Buy Canadian. And be proud of it.

In response to the NDP's sensible call for a Buy Canadian policy to the extent permitted by international trade law, the Cons are mocking the idea of a concerted effort to keep stimulus spending at home.

Which is odd, considering that one of the centrepieces of their budget is based entirely on the concept that stimulus dollars won't serve their intended purpose unless they're spent in Canada:

The federal Finance Department looks favourably on stimulus spending that helps builders, in part because so many of their materials are made in Canada. This ensures more benefits of stimulus spending remain in this country than if the money goes to taxpayers in the form of rebates to spur consumption. There's a good chance that consumer spending would leak the benefits of stimulus to foreigners: 50 per cent of durable goods bought in Canada are imported.

“[By] contrast, only 20 per cent of investment in residential and non-residential buildings is imported through such inputs as building materials,” the Finance Department said in its recent paper on stimulus.

So the Cons are well aware that a stimulus package needs to be oriented toward purchasing Canadian-produced goods in order to actually help our economy. But they're only willing to pursue that end through indirect means - placing arbitrary distinctions above the consideratons which even they recognize to be crucial for the success of any stimulus package.

Needless to say, the same reasoning should be applied in both cases: where the purpose of a stimulus package is to sustain Canada's economy, there's no value in putting it toward subsidizing imports where that result can be avoided. And that's true regardless of what additional domestic purchasing provisions the U.S. puts in place for itself.