
Crunch Time in NAFTA Negotiations: What's at Play for Canada on Digital Policy - uiri
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2018/08/crunch-time-in-the-nafta-negotiations/
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wrong_variable
Trudeau faces election in a year, while the US midterms are weeks away.

Cant he just wait it out ?

I guess if the blue wave doesn't pane out it might actually be better for
Trudeau to accept NAFTA before then.

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endorphone
Trudeau doesn't need the midterms -- Republicans in both houses are strongly
on the "Canadian" side, as are the Democrats. Which is why Trump is
threatening congress.

Trump's presidency is rapidly unraveling. His outsized ego and inability to
listen to reason has led to this remarkable situation where he is "playing
tough" with one of the few nations that the US has a trade balance/surplus. It
is insanity.

He can neither sign a new trade agreement, or cancel an existing one, without
congress.

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claydavisss
Trump is just sabre rattling but arguably this has been effective with China,
and will probably motivate Canada to permit changes as well.

Trudeau doesn't have much choice, the Canadian economy basically doesn't exist
without US trade. No Canada isn't going to join the EU or anything like that,
most of the Canadian economy is less than 100 miles from the border. The stuff
that is further away like the tar sands is also deeply integrated with the US.
NAFTA has basically turned Canada into a US state economically.

Note that the Berniecrats have long lobbied for better trade deals that
emphasize protections for US workers...it will be hard for left Democrats to
oppose Trump with a free-trade agenda. Mostly the Berniecrats have been silent
because Trump is the first President in thirty years to rethink free trade.

Canada should be looking further south for criticism...it is Mexico where jobs
like auto manufacturing will end up...Canada cannot compete with Mexico. When
NAFTA was written, Mexico was not yet a realistic manufacturing center so
Canada had little to worry about

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toast0
I think all the tarrifs (and retaliatory tarrifs and another round of that) is
more than sabre rattling.

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claydavisss
No they will all be rolled back, but the threat will be effective

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didibus
To an uneducated like me. How does one even begin measuring the consequences
of any of this?

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walterbell
Less cultural protection for Canadian art/music/film = less artists incubated
and exported to America and the world.

25 year copyright extension = works withheld from public.

Biologics term = higher cost of life saving drugs = more taxes or less access.

Prevent national boundaries on citizen data = privacy, sovereignty
implications.

 _> Limit governments’ ability to require disclosure of proprietary computer
source code and algorithms, to better protect the competitiveness of digital
suppliers._

Impacts gov requirements for open-source, e.g. for security and auditing in
elections or national security.

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didibus
But aren't these things two way? Like it applies to Canada and the US equally
no?

And how is any of this measurable? Like "less" could be a little less or a
lot.

Also, I don't see anything lowering art/music/film protection. In fact it
seems the opposite, copyrights will last longer, and ISP will police content.

In the end, an agreement of that sort has to be win/win for both countries no?
Otherwise why would Canada agree to it?

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pyre
We're sort of focusing on digital here, but some of the IP rights stuff in the
agreement would make certain generic drugs available in Canada illegal... so
the prices of medication would go up since you could no long buy the generic
brand. I would _not_ say that's a win for Canadians.

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phyller
The flip side would be more money available for the institutions that actually
create new medicines. I'm not saying it's a better tradeoff, just that it's
not so single dimensional.

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PakG1
I do not believe those institutions are lacking in funds for research. Even if
they get more funds, they will still be incentivized to do R&D only on high-
potential opportunities with high probability of product development success.
Shareholders wouldn't care to let them just spend money just anywhere and
waste it.

