OTTAWA—Canada’s trade pact with the United States and Mexico has been an “extraordinary success” but unless action is taken to better spread the economic benefits, Canadians will lose faith in free trade and globalization, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says.Freeland used a Monday morning speech to lay out the broad strokes of Canada’s objectives going into negotiations for a new North American Free Trade Agreement. She gave a strong defence of the need for free trade and a modernized agreement but delivered a strong warning that unless deliberate steps are taken to better spread the economic wealth of improved trade, divisions will grow in Canadian society.“There are too many communities in our prosperous nation where people do not feel prosperous — where they instead feel left behind by an economy that is increasingly divided between the wealthy one per cent at the very top, and everyone else,” Freeland said, according to a prepared text of her remarks.“If we don’t act now, Canadians may lose faith in the open society, in immigration and in free trade – just as many have across the Western industrialized world,” Freeland told an audience at the University of Ottawa. “This is the single biggest economic and social challenge we face. Addressing this problem is our government’s overriding mission,” she said.In sketching out Ottawa’s objectives, she said that the 23-year-old trade agreement needs to be modernized to address the changes in e-commerce and the digital economy.She said it must be “progressive” through safeguards for labour, enhanced provisions for the environment, a chapter on gender rights and improved relations with Indigenous peoples.Canada wants to reform the investor-state dispute settlement — criticized for allowing foreign companies to undermine elements of government policy — to underscore that ...
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