I am no fan of free trade. I voted for Cretien when he was going to shitcan it and ditto for the GST. He was lying about both though and agreed to add Mexico into the deal. There is no level playing field with Mexico and we are losing industry to a cheaper labour source with no great return benefit. Softwood lumber violated the FT agreement but the idiot in control of the Canadian government today backed down to kiss Bush's arse. If he had any balls he would have put a dollar for dollar export tax on oil to match the duty that Bush was illegally collecting on the wood. That all being said both Canada and the USA are being bled dry by China, even without a free trade deal. They use next to slave labour to flood the world market with cheap goods. Even if the quality is junk the cheap price creates demand and quality on some stuff is improving (think Blueridge). China is quickly gaining control of the world economy through it's hoard of American dollars. They can make the value of the American greenback swing at will and are not bashful about using threats of doing so to make Bush dance to their jig. The concept of the global economy is about to blow up in our collective faces. China also wants to use its new found wealth to buy into the Canadian oil industry. God help us if some arsehole on Sussex Dr. (like Pensylvania Ave.) allows this to happen.