The Globe and Mail reports today that, “A free-trade agreement between Canada and the European Union would deal another blow to Canada’s already battered manufacturing sector, wiping out thousands of jobs in food processing, apparel making and the auto industry, according to an analysis of a potential agreement that will be released Wednesday.”
“Canada, which has run an annual trade deficit of $19-billion with the EU, on average, for the past 10 years, would lose 28,000 jobs – most of them in manufacturing – if tariffs were eliminated, says a study done by Canadian Auto Workers economist Jim Stanford for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). …The loss of 28,000 jobs is the best-case scenario in Mr. Stanford’s study. The worst-case scenario is the elimination of tariffs, plus the Canadian dollar maintaining the 18-per-cent appreciation in value against the euro it has averaged this year compared with where the currencies were trading when negotiations on a deal were announced in March, 2009. Under those assumptions, a Canada-EU free trade agreement vaporizes more than 152,000 jobs.”
“A combined Canada-EU study says the boost to the Canadian economy would be worth $12-billion, although Mr. Stanford noted that even that study says Canadian imports from the EU will increase by twice as much as Canadian exports to the EU. After the five previous free-trade agreements Canada signed with the United States, Mexico, Israel, Chile and Costa Rica, exports grew by an average of 4.77 per cent annually, while imports rose by 8.67 per cent, his analysis for the CCPA shows.”
Just last week the National Post reported that, “Canada’s pharmaceutical industry and the European Union have been quietly lobbying for changes that could give brand-name drugs several years more patent protection here — and potentially add hundreds of millions of dollars to Canadian medication costs annually.” More on that at http://canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=5084.
The 44-page CCPA report ‘Out of Equilibrium: The Impact of EU-Canada Free Trade on the Real Economy’ by Jim Stanford can be read at http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/out-equilibrium.
Today’s Globe and Mail article can be read at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/jobs/free-trade-deal-with-eu-could-cost-thousands-of-canadian-factory-jobs/article1773982/.
