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I was still quite young when the NAFTA agreement was signed (1994?) and thus obviously laregly uninterested in it at the time.
I wonder if anyone knows the behind-the-scenes thinking of that proportionality clause... I am assuming it was a US backed part of the agreement so that we could not cut back supplies once we started exporting them and once America had become reliant on them, is this correct?
Anyone have any extra info on this proportionality clause?
I too was quite young at the time but my father was a top aide to John Turner* who vociferously decried the proportionality clause as well as several other not-so-Canada-friendly tidbits in NAFTA. Turner is a family friend so I'm obviously biased, but I think Canada really missed out by hopping on the Thatcher-Reagan bandwagon with Mulroney. Turner really suffered from a surfeit of integrity and the general feeling of malaise towards the Liberals after 15+ years of Trudeau. As a fly on the wall I was always amused when they hit a stumbling block in the speech-writing process, Turner would say: "Oh well, we can always retreat to our last refuge -- in the truth."
*disclaimer: I vote Green, but my family is VERY Liberal, teeming with staffers, campaigners, etc.
Some reading:
http://www.energybulletin.net/40035.html
http://www.embassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2007/ju...
*PDF* http://www.canadians.org/energy/documents/Laxer_presentation_Oct07.pdf
The NAFTA agreement was initiated during Mulroneys term and ratified under Chretien. At the time, natural gas production was still rising. I think that most people felt that it would continue to do so for quite some time (maybe these were the same folks who now work at the IEA)
In addition, the large deposits in the Arctic and Mackenzie delta region had been found in the early 80's. I think most people felt that these would be put on stream sometime in the not too distant future. It seems like 10 years ago, people thought it would be 10 more years till they were on prodution. I think that in 10 more years we will still be saying we are 10 years away. In either case, these supplies will be hard pressed to make up for the short fall in Alberta.
It's much like the American situation where the North slope discoveries were touted as a find that would help to mitigate the 1973 peak, however the reality was that the north slope was only a slight blip on the overall decline.