or the W might invade your ass to show he's still relevant in his final year.

but honestly, who is complaining about canada in any NAFTA debate? how many good american jobs are going north? i would think canada would have similar issues with the largely nonexistent labor and environmental laws in mexico. its the great sucking sound on our SOUTHERN border that makes NAFTA a raw deal.

Tell me, Andrew. When the wars-for-energy start in earnest, and I mean, in *earnest,* and assuming we avoid a major nuclear exchange with China, what exactly makes you think we won't just take Canadian energy?

What exactly would stop us? Heck, we wouldn't even have to invade. Just re-target one mirv'd missle and threaten to annihilate every major canadian population center.

(and, by the way, I am hardly in favor of such a thing. But it strikes me that if the American voter is presented with the prospect of freezing in winter, and not being able to drive anywhere, while canadian voters get to do both, what do you think that American voter would do?)

I think maybe Canada is going to keep right on selling us its energy until that energy is all but gone, and then canadians will migrate south. It'll be an interesting time, yes, indeedy.

Bah, we'll kick your butt like the last time and burn your White House to the ground...again!

In the meantime, Go Canada Go! :) .../One Happy Canuck

to emigrate to Canada. Reasonable government, good health care, lots of land, low crime rate, and most importantly, very few religious fanatics

The point here dbb2144, is that if you open up NAFTA ,the U.S. won't get the good deal on Canadian oil, lumber, pork, uranium etc. that you have now.

Yes we Canadians have similar issues re; Mexio, but NAFTA is also a raw deal for us because of the sweetheart deal YOU have. Of course it wasn't sold like that to us at the time. Ask our forestry industry (how many appeals and rulings to the WTO on this issue alone?) if they like NAFTA. The irony is of course it was sold to us as a way to avoid all these problems, it would be a faster, clearer way to deal with trade issues (yeah a monopoly will do that). What it really is is a way for the U.S. companies to have unfettered, cheap access to our natural resources.

I would love it re-opened because it might point out to Canadians just how cheaply we are giving away access and control over our natural resources. And frankly they are more important to our economy than manufacturing is-- and that is increasingly the case.

Now I know how Venezuela etc. feels. The only difference between the way Canada is treated vs. Indonesia or any other country that has something that US Companies/Government wants is that the buying off of our government isn't as obvious as it is in other countries.

It should be noted that Mexico is our fourth-largest supplier of oil, and that Mexico exports to the US only 500,000 fewer barrels of crude per day than #1 Canada. The United States burns 20 million barrels per day. Both of these countries have us over a barrel (pun literal, intended). There's simply no ending NAFTA without renegotiating our energy deals with both Canada and Mexico. So this campaign rhetoric about NAFTA is just rhetoric (i.e., nonsense).

And why all this war-talk on Canada? I live near the border. I'd totally hike up and fight for the other side. It's so much nicer there than here.

... could easily be done in such a way as to make it much better for people in the US, Canada, and Mexico. The only hard part of that would be getting the agreement past the corporations, who like it fine just the way it is.

Andrew Leonard makes the same mistake -- I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it's not intentional -- that many other pundits make. These agreements aren't really about the citizens of one country vs the citizens of the other. That's just the corporatist framing. They're really about the citizens of all the countries involved vs the corporatists. And because the corporatists largely get to write the agreements ...

Canada elected a Prime Minister known as Brian Mulroney.

He was a Neo-con US covert agent, as well as an opportunist who collected millions of secret money and corporate board positions for doing his "job" and selling out the nation to US and other interests in the 1980's/early 90's.

Canadian media is controlled and will not allow Canadians to discuss this covert agent's true activity.

His sole purpose was to sell energy deals to US interests (success, due to FTA and NAFTA) and he then backstabbed the US (although not his Masters) with secret deals with Europeans to assist in getting access to the US market in exchange for millions of dollars to his Swiss Bank account.

Canadian media has reluctantly 'touched' the subject but has downplayed it at every chance and attempted to brainwash the public into seeing a large conspiracy as a "one off affair that happened years ago."

Obama won't dare touch NAFTA, as it assists the US more than it hurts. At least we see a glimpse of the real OBAMA...what he's really all about after the glowing, soft-lit lense of the US media is off him.

If you read this thread, you will see that we Yankees are the beneficiaries of NAFTA. All Barack's and Hillary's blather is just balther.

From the extended Salon discussions, I have learned that southern USA people blame NAFTA for the fact that Mexicans have lots of jobs in the USA. But they are wrong. We must have had more Mexicans in the north than you southerners had in the south for decades. Or, you guys just were not looking. Or, the Mexicans avoided you because you are so silly. The Mexicans have been here for a long time.

Vote for Barack or Hillary in order to get out of Iraq. Please ignore all their embarrassing, utterly wrong NAFTA talk.