“I wish I could tell you that everything looks rosy,” Ed Fast, federal Minister of International Trade, told a Toronto audience. “Unfortunately, there are still some activists that slavishly oppose our efforts to open up new markets for Canadian entrepreneurs ... these activists are Canada’s great free-trade deniers.”
His comments – aimed at least in part at the official opposition party – come on the 25th anniversary of the Canada-U.S. free-trade agreement, and as the federal government hopes to sign a free-trade deal with the European Union by the end of this year.
Two competing visions have emerged for Canada, Mr. Fast said: one that in which Canada thrives and prospers on the global stage, or one that “lacks confidence, a nation that cowers in the face of competition, and a country afraid to take up the challenges of a global marketplace.”
He slammed those who oppose free-trade agreements, including the pending Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, as taking a “timid and inward-looking” approach. “Fear-mongering and misrepresentation are their stock in trade,” he said.
The federal government has signed nine free-trade agreements in the past six years. It hopes to conclude a deal with the EU by year’s end, one with India next year and is currently in negotiations with Morocco and several other countries.
A Canada-EU trade agreement is expected to boost bilateral trade by 20 per cent, and bring a $12-billion annual boost to the Canadian economy, the equivalent of 80,000 new jobs, the minister said.
He used the anniversary of the NAFTA deal to highlight the benefits these agreements can bring – and suggest criticisms of that deal were overblown.
Twenty-five years ago, “these very same anti-trade activists claimed that a trade agreement with the U.S. would wipe out millions of jobs, hollow out our economy, compromise Canada’s sovereignty over its fresh water, and cause us to lose our Canadian culture,” he said. “None of these claims came true.”
He was speaking at an event organized by the International Economic Forum of the Americas.
Original Article
Source: the globe and mail
Author: TAVIA GRANT
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