A Large But Poor Economy

My age is showing. When I tell my students at Carleton University about my involvement in the 1986–88 Canada-U.S. free trade negotiations, they regard me as a fossil. The most strident Canadian political controversy of a generation holds little but historical interest for them.

There is, of course, quite a lot of history there. For generations, politicians held fast to the notion that free trade with the United States might make economic sense but that it was a political loser. That idea had been hammered home in two national elections and held sway for nearly a century. In both 1891 and 1911, the Liberal Party, led by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, staked its future on the economic benefits of bilateral free trade and in both cases lost to the Conservatives, first under the leadership of Sir John A. Macdonald and later under that of Sir Robert Borden. Both Tory leaders were able to convince the electorate that freer trade spelled political ruin for the young Dominion. Free...