CIAO DATE: 04/06

Canadian Environmental Movement and Free Trade

Abstract

The concern for the quality of the environment reached significant proportions in the 1960's and 1970's throughout North America and Europe as other new social movements were emerging. Unlike some of the others, environmentalism has endured as a vital and major social phenomenon, one that has reoriented human perceptions, attitudes, and behavior.

Significantly, in the mid-1980's and early 1990's, the Canadian environmental groups and social networks publicly acknowledged the existence of mutual implications in trade agreements and the global nature of environmental problems. Their mobilization generated a social process going far beyond the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations. They proposed setting up a regional ecological system associated with prevailing or alternative development guidelines.

This paper attempts to explain why and how the Canadian environmental movement organized to participate and put pressure on free trade negotiations. Part 1 of the paper will develop a broad overview of the philosophies, nature, actions, and current state of the Canadian environmental movement. The second part will concentrate on the advocacy of Canadian environmentalists. The third and four parts will address the organization and positions of the Canadian social movement and the Canadian environmental movement regarding CUFTA and NAFTA. The final reflections of the paper will briefly contrast the experience of the Canadian social and environmental movement toward free trade, with the New Social Movement theory.

Full Text (PDF, 29 pages, 1.62 MB)