Time is running out to make sure that Trudeau stands up to Trump and renegotiates NAFTA with the interests of ordinary people in mind. Public comments are due July 18th -- let's send a flood of emails that the government can't ignore. 

Send a comment and we'll make sure your email is submitted straight to Global Affairs Canada.

It's always better to personalize your response, but here are some points you might want to make:

• NAFTA needs to be renegotiated to benefit the public. It must institute a democratic, accountable, and transparent negotiating process without privileged backroom access for corporate interests.
• It should eliminate the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system which gives multinational corporations power to sue all levels of Canadian governments before a tribunal of three corporate lawyers. These lawyers can order taxpayers to pay corporations unlimited sums of money, including for the loss of expected future profits.
• NAFTA must include strong and enforceable labour and environmental standards, not the ineffective rules found in deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
• The softwood lumber dispute must be fairly resolved.
• Any updated deal should require all imported food, goods, and services in the agreement to meet strong domestic safety and environmental rules.
• It should also eliminate rules that drive up the cost of life-saving medicines by giving pharmaceutical companies extended monopolies on drug patents.
  
  

And here are some sample comments you can take inspiration from: 

"As somebody who has personally watched my mother battle cancer, I am deeply troubled by the prospect of drug patents being extended and life-saving medicine not making it into the hands of people who desperately need it. Right now, Canada has the 3rd highest drug prescription prices in the world. This must change - any renegotiated NAFTA should eliminate the rules that give pharmaceutical companies extended monopolies on drug patents."

"As a concerned citizen and a parent, I would like to see NAFTA renegotiated with strong environmental policies so that our kids can grow up with clean air and water, and so that we can combat the impacts of climate change. We must be able to reject polluting projects without getting sued in secret courts, which means that the ISDS system needs to get taken out of any future versions of NAFTA. We simply can't have a major trade deal that gives more rights to multinational corporations than it does to Canadian citizens."

Click here for more details on the consultations, including the full NAFTA agreement text.

*Please note: the government will consider all comments as public information, so what you send may get shared in government reports or online. We will share your name, comment and postal code with Global Affairs Canada.

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