Jeff Jedras: CNN

I caught Jack Layton on CNN last night with Lou Dobbs and I must say, it was quite the love-fest. Dobbs certainly seemed to be in love with Jack. I’m not sure how mutual it was, that Layton is coy, but Lou was positively swooning.

I’m sure there will be video up on the NDP site or YouTube shortly so I won’t summarize the interview, basically they talked about how bad NAFTA is for working families, and how all our manufacturing jobs are going to China. I’ll say that I did agree with them on the stupidity of raw-log exports, I’ve been saying that for years. Just one quick question at the end on the leak scandal.

It being a quick interview, unfortunately we didn’t get to learn if Jack shares Lou’s views on stopping the illegal immigrants from taking our jobs and murdering our women, and building a giant fence on the border to keep out the Mexicans, or if Lou shares Jack’s views on American imperialism and related subjects. Maybe next time, Lou is keen to have him back.

I am curious on one thing, as a novice when it comes to trade issues. Both of them went on about all these manufacturing jobs going to China. How is renegotiating a trade deal between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico going to prevent that? I don’t see it.

Also, it seems that in negotiations someone gives something up, and someone gains something. Clearly we both have some issues with NAFTA, it certainly hasn’t helped on the softwood front for example. They both want to re-open it, I just wonder who they see the winner being, and who the loser. While they both may not like the deal, I’m not sure their end-games are really compatible.

Anyway, while this will rile-up the militant left there just seemed something archaic to be watching these two guys go on about the evils of globalization and how it must be stopped. It certainly has its downsides, I agree, and we should try to manage them, but that genie isn’t going back in the bottle.

UPDATE: Ed Hollett also has some thoughts on Jack's CNN appearance.

And here's the video: