Re: “Gazette reporter’s story on NAFTA hits the bull’s eye” by Bob Russell (Your Views, Oct. 6).
Bob Russell could use a lesson in English. His sentence beginning, “Western Canadian provinces” is plural. For plurals, “have been” is correct, not “has been”.
His paragraph beginning, “I have stayed …” is one run-on sentence that uses the word “which” twice.
Aside from that, Kevin Ma’s story on NAFTA (Gazette, Oct. 3) may have thoroughly described a blind man’s assessment of dairy provisions under the USMCA, but it was based upon grabbing the elephant’s tale.
Perhaps Ma ought to have read Article 32.10 pertaining to Non-Market Country FTA. It is an attack on Canadian sovereignty to prevent us from commencing trade negotiations with China, deemed a non-market country by the U.S.
Under 32.10, the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion becomes pointless. Alberta will be unable to sell oil to China without converting the USMCA into a bilateral agreement that excludes Canada.
While I am also a Liberal, I am Canadian first. Lead negotiators cannot wear their hearts on their sleeves. Body language cannot disclose the poker hand to be played. You don’t celebrate the retention of Chapter 19 while you’re sitting at the table.
Trump negotiators effectively isolated China by obtaining a veto over any Canadian trade deal with China. The Trans Mountain pipeline is dead. Only the Keystone pipeline through the U.S. is possible now. Chinese investment in Alberta oil refineries has now been landlocked by the USMCA.
Expanding Canadian markets to China to reduce dependency on the U.S. is not possible under the USMCA. Article 32.10 will indirectly affect dairy and every other Canadian industry. It will make our economy exclusively dependent upon protectionist, “America first” decisions by Trump’s administration.
It is the worst possible scenario for the exporting of Alberta oil at world market prices. No deal would have been better than a bad deal.
Hoodwinked by illegal tariffs against Canadian steel/aluminum, by threats against dairy and the auto industry, by the artificial Sept. 30 deadline set for U.S. political purposes, Canadian negotiators’ success was delusional. What can be worth the loss of our sovereign right to decide with whom we trade?
Perhaps I ought to mention that an elephant is the symbol for the Republican party. The word “tale” refers to the Republican fiction that NAFTA needed renegotiating, rather than a physical tail of the elephant.
Randy B. Williams, St. Albert
