Canada is not an economic basket case

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By David Suzuki

In 1987, Canada was caught up in a debate over a free trade agreement with the United States. Economist John Crispo, an outspoken FTA supporter, warned that failing to ratify it would make Canada an “economic basket case.”

In 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney called an election to get a mandate to sign onto the agreement. The Liberals and NDP opposed it, but the Conservatives won a majority with 40 per cent of the vote. The U.S. and Canada ratified the FTA later that year. A subsequent 1994 free trade agreement included Mexico.

In early 1988, before the election, I met eminent economist Kenneth Boulding at a meeting in the U.S. With Crispo’s words still bugging me, I asked about Canada becoming an economic basket case if we didn’t sign on and for his opinion of the FTA.

Boulding answered, “If you want to know how well off you are, imagine that you go to bed and wake up the next morning to find the whole world has disappeared except for Canada and an ocean around it. Would you lack for food? Not when you are one of the bread baskets, not basket cases, of the world. Would you lack for resources — minerals, energy, lumber, fish? Would you lack an educated workforce capable of making everything from clothing to refrigerators and cars?”

That thought exercise reminds us of our true wealth. Canada is a nation rich in resources and skilled and educated people with a diversity of backgrounds and ideas and should be the envy of the world. But globalization renders us vulnerable to the consequences of war, hostilities and shifts in priorities and makes us poor — even though its initial justification was to reduce the kinds of conflicts the world had just endured in two global wars.

I later heard Larry King interview Mulroney on CNN. King chided him for the economic slump Canada was experiencing. Mulroney replied that it wasn’t his fault, that he couldn’t control the global economy. So why do we embrace the global economy? The prime minister’s job is to protect people in Canada and our economy, not hand over control to global forces.

Donald Trump’s election and subsequent actions reveal how vulnerable we are to the vagaries of an unruly leader who couldn’t care less for the wellbeing of people or the state of the planet. His administration during its first term negotiated the most recent North American free trade pact, the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement. Now he’s tearing that up, recklessly imposing tariffs, then backing off and re-imposing them — sending stock markets spinning and creating economic hardship beyond U.S. borders.

We need global alliances, now more than ever, but we must also become more self-reliant. We need to reduce barriers to interprovincial trade and create an integrated renewable energy grid. Our governments must prioritize Indigenous rights, title and governance. We need to make sure our communities are resilient in the face of a warming climate, and we must protect our natural wealth, especially water.

Any trade agreements we join must prioritize human and environmental rights.

The billionaires and oligarchs who benefit most from global trade don’t care about countries or borders; those get in their way as much as regulations and public institutions. Their consumer-capitalist economic system facilitates and relies on global trade — in part to exploit low-cost labour and lax environmental and human rights standards.

Current trade also exacerbates the climate crisis. About 40 per cent of global shipping is to transport coal, oil and gas. As Forbes reports, “Shipping emits over 1 billion tons of carbon a year, making it the sixth-largest emitter in the world after China, U.S., India, Russia and Japan” — and that’s increasing rapidly. Curtailing fossil fuel use would substantially reduce emissions from burning the fuels and from shipping, a win-win for the climate. But it would cut into enormous industry profits and, according to current economic thinking, profits are a higher priority than health and survival.

What’s happening in the U.S. shows how quickly things can fall apart — rules and institutions, checks and balances, international agreements, governing processes that people have long taken for granted. We need to learn from it and come together to protect what we have while continuing to strive for better.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.