Skip to content
quotesby

The old cliche about having all your eggs in one basket takes on new meaning with Canada and the United States, because there is something even more wrong about having all your eggs in someone else's basket. It is worse still if that country is much larger than you and worst of all if they don't have all their eggs in your basket. This is not a relationship. It is a dependency. Canada's survival will depend largely on its ability to change that dependency back into a relationship. And one of the key factors in doing that will be the redistribution of our trade. But we can't do that if we have no politicians willing to take the lead.

John Ralston Saul#72

PoliticsLeadershipEconomyCanadaDependencyTrade

About this quote

What does it mean?
Canada's economic reliance on the US is a dangerous dependency that needs to shift into a balanced relationship.
In plain terms
Relying too much on one big neighbor is risky and needs changing.
What can you take from it?
Economic independence requires political leadership.

Where it applies

  • trade negotiations
  • economic policy
  • national strategy

Putting it to work

  • diversifying trade partners
  • political advocacy
  • economic planning

Questions to consider

  • How much dependency is too much?
  • What prevents leaders from acting?

Another view

Complete independence is unrealistic in a globalized world.

More from John Ralston Saul

  1. Canada is either an idea or it does not exist. It is either an intellectual undertaking or it is little more than a resource-rich vacuum lying in the buffer zo…

    Permalink to quote #71
  2. Ever since the democratic systems permitted their various courts to give corporations the status of persons, the individual as citizen has been on the defensiv…

    Permalink to quote #73
  3. After all, in both languages we were dealing in large measure not with English and French, but with Scots and Irish, Bretons and Normans....There could be no m…

    Permalink to quote #70

Related quotes

  1. Canada was built from its very beginnings on the belief that public leadership in the economy and on social issues would be as effective and cheap as anything …

    John Ralston SaulJohn Ralston Saul quote #56
  2. I think we have to ask this administration, and the President specifically, about using their political capital now to stand up for the American consumer who i…

    Ron WydenRon Wyden quote #4
  3. When you (President Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau) called me at Lomaloma in December 1987 and asked me to form an Interim Government to prepare the country for a ret…

    Ratu Sir Kamisese MaraRatu Sir Kamisese Mara quote #6