So What If We Abandon Free Trade?

I think it's about time our politicians started thinking about abandoning international treaties with the United States that are not favorable to Canadians.

I don't beleive that countries should just abandon international treaties, but when you are dealing with a 'bully' country such as the US what options do you have? We as Canadians have been very patient with the ongoing litigation south of the border over soft wood. Now that we have a binding agreement they come up with another excuse to drag this whole process out again. Classic move by an organisation that does not respect any foreign power to make and play by it's own rules.

As we all know the US only maintains treaties that are in it's own economic interests and abandons all others, only to bring them up again when one of their 'enemies' breaches the same treaty.

I sum it all up to this: "A man is only worth his word" This is something I have lived by my whole life. If I give my word on something I will live up to it or suffer the consequences. The US has made many promises, and broken many of them. What is their word worth on the international stage? I say NOTHING. They lie steal and cheat to get waht they desire. This has nothing to do with the American people besides the fact that most don't care as long as it doesn't interfere with NASCAR or footbabll. Well the American people should care! These people represent you in the world and they are not doing a very good job. I know many Americans, some related that are great people. This administration does not represent them.

I say ABANDON Free Trade with the US. It's not really free anyways, so far the softwood lumber issue has cost us what $5 billion? We need to strengthen trade with the EU and Asian trade groups immediately! This will reduce the impact of reduced trade with the US. The US needs us just as much as we need them. This is the problems with their isolationist policies. They don't think they need anyone! Without NAFTA, Canada would be free to keep all our energy and sell it to whomever we want. The current NAFTA treaty doesn't give us any power over our own energy! This is disgraceful for any politician to have negotiated a deal of this magnitude.

From what I understand, under NAFTA. In an energy crisis, Canada would be compelled by this treaty, to sell all our energy to the US, even if it means Canadians do without. What kind of Canadian could agree to this!!!! Obviously someone in the pocket of big US energy. RIP UP THIS TREATY. It has been stripping us of our sovereignity for long enough!

David Brown
A Proud Canadian

Agreed,get rid of NAFTA,trade with the rest of the world.China,India,Germany,France,Brazil,Cuba,Singapore.

I most heartily agree with you David. Well said. We'll surely suffer short/mid-term pain in doing so, but I'm willing to do without my strawberries in February. We need to get our eggs out of the American basket and spread them around. Other countries would surely jump at the chance to trade with us like the Americans do.

The FTA in terms of enery just makes me angry. What kind of Canadian politician signs away his soul like that? Chretien angered the US by saying NO to Iraq. I can guarantee this ongoing softwood thing is part of that, though they will deny it forever. I don't care. We're seeing the Americans' true mettle in all of this, we need to act sooner than later to go prevent going down that slippery slope with them, be it economically if not morally.

We abandon jobs, our standard of living such as it is and recieve higher inflation rates. So, no thanks.

I have no illusions that ripping up NAFTA will be easy. It will be hard and painful. It could devastate our economy. With the US being 86% of our current market, should they wish, they can make our lives miserable. But if we expect to continue calling ourselves Canadians, in charge of our own country, we are going to have to bite the bullet. The pain and suffering we will have to endure can be likened to labor pains. It's going to hurt like hell, but these will be the birthing pains of brighter future. A great nation will once again be a strong, free and sovereign country with wealth, opportunity and a prominent place in the world arena. We will have a future bright enough that we need no longer be ashamed to pass the baton to our children. These goals will make any sacrifice we have to make in their achievement seem quite small.

I am not sure that NAFTA will compel us to do anything. We can claim the same executive privelage that the US government is using to ingore a ruling from the final adjudication authority on NAFTA after ingoring both the letter and spirit of the agreement.
I imagine we would be compelled to share our energy in the same way that Iraq and Afghanistan are being given the opportunity to share with their occupier.
Fear not, the economic bump would be shorter and less severe than is being predicted if we opted out. There are trading and strategic partners waiting to see if we are in deed a sovereign nation or just an American colony as they suspect.

No, it would not be easy to quit NAFTA now. But it would be well worth it. NAFTA truly benefits only 1/10th of 1% of Canadians even when it is working as envisioned, and as every one now seems to finally understand, it only works when it serves US interests.

We should also understand that the US economy is very leveraged, is very dependent on foreign energy imports and is showing serious sign of strain. It would be dumb and tragic if we locked ourselves into a serious economic downturn that we need not suffer through just to stay tied to that economy. Think of the lives and dreams that could be destroyed!

Finally we have to stop lying to ourselves that the quality or quantity of Canadian jobs is any way enhanced by NAFTA. No one has ever been able to demonstrate where any large number of new or better jobs has been created through this agreement. The old saw is that they are too widely disbursed throughout the economy to easily identify. The truth is they don't exist. Conversely, it is no problem at all to identify the closed plants and mills, the manufacturing losses and the trashed lives that we know without a doubt resulted from NAFTA. They are very real. Even many of us still working earn less and less all the time. Are those the good NAFTA jobs?

The struggle will be to break the clammy grip of big greed on our political proccess, and elect a government that will truly defend our interests. That would mean no more NAFTA.

"No one has ever been able to demonstrate where any large number of new or better jobs has been created through this agreement."

Indeed, if the U.S. is, and always was, prepared to ignore the terms of the agreement when it found such an approach suitable, then it is arguable that NAFTA is "responsible" for absolutely nothing, even the supposed "good stuff". Attributing any supposed benefits of the immediate past to NAFTA would imply an ability for parties to the agreement to employ its mechanisms to enforce non-compliance. Otherwise we might have just as likely achieved the same without it.

People ignore the various technological advancements in the past decade and a half that have contributed to increased cross-border trade. Just-in-time processes and other enhancements to shipping, tracking, information, communication, global inventory and supplier management are probably responsible for most of the increase in cross border trade, and this all would have happened, NAFTA or not.

mk

It will never happen as long as political parties form government. You see lawyers are making a killing off of free trade and it is mainly those law firm associated to political parties.

By the way how much of the taxpayers money is being paid out to law firm and who are these law firm any way? Good question, but one that will never get answered, because they are protected by the Freedom of Information Act, and why not , it was constructed by lawyer to insure they would not be found out. Our last several Prime Ministers have been from that very profession too, so go figure.

Free trade has been a free lunch for lawyers on both sides of the boarder.

Sounds like all we have to do is figure out a way for lawyers to make more without NAFTA than with it.

"We have too much to lose"<br />
<a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050825/COLINK25/TPComment/TopStories">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050825/COLINK25/TPComment/TopStories</a><br />
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Negotiate, don't retaliate by linking softwood to other exports, say four captains of Canadian industry -- PIERRE ALVAREZ, MIKE CLELAND, NANCY HUGHES ANTHONY and HANS KONOW<br />
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The current flare-up in the long-standing impasse over Canadian softwood-lumber exports to the United States is prompting some critics to declare free trade a lost cause and to demand that Ottawa play hardball with Washington.<br />
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It is easy to understand the frustration of people whose livelihoods are tied to sectors of the economy, such as forestry or cattle, that have been caught up in trade disputes.<br />
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After the latest trade panel ruling in favour of Canada did little to resolve the softwood issue, the president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada said Ottawa should be prepared to "turn the taps off on oil and gas exports."<br />
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This is not a new reaction. Canada is the biggest foreign supplier of energy to the United States and when issues arise -- such as the mad-cow scare that closed the U.S. border to Canadian cattle -- there are often calls to restrict energy exports.<br />
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The frustration is made worse because of expectations that institutions such as the North American free-trade agreement would eliminate these types of situations.<br />
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Alberta Premier Ralph Klein urged the federal government to "use whatever legal means it possibly can to force, if you will, the Americans to live up to their obligations under NAFTA." Mr. Klein was right to emphasize the "legal means" to resolve issues.<br />
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Under NAFTA, Canada has legal remedies in the form of trade sanctions. We are not advocating whether and how to use such sanctions but worry that doing something illegal under NAFTA -- such as cutting off energy supplies -- is contrary to our interests and our principles.<br />
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Governments must consider all the ramifications of a trade war. Inevitably, this fight will do far more harm than good. Closing the U.S. border to beef exports devastated Canadian beef producers without much impact on the U.S. market. It took a great deal of work by governments to reopen the border to Canadian beef exports.<br />
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Attempts to end that dispute by creating another -- for example, linking trade in energy or autos or steel to a favourable outcome -- would have simply created even more issues for governments to resolve.<br />
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Canada is an exporting nation. We rely strongly on international relationships and the benefits of the 1988 Canada-U.S. free-trade agreement and its expansion to NAFTA in 1992, which have brought unprecedented economic growth.<br />
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From 1989 to 2002, Canadian exports to the U.S. grew by 9.3 per cent a year, and our trade surplus climbed from $4.4-billion to $86.4-billion. With nearly $700-billion in goods and services crossing the border a year, it is the world's largest bilateral trading relationship.<br />
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As much as any industry, the oil-and-gas sector is built on international trade. Companies operate where resources exist -- from the Middle East to Alberta's oil sands -- and sell petroleum and its byproducts to wherever there is demand.<br />
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Protectionist trade policies cause economies to suffer. In Canada, energy exports are relatively free of such stress, but that has not always been the case. The 1970s oil embargo that triggered a global energy crisis saw the federal government impose an export tax on Canadian oil. A lower domestic oil price, a small Canadian market and restrictions on access to foreign markets led to a sharp drop in Canadian oil production.<br />
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Within a decade, Canada went from being a net exporter of oil to being a net importer.<br />
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Under free trade, the situation reversed. Canada is one of the world's biggest oil-and-gas producers with exports predicted to be worth $44-billion to the Canadian economy in 2005. During the free-trade era, there was also a 20-per-cent increase in domestic electricity generation.<br />
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The key to a vibrant economy is to improve our international competitiveness. Canada has a pressing need for immense levels of investment in infrastructure for the energy sector, from hydro lines to oil refineries. An escalating trade war threatens the political and economic conditions needed to attract that level of investment in a timely manner.<br />
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The solution to the current impasse requires a commitment by all governments to work co-operatively to support market-based policies that are subject to the rule of law. Prime Minister Paul Martin has said he will not link trade disputes. He is right to believe that protectionist policies will not resolve these problems, and his government should resist the calls to change sound economic policy.<br />
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At a time when investment in energy is critical to continue our economic prosperity, the submission from the Energy Dialogue Group (an industry association) to Canada's energy ministers next month underscores the need for a commitment to this policy. "Canada's implicit energy framework -- which has been in existence since the mid-1980s and is based largely on free markets and open borders -- has served Canadians well in considerable measure because it provides a context in which investors can act with confidence," the group noted.<br />
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To be one of the world's leading economies, Canada needs NAFTA and institutions like it to work effectively. The broad policy framework that supports economic integration with our neighbours is too important to our prosperity to allow it to be undone by frustrations around any single dispute.

Its too bad there isn’t a reserve of good will built up between Canada in the USA, now that Canada has a valid gripe. Most Americans that have heard of this at all just see it as another in the endless cacophony of complaints that have been emanating from the north about anything and everything. Iraq, “star wars”, porcupine caribou, Halliburton, gm crops, bmd, bse, 9/11, depleted uranium, fox news, “death camps” in Cuba, “artic sovereignty”… On and on and on and on and on …. A never ending whine.

Now that you have an issue that needs to be addressed you are discovering that in order to protect ourselves from your hen pecking we no longer put credence in your complaints. It’s a case of the country that cried wolf.

"The 1970s oil embargo that triggered a global energy crisis saw the federal government impose an export tax on Canadian oil. A lower domestic oil price, a small Canadian market and restrictions on access to foreign markets led to a sharp drop in Canadian oil production."

Contrast with the equally protectionist NOP era from 61-73, which produced an effective boost in the Canadian economy? Can the 70's be blamed entirely on "protectionism" and this one tax? Bretton Woods broke down in the early 70's too--hmmm. Maybe we learned that protectionism can't work like it did now that speculators can attack your currency in an afternoon.

"From 1989 to 2002, Canadian exports to the U.S. grew by 9.3 per cent a year, and our trade surplus climbed from $4.4-billion to $86.4-billion."

Increased demand? How did Norweigan exports perform during the same era? People (on both sides of the issue) treat FTA/NAFTA like some kind of magic bullet, ignoring all other global trends, technologies and political circumstances. Sure, in the past era we have built a trade surplus with the U.S. Whoop-dee-doo. So has every country willing to accept IOUs. Some of them didn't even have a free trade agreement.

"To be one of the world's leading economies, Canada needs NAFTA and institutions like it to work effectively."

Agree entirely. If we're in an agreement that doesn't work effectively then we aren't going to be one of the world's leading economies.

"The broad policy framework that supports economic integration with our neighbours is too important to our prosperity to allow it to be undone by frustrations around any single dispute."

Also correct! Why should a dispute over softwood lumber completely jeopardize unrelated bilateral trade? Maybe we should return to an approach that doesn't link every single trade dispute to a single comprehensive agreement.

One thing though--the frustrations *used to* be around a single dispute. Since the legitimate dispute resolution mechanisms in the agreement have been ignored by one party to the agreement, the frustrations are now quite justifiably about the agreement itself. The four "captains of industry" need to understand that they're in this agreement for better or for worse, and that the Canadian government has an obligation to defend our interests in the agreement first, their particular interests second (or third, the public interest ought to be in there somewhere too).

What do you all make of the Liberal stance on this issue. They seem to be talking like tough politicians against the U.S for once. Is it for real? Will it last?

Kevin