If you're listening to the Backbench, you probably already know about the other Canadaland podcasts, but I'll add a plug for that and the Copernic Affair. CBC's Frontburner can be good from time to time.
I'm really disappointed that The Big Story dropped Jordan Heath Rawlings. That was a great show.
thing that was actually bad about free trade was that some very non-democratic, non-free countries abused it, monopolized manufacturing of entire industries and bribed us with very cheap products about it so we didn’t mind very much ... It seems like we hoped that if we provided them a good economy, freedom would follow.
That's what we were protesting. It was clear that production would move to overseas sweatshops. We pushed the idea of fair trade: where countries would lower tariffs on trade partners that enforced similar labour and environmental laws. The intent was that we wouldn't externalize shitty labour practices, instead, workers in those market would join a middle class similar to Canada's.
During the FTAA talks (and before), we were pushing for fair trade - saying that free trade between countries with similar labour and environmental regulations is fine.
We said that for all the reasons you mentioned: real investment can build a middle class and improve people's lives.
The thing we objected to with the trade agreements is that they would enrich oligarchs and screw workers.
The argument against free trade was that it would suck decent jobs out of high cost/high regulation countries, and replace them with near-slavery jobs in low cost/low regulation countries.
Generally, this has occurred: developed countries have lost jobs in manufacturing. It seems possible that developing countries did a little better than we expected, but I'm not too familiar with that.
It led to a shitload of prosperity for everyone involved
For the already rich, yes. For the rest of us, no. Inequality in the developed world increased significantly in the past few decades. I don't think that can be entirely attributed to free trade agreements, but they contributed.
I'd love to see Mastodon take off, but until it increases its utility for journalists (and influencers) it's going to be hard to replace other microblogging apps.
The regular show is fairly personality driven - if you don't like the hosts, it can be a slog.
But I highly recommend the Copernic Affair. It's a good true-crime type podcast.