How did the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement cause controversy in Canada?

Answer 1

Once the treaty was announced, it became a source of great controversy in Canada. A wide-ranging group of Canadians, mostly on the left, came out in opposition to the deal. Led by the Council of Canadians, they argued that the deal would undermine Canada's sovereignty and begin a slippery slope towards Canada losing its political independence.

The 1988 Canadian election was almost wholly dominated by the issue of free trade. The Liberal Party, led by former Prime Minister John Turner, the social democratic New Democratic Party, and many labour unions strongly opposed the deal. Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives and most business groups supported it, including the Business Council on National Issues. The BCNI sponosored considerable pro-free trade advertising, far more than had ever been spent on a single issue in a Canadian election.

Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives were re-elected with a comfortable majority. Critics argued that the two parties opposed to free trade actually won a majority of the vote, but because of vote splitting between the NDP and Liberals, the Progressive Conservatives managed to win a majority of seats in the Canadian House of Commons. On January 1, 1989, the agreement came into effect.

Answer 2

The deal was and is fatally flawed because it didn't address minimum taxation or environmental and labour standards. It also meant that good Canadian food processing would be sent to the filthy lousy USA plants.

The anti-free trade citizens claimed that we would be forced to compete on an hourly wage basis with Bangladesh et al.
They also claimed that we would be forced to reduce tax levels to the lowest common denominator.
They also claimed that environmental controls would be by-passed in the name of "efficiency".
They said that good paying jobs would leave for poorer jurisdictions or have their wages greatly reduced.

THEY WERE RIGHT!

It also violates the U.N.'s "Universal Declaration of Human Rights".

Read it at the site below.