Costs and benefits of regional and international trade, and which should Canada be then pursuing?

The costs and benefits of international and regional trade agreements have become an especially controversial topic over the last decade with the prominence of such media-saturated terms, as, globalization. Unfortunately, this has also led to the creation of predisposed biases on issues where there has been insufficient information presented. Both regional and international trade agreements have their potentially harmful and beneficial side effects, but in protected trade environments the real losers will be those that …

…continuing to work on multilateral liberalization. However, along with multilateralism comes a distinct need for entrenching effective social safety nets in order to reinforce the working order. "'Investment' in people stimulates growth, which in turn provides the resources for people-focused investment" (F&L 385). Canada needs to express this need for a strong multilateral system in order to maintain and maximize economic prosperity while striving to restate its ever decreasing role on the international stage.