Province worried about NAFTA negotiations

Minister says the deal is vital to Saskatchewan’s export economy

Jeremy Harrison, Saskatchewan’s minister of trade and export development, says he has long raised concerns with the federal government over Canada not being at the table during trade talks between Mexico and the United States.

On Monday, Mexico and the U.S. made an informal deal to update the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), after five weeks of negotiating without Canada present. Both countries have expressed a willingness to now include Canada, but U.S. President Donald Trump suggested a Friday deadline.

The legal ability to formalize the deal without Canada has been called into question — U.S. Congress, not Trump, has jurisdiction over trade and would need to ratify the new deal, while Mexico is soon to have a new president.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau characterized the bilateral deal between Canada’s North American neighbours as positive — he told reporters he was “encouraged by the progress made by our NAFTA partners over the past weeks” and that the handshake agreement is “an important step to moving forward on renegotiating and improving NAFTA.”

But senior officials in his government rushed to Washington, D.C. when news of the deal broke: Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland cancelled a European tour to attend negotiations, telling reporters in the American capital the Mexico-u.s. deal “sets the stage for some productive discussions.”

She added negotiations with Mexico would also be taking place Tuesday evening.

Harrison told reporters Tuesday he is concerned Canadian, and specifically Saskatchewan, interests have “not been taken into consideration” during negotiations surrounding NAFTA.

“We need to get a deal; this is incredibly important for our economy, which is probably the most export-dependent in the entire country, “he said.

“And we’ve been concerned about a pattern we’ve been seeing — moving backward on market access, moving backward on trade access, not moving forward,” he continued, citing examples of Saskatchewan’s international market access shrinking.

He said that Mexico and the United States negotiating without Canada present “without question has an impact on the leverage that we would have in the context of a further discussion” around NAFTA.

That is, in part, because two of the three countries involved have already come to an agreement on major factors of the free trade deal.

Details of what the MexicoU.S. agreement look like are still unclear, but Harrison mentioned that having a dispute settlement mechanism in place is important, in part because it has played a significant role in settling tensions involving Saskatchewan’s forestry region.

He said he has “bluntly conveyed” for many months concerns over Canada’s handling of the trade file, but also saying, “We have been working with the federal government and attempting to be fully supportive.”