abby:"The only way to sort all this out is to let the market decide,
not a bunch of regulations"

I agree in principle, but the marketwill always be aligned with short-term nbenefits, such as a slightly lower price, while less obviously personal benefits such as having more locals employed, will tend to be forgotten at the time of purchase.

I don't favour much regulation, but I think some money could be usefully spent on a decent "buy local" campaign and I don't see any problem with imposing GST on goods imported via interent ordering.

The link posted by Lexi was quite instructive. It showed that mining, especially, and agriculture to a lesser extent are the only sectors really pulling their economic weight. I don't believe we can sustain that for too long, especially with the dollar at such high levels. Let's hope the market is more sensible in this case than it often is.