From the Editor / L. Ian MacDonald

Welcome to our special issue, Free Trade: Then and Now, on the 35th anniversary of the completion of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement in October 1987 and the 30th anniversary of its trilateral successor, the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, including Mexico, completed in October 1992. 

To be sure, we’re observing these anniversaries, but more to the point, we’re marking the occasion by examining how far Canada as a trading nation has come since then, and where we go from here. 

First, a Q&A with former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, the father of free trade and the prime minister whose legacy on the issue will be measured not only by its economic impact, but also in the confidence of competition it instilled among Canadians. We sat down with him at his Montreal residence on August 16, and found him in fine form, not just on trade, but a number of other policy issues, including Quebec’s use of the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to enforce secularity and limit minority language rights, increasing immigration as a must for Canada’s economic growth, Indigenous rights, climate change and whether the government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act to end the blockade of Ottawa. 

Historica Canada’s Anthony Wilson-Smith also spoke at length with Mulroney for his profile of the former PM, whose time in office he covered extensively for Maclean’s, comparing the controversies of those years with his policy legacy of today. 

On to a remarkable package of assessments, perspectives and outlooks on the “Then and Now” of free trade. First, Kevin Lynch and Paul Deegan look at NAFTA before its recent update and since, and conclude it “has become the global model for trade liberalization agreements.” From Washington, Canadian Ambassador Kirsten Hillman, whose background as a trade negotiator was as crucial to the NAFTA renegotiation as it is to her daily role, has filed an exclusive look at both through the lens of trade.

John Weekes, present at the creation of NAFTA as our chief negotiator, and of the World Trade Organization as ambassador to the GATT, writes that Canada “should be constructive but also prepared to defend its interests” in trade talks. Then, Policy Associate Editor Lisa Van Dusen lays out the bumpy ride of the WTO since China’s accession in 2001.

Then, free trade by the numbers, and their Impact on economic growth over the years. There’s no one better than Kevin Page, President of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy at University of Ottawa, to make sense of It all.

And in an exclusive Abacus Data poll for Policy, David Coletto finds 52 percent of Canadians support free trade with only 7 percent opposed, with 31 percent “neither” and 11 percent “don’t know”. A long way from the 38-42 support-opposed split at the start of the historic 1988 free trade election. But he also found Canadians were strikingly ambivalent and even indifferent on trade issues.

Former senior diplomat Colin Robertson reminds us of the importance of keeping our allies in the provinces, states and among stakeholders in the picture. From inside the Beltway, Maryscott Greenwood of the Canadian American Business Council says it’s time for Canada to “flex its inherent advantages”  with the US in global trade conversations.

In our sponsors’ section, for the Forest Products Association of Canada, Eric Miller writes of the opportunity for a Canada-US model of sustainable forestry in trade. And GE Canada President Heather Chalmers has some thoughts drawn from her firm’s bilateral history on how Canada and the US can work together on a clean energy transition.

Finally, columnist Don Newman reflects on Canada’s free trade journey, from then to now.

In Canada and the World, former and perhaps future Green Party leader Elizabeth May updates us on climate change, writing that the “gospel of kicking it down the road” must give way to political will and true leadership. 

Then Jeremy Kinsman again draws on his experience as ambassador to Russia, the EU  and  UK  to update us on Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Kinsman writes that there could be a negotiated peace settlement, which isn’t how Putin saw this when he began on February 24, his “day of infamy”.

And veteran political strategist Geoff Norquay delivers a mea culpa for his role in creating the Conservative leadership voting system whose weaknesses he says demands an overhaul, with a walk down memory lane to when leadership conventions made voting fun.

Finally, in Book Reviews, Anthony Wilson-Smith looks at Terry Mosher’s new book of Aislin cartoons and the great story of Montreal to Moscow, on the 50th anniversary of the Canada-Russia hockey series in September 1972. And Robin Sears reviews Chandran Nair’s Dismantling White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World.

Enjoy.