 So my name is Chris warswick. I'm I've been asked to chair this session. I'm a member of the Department of Economics, and I'm currently associate dean research international for the Faculty of Public Affairs really pleased to attend and in a small way participate in this event as as Dean Plurid said this morning this this research excellence symposium is related to the FPA research excellence award that Professor Laura McDonald won last year and this wonderful event is coming out of her efforts and and support from the Dean's office I Think for people in the room. I probably don't need to spend a lot of time introducing Laura but I would say that you know she's a wonderful researcher with Expertise in Latin American and North American politics Not only is she won this research excellence award once She's actually won it once before and she's won the University Research Achievement Award and if you've ever been any on any of these committees There's always lots of disappointed excellent scholars. So it's it's really to her credit that She's been identified so often by the Faculty of Public Affairs and the University So I think I'll leave it there So the the title of her presentation is civil society in the new North America So Laura will speak and then we'll have comments later by Angela McEwen who's senior economist at the Union of Public Employees Thanks a lot Chris and actually I did change my title as is the tradition. So there it is So before I start I just did really want to thank Chris and the wonderful Cassie who did all the hard Work to organize this event. She's amazing as well as Kyla Who's given me tons of support in the Dean's office over the years. It's I'm so fortunate to work with such supportive dedicated talented people So the talk I'm going to give today Comes out of work. I've been doing actually for decades Aging myself a bit here around civil society activism in North America I wrote quite a bit about this in the late 90s early 2000s and then I kind of Stopped doing it because there wasn't much going on in that terrain and now it's back in fashion Lots of things are going on. So it's great to get back to this work And I've been fortunate enough to receive a SSHRC grant to Start a new five-year project looking at transnational activism in the region Focusing not just on trade issues, but three general areas labor and trade relations migration relations and Mexican human rights So we're looking at the region not just as something about trade Which is what was mostly discussed this morning, but broader networks of collaboration and conflict that transversed the region And also would like to mention that some of this work was also supported by it another SSHRC grant That I'm a humble part of on alternatives to austerity and I worked with Nadia Ibrahim who's going to speak this afternoon From the trend just trade justice network on that work. So a little bit. It's coming out of that so See if I can work this So these are some of the broad research questions, we're going to be looking at and then I'll talk a bit about today So we're seeking to understand how transnational ties between civil society groups Have changed post NAFTA like post NAFTA 1.0 leading up to 2.0 and after in and especially around the context of the renegotiations and I'm also interested in the different types of Regimes that are in place in the three countries and how that complicates or enriches the work of civil society activists how they Navigate those terrains of these diverse types of political regimes, which do not seem to be converging very much There's not a lot of political convergence happening in this region And and then I'm going to talk a little bit specifically about the Canadian case which was discussed somewhat this morning So but in general, I'm interested in the role of civil society mainstream accounts of trade issues of regional integration tend to Ignore the role of civil society or often if it's brought in it's only in a negative Contacts that these people are holding up good trade agreements and their obstacles or if ever the government does wants to do something sort of progressive it's seen as an obstacle to a Better deal that might have been achieved if only these Ignorant Annoying people hadn't kind of raised their voices and said wait wait there might be something wrong with this trade agreement for majority of people So so civil society if it appears at all in dominant accounts is most often portrayed as destructive negative and reactive Rather than playing as they themselves see themselves as playing a positive role in democratic decision-making So this leads to my arguments about the importance of an understanding the role of civil society Which is not the prime mover in these relationships, but far from it if only they say But far from the part prime mover, but I think they do have a role to play in shaping the timing and progress and some of the details of of trade agreements and other types of agreements in the region and In a longer term sense in constructing a healthier more democratic region And another argument is about looking at the state. I was thinking this morning It's a little bit like well Robert Putnam talked about two level games if anyone's political economy Geek in the room. So he said like there's the transnational level There's domestic level and the negotiators have to play off the two sides, but in this case, it's more like, you know in Star Trek there's a version of chess where it's like like 3d So there's three levels I think to that chess board and they're all and the and the later versions of Star Trek the the characters the chess pieces are Actually moving around and doing crazy things. Am I right? It's been a little while since I watched Star Trek But that's my vague impression So that's kind of what we have here with with North America that it's not some neat two level game Which Putnam was adding complexity when he said there's two levels duh, but Now we have all these multiple levels that it interact and and players are playing off against other You know domestic actors in one country are playing Against actors in another country maybe at the state and civil society interacting. It's really really messy So it's really hard to make generalizations, and I won't probably make any profound Arguments about that today, but I'm just trying to sketch out the way I'm thinking about it so I'm So when I think about this I'm influenced by a theoretical work that's been done about the role of civil society and transnational activism I've put up a classic definition by Yanard Schulte about what civil society is Which itself is a topic of Debate and this came out a bit this morning that there's Civil society we usually think of civil society as being like left-wing groups But in fact there is business civil society and in this story that I'm going to talk about There's also very much right-wing civil society, which is not necessarily business, but in the in the United States much of civil society has been Dominated by right-wing political actors who have fed the Trump's and phenomenon so so it's a little bit messy as well and and Another insight from the literature that I use is the idea that comes from Sydney tarot whose famous social movement organization Scholar who writes about the inherent tendency of transnational activism to be cyclical in nature You know sort of optimists about civil society sort of think well it'd be nice if they could just work together and Gradually build up in a steady gradual process higher and higher levels of collaboration But in the real world it doesn't work that way there are moments of openings in the political opportunity structures that permit civil society actors to come in and raise their voices and have a role to play and And often in our case Trade agreements have been that galvanizing moment that creates openings For civil society to play an important role But then they tend to those linkages maybe decline over time or they transform and to other types of collaboration So we can't expect a kind of teleological dynamic where gradually over time these linkages become more and more important This is an example of a kind of more optimistic version of of the of thinking about the role of civil society coming out of the new regionalism Theory that Tim Shaw's in the back of the room has written a lot about from Jean Grugl out of the new regionalism literature that Recognizes and this is a keen and important aspect of that theoretical tradition that it recognizes that civil society does play an important role and both empirically in terms of Shaping the process of integration, but also normatively and morally in terms of raising Alternative perspectives alternative information sources as well as Meredith said this morning governments recognize they need More sources of information about what's happening in society if they're going to make sound decisions So they do turn to civil society maybe somewhat Instrumentally in order to manipulate them, but still they have to turn to civil society for input at certain stages Some governments being more likely to or not. So this is kind of a more optimistic view Perhaps more influenced by what's happening in South America But it's an interesting perspective on what's going on So looking backwards I'm not going to talk very much about the history of transnational activism in North America because I've asked my dear friend John Foster who's somewhere around to there you are to talk about the history of that Struggle around the first and after agreement as someone who is involved in the activism and also writing about that History, but just to point out that in during the debate on the first Canada U.S. Retreat a trade agreement in the late 80s and then leading up to the NAFTA. There was the emergence of strong coalitions within each of the three countries that were actively mobilizing and and leading debate and critique of that Neoliberal model of trade integration which the governments were promoting and so those emerged within each of the three countries and also established interesting forms of collaboration across State borders, this is not to say that tensions did not exist within these groups There were interesting tensions for example between English Canadian and Quebec based civil society groups and also differences between more radical and more reformist civil society positions particularly I would say in the environmental side There was kind of a split that allowed Clinton to come in with his side accord Solution to those problems and then also most notably as I was indicating earlier There was in the United States uniquely there was the emergence of right-wing opposition to NAFTA Focused on the threat of flight of u.s. Jobs this the great sucking sound that Ross Perot shot talked about And also the threat or the perceived threat of Mexican migrants under and in this comes these came out in this period in the early 90s the under Papua can and the They explicitly adopted the slogan of American first America first Which has now of course taken life again in rather disturbing form under President Trump's So that the the seeds for the emergence of the Trump phenomenon were sowed in civil society In the United States in the 90s and have come those chickens have come home to roost But that form of civil society activism of course was resolutely national and not transnational in scope not at all interested in transnational activism So we know the story that there was opposition, but they weren't Successful there were side agreements Past on labor and the environment Which are widely critiqued by civil society organizations as being largely ineffective Especially the labor accord was probably particularly ineffective it lacked teeth unlike the more recent trade agreements There is there's some enforcement mechanism the first version of this and NAFTA completely lacked those Enforcement mechanisms But it did set the stage for later development After this fight was over then those civil society groups kind of morphed they Became very important in the emergence of a continental Movement against the free trade area of the Americas which actually was rather successful and in other sites like the WTO so So just to talk a little bit about what happened afterwards I think there was this kind of cyclical tendency of after the kind of rise dramatic rise of civil society Activism both within and across borders. There was a sort of decline as NAFTA became sort of accepted or Taken for granted in the in the popular imagination that the reforms had already been implemented So there wasn't so much to talk about anymore And so the coalitions kind of disintegrated, but there were still some cooperation in the in the post NAFTA era particularly Some civil society groups did choose to engage around the labor Side accords and the environmental side accords. They were able even if there was no enforcement they were able to raise petitions to the Trinational bodies that were created and At least though that activity did create a strong cooperation between civil society society actors Particularly, I would say us in Mexico because most of this effort was directed at Improving environmental and labor state standards in Mexico, which was the worst offender in these respects And then there were other forms of collaboration That Emerged around issues like migrant workers the role of migrant workers and this also Christina Gabriel and I have written quite a bit about the role of Canadian NGOs in collaboration with Mexican Workers Trying to improve labor standards in Canada for the migrant workers that are also part of regional integration the many Mexican workers who come to Canada every year increasing numbers of them and Have labored under, you know, there's some extremely popular program for for many workers because they can Earn more money than they would in the Horrible labor conditions and horrible pay that they're going to get in Mexico But they're also deeply problematic aspects of their work and they're very vulnerable to exploitation So unions like the United Food and Commercial Workers in particular, but other civil society work groups have worked with Mexican counterparts to try to improve conditions for Mexican workers in Canada and so that's very important precedent and Moving on there was also Some quite considerable opposition to the security and prosperity partnership of North America that was Created in the early 2000s and broad critique of that mechanism. I think Chris were you saying who somebody was saying that it was sort of Mexico that were Julianne were sort of saying it was because of Mexico that it didn't work very well that I think was largely civil society that became very vocal in opposition to that framework for continental Regulate or sorry integration and And particularly again right wing groups and left-wing wing groups were both Found that mechanism extremely problematic and contributed. I think they were important contributors to the failure and the eventual cancellation of that Trinational format and one of the major critiques that was made by both right and left interestingly Was the lack of public consultation that these were secretive Talks that were going on behind closed doors Nobody knew what they were talking about. There was no The the business was invited in they were given their own forum and they were they were basically allowed to set the agenda for what was going to happen on the prosperity side of this Arrangement at least but other civil society actors were never invited in and so that led to broad-spent a broad Sorry, I just got back from Germany and last night my mouth is not working very well So what widespread critique of those types of mechanisms that were seen as deepening integration Without taking into account the the real interests and needs of the broader population So we get to the moment of the renegotiations and I would say there has not been a kind of resurgence of high-level mobilization of citizens across the three countries partly for the reasons that Meredith was talking about that I Wouldn't say that NAFTA is popular that people really think it's good But they don't really think it's bad enough that they really want to get out on the streets and mobilize against it But on the other hand There was a Trinational meeting in Mexico in August 2017 that brought together some of the participants in the first wave of opposition to NAFTA Although that was mostly Mexican groups that attended that meeting, but they did issue a critique of The process that was going on at that moment But what I think we've seen Instead and partly because of the Canadian government being willing to actually talk to civil society actors particularly unions and indigenous groups There was more systematic consultation so we see more more semi-institutionalized forms of collaboration and consultation happening in the context of the of the renegotiations in particular would say and we'll hear more about this in the next panel that labor was particularly active in entering into dialogue with the with the Trade negotiation office from Canada and put forward some constructive proposals. Trump was talking to labor There was sort of a tendency for the two Canadian labor centrals to talk to each other the Canadian and American labor centrals and as William was describing Nobody really knew what to do with Mexican labor because it had been co-opted for so many years by the previous Semi-authoritarian state the pre-government So there weren't that the independent labor movement is still pretty small and marginal and beleaguered So the the US and Canadian Union officials weren't just weren't sure what to do with Mexico what to how to find an appropriate interlocutor on the Mexican side who could represent union interests or labor interests more broadly But this is somewhat concerning of course as we move forward I would say that Mexico is kind of left out of that process But maybe we'll hear more about that from Angelo and and others about where we go with that So Yes, so Just to move on I think We're stuck in the situation where we have civil society was very active there's still a lot of memory of that period and a lot of learning that happened in that period and Potential contributions to the discussion and government too has learned that they need to talk to civil society that these trade agreements don't work very well if you just keep civil society outside of the door while the Well, the what was William's phrase the side room Negotiations are going on with business. It's not a very credible way of negotiating trade agreements So we have civil society on the one side on the other side. We have these new Relatively new governments in place and three I would I characterize is three different kind of types of regime in the three countries that complicates the process of coming up with trade agreements on the one side and But also how does civil society react to these regimes? So in Canada we have what I call progressive neoliberal government and I'm going to talk about that in the in a moment In the US, I would say we have a reactionary populist government that is erratic and unpredictable and selectively interested in keeping workers happy but To a very limited extent I would say and then Mexico we've undergone this dramatic shift in the regime from poster child for neoliberalism a very technocratic neoliberal regime in contrast with the Canadian version to What I'm calling progressive populism, but not thinking of populism is inevitably a bad thing I think there's good aspects of the populist government that has emerged very good things about it Which I'll mention at the end of the talk So in terms of Canada We have this new Progressive trade agenda that Meredith mentioned it includes elements such as workers right including elements such as workers rights environmental protection gender equality Right of governments to regulate in the national interest Transparency consultation with a broad range of civil society actors, etc. And it is a pretty dramatic shift in policy style From the conservative government for sure and a breath of fresh air. I would say for most civil society actors and certainly Americans when they hear anything about this policy think it's you know incredible and and Impressive compared to what progressive movements are dealing with in the United States however When I'm thinking about this I use the term progressive neoliberalism, which I picked up from our stole I did not steal I cite correctly from Nancy Fraser's work From 2017 Because I think this is an incredibly great way of describing what our current government is doing so Fraser says that before Trump US Politics had been dominated by hegemonic block that she labels progressive neoliberalism And it came out she says under the first under the Clintons and then under the Obama's In recognition of the fact that on its own neoliberalism it is not very effective in generating constituencies it just can't function very well if it lacks any mechanism to legitimate its actions in the eyes of the general public so she says that These new Democrats not our new direct Democrats, but Democrat new Democrats in the US were borrowing or stealing ideas from progressive movements to Legitimate their views Adrienne Roberts also talks about transnational national best business Feminism that also does a similar thing And I also draw on the work of Elizabeth Prugle who talks about how feminist politics have been neoliberalized in contemporary Capitalism having gone to bed with capitalism Rather than challenging its exclusionary dimension. So when we see Freeland or Trudeau talking about feminist trade policy We should be a little bit suspicious about what they're up to not that they are not themselves You know, maybe genuinely committed to feminism, but their idea of what a feminist trade policy Would look like is maybe not that much does not share that much with the views of actual feminist actors So there's certainly a lot of efforts to co-opt popular movements here, but I think there's also as Prugle says it this may represent a opportunity for progressive groups to push further on the door of opening up that door towards more inclusive styles of politics and Opening up alternative meanings of trade policies and creating new spaces for engagement by Progressive civil society. So I'm taking this more Optimistic less cynical view of what's going on Okay, so In conclusion the I'd say the role of transnational civil society activism as fluctuated over time and that's not surprising. That's the nature of the beast as tarot Offers in his Theorization of it and we need to pay attention to the kinds of political opportunity structures that are opened up by new Political alignments that are happening with these three governments A particularly interesting aspect that wasn't discussed too much this morning was what's going on in Mexico in terms of labor reform There are very substantial forms of labor reform that are going through Well have already been included in the Constitution and the implementing legislation is now going through Congress and that's going to be really interesting important opportunity for Mexican workers to actually end that kind of Race to the bottom phenomenon that was so prevalent in the first form of NAFTA to the detriment of the situation of Mexican workers and To conclude I think current political changes in the region do open up new opportunities for Rethinking how transnational civil society actors can engage with the regional discourses and practices and Push them in a more progressive direction. Thank you very much Thank you very much for inviting me here Lauren. Congratulations. It's really great to see your work recognized and celebrated I attended the tri-national meeting in Mexico and I was At the Canadian Labor Congress as an economist following the trade file during the NAFTA renegotiation So I have recently moved to QP, but I was kind of very much involved in this from the civil society Perspective and I think Laura has asked me to kind of reflect on her comments based on my experience with renegotiating NAFTA And so there's I think really a lot of value in what you've said To learn and reflect and see maybe how we could be more effective in the future Once Trump was elected and it became clear that we were gonna have to renegotiate NAFTA we organized kind of a Medium-sized meeting at the Canadian Labor Congress of mostly labor, but also environment and other allies because some of those networks had Freed to some extent and were a little bit limited But we wanted to bring as many people from that first fight together to figure out what are we gonna do? How are we gonna respond now and there was a diversity of opinion? But the consensus, especially I think with labor was that we are so integrated with the US right now That we just don't think a battle where we say Tear up NAFTA. Let's go it alone is gonna fly and so we kind of chose the more Let's get the best deal we can get how do we coordinate and find pressure and so We did try to coordinate with American labor with both within Canada within groups that opposed and then across borders and and that was sometimes difficult so the Canadian government based on the different contacts in each country so the Canadian government was going with this progressive trade agenda and We said well, we know they're probably just symbolic, but we're gonna use this language We're gonna kind of take it at face value and try to hold them to it We know that that well, we don't necessarily believe that they mean it We don't necessarily believe that trade can be progressive But we can try to hold them to this language and get a better deal than we would have Otherwise and to kind of get insert ourselves behind the scenes at in discussions To at least know what was going on so we could be prepared as well In the United States Trump as was Chris mentioned on the panel this morning is actually very good at dividing and conquering And so he would offer things to labor that they wanted basically that they couldn't say no to that they'd asked for And they were caught in situations several times where they were Standing beside him as he was doing something else awful, right and they're they were in this awkward position and he really Is just masterful at that and that made it very difficult For us to necessarily always agree with the position that the US labor movement was taking Which then made it even more difficult for unions that were actually Canada has international unions where members belong is our members are both in Canada and the United States and sometimes in Mexico So sometimes the union has members in all three countries or like Uniform where there was a close relationship between Uniform and the auto workers in the States and so they they have that closer relationship But they also recognize that they're not always their incentives aren't always aligned and So how do we all come together from these different contacts with these different incentives and find some kind of common ground that we can At least all be trying to push in the same direction and not not against each other like Meredith said on the first panel, you know, if you're united It's it's you're gonna get much more likely to get what you want if government Can divide you then that's that's where it falls apart and you don't make any headway So when we went to Mexico For this meeting and we met with the independent labor unions and the rest of Mexican civil society It became very obvious their position was completely different. They were shut out from the government It wasn't an option the inside game wasn't an option for them And so their option was oppose it completely rip it up And I think the the context that they've been in where they've been fighting against privatization and privatization has basically been a union busting tool of the government governments in Mexico They were far less favorable to see any benefit to themselves from NAFTA where workers in Canada could say well, we think there's been some wins and losses overall We think it's gone down it. Maybe not a great route, but We can see that the the auto industry has benefited for example In in Mexico, there was no gains it was obvious to them that there were no gains from NAFTA and there was no No way to find a common ground and we struggled Over the course of that that weekend to come out with a statement that everybody could even agree upon It was quite difficult to just even have some kind of motherhood statement out of that meeting um And the thing that was that was really interesting and I think valuable to have at that meeting Were people who had been involved in the struggle the first time and we had the lessons learned And we had some of that experience and some of those networks and connections Um But because the context had changed so much. I don't think we were able to To take as much advantage of them as as we had maybe hoped Which was quite interesting Uh to me, so we I went to Mexico thinking that this would be great and and it ended up um not We ended up deciding not to put a lot of energy into rebuilding the connections that we had had before We have the trade justice network where uh that Nadia will be talking about later where we have a coalition of environmental groups And labor groups where we at least kind of discuss The our agenda and how to how to coordinate in in some manner. So we continued on that front Unions that had already been doing some work because even public sector unions After the last NAFTA had continued doing international solidarity work And so they had relationships with you know, um, sister public sector unions in the united states or mexico's they had some connections Um, so they knew maybe who to talk to or who to who to who to bounce ideas off about what this position would mean Uh, whether we could find a common common ground um, but it was just There was no common ground with with mexico. So It wasn't going to happen, but we did try to coordinate more between, um Canada and the united states where that was possible. We would meet at Where there were negotiating sites we would meet and we would gather even some friendly us legislators some friendly canadian legislators and we would sit and have discussions about what was this strategy What was the intel? How could we move forward? How could we we get the best outcome that we were looking for? Um, but it was hampered again by these different contacts about this this relationship and um, And so I think that made it Because the threat of trump because he so successfully weaponized the uncertainty. I love that phrase by the way um We couldn't counter that uh, effectively and so it came down to the fact that um There was just too much uncertainty that the the threat to the economy would be too huge if we Didn't get nafta. So whatever deal we could get was better than no deal So I do think that in some instances we were able to take some some terrible things up the table to get better proposals in there the labor Reforms in mexico. I think are a great example of that the auto parts I think is another another example of that but um Overall in terms of the labor chapter. I don't or the environment chapter I have no hope that it'll be more successful than the uh side agreements were it. Uh, there's There seems to be um, no, there's no nothing in those structurally shift The the neoliberal economic damage that's done by the rest of the deal So there's no no structural shift and when we met with negotiators and tried to explain Our position, um There was simply no understanding on their part of where we were coming from It was as if we were speaking greek to them. It was literally they didn't understand the questions We were asking because their position was so far from ours Um ideologically, uh, which was was enlightening. Um, but also Sad Just sad, uh Because they absolutely the the public, um servants who worked on this worked very hard. Um, I feel felt like they were doing the best job that they could Uh, but they're They absolutely thought it was essential that we have a new NAFTA with the united states or you know, this guy would fall in There was no understanding of um of the Consequences the economic consequences Uh, of maybe not having a NAFTA that you know, we would come through that and there there would be we would live another day It would all be fine. Um, that it was it was very much In their imagination kind of the end of the world if there was no NAFTA For sure, um Yeah, I think I think that that one of the lessons uh that we would recognize is that We don't always have to put a lot of energy into building those networks in between Um, and that it's okay to take advantage of moments of solidarity and move on um and that, um But the I think the reason why trade agreements provide that Moment for civil society on the left. I'm speaking about to come together is because Individually in between those moments. We're all fighting the same thing And trade agreements are a symbol of that thing. They are a tool of that agenda that economic shift towards a different type of economy and so when We can understand that Uh, we can online our and we can understand each other's battles I found sometimes environmentalists for example would say something that I thought was Harmful to the overall agenda, but it was simply because they didn't have a labor analysis and I'm sure Labor unions have said things that environmentalists have thought were harmful to their goals But it's because we didn't have that analysis and so that if we have that analysis across Movements in between the trade agreements that will end up being more successful Uh When those those unifying moments do come 15 20 minutes for questions Anybody want to lead off Edward at Raji aerospace engineer National research council. I'm now retired Civil societies are wonderful if they're advancing genuinely The interest of the country in which they live But increasingly I find there are civil society so-called civil societies advancing the interest Of a group that are outside of the country So for instance in in so far as climate change is concerned Does it really matter? whether The cold is burnt in the united states or in china in so far as climate change is concerned We have managed to export all our emissions to china But at the same time we have exported all the jobs to china At what point? Do we start to balance things so that we don't suffer from the things that we want? improved in our country And not do it at the expense of others Okay, it's been suggested we might take two or three questions and then answer all together. Yeah I think it's a question for 42. My name is Sergio from Department of political science I'm just curious about the the the fact like two weeks two weeks ago. I think it was for I think for both in a way because it's for Two weeks ago. I think it was announced In mexico the emergence of this international confederation of workers by this senator who was actually Exiled in canada for five years and now it's senator napoleon gomesurutia And he's creating this new umbrella organization of of worker unions So the question would be do you think this this would reproduce the same type of a let's say Structure the organizations co-opted by the government in the pre time or does this Tends to Put some light into a more let's say independent form of union is a of of union in in in mexico because I just find that you two mentioned probably something some contrasting what like lora you were mentioning that The labor movements were as were left aside In the because there was actually in mexico not not not a there was not a an independent an independent actor With whom canadian and us counterparts could interact and on their hand and you like you were mentioning that that I would like to hear with whom did you actually in that? meeting in Agus 2017 did the canadian Unions met low who were who were those those First in mexico and and and in general what is this emergence of the new international confederation of workers in mexico represents for the future of trilateral Cooperation between civil society Maybe maybe one more question and then we'll we'll have responses Thank you. Uh julienne duraz o'rehrman university of kebekka montreal So actually i'll cheat and ask two questions one for each uh presenter So for lora, um, I got very excited when you mentioned this multi-level analysis And I thought about the time when we met in 2004. I think it was this federalism and north american free trade and Then nothing came out of and in your talk about the role of subnational government state level municipal level So maybe you could tell us a bit more about that multi-level Dimension of of transnational activism and for miss mickey when I was I'm trying to think because of when when the canadian announced the the progressive trade agenda with feminism and indigenous rights and all that It is my impression that in mexico people found it hard to take it seriously And I wonder how How far the the labor movement in canada went to mexico to explain how this Could be serious and then you said well, you took it at face value knowing that it was not exactly the point but then how do you sell that kind of Of position to people that don't think it's seriously to start with You see Thank you. Um, sure. I can I can start there. So we we um, they didn't take it seriously and especially given the experience of the labor and environmental side chapters In the first nafta. It was easy to understand why they wouldn't And especially in terms of the the gender chapter where they had the lovely meeting with avanca and what they meant by feminism was better things for rich white women like that's not that's not feminist and and and honestly meeting with saff and the ministers that didn't understand um What a feminist approach to trade might be like they they could not it's add women like comma women Like we'll just search through the document for people and we'll add a comma on women and girls, right? They didn't understand that You have to understand maybe how How migrant women workers are affected differently and what regulations or laws You might change or not implement so that those outcomes didn't happen Um, which is is honestly difficult and they didn't have time to do that because trumps like we're renegotiating it now So that they didn't have time to do that real work Um, and so they're like no, we'll just have a press conference with avanca Um, and and for the indigenous chapter. I mean, I think they did do real work with indigenous communities But that's not something that resonated in mexico at all. It's a completely different context for indigenous um, um communities and so that was a not A no-go for the mexican government um, so when we talked with labor unions that we did talk to which included like the um The engineers who all of the hydro plants had been privatized and they had bought a co-op plant to bottle Water to keep some of their workers like the context that those workers were going through Were so completely different than the context of american or end canadian Labor leaders, right like they were literally fighting To for survival to pay their workers after their plants had been privatized and sold Out from under them. Um, there were also there's um a section Of that used like telephone book telephone workers. Um, there's some university unions Like it's it's a it's a weird coalition that's kind of held together of the independent Unions in mexico, so there are people to talk to but it it can shift There's metallos like the the steel workers um And so we knew who we could talk to But we didn't think they had any sway with the government either that there was any and they weren't having any of our progressive trade agenda They were just like that that's not reasonable There there were strikes when we were in mexico. There were strikes because the price of gas was so hot, right? People were out in the streets striking. Um, and so And the level of violence that you see You saw going on with the pre um in in the south it was just at There was no gains for them in working with us So it didn't happen Really, I mean individual unions still did unifor did a lot of work with Unions in mexico. So uniform went down and and built solidarity, which is fantastic. Um, the steel workers did the same thing um, even like the public sector workers went down and they tend to more work with Macchi Dora's sort of more development projects so not necessarily unions but uh community groups So that that work did happen and it's continuing to happen, but it It didn't have a lot of impact on the actual negotiations Thanks, um You know the first question I think it's important to resist the idea that civil society is either good or bad I think it's a thing and it can be good or bad and it's just like business could be good or bad or government could Be good or bad. It's it's an analytical category. It's not inherently progressive or not progressive um, and I think you know, um civil society actors don't I have like this time delay on my mouth because of my jet lag um civil society actors tend to organize locally because you know, it's hard to organize in canada about what's happening in china about their bad use of coal I was just appalled in germany. They're still using tons of coal in germany. I had no idea Yet they have this great environmental records But you know, it's not really the job of actors in canada to mobilize That much about chinese coal use that we we need to focus on local issues. That's just a strategic reality um About who are the counterparts? So I just think it's a read the I don't think the labor chapter per se will be very important. I agree with angela Although I think it's a good thing that it is entrenched and if the democrats could push it further in terms of How it's going to be implemented? um and enforced um It will be better But right now the way it's written it has It could be worse than the the labor side accord in a way because at least this under the labor side accord citizens groups Bring the cases forward, right? So and that has happened there have been cases brought forward they haven't been All that active in recent years because there wasn't enough resources or commitment to it But under the new chapter, who knows who's who's going to have the political will to Bring forward a case against it. Which of the governments because it will be a government that has to do it, right? under the new chapter You know, which of those governments will decide to bring a case against one of their NAFTA allies um for the sake of workers We'll see but uh, I'm not that positive I think it's good that it happened, but it could be better and um, but what I'm really optimistic is about the current state of labor under the new government In mexico, which for the first time does create the context in which we could see democratic unionism Evolved so it's not in a tiny not tiny but a small believe beleaguered group fighting for their lives At times, you know, these are people who are fighting for their literal lives. Not just You know a job In the context of widespread violence And complete lack of a rule of law So there's the broader Issue of governance in mexico in general if there were rule of law in mexico that would help the case of the labor movement So those are big issues that need to be addressed and a trade agreement's not going to do that But specifically around labor reform, there are a series of reforms going forward That need to come together at some point into one specific Legislative package, which I assume is going to happen and interestingly I heard that The the the proposal that morana made the government made has been challenged by feminist Uh Labor activists is not taking into account the specific problems faced by women workers So the syndicalistas have put forward proposals to amend That legislative framework. So I think there's really interesting stuff going on. There's this new federation Um, I think there's just a sign of the the ferment. Is that a right word or the right word a ferment in the labor field I I mentioned on my slide, but didn't get to talk about the Outbreak or rash of strikes that happened in the maquila sector in the last month or so Most of which were successful in raising Raising Gosh salaries And getting better collective agreements. So I think that's like really promising But it's just early days and it's hard to know which direction we'll go to into but and maybe we could see some kind of Merging of the various actors because now I think there's various Um labor movement actors that are independent We might see some transition from less independent to more independent activity on the part of some of these unions that were Co-opted for so many years by the government in the context of greater labor freedom So mostly it's about right to association and and the labor chapter in the Side accord did not address that just completely failed to address that And so that's what has to happen. And if it doesn't happen, I think there's going to be big problems going ahead I just wanted to add that one of the slogans there was a a group of us that were trying to get a slogan raise wages not walls And to talk about how we needed to raise wages in Mexico and that would affect benefit workers in all three countries It would lower migration because there would be good jobs in Mexico But again, I I think the the mexican workers that we were talking to they didn't have any faith that Obrador was any more on their side than pinata was And so there was a great deal of cynicism That that would be successful So and and the kind of the canadiens the american Labor central was still kind of hedging with trump. I think they felt like they could still get some stuff out of him And that some of their members like walls so they They couldn't get on board with the raise wages not walls slogan either Okay, just in the interest of time for the next panel, maybe we'll stop here and that was a great session Great talk