Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!watcgl!drforsey
From: drforsey@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Dave Forsey)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: Free Trade: Why is there no 'Plan B'?
Message-ID: <6761@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Date: 14 Nov 88 18:17:17 GMT
References: <410@telly.UUCP> <1826@pembina.UUCP>
Reply-To: drforsey@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Dave Forsey)
Distribution: can
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 33

In article <1826@pembina.UUCP> cdshaw@pembina.UUCP (Chris Shaw) writes:
>In article <410@telly.UUCP> evan@telly.UUCP (Evan Leibovitch) writes:
>
>>What if we implement the FTA, and STILL
>>become subject to US Omnibus Trade Bills?
>
>The dispute settlement mechanism is able to enforce equal treatment 
>regardless of national origin. 
>
Does this really follow?  Company X doesn't like the settlement mechanism,
or some ruling made by them.  Cannot company X exercise it constitutional
rights by airing its grievance in the supreme court, thus forcing
the Canadian gov't to plead its case there?  Isn't this how the famous
"notwithstanding" clause could be exploited?  Since the Canadian gov't
will not want to tear up the agreement over individual cases, what is
to prevent the gradual erosion of the FTA? (This last question is not
meant to be "fear-raising". It is meant to ask about what specific mechanisms
are in the FTA to circumvent such an occurance).

Can anyone answer these questions with authority?

Chris raised an excellent point about the debt is well taken, though the
comment about "socialist" seems a bit out of place when you consider the
largest debtor nation in the world is the greatest self-avowed anti-socialist
nation.

Dare anyone speculate on what happens to Canada if the good-old USofA goes
down the tube because of its trillion-dollar deficit?  Will the FTA help
or hinder?  Or is Canada already too inextricably intertwined with the US
economy?  Would it be better to be part of "1992" in Europe (to whom the
US owes a lot of this money)?

	Inquiring minds want to know!