Canada to align with U.S. timeline for deal: PM

Canada has fired the starting gun on the race to ratify the new North American free-trade pact — but the United States is setting the pace.

When it comes to approving the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada intends to align itself “very much” with the time frame of the U.S. Congress, an institution that finds itself riven by partisan rancour, thanks in large part to Donald Trump’s divisive style of leadership.

And with fewer than 20 possible sitting days left in the parliamentary calendar before the House of Commons rises for the summer, it remains an open question whether the agreement will be ratified in Ottawa before voters go to the polls in October.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, who tabled a motion Monday to begin the ratification process, said since the original NAFTA remains in full force, there’s no rush to replace it with the deal the Americans call USMCA, Canada calls CUSMA and Mexico calls T-MEC.

Freeland said other new trade deals that started from scratch, such as Canada’s agreement with the European Union or the Trans-Pacific Partnership, required quicker action to ensure the economic benefits were promptly realized.

“With those deals, there was an urgency to ratification,” Freeland said.

“As Canadians appreciate, we have a trade deal already in North America — it’s called NAFTA. So we have those benefits today.”

On May 17, the U.S. agreed to what Freeland calls a “full lift” of punitive tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, paving the way for Canada to begin the process of ratifying the agreement, which was reached late last September after months of difficult and often tense negotiations between all three countries.