Wrestling with the Elephant: The Inside Story of the Canada-US Trade Wars

Sarah Stratton, who holds a Ph.D. in American history from York
University, teaches at Open College and is a member of the
research/program staff at the Women’s Inter-Church Council of Canada.

In the late 1980s, Gordon Ritchie was part of something big when he
helped negotiate the 1987 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA). That
agreement has grown into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
and is part of the much-anticipated, much-feared Multilateral Agreement
on Investment (MAI) that looms in our future. In Wrestling with the
Elephant, Ritchie chronicles the FTA negotiations and subsequent life in
the world of international trade.

Ritchie clearly believes that he has led an extraordinary life and that
his opinions matter a great deal. His recollections of the tortuous FTA
negotiations and his perceptions of all those involved certainly do
matter, and his characterization of Simon Reisman and Peter Murphy’s
tempestuous relationship practically leaps off the page. The absence of
any discussion of the historic debate over reciprocity and free trade
reminds readers that they are reading not a work of history, but an
extended opinion piece. Ritchie pays lip service to opponents of the
FTA, NAFTA, and MAI, but he ultimately dismisses them as simple fools
and their nationalism as a pretence for self-aggrandizement
(coincidentally, another feature of autobiography).

No matter what you think of Ritchie’s opinions, this is a valuable
work because it offers one negotiator’s perspective. Ritchie clearly
believes that FTA, NAFTA, and MAI are the right moves for Canada. At the
same time, he regards the Americans as bullies and urges Canada to stand
up to the United States and risk a bloody nose when principle is at
stake. His efforts to reconcile these two points of view are not
successful here; they leave the reader with the feeling that Ritchie is
perhaps more of a Canadian nationalist than he would care to admit.