The end of NAFTA: Canada signed away its energy and got nothing in return;

[CHIMO]

The end of NAFTA: Canada signed away its energy and got nothing in return; the U.S. response to a recent lumber ruling shows it's time to get out

David Orchard
Citizen Special

For two decades those of us critical of the Canada-U.S. free-trade agreement (FTA), and its successor NAFTA, have pointed out that these agreements didn't give us free trade, but would cost us a large part of our sovereignty and national well-being.

Today, even promoters of the FTA as a "rules based" nirvana of "secure access" to the U.S. market -- and part of a move toward global "free trade" -- have been forced to face hard realities.

A couple of recent examples deserve examination. Recently, the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) was forced by what it called "unprecedented political opposition" in Washington to withdraw its open-market bid to buy California-based Unocal Corp. Congress saw the deal as a threat to American "energy security." U.S.-based Chevron is now almost certain to pick up Unocal -- for a substantially lower bid than that offered by CNOOC.

Canadians, on the other hand, living in a larger, colder country with a critical dependence on energy, have signed away under the free-trade agreements our energy security and -- even though our industry is far more foreign-controlled than that of the U.S. -- are told repeatedly by the government that we no longer have any need to own or control our oil and gas reserves.

http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/opinion/story.html?id=135eb7e5-b098-4b28-8fe0-5078f12c6f33&page=1

[justinsb]

1. We need to get out soon

Ultimately, it will be water and not energy that NAFTA revolves on.

[Spazito]

2. I agree, it is time to get out of NAFTA, it is nothing but a sham

perpetrated by the corporations at the expense of the citizens of each country that has signed on.

Why the hell we should be participating in the pillaging of our resources, it is beyond me.