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Jack Mintz: Wake up Canada! Trade diversification comes with a heavy economic cost

Seventy-three per cent of our exports went to the U.S. last year. Expect diversification to yield lost GDP and lost jobs

Almost four decades ago, the Mulroney government concluded the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement with the aim to gain access to the much larger U.S. market. The Chrétien government followed in 1994 with the North American Free Trade Agreement that included Mexico, creating one of the largest trading blocs in the world.

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Despite trade frictions from time to time, all three countries benefited from higher economic growth and more jobs by removing many trade barriers, thus enabling import competition to improve productivity. Undoubtedly, NAFTA meant Canada........

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