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Former cabinet minister calls CETA stumble ‘devastating’

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between our country and Europe appears to be in jeopardy after the international trade minister walked out of talks this week.

And a Vancouver-based former Conservative cabinet minister is worried these latest issues with CETA fall into a larger trend, in which some people are losing sight of the benefits of free trade.

“CETA gives Canada access to 500 million European customers for Canadian goods, products, and services,” says James Moore. “The Canada-Europe free trade agreement is larger than the North American Free Trade Agreement. It would mean tens of thousands of Canadian jobs and unprecedented access to the second-largest economy in the world, in Europe.

“The fact that it now looks like falling apart is hugely consequential to Canada…this is devastating news in terms of future prosperity for Canada.”

NAFTA is being ripped apart on a daily basis during the U.S. election campaign, Britain has voted to pull out of the E-U, and there’s skepticism about the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“We need to wake up to these forces of isolationism, whether they’re in the model of Donald Trump, or whether they’re in the model of the failure we see in Canada-Europe free trade,” says Moore.

Asked whether he feels the Liberal government is failing to finish the job started by the former Conservative government he was a part of, Moore neglected to point fingers.

“It’s hard to say,” says Moore. “This deal was announced back in 2013, so it’s been years in the actual landing of the plane, to put it that way. To get Europe to the negotiating table and to get an agreement and then to actually land the plane, they’re different areas of diplomacy, but certainly, I think on the ground politics of rising populism and isolationism in Germany, Belgium and even the U.K. has challenged some of this.

“I’m more interested in what’s next. How do we move forward? You have Donald Trump and even Hillary Clinton attacking the North American Free Trade Agreement, the softwood lumber agreement expired last Wednesday and that’s really going to hurt British Columbia,” says Moore, before expressing concern over anti-pipeline sentiment.

As a nation which has always relied largely on exports, Moore suggests we look inward at our peril.

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