Three Cheers...

...with some reservations, for NAFTA. And kudos to the leaders of Canada, the US and Mexico for pledging to make our continental union even closer. Details on the "Security and Prosperity Partnership," announced at a summit between Bush, Martin and Fox in Texas yesterday, were sketchy at best, but the pact seems to aim at greater mobility of labour and capital within a framework of improved homeland security. This is a good thing. We'll never be the EU -- and I don't see why we'd want to be -- but free trade is, on the whole, a good idea. NAFTA is far from perfect, but to paraphrase Churchill's quote on democracy, it's the best we've got, so far. The US has repeatedly ignored the law and the spirit of NAFTA, as exemplified by the softwood lumber dispute. I would have loved to see Martin keep missile defense on the table as at least a bargaining chip in exchange for relieving US protectionism. There's room for improvement on that front, no doubt.

At the very least, I hope that under the new agreement (whose name sounds eerily like WW2 Japan's "Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere") the US will open its borders to Canadian workers, and vice-versa. (The Mexicans are a different story, for obvious economic reasons.)