NAFTA II???

I was going to do a bit of a research piece on the depths of the Religious Reich's misinformation campaigns on the web.

However, that was before I heard this piece on the news while driving home. On CBC's "As It Happens" program, they had a fairly lengthy interview with John Manley (former deputy Prime Minister of Canada) - which the Globe and Mail summarizes in this article.

This evil little discussion is little more than NAFTA being expanded to include defense and immigration policy. To date, the United States hasn't exactly worked with NAFTA, in fact, they have worked very much against it - case in point, the ongoing softwood lumber dispute with Canada. I'm sure there are issues around NAFTA and Mexico vis a vis the United States as well.

So - the first question in my mind is "why?". Good grief. The biggest player in the agreement isn't terribly interested in playing by the agreed upon rules to start with - I can't even begin to fathom the logic that would suggest that expanding cooperation with the US further is going to be "good" for Canada's (or Mexico's) interests.

NAFTA was supposed to make it easier for people to cross the borders for trade purposes. It was supposed to drop idiotic tariffs on products going both directions. Instead, crossing the border in either direction leaves one feeling as though they are a criminal for wanting to do so.

Is a "North America Passport" going to really make a difference? I doubt it. Even if it is possible to clear the no doubt monumental hurdles that US INS is going to put in front of anyone outside of the US getting one of these things, what makes me believe that there's going to a change in attitude on the part of the customs officials?

Does Canada want the US imposing its immigration policy on us? (Or Mexico, for that matter?) The growing degree of xenophobia that has been demonstrated by the US government since 9/11 doesn't exactly make US immigration policy something that I believe Canada should follow.

The further assertion that Mr. Manley made in the CBC interview was that Canadians want to not only cross the border freely, but sell anything in sight to the Americans. Wrongo! More and more, I - for one - find myself believing that it is very much in Canada's vital interests to cultivate our relationships with the Eurpeans, Asians and other emerging trade blocs in the world. The NAFTA experience has not made me believe that the US government is interested in "free trade" per se, rather than America-centric trade. Although Canada does have to recognize that geography guarantees that the US will always be a major trade partner, we have to look out for our own interests abroad.

Why on earth would Canada sign up to every nutty defense scheme that comes out of the Pentagon? The US has consistently maneuvered to dismantle Canadian military armaments production capability. (e.g. the now-infamous deal that killed the Avro Arrow ) Of course, we should sign up to the wonderful hallucination of "missile defense" that the US has been chasing since the end of WWII. Aligning our defense policy with American paranoia doesn't exactly give me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Signing an agreement that expands what's already in NAFTA - especially when it gets into realms of unifying immigration and other policy bits, strikes me as a phenomenally bad plan, and one that is not worth Canada's time to pursue. Perhaps, if the US happens to elect a government that is more amenable to actual international cooperation than the current bunch of xenophobes it might be worth considering. But certainly not today, with today's players.