Thu Feb 19, 2009 at 13:33
With President Obama visiting Canada today, I know there's a lot of dishonest rhetoric flying around about how reforming NAFTA will supposedly raise the ire of Canadians, and how NAFTA reform is supposedly just the pet cause of America's greedy unions and wild-eyed left-wingers. There's just one problem with that claim: Not only do polls show most Americans - union members, non-union workers, liberal, conservative, or otherwise - want NAFTA reformed, but polls also show Canadians actually think NAFTA sucks and want it reformed, too.
Back in May, after John McCain claimed that fixing our trade policy would ruin our relationship with Canada, I wrote a column referencing a Toronto Star poll that found roughly half of all Canadians believe NAFTA should be outright renegotiated, and about 80 percent saying the treaty had done little or nothing for workers. The Star has followed up that poll with this report this week:
It's time to renegotiate NAFTA, critics tell Harper
http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=E0A01FDB4506FC9C15F0904CC0FEA5D3?diaryId=11705