Quote:
Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame
Government funds athletes. Athletes win medals. Canadians become more proud and gain a sense of nationality. Canadians buy more Canadian goods and support more Canadian initiatives. Canada's economy gets stronger.
Simplistic, but there is benefit to gaining national pride.
Sending a 300-man delegation to an international event and winning no medals is a big deal for national reputation.
|
There is NO economic 'benefit' to blowing away wads of public dollars into winning international tiddily winks contests.
Playing up the nationalism card in economics can have disasterous results. That's how we start going down the Bombadier train (no pun intended). Buying things because they're Canadian would actually hurt the economy in the long run rather than help it. If you and everyone else just blindly bought Canadian goods because they were Canadian and not on the basis of utility then Canadian service providers and manufacturers wouldn't have to compete or keep up with foreign alternatives for domestic customers(Who might even have a natural competitive advantage). The end result would be lower productivity, worse balance of trade (Because less of our own companies would be competitive worldwide), worse standard of living (Because the utility (Price vs. Quality) we'd get out of our inferior products would be worse), and even further wasting of public funds bailling out failing industries that we do not have a competitive advantage in but feel
should be Canadian (Perfect example being Bombadier, Air Canada, GM, Ford, Chrysler).