A Free Trade Role Model, Eh?

During the War of 1812, a young Canadian woman, friendly and seemingly innocent, walked past U.S. troops advancing into Canada to burn the fort that would become Toronto. Laura Secord, leading a cow in some versions of the story, was Canada’s Paul Revere, alerting town after town that the Americans are coming, the Americans are coming.

Today, the Americans--all of the democratic leaders of the Americas--are coming to Canada for the third Summit of the Americas. Thirty-four leaders including President Bush (Fidel Castro did not make the cut on democracy grounds) will gather in Quebec City, another former fort, for three days of meetings and less-noticed but significant one-on-ones.

The prime topic inside the halls and on the streets is FTAA--the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a grand scheme that could eventually produce a mammoth market of 800 million consumers trading $11.5 trillion in goods and services. Take that, Europe!

Many objections remain, and thousands of environmental and labor protesters will explain them for TV cameras in Quebec. But the lure of prosperity has even Brazil, the hemisphere’s second-largest economy and its most vocally doubtful about FTAA, starting to sound agreeable.

It is appropriate that this conclave be held in Canada, for the original hemispheric free trade role model is the Canada-U.S. economic relationship, by far the world’s largest at well over $1 billion daily. That close historical and geographic relationship was codified in a Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement that began 12 years ago, worked so well it was expanded to include Mexico in 1994 and now could cover the entire hemisphere. In fact, more trade crosses just the Ambassador Bridge at Detroit than crosses the Pacific between the United States and Japan.

Neighbors and neighbours do have arguments now and then, eh? Lumber and fish come to mind. But the relationship is so pervasive--power grids, buried pipelines, car parts, firefighting compacts, cable TV, entertainment industries, even youth hockey leagues--that politicians have trouble affecting it, let alone controlling it. Trucks implementing free trade already take the same divided highway from, say, Edmonton, Alberta, across the U.S. deep into Mexico.

When traveling, this president likes his briefing books, well, brief. So the one aboard Air Force One this morning will probably not contain the heroic Laura Secord story, which Canadian youngsters study. Americans hear more about the troops from Canada who soon after the sacking of Toronto sailed up the Potomac on a retaliatory raid to burn down a not-yet-famous white house where, of course, George W. Bush now resides.