I think there are a number of tangible benefits, from public health to promoting Canada’s image and creating good will with trading partners. It’s also good for Canadian morale, where we can see ourselves as producing positive change in the world.
That said, we do need to invest in ourselves and create more positive change within our own country too, and maybe prioritize it more. But just because the US abandons soft power and diplomacy doesn’t mean we should too.
I’d disagree that it’s promoting morale and public health, though I do acknowledge there are tertiary benefits. Like expanding the AI centres by adding something like 2000 jobs or whatever, means that there “should” be 2000 more income tax statements with higher salaries sending money to Ottawa. But those jobs are going to almost definitely be 90% for a specific ethnic demographic because they’re tied to an India-owned parent company that can staff the sites with TFWs and Indian nationals.
However the services provided by that site will be entirely at the whim of the Indian government, as the parent company is headquartered in India, and the majority of revenue will exit Canada. It will be beholden to Indian laws, again due to the parent company, and if those laws say “show us everything you have on Canadian sikh people”, the AI company will comply. India’s privacy regime is not like Canadas (companies that outsource private information there ‘should’ likely be getting in trouble from our privacy regs, but our privacy regs are generally powerless – like “Why do we get so many indian scam calls? It couldn’t have anything to do with our major telcos handing all our private data to a country that doesnt respect privacy, could it???”).
More broadly, getting that AI deal to me, is like getting a deal to “bring netflix” into a country’s media – it doesn’t really benefit the country’s media, the vast majority of the revenue leaves the country, and your media becomes dependent on foreign streaming availability as the traditional carriers die. New local companies can’t develop, because the market position of foreign providers is too dominant. Like, rather than them just investing in increasing Indian owned AI company’s presence in Canada, why didn’t Carney and them secure deals to provide Canadian AI company services to India? He’s basically adding foreign competition that’ll drive down local revenue/salaries.
By FAR the majority of the $$ in the announcement is just Uranium and Coal to India, for money to the private companies that produce those resources. The headliner being Cameco, a company that’s known for having dodged significant taxes, with Swiss accounts and Accounts in Barbados – the courts did eventually rule in Cameco’s favour, but while what they did was ‘technically’ legal, it wasn’t ‘morally right’, and the courts in this case failed to get justice for Canadians. They’d mine Uranium in Canada, sell it to their foreign subsidiary for an unbelievably low price, paying Canadian tax on that low revenue; then they’d resell the Uranium from their Swiss company at a far higher price, paying the lower Swiss business tax. We’ve now rewarded the stockholders of that company, and its sketchy tax dodging patterns, with a really nice payday. I wonder if there’s anything in those deals to prevent Cameco from selling India Uranium from its other non-Canadian subsidiaries, to ensure that announced revenue will actually enter Canada. Bet there isn’t. Morale is so high!
you just wrote a long shpiel about AI datacenter jobs none of us want in response to a topic about cuts to soft power and preventing the spread of an epidemic that killed millions in the 1980s
I think there are a number of tangible benefits, from public health to promoting Canada’s image and creating good will with trading partners. It’s also good for Canadian morale, where we can see ourselves as producing positive change in the world.
That said, we do need to invest in ourselves and create more positive change within our own country too, and maybe prioritize it more. But just because the US abandons soft power and diplomacy doesn’t mean we should too.
I’d disagree that it’s promoting morale and public health, though I do acknowledge there are tertiary benefits. Like expanding the AI centres by adding something like 2000 jobs or whatever, means that there “should” be 2000 more income tax statements with higher salaries sending money to Ottawa. But those jobs are going to almost definitely be 90% for a specific ethnic demographic because they’re tied to an India-owned parent company that can staff the sites with TFWs and Indian nationals.
However the services provided by that site will be entirely at the whim of the Indian government, as the parent company is headquartered in India, and the majority of revenue will exit Canada. It will be beholden to Indian laws, again due to the parent company, and if those laws say “show us everything you have on Canadian sikh people”, the AI company will comply. India’s privacy regime is not like Canadas (companies that outsource private information there ‘should’ likely be getting in trouble from our privacy regs, but our privacy regs are generally powerless – like “Why do we get so many indian scam calls? It couldn’t have anything to do with our major telcos handing all our private data to a country that doesnt respect privacy, could it???”).
More broadly, getting that AI deal to me, is like getting a deal to “bring netflix” into a country’s media – it doesn’t really benefit the country’s media, the vast majority of the revenue leaves the country, and your media becomes dependent on foreign streaming availability as the traditional carriers die. New local companies can’t develop, because the market position of foreign providers is too dominant. Like, rather than them just investing in increasing Indian owned AI company’s presence in Canada, why didn’t Carney and them secure deals to provide Canadian AI company services to India? He’s basically adding foreign competition that’ll drive down local revenue/salaries.
By FAR the majority of the $$ in the announcement is just Uranium and Coal to India, for money to the private companies that produce those resources. The headliner being Cameco, a company that’s known for having dodged significant taxes, with Swiss accounts and Accounts in Barbados – the courts did eventually rule in Cameco’s favour, but while what they did was ‘technically’ legal, it wasn’t ‘morally right’, and the courts in this case failed to get justice for Canadians. They’d mine Uranium in Canada, sell it to their foreign subsidiary for an unbelievably low price, paying Canadian tax on that low revenue; then they’d resell the Uranium from their Swiss company at a far higher price, paying the lower Swiss business tax. We’ve now rewarded the stockholders of that company, and its sketchy tax dodging patterns, with a really nice payday. I wonder if there’s anything in those deals to prevent Cameco from selling India Uranium from its other non-Canadian subsidiaries, to ensure that announced revenue will actually enter Canada. Bet there isn’t. Morale is so high!
you just wrote a long shpiel about AI datacenter jobs none of us want in response to a topic about cuts to soft power and preventing the spread of an epidemic that killed millions in the 1980s