[Kavvy]

Is Canada selling away our resource based economy for quick profit and no long term growth?
This is my 5min essay on something which has concerned me and I wanted to see what others thought. Please tell me if I am fear mongering, or way of the mark.

The background:
I sat in a car and had a discussion with a gentleman who was deadly afraid of our children’s future when it came to careers in this country. His thoughts were that we were trading away our job opportunities for a quick influx of cash.
For example, we sell natural resource for the manufacture sector, yet, manufacturing in Canada is nowhere close to where it used to be and our resource selling has not decreased The jobs associated with mining these resources have decreased, along with a crippled manufacturing sector.

One side note- the above “facts” about jobs decreasing and resource output increasing, are not facts, just what appears to be “common knowledge”, which could indeed be wrong.

My crazy idea:
I came up with a fix, the problem is, I am far from educated on this matter, and would do more harm than good if I was in office (of course I am not, and if I was, I would have professionals study this).
My fix was simple – tariff our natural resource with jobs. State that the Government of Canada will organize a commission, which will look at every industry sector and assign a percentage of what natural resources organizations in these sectors pull from Canada, must have their end product made in Canada.
For example, x % of oil from Canada must be refined in Canada. This would put the pressure on the producers to ensure the industry builds refineries. Pipeline companies could not ship more than x% of oil that wasn’t “end product quality”. If an organization doesn’t meet a given long term deadline to create the facilities to ensure these goods are produced here, they get their licenced pulled.
Of course, you would need to study the economic impacts, and give a very long timeline for industries to get in alignment.
Another example might be:
If you would like to build a facility in Canada, which requires an Engineering stamp, or architectural review, x% of the total manhours for that Canadian project must be done in Canada. You could put an overall total manhour limit, and sub limits to protect entire sectors getting nailed. For example, saying 20% of the total manhours must be spent in Canada, may not stop an organization from shipping all of their IT overseas.
The theory is:
-We lose “some” foreign investment, our local organizations become disadvantaged in the world economy (higher costs at their base, aka Canada), and we potentially hurt relations with other nations
-We gain long term jobs, assume Canada is still considered a worthwhile investment. Yes, we are looking for temporary workers right now, but we need long investment, associated with high paying careers.

This “theory” hinges on our recourse still being needed by the world economy. If that goes out the window, we’re flat broke.
So what does CP think, is this a terrible idea? Would I violate NAFTA? Am I making a problem where one doesn't exist? Am I over leveraged on how much the world “needs” our resources? Would we all be unemployed?