Canada caught in the global backlash against free trade

The potential collapse of Canada’s Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) with the European Union would not be a big economic blow, since estimates suggested that even the long-term boost to Canadian GDP would have been a trivial 0.2% to 0.3%. But the near failure is another illustration, coming alongside the imminent collapse of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal and the reopening of the softwood lumber dispute with the US, that globalisation is now deeply unpopular with voters in most developed countries. As a small open economy, Canada stood to benefit more than most from a further integration of global trade