Embassy, June 7th, 2006
NEWS STORY
By Sarah McGregor
NAFTA's Critics Plan Their Assault
Canadian, U.S. and Mexican opposition legislators introduce their cross-border strategy to dismantle the trade pact piece by piece.
An alliance of legislators and activists from Canada, the United States and Mexico who believe the North American Free Trade Agreement has been an incredible failure are determined to propose laws in their respective national legislatures to dismantle the trade pact piece by piece.

On the heels of a full-day forum on Monday in Ottawa, the North American lawmakers all representing Opposition parties called for a comprehensive review of NAFTA to include peoples' views and to curtail the expanded powers of business elites.

The politicians also demanded ruling governments suspend a plan of deeper integration known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or NAFTA-plus, which leaders from all three countries, including Canada's Stephen Harper, endorsed during a trilateral summit earlier this year in Cancun, Mexico. The blueprint being developed in private meetings by working groups comprised of bureaucrats and corporate actors will touch on everything from cross-border trade to immigration and security.

NDP Trade Critic Peter Julian insists that governments must halt the process and survey public and multi-partisan opinion -- not just those of corporate and governing political leaders.

On the side of strengthened integration are business coalitions that say increased border safety measures in the age of global terrorism are impeding trade and damaging the economy. Tri-national leaders say the NAFTA-plus agenda is focused on striking a balance between these rival concerns.

However, progressive legislators and social activists in Ottawa this week say they believe all countries should go back to the drawing board on the trade deal and create a "people-centred" model.

Mexican Victor Suarez, a federal representative of the Partido de la Revolucion Democratica, says at least two million Mexican farmers have been forced out of business because they are unable to compete with government-subsidized producers in the United States. Ohio Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur says the U.S. is facing a mounting trade deficit. And Mr. Julian says statistics of job creation in Canada are skewed by the fact that they are part-time and temporary positions and workers rarely enjoy health benefits.

The three countries signed NAFTA in 1994 creating the world's most expansive free trade zone. NDP Leader Jack Layton says the regional treaty and the security partnership add-on are a "new constitution for North America written by CEOs." Decision-makers promised a "better life for working people" when they signed the NAFTA document almost 13 years ago, but the situation has worsened for the poorest segments of society with growing income disparities and more pollution, he says. "We have to insist that it's going to be the people who decide," says Mr. Layton, at an evening reception on Monday attended by participants of the second North American Forum; the inaugural meeting was in Washington last year. Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe also spoke out against the agreement at the event.

The network will re-group in Mexico this summer if the left-leaning PRD, which has vowed to review the NAFTA treaty, is elected. A national Mexican vote is scheduled for July. Regardless of which party wins, another meeting will take place in Ottawa in March 2007.

It isn't clear how the network plans to make concrete steps in the near future. The idea is to raise the profile of alternatives to NAFTA through parliamentary debate, discussion at committee and private members' bills, says Jean-Yves Lefort, of Common Frontiers, a collaboration of labour unions, environmental groups and social justice advocates that oppose NAFTA and hemisphere-wide trade agreements.

Mr. Julian says he hopes to put forth a bill to eliminate a provision of NAFTA that allows companies to take legal action against governments for creating policies that cut into their profits.

Ms. Kaptur says she hopes to form a secretariat in the U.S. with like-minded Democrats to press the Republican administration to think twice about NAFTA and other regional trade treaties.

sarah@embassymag.ca
http://www.americaneconomicalert.com/ne ... ID=2093465