Canada’s ‘social agenda’ derailing NAFTA, says ex-Pence chief of staff
The former chief of staff to U.S. vice-president Mike Pence says Canada’s demands to include language on gender, Indigenous people, and climate change in the NAFTA negotiations have created an “obstacle” to progress, with no path forward. Bill Smith, now the president of the U.S. public relations firm Sextons Creek, told The Hill Times last […]
Time to toss investor-state dispute settlement into trash bin of history, says letter-writer
Our Canadian government should be able to pass laws that protect our environment and our people without the threat of lawsuits from companies that want to make a profit at the expense of our land and our health. This is the right of every sovereign nation. Please use the current NAFTA talks to renegotiate the […]
Trying trade talks with the U.S. a problem for both Trudeaus
For prime minister Pierre Trudeau, the greatest crisis he faced in his first term of office was the economic threat from Nixonomics in 1971, including the threat to kill the critical Canada-U.S. automotive products agreement, known as the Auto Pact. For Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the greatest crisis so far in his first term of […]
Co-operatives: connecting northern communities
Arctic communities are using the federated co-operative model to meet their needs, from food and clothing to rifles and snowmobiles. The federated co-operative model allows for local co-operative stores, all across the Arctic, to work together to lower costs and provide high-quality products to their communities. This Artic federation of co-operatives is known as Arctic […]
Trade and innovation topped September lobbying
PARLIAMENT HILL—The staff tasked with implementing the Liberal innovation plan were lobbied the most last month, because “all roads go through” Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains’ office, insiders say. Mr. Bains himself was only the third most lobbied minister, however, with International Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne (Saint-Maurice-Champlain, Que.) and Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay (Cardigan, P.E.I.) seeing the […]
Canada must rethink trade strategy after a half-century of U.S. special access
OTTAWA—On Jan. 16, 1965, prime minister Lester Pearson sat next to U.S. president Lyndon Johnson at an outdoor table at Johnson’s ranch in Texas to sign the papers bringing the Canada-U.S. Auto Pact into existence. Old footage shows Johnson looking vague about the whole thing while Pearson exuded satisfaction. At the time, there appeared to […]
Behind the scenes of how Canada’s ‘dream team’ negotiates NAFTA
Every few weeks this fall, roughly 300 Canadians, Americans, and Mexicans descend on a hotel in one of their respective capitals for about five days. While lobbyists chat in the hotel coffee shop or restaurant and reporters troll for tidbits of news, trade negotiators are holed up in hotel board rooms, sometimes 20 to a […]
Scrap Chapter 11 investment mechanism from NAFTA
There has been a great deal of coverage about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s trip to Washington for NAFTA renegotiation, but I haven’t seen very much coverage of what NAFTA is doing to us here at home right now. Currently, an oil and gas company, Lone Pine Resources Inc., is using the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) […]
Canada’s high-tech leaders bypassing the U.S. for success in Asia
The transformative Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) represents 40 per cent of the global population and 50 per cent of world trade. Within the 21 member economies of the APEC region, micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are the drivers of growth of innovation. They account for 98 per cent of all businesses. They also […]
House subcommittee hearings on mining in Latin America a public disservice
The federal Liberals came into office promising to take action on human rights abuses associated with one of Canada’s largest and most controversial areas of foreign investment abroad: mining. But a rare study on the issue in the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights seems designed to justify the do-nothing status quo, since […]
