ONTC unions announce a plan during a media conference at city hall Oct. 19.

Desperation will make people do ill-conceived things.

Some will even trade their own family members for a penny and promises when the wolves are at the door.

And during hard times, elected officials are quick to sell the farm — lock, stock and your mother thrown in — for short-term economic and political gain.

There's no shortage of examples in Ontario, many recent and several ongoing. More about the recent pitch by the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission unions to become a federal port authority later.

First and foremost, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Tory crew are at this very moment prostituting your children's children on a long-shot global wager.

The Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement, which becomes binding next week, allows China to crawl into our economic bed for a minimum of 31 years.

Journalists across the country are busily writing about it, spurred on by the Green Party warning any and all that it's a dangerous game Harper is playing.

China and its store-front corporations, they say, will be in a position to sue Canada for expected profits if a province or First Nation decides to control development or save the environment.

Our courts will hold no sway, says Green Leader Elizabeth May, with international arbitrators deciding how to interpret the largest economic contract since the North American Free Trade Agreement.

I tend to agree with her on this one and forestry companies will recall with pain and sorrow playing NAFTA hardball against the United States. China is a league above them and the Americans will go bankrupt figuring that out someday soon.

The Tories, of course, are trying to open up markets for corporate Canada in China, but the deal as written leans heavily in their favour.

It's bad enough we're spending millions babysitting a pair of their pandas. Harper is no doubt fighting above his weight class here.

As you can imagine, China and its billions of people want every rock and tree in Canada shipped over raw to feed its processing and manufacturing plants. They have some of the largest refineries in the world with even larger ones in the works, strategically located in poor remote areas and far from populated centres.

China is obviously thinking big and long-term.

The Ring of Fire mining opportunity in the far north of Ontario has them drooling at a time when Canada and this province are fiscally challenged. The public purse is literally worn out from stimulating the economy since 2007 while billions were wasted with foolish endeavours.

Your electricity bill reflects just one result as businesses migrate to cheaper climates.

Cliff's Resources and Ontario announced this spring a vague $5-billion development plan to access a major chromite deposit in the Ring of Fire area west of James Bay and north of Nakina.

An all-weather road is part of the plan to truck the ore south so CN can transport it by rail to a proposed refinery north of Capreol. But consultation with First Nations was lacking and sloppy, unveiling holes in the Ontario strategy.

Cynical fellows such as me figured it was a red herring invented to buy time as the province divests the ONTC, including the Ontario Northland Railway.

Last week, however, the ONTC unions announced a proposed New Deal to transfer the Crown agency to a federal entity under the Canada Marina Act.

It's an interesting play that would spur immediate discussions if Dalton McGuinty hadn't decided to quit as premier and prorogue parliament for several months. It's more important, apparently, that his party find a new leader for potential spring elections.

The New Deal would see the ONR extended north to the Ring of Fire area and likely north of that to a future Arctic deep sea port. Lots of development would take place along the way, much like the ONTC did for this region.

Global warming is making that idea more plausible every day.

Put Harper's pact with China together, however, with a northern railway transporting rock to ships heading directly to Beijing, and you have a glimpse of the future.

And it scares me to think we're in a rush to jump into bed with such an elephant without talking about it more openly.

It might save some jobs today and create work for our children tomorrow, but if we sell off this country's raw resources there won't be anything left for the grandchildren.

A much better plan would see federal, provincial and regional municipalities charting a long-term deal together.

Dave Dale’s column appears Thursday and Saturday. He can be contacted at dave.dale@sunmedia.ca.