OTTAWA – At a press conference in Ottawa today, a Mexican Federal Deputy called on the Canadian government to undertake a formal review of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Deputy Victor Suárez Carrera noted that Canada is the last of the three NAFTA countries to consider reviewing this controversial trade agreement.

Under pressure from its citizenry and the opposition parties in Congress, Mexican President Vincente Fox has agreed that the Mexican government will carry out a NAFTA impact study as a possible precursor to a full NAFTA review.

United States presidential candidate John Kerry has also promised that if elected he would begin a 120-day review of all the "free trade" agreements that the United States has entered into, including NAFTA.

“It makes good sense for Canada to join the US and Mexico in a thorough review of NAFTA.” says Deputy Suárez. “The Mexican experience with this trade agreement is one of devastation in the rural areas and an exodus of farmers to the big cities. We have lost many of our better-paying industrial jobs as more and more people are reduced to scraping out a living on the streets.”

Common Frontiers, the Canadian network that sponsored Deputy Suarez’s trip to Ottawa, hopes that Canada’s opposition parties will be successful in putting a NAFTA review process on the federal legislative agenda during this coming session of Parliament.

While in Ottawa, Deputy Suarez will be meeting with MPs from the NDP and BLOC Quebecois to seek their thoughts on holding a meeting in early 2005 of legislators from the three NAFTA signatory countries.

“Legislators from all three countries need to meet soon to design a way to bring an end to this flawed NAFTA agreement,” Suarez said.

He will also meet with Canadian and US activists to discuss strategies for dismantling NAFTA and creating fair trade systems that benefit people before corporations.

“On the ten-year anniversary of NAFTA, Canada must step back and acknowledge that this agreement simply hasn’t benefited the majority of Canadians. It has meant extreme poverty, terrible working conditions, loss of national sovereignty and environmental destruction in all three member countries,” says Elizabeth May, President of the Sierra Club of Canada. “We hope that the current minority government situation will finally allow Canada to reconsider its commitment to NAFTA.”

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