American companies taking over Canadian companies...good or bad?

[techcrium]

Rona getting bought up by Lowe's.

Target buying up Zellers.

ATI got taken over.

Eaton's got bought up.

RIM is probably going to be sold to an American company.


Is this good or bad for Canada?

[epik89]

bad bad bad but good for business

[deltone]

It would only be good if they had the American prices and the American customer service. That's not going to happen, so no, not good.

[vaporize]

It would only be good if they had the American prices and the American customer service. That's not going to happen, so no, not good.

Lowes does have better customer services when they were introduced ... so might not be a bad thing .. but their prices even worst than HD & Rona

[deltone]

Lowes does have better customer services when they were introduced ... so might not be a bad thing .. but their prices even worst than HD & Rona

When I first started going to Lowes, their CS was very good, great actually but now, not so much. Marshalls is here now and the prices are NOTHING like in the US. Marshalls is one of my favourite stores (in the US) but here in Canada I won't even think about shopping there. I bet that Target will be the same, higher prices.

[Syne]

I am by no means a nationalist, but if Canada wants to preserve the way of life its citizens have come accustomed to and progress to better living standards, then we need to engage in some level of protectionism, or we will get dragged down and the socioeconomic gap will widen.

Some may think what's good for the goose is good for the gander, but it's certainly in my best interest (and every middle-class citizen's best interest) to keep money within our own borders and keep our natural resources in Canadian hands.

[Doodies]

I am by no means a nationalist, but if Canada wants to preserve the way of life its citizens have come accustomed to and progress to better living standards, then we need to engage in some level of protectionism, or we will get dragged down.

Some may think what's good for the goose is good for the gander, but it's certainly in my best interest (and every middle-class citizen's best interest) to keep money within our own borders and keep our natural resources under national purview.

Agreed, our economy is tanking because we keep buying cheap Chinese or other third world made stuff which has killed our manufacturing industry. In a lot of our consumer markets we have become accustomed to buying things way under the actual price that they should be.

[ovechkin1]

I am by no means a nationalist, but if Canada wants to preserve the way of life its citizens have come accustomed to and progress to better living standards, then we need to engage in some level of protectionism, or we will get dragged down and the socioeconomic gap will widen.

Some may think what's good for the goose is good for the gander, but it's certainly in my best interest (and every middle-class citizen's best interest) to keep money within our own borders and keep our natural resources in Canadian hands.
We need to keep our companies Canadian, it's more likely that profits that the owners make will be spent over here, creating further stimuli to our economy. Having all our companies U.S owned our economy is going to start to look like theirs also.

[Syne]

Especially since money travels (literally) at the speed of light these days.

[wilsonlam97]

This is horrible. We shouldn't be relying so much on the states when their economic state is worse than ours.

[Mark77]

I think its a travesty that Canadians are more interested in 'investing' in their houses, rather than in Canadian businesses. Because of this, our companies consistently trade at a massive discount to their US peers, and Canadians tend to have fewer job opportunities because the capital just isn't available to start new businesses.

The CMHC is heavily to blame here for incentivizing home ownership over ownership of other parts of the economy.

Having said that, retail probably is heading towards a situation of over-capacity, so if Americans want to (stupidly) dump a lot of $$$ into it in Canada, chances are, they'll lose that money. I do think that its a huge problem when outfits like Nexen or Alcan are taken over by foreigners though.

[opento]

It's worrisome.

[Forhad]

Obviously bad.

[FunSave22]

I am by no means a nationalist, but if Canada wants to preserve the way of life its citizens have come accustomed to and progress to better living standards, then we need to engage in some level of protectionism, or we will get dragged down and the socioeconomic gap will widen.

Some may think what's good for the goose is good for the gander, but it's certainly in my best interest (and every middle-class citizen's best interest) to keep money within our own borders and keep our natural resources in Canadian hands.
Much of our economy is based on exports. Protectionism by us leads to protectionism against us. Meaning the export focused portion of our economy has massive job losses.


And massive job losses are clearly in every middle class citizen's best interest.

[Syne]

You do understand one of our biggest exports is jobs, right?

[FunSave22]

You do understand one of our biggest exports is jobs, right?
No, I wasn't aware of that.

Could you provide sourced stats comparing the value of our real exports with the value of jobs lost through being exported? I didn't think so.

[techcrium]

Almost everyone here says its bad....but could someone explain how or why?

[laihama]

Eatons's did not get bought up. It went bankrupt because the younger Eaton generation didn't care enough about the family business.
Zeller's is a failure. I'm glad Target is taking it over.
I wish RIM could have been a success story but it is not to be. At this point, RIM getting bought up would save jobs.
I've shopped at Rona. They're ok. I can find stuff there that I don't find at HD. Price is not everything. (Yes, I realize it is blasphemy to say such a thing at RFD.)
Too bad ATI was sold. However, the purchase was complimentary to AMD's business rather than a rival taking them out. Not sure, but I don't think the ATI sale resulted in job losses for Canada.

A blanket statement about whether it is good or bad is silly. Every situation is different.

[d182]

I'm surprised there isn't a thread of "Chinese companies taking over Canadian companies." Anyway, I'd recommend "Why Mexicans Don't Drink Molson" as its an excellent read. Personally, if I had a choice, I'd prefer American companies taking over Canadian ones :cheesygri:lol:

[uber_shnitz]

Depends on both the industry and the companies in question.

The retail industry IMO is a marginal loss because you're not really losing jobs (unless they're hiring Americans to work at Walmart now :lol:) and if anything, the larger retail American company can get the purchasing power needed from suppliers to haggle better prices. Suppliers are mostly foreign to begin with anyways.

[MrDisco]

Rona getting bought up by Lowe's.

Not just yet. Their bid was rejected and now there is open musings on whether the QC government will step in to keep them afloat/

"Investment Quebec will look at how to counter Lowe’s offer, including the possibility of setting up “a fund” to defend Quebce’s interests"
http://business.financialpost.com/2012/07/31/rona-rejects-lowes-buyout-offer/

[alkaseltzer01]

Are US companies "taking over" or Canadian companies "selling out"??

[dec12]

How else are we getting rid of bad management in Canadian companies?

[Syne]

No, I wasn't aware of that.

Could you provide sourced stats comparing the value of our real exports with the value of jobs lost through being exported? I didn't think so.

You're right, the statistics for this aren't exactly easy to find.

However, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that every job that doesn't require a physical presence is either exported to cheap labour countries, or taken over by technology created in other countries, and brought over here.

Look, I'm not a 'jobs for the sake of jobs' sort of guy. If it's more efficient to have a population that isn't required to work, then huzzah.. Star Trek universe, here we come! But we can't keep pretending this house of cards we're living under is going to sustain.

[GorillaPunch]

Are US companies "taking over" or Canadian companies "selling out"??

there was an article a while back in the globe and mail discussing this. there is a trend for most of the promising canadian start ups to sell out in the early stages. that's why few canadian companies stay in canada, and grow up to be the facebooks, linkedins, groupons, etc

[Rainne]

Retail / service = don't really care, Canada has subpar customer service compared to the US and even European countries (why?)

Manufacturing = yes, these jobs go overseas and Canada has good quality control

[FunSave22]

However, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that every job that doesn't require a physical presence is either exported to cheap labour countries, or taken over by technology created in other countries, and brought over here.

That's simply not true. The same as your claim that protectionism is in every middle-class Canadian's best interest is untrue..


You need to stop with the hyperbole. The fact is that the economy is very complex and there is nothing that is in the best interest of everyone or every middle class Canadian. There are trade-offs with every decision.

You belief that your policies will make everyone better off is just silly.

[fakishan]

Bad, speaking from experience. Their mentality is that employees are dumb slaves who don't need to know anything, just do as told.

[tim-x]

Everyone here is sayIng it's bad with whom I agree but how many of you rush to walmart everytime you can save a buck? :/

[Syne]

Everyone here, with whom I agree, is saying it's bad... Still awkward but proper.