What do Canadians think about trade within North America?

As published on Substack

Amid all the talk about Canada’s trade relationship with the United States and Mexico, the Business Council of Canada wanted to find out what Canadians think about our trilateral free trade agreement. We asked Nanos Research to conduct a public opinion poll, and the topline results are striking.

I often say that I have an unshakeable faith in the wisdom of Canadians. When given the facts, our collective common sense always comes up with the right answers. The Nanos poll released today is further proof that my faith is not misplaced; that Canadians appreciate the difference between rhetoric and reality.

A strong majority of Canadians believe that, over the past 30 years, Canada’s trilateral trade agreements with the United States and Mexico have had a positive or somewhat positive impact on the Canadian economy and, importantly, the overall financial wellbeing of Canadians – including for jobs and affordability.

Moreover, despite the ongoing trade dispute with the United States, an even stronger majority believe that preserving Canada’s trade agreement with the United States and Mexico is important or somewhat important to the overall financial wellbeing of Canadians and the Canadian economy.

Canadians not only appreciate the importance of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), for both the country and themselves, 86 per cent support or somewhat support Prime Minister Mark Carney negotiating a renewed agreement. This is significant because he has said all three countries intend to renew the current USMCA by this summer.

For its part, the Canadian government has been putting the pieces in place to make that happen. This past week Canada’s new ambassador to the United States, Mark Wiseman, took up his post in Washington, D.C., and the government also tapped the Hon. Janice Charette to be Canada’s chief trade negotiator.

Also last week, the minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, Dominic LeBlanc led a massive trade mission to Mexico. Billed as one of the largest Team Canada trade missions in history, more than 300 Canadians traveled to Mexico with a common goal – increasing trade and investment between our two countries via a strengthened USMCA.

I was proud to be part of Team Canada for that trade mission and pleased to demonstrate the Canadian business community’s strong connections in Mexico with the signing a memorandum of understanding with our Mexican counterparts, the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial.

In all our meetings with Mexican government officials and business leaders, we identified a shared desire to see the USMCA successfully reviewed and renewed this year. We agreed to work together with our U.S. counterparts to ensure the continuation of an agreement that has delivered so much prosperity to all three countries.

The mission to Mexico and the Nanos poll released today demonstrate the importance of North American trade. Much has happened in the past year, including the U.S. Supreme Court’s trade decision on Friday, but what has not changed is that our priority must be the renewal of the USMCA – an agreement that benefits the people of all three countries.