Canadians", "Chinese-Canadians" etc. with many emphasizing usually the first word not the second. read an interesting essay by a Muslim who thinks multi-culturalism is wrong in Canada because it can lead to such things as the setting up of the Sharia tribunals www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/001298.php read also 10 Ways to Fight Hate on Campus  www.tolerance.org/campus/index.jsp

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Canada-U.S. Differences

3. Americans are more religious. Black Americans and White Americans in particular attend church in much greater percentages than Black Canadians and White Canadians. Americans have a president who was elected, and re-elected on a platform that made many references to God and the Christian faith - you never hear a Canadian Prime Minister or Provincial Premier end a speech with a line like "so help me God", or "and God Bless Canada"

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Canada-U.S. Differences

4. In the U.S., sports are a business, in Canada, sports (or should we just say one sport, hockey) is a passion that competes with religion for the soul of the people. With the long history of Canada hockey success going back to the Russia series in '72 and recently with the Men and Women's gold at the Olympics, Canadians (and rightfully so) feel they are the complete master's of this sport on the planet. For a large percentage of Canadians, especially in rural Canada and small villages, the local hockey rink is the centre

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Canada-U.S. Differences

5. Americans are concerned with buying products at competitive prices and still good quality, Canadians want to buy cheap products, but seem to accept that cheaper will also mean cheap quality. An expert in the Canadian fashion business explained that Walmart Canada operates differently than Walmart USA based on this difference.

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Do you have an "attitude"?
check  https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/canada/measureyourattitudes.html
 

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