Canada Wants a New Nafta to Include Gender and Indigenous Rights
Western added that If we don’t act now,
Just two days before heading into the first round of negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finally laid out its core objectives, and second on the list was to make the 23-year-old pact "more progressive." By that, the government meant not only strengthening the existing labor safeguards and environmental provisions,
but also adding whole new chapters on both gender and indigenous rights, and addressing climate change.
Noting that the country had walked out of trade negotiations before and was willing to do so again, Ms. Freeland remarked
that "we are committed to a good deal, not just any deal." But, it was clear to most Canadians that her bluster was addressed to them just as much as American negotiators who will sit across from her team on Wednesday, in the first of many talks that are expected to last months.
And in blatant conflict with Mr. Trump’s "Buy American" campaign, Canada also wants to ban local-content provisions for government contracts, which Ms. Freeland called "political junk food, superficially appetizing, but unhealthy in the long run." Three other core demands are less likely to rankle American negotiators: a modernization of Nafta to reflect technology
that has developed since 1994; the slashing of red tape; and the easing of travel for professionals between the countries.
Freeland said that There are too many communities in our prosperous nation where people do not feel prosperous, where they instead feel left behind by an economy
that is increasingly divided between the wealthy 1 percent at the very top, and everyone else,
Among the six objectives laid out by Ms. Freeland, many were not surprising to Canadians, who have
been deluged by panicky news reports since Mr. Trump first threatened to destroy the agreement.
