An Angus Reid public opinion poll released today finds that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) “is not regarded in a positive light by people in the United States and Canada,” and that “46 per cent of Canadian respondents… say they would like their respective countries to do whatever is necessary to renegotiate the terms” of the continental trade deal. While only eight per cent or respondents say Canada should leave NAFTA completely, only eight per cent think this country was the major benefactor of the agreement.
The poll says 54 per cent of Canadians think NAFTA has benefited the Canadian economy but only one third feel it has benefited Canadian workers. Those numbers are slightly higher in Alberta than other provinces. Broken down by party lines, Liberal respondents were most likely to want to renegotiate at 52 per cent, followed by the NDP at 47 per cent and then the Conservatives at 44 per cent. (Bloc Quebecois support for renegotiation was actually higher at 61 per cent but it’s not like they’re well supported in the House of Commons right now.)
If you take out the 30 per cent of respondents who didn’t know whether they thought Canada should stay in NAFTA on the current terms, renegotiate or pull out, those left over overwhelmingly support change of some kind (77 per cent). Though the support for renegotiation in Canada may seem high, it’s slightly lower than it was in August 2008 (54 per cent) when Angus Reid asked the same questions of Canadians and Americans.
Though neither Prime Minister Harper nor U.S. President Obama have NAFTA renegotiation on their mind, the numbers question how much support our two leaders have to deepen the terms of NAFTA through the Canada-U.S. Border Security and Economic Competitiveness Action Plan signed in December 2011, which is quietly being rolled out by bureaucrats and security officials.
We’re expecting a statement of joint privacy principles any day now, with civil liberties advocates and Canada’s privacy commissioners concerned it will concede too much to U.S. demands for more personal information on Canadians. Canada has also buried a cross-border marine security policy, which normalizes the presence of U.S. security officers in Canada, deep in the omnibus budget bill. Click here to ask the MPs to split the budget up into manageable chunks, as the NDP is proposing to do.
To see our campaign page on the Canada-U.S. border talks, click here.
To read our 2008 fact sheet, Why it’s time to renegotiate NAFTA, on the impacts of the agreement on energy security, click here.
