A NAFTA DEAL ALONG U.S. LINES WOULD BE LARGELY POSITIVE FOR CANADIANS.

But the U.S. objection to government ownership and government influence in commerce extends beyond Crown forests to the numerous Crown corporations and government-sanctioned monopolies that make a mockery of free enterprise and competition in Canada. The Trump administration isn’t demanding that they be privatized — that would be an undue interference in our affairs — but it does demand that these government-run entities be shorn of government favours that harm competition. This demand, though modest, would nevertheless have far-reaching benefits for Canadians.

Crown monopolies have historically been vehicles for political patronage and empire building. Ontario’s Green Energy Act — a multi-billion-dollar vanity project designed to make Ontario a “world leader in renewables” — was challenged by Americans through the weak existing NAFTA rules and by the EU and Japan through the World Trade Organization. In the absence of robust trade restraints, the Ontario government was able to power ahead with its anticompetition policies to its citizens’ woe — power rates are tripling in Ontario and industry is leaving for more affordable jurisdictions. Had a Trump-style NAFTA deal been in place, and the political usefulness of government-owned utilities been diminished, the Ontario government might not have even attempted a Green Energy Act and other Canadian governments would likewise have curbed their megalomanias.

Other salutary Trump NAFTA goals include opening up Canadian telecommunications and financial sectors to competition and generally eliminating unnecessary regulations. As it stands now, for example, a U.S. manufacturer of electric appliances that passes American safety tests must also pass expensive duplicative tests in Canada, a needless requirement that raises costs for Canadian consumers.

A new NAFTA deal along U.S. lines would be overwhelmingly positive for most Canadians and for most Canadian industries. Our anxiety about what a new deal may mean mostly amounts to vague fears of change. One exception lies in Trump’s vow to Buy American by restricting foreign bidders on government contracts. While he’s likely to follow through on this vow, it would be nothing new: American governments have been favouring domestic suppliers all along, as have we.

A second exception involves Trump’s demand to abolish NAFTA’s Chapter 19, which provides independent, binational panels to settle trade disputes, instead of domestic courts. Canadians claim Chapter 19 is so fundamental to any trade deal that its absence would be a deal-breaker. But the need for Chapter 19 is also overblown. For one thing, there’s little evidence that courts would be less fair than the binational panels, which themselves have been accused of bias. For another, Chapter 19 verdicts involving Canada and the U.S. are infrequent — just one every two years over the quarter-century that NAFTA has been in place.

Mexico’s industries, whose exports based on cheap labour and lax environmental standards have helped decimate U.S. manufacturing, have good reason to fear Trump’s NAFTA agenda.

The harm to us that might come if Trump’s agenda were implemented would pale compared to the gains. What Canadians should fear are the likelier outcomes — a compromise NAFTA deal that largely succumbs to Canada’s special interests, or no NAFTA deal at all.