Globe and Mail: Final push for Pacific Rim pact set for end of September

The TPP deal is closer than we might think!  Are your candidates for or against it? Check here and tell them to oppose this bad deal: OurDigitalFuture.ca/candidate Article by Steven Chase for The Globe and Mail An effort to land a massive Pacific Rim free trade agreement within weeks is under way, raising the prospect the wide-ranging Trans-Pacific Partnership could dominate the final stretch of the Canadian election campaign.

Chief negotiators for the 12 countries involved, including Canada, will begin meeting in Atlanta on Sept. 26, and trade ministers will join the next week, possibly Sept. 30, a Canadian government official said.

The chances Canadian voters will be confronted with a sweeping trade deal before they have chosen a new government have suddenly increased tremendously. “I don’t imagine you start talking about a ministerial [meeting] unless you think you’re going to land something,” a Canadian official said of the move to set a date for what is seen as a final push for an accord.

The costs of entry to the Trans-Pacific Partnership could include exposing the Canadian auto parts sector, which employs 80,000 people, to far more foreign competition and eroding the preferential position the industry enjoys under the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

- Read more at The Globe and Mail