A key reason why Canada ships its oil, lumber, and minerals elsewhere for processing is because there is a human cost to processing these things that moat people don't want to pay.

Also, where clean processing is possible it makes processed materials cost-prohibitive when you can just buy the stuff from jurisdictions where health and environmental laws are lax or non-existent and you can process however you like.

Well, tax the dirty processors and eliminate them from the supply chain, you might suggest! That's not easier either, see eliminating forced labour from the supply chain as an example.

I'm not saying nothing should or could be done about Canada's extraction-only economy, just that it isn't as easy it may appear at first glance.

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

Well, we've figured it on things like canola (crush for oil), peas (fractionation plants), lumber (sawmills) and cattle (packing plants). Those have pretty much been in spite of ourselves, not because, as they've flourished when we've had trade wars with the US/China (or BSE as the case may be).

We just need a nice crippling tariff on raw lithium and we'll invest in making batteries. Maybe an export tariff for anything that heads to the US, and funnel that to startup some competition to CATL. The amount of human labor a LFP plant uses is pretty minimal. It would give us all those high-tech retraining positions I keep hearing about we're going to get any day now.

[–] KindnessIsPunk@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

The problem is greed, ad infinitum.