Sunday, August 06, 2006

Emerson : NAFTA is crap

No, he didn't actually use the word "crap".
He did one better : he explained why it *is* crap for Canada.

"I want people to remember that NAFTA is built on domestic laws," Emerson said. "You can win a legal victory today, and think you have established a legal precedent, only to have Congress change the laws affecting the industry and the way disputes are litigated in the future."

In other words - if no US law is broken, the US wins the dispute.
If a US law is broken causing the US to lose the dispute, Congress simply changes that law and mounts an appeal.

We would like to thank David Emerson for being the first member of Harper's cabinet to publicly admit that NAFTA is a crappy deal for Canada.

Of course, Emerson is only knocking NAFTA to sell his and Steve's 'Firesale! softwood diplomacy' as a better alternative. And we already know that Steve intends to blackmail the opposition into accepting it rather than risk having the government go down in a non-confidence vote this fall.

As Toronto Star's David Crane puts it :
"Because U.S. courts were finding for Canada, the Bush administration wanted an immediate settlement.
The Harper government caved. Now we will have to see whether the opposition parties will do the same."

Bonus : Dave's Snarky (Northern) Canadian Blog explains Emerson's affinity for Firesale! diplomacy.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Apparently, we have to drag you kicking and sreaming into the 21st century. Anyone heard from Brian throughout all of this? How does one trade with a country that ignores binding rulings against them? I would think by expanding other trade partners and being thankful it's only trade, as they likewise ignore quaint rulings on torture, kidnapping and detention. They're expanding Gitmo, probably with our $1 billion, maybe they'll have a snark wing?

scout said...

i don't know the details but at least canadian (or should i say u.s. owned) lumber companies are expanding into the chinese market. we could have diversified and 'gone europe' long ago but they're doing fine with their planted trees....'over the border' has been so easy despite the inequity since brian's days.

ugh, eliminating f.i.r.a. has all tied into this flaccid wood crap. and yes those are quaint rulings aren't they? and dead soldiers and civilians are so.....so noble a front for crocodile tears.....'i'm doing the right thing and feel sorry for me because it hurts me more then it hurts them'.

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