SensoryMetrics

Maude Barlow, Texas Chainsaws, Free Trade, Blogs…

August 22nd, 2007 Mitch Brisebois Leave a comment Go to comments

A North American leaders summit just wrapped up in Montebello Quebec – a small village near Ottawa. Bush, Harper, and Calderón huddled inside the Chateau Montebello - the world’s largest log cabin – to discuss trade and security issues. As you would expect, throngs of protesters also descended on the village. As you would expect, a few got rowdy. As you would expect, the police got out the pepper spray and tear gas. It was like Groundhog Day for political protests…

It got me thinking why certain people are so paranoid about free trade. In Canada one of the staunchest opponents is Maude Barlow and her Council of Canadians. She’s been battling against free trade since Reagan ruled the white house. Ms Barlow used to be a neighbour of mine. She organized youth dances at the local community center. A few decades ago she got her first hint of infamy by protesting a window display created by a small video store. The store owner had a cheap plastic mannequin and a chainsaw. He was advertising the release of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (in VHS AND Beta!). Maude assembled a small group to protest “violence against women”. They ended up trashing the store. How come nobody protests “violence against video stores”? Since then, The Maude has been actively protesting against whatever the government does.

Regardless of your views of American or Canadian policy – North American trade is vital to our economies. Even tiny Canada is the US’ biggest trading partner both in imports and exports. Remarkably the US sells the most stuff to Canada. Facilitating trade has certainly helped e-commerce and internet services thrive. Consider SensoryMetrics: written by Canadians; on American Macs; bought at Apple’s Canadian online store; running on an OS designed by an ex-pat Canadian; running on US-built WordPress; hosted in the US and accessed via a Canadian ISP… We’ll even show you pictures on Flickr – a Canadian company (acquired later by American Yahoo!)

Long live freedom.