North America without Borders?: Integrating Canada, the United States, and Mexico

Pradip Sarbadhikari is a political science professor at Lakehead
University in Thunder Bay.

This timely volume is a selection of major papers presented at a 1991
conference (University of Calgary) on contemporary
Canada–U.S.–Mexico relations. The papers deal with trilateral and
bilateral relations, and concern a broad range of issues that complement
and go beyond the economic relations. The book’s 27 chapters are
divided into five parts (not six as claimed), and there is an
introduction by Stephen Randall (Chair, American Studies, University of
Alberta).

Section 1 is brief, with articles by Edward Ney and Jorge de la Vega
Dominquez about the background to NAFTA (supplemented by Herman Konrad
in Chapter 5). Section 2 has several core articles: Sylvia Ostry on
NAFTA’s economic background; Joseph McKinney on the lessons from
Western Europe; Gustavo del Castillo on the mechanisms involved in
negotiations; Murray Smith on consolidating relations; Lorraine Eden and
Maureen Apel Molot on Canada and Mexico in competition with the United
States; Juan Sada on Mexican trade policy; Maria Teresa Guitterrez Haces
on the role of Canada in U.S.–Mexico economic relations; Dorval
Brunelle and Christian Deblock on economic relations.

Part 3 (not 4, as the book erroneously states) deals with borderlands,
industry, labor and immigration, and environmental resources, with
articles by Gary Gereffi, Morton Weinfeld, John Samuel, Richard Martin,
Victor Konrad, Richard Daniel, Michel Duguette, and Dixon Thompson. Part
4 explores public policy and culture, with papers on Canada’s quest
for cultural sovereignty, film and TV programming agreements, and
defining North American culture.

Most of these papers are pro-NAFTA. In the context of the division
among Canadians about the wisdom of NAFTA and the Clinton
administration’s concerns about renegotiating the agreement, the
perspective presented in this book marks a departure from more
nationalist and state-centred views. Though informative, the book lacks
the incisiveness and precision that one would expect from so many
scholarly minds.