Costa Rica Craters Canada FTA Craze

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Costa Rica Craters Canada FTA Craze

The Canadian government has a quaint addiction to indulgent self-congratulation. This compulsion is fed on a surfeit of public news releases. Aware of the organisation's unspoken dependency, a few ambitious bureaucrats developed delusions of grandeur regarding the Canada-Costa Rica Free Trade Agreement negotiations. No small part of their calculation was to advance to the Prime Minister's Office a briefing note offering up a Quebec City Summit of the America's announcement: the signing of the Canada-Costa Rica FTA. Not only would it be appropriate for the host country to have a demonstrable commitment to the region befitting its leading role in the FTAA, it would also help to dampen out the inordinate attention to be accorded Mr. Bush by the hemispheric media.

However, Costa Rica didn't want environment in the deal, nor apparently did they support inclusion of labour as an integral part of the proposed free trade agreement. That meant that at best these tres chic issues were going to be covered only in stand-alone side agreements. Then it came about that the trade deal was not going to include chapters on services or investment.

The reason the federal government have resorted to side deals is that without them, the whole package is hollow. Sort of a Caribbean version of the Canada-EFTA deal. Perhaps even worse since environment and labour fall within provincial and concurrent constitutional jurisdiction. The Provinces will have to be party to the side agreements otherwise they are effectively inoperable.

Pity the WTO Regional Trade Agreements Committee if they have to deal with this mess: there simply is not enough in the prospective trade agreement to justify calling it an Article XXIV "free trade area." If this were 1956, it would fly, but a tariff deal with some window dressing is hardly something to crow about in 2001.

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