NAFTA not the success government claims it is, forum speakers say

Catholic New Times, Oct 10, 2004

OTTAWA (CCN) -- According to Canada's foreign affairs department, the legacy of the 10 year old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is one of economic growth and rising standards of living for people in Canada, the United States and Mexico.

But there are many in the three countries who strongly disagree with this "verdict," including speakers at a public forum in Ottawa, Sept. 21 sponsored by Common Frontiers ,an organization made up of human rights, labor, humanitarian and church organizations, including KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives.

"Since the signing of the first trade agreement, we have created Third World in Canada", said Maude Barlow, national chair of the Council of Canadians. "We have had the largest rise in child poverty in the industrial world. Gone are family allowance, the Canada Assistance Plan, which was the national standard for social assistance, and the standards on unemployment insurance."

Barlow also told the gathering that Canada's health care system has been under assault both from under-funding--"which is the massive right-wing push to end what's left of our health care system"--and public-private health care partnerships.

In Mexico, large corporations have been the real beneficiaries of NAFTA, said Alejandro Villamar Calderon, a founding member of the Hemispheric Social Alliance (H.S.A.), and a noted analyst of free trade negotiations and agreements.

"Everybody knows there is more and more inequality, not only in Mexico but also within our three countries," he said.

Productivity has increased in Mexico, but salaries have decreased, he said. "The social fabric has been deteriorating throughout these years," said Villamar. Calling it a "paradox," he said the main resource in Mexico is money sent by Mexicans working in Canada and the U.S. "Officially those sums total $40 billion a year but the national migrants' organization believe that the sum is twice as much," he said.

"In fact, there is more money coming into Mexico from the Mexican workers outside the country than from the revenue from oil exported by his country," Villamar said. "So, the 'success' of NAFTA is that it has been exporting manpower," he said. "Now we have a country that lives from the salaries from those workers who have been exported."

Noting the upcoming presidential elections in her country, Alexandra Spieldoch, of the United States, told the group, "It's absolutely imperative to get President Bush out of office." She added, "We can't afford another four years; neither can the NAFTA countries and neither can the rest of the world."

"Americans were promised that NAFTA would create jobs in the U.S. and that it was going to be a great boon for the job industry," she said. "But actually there's been almost 2.5 million jobs lost in the manufacturing sector alone."