NAFTA

Since its inception, the new North American Free Trade Agreement – the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) – was doomed to be a corporate-first agreement. With U.S. President Donald Trump in the Whitehouse, the old NAFTA as a template, media hysteria around the possible loss of NAFTA, and corporations being granted preferential access to the negotiations, the new agreement was designed to follow the same template as the previous NAFTA and benefit corporations above all else.

Along with labour, citizen’s groups, environmental and faith groups in the three countries, the Council of Canadians successfully campaigned to get rid of some of NAFTA’s most destructive provisions. We were successful in removing certain provisions like Chapter 11 and the energy proportionality clause – harmful provisions that we have fought against for decades. But at the same time, new ones were added that will hurt Canadian farmers and create new corporate-friendly forums that can remove regulations designed to keep us safe and healthy.

With so much at stake, it isn’t just industries that are affected. Our health and our planet are at risk. Trade agreements rule how our globalized planet is run, and there is much to be concerned about. Read more about what’s at stake in CUSMA below and in the Organizing Toolkit.