On 2 January 1988, Canada and the United States signed what was then the most comprehensive free trade agreeement the world had ever seen. This book is the story of those FTA negotiations, the preparations for and conduct of the negotiations, as well as the ideas and issues behind them. From their unique perspective as participants, Michael Hart, Bill Dymond, and Colin Robertson capture the drama and the personalities involved in the long struggle to make a free trade deal. They describe the extensive consultations, the turf-fighting among insiders, the innate caution of both politicians and bureaucrats, and the need to cultivate powerful constituencies in order to overcome the inertia of conventional wisdom.

The implementation of the proposed agreement would remove many of the remaining barriers to commerce between Canada and the US, but there remain many details of the proposed Agreement and many potential consequences uncertain. This volume contains the proceedings of a conference that sought to provide a neutral forum to assess the implications for Canada. Analyses the elements of the Agreement, and the regional, sectoral and labour market adjustment issues and broader concerns with respect to cultural, economic and political sovereignty.

Provides extensive legal analysis of key issues associated with understanding the policy implications of the Agreement. Topics discussed include dispute resolution procedures and the effects of the review mechanism that applies to the trade laws of both countries; technical aspects of the free trade area and some of the specific issues involved in the elaboration of national treatment; Canadian constitutional dimensions and the issues involved in implementation of the Agreement; and the broader implications for Canada's sovereignty.

This book provides an overview of the recently implemented Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and highlights its implications for manufacturing, engineering, and technological firms and for service industries. Because the perspective is global as well as regional, the concerns of both multinational and smaller businesses are addressed. The text focuses on how the economic environment in both countries will change as a result of the agreement, and how businesses should respond to those changes. It also discusses past, present, and future trade relations between Canada and the United States and between North America and Europe. Contributors to this volume include academic authorities Richard G. Lipsey, Alan M. Rugman, Steven Blank, and Jeffrey J. Schott; Canadian and U.S. Business leaders G. Firman Bentley, Daniel Walsh, and Pierre S. Pettigrew; and government officials Gerald E. Shannon, James Tarrant, Thomas M. T. Niles, and Richard M. McGahey.

This paper assesses the impact of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on Canadian manufacturing during the 1989-1996 period. The estimated effects of the tariff concessions are calculated for manufacturing as a whole as well as for the most impacted industries (those industries faced with the largest tariff cuts). The paper examines impacts on a number of performance indicators, including employment, earnings, trade, output, number of plants, and productivity.