York University professors of finance, trade, economics and political science can offer critical perspectives on the issues facing political leaders at the summit. As host, Canada has much riding on the meeting’s success in gaining momentum for a hemispheric free trade agreement by 2005 that includes North, Central and South America and the Caribbean region. Broad agreement on a timetable by trade ministers of 34 countries this weekend sends a positive signal, although no substantive issues have been decided. The FTAA is reportedly a top priority of U.S. President George W. Bush, who is looking for ways to revive the slumping U.S. economy and is seeking new trade negotiating authority from Congress. But scepticism in Brazil, the largest potential market in Latin America, a festering lumber dispute between Canada and the United States, and continuing mass protests against global and regional trade regimes are dogging the talks.

A list of York University commentators is attached.

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Harry Arthurs, professor of law and political science at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, has published extensively on issues of globalization and labour law, including the link between free trade, workers’ rights and environmental safeguards, the subject of intense discussion in pre-summit talks. The summit draft plan of action is expected to skirt the issue. While the United States has been a major proponent of the link, Latin American negotiators are reportedly suspicious that social conditions placed on trade benefits will be used as pretexts for protectionism. Arthurs can be reached at (416) 736-5407.

Deborah Barndt, a professor in York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies and a fellow of the York Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC), has conducted extensive research and field work in the area of popular education in Canada, the United States and Latin America. In the early 1980s she was a consultant to the Ministry of Education in Nicaragua and is author of To Change This House: Popular Education Under the Sandinistas. For the past six years, her research has focused on the continental food system and she is editor of Women Working the NAFTA Food Chain: Women, Food and Globalization (Toronto: Second Story Press, 1999). She will be in Quebec City from April 16-22 to take part in the People’s Summit, a parallel event to the formal summit organized by NGOs. Barndt can be reached at (416) 736-2100, ext. 40365, and in Quebec City at (418) 525-8823.

Edgar Dosman, a political scientist and Senior Research Fellow at York’s Centre for International and Security Studies, is former executive director of the Ottawa-based Canadian Foundation for the Americas (FOCAL). He is currently researching Canadian-Latin American relations and inter-American affairs, including governance mechanisms in the Western Hemisphere and the summit process. He is author of Changing Americas: Beyond Mexico, and Dynamic Partnership: Canada’s Changing Role in the Americas. Dosman can be reached at (416) 736-2100, ext. 46003, or at home (416) 534-4680.

Daniel Drache, a political scientist and director of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at York University is author of States Against Markets: The Limits of Globalization (Routledge, 1996) and is researching trade protectionism and the social deficits of globalization trends. He anticipates chaos at the Quebec City summit similar to that of the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle and says the timing for the summit is wrong. He notes that debt-saddled Latin American countries see little value in opening trade with the north and need to strengthen their own bilateral links under the auspices of the regional trading bloc Mercosur, led by Brazil and including Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia. Drache can be reached at (416) 736-5415 or at home (416) 921-3332.

Ricardo Grinspun, a professor of economics and of social and political thought, and a fellow of CERLAC, has published in-depth analyses on the political economy of free trade and integration in the Americas. He will be speaking at an academic conference at Laval University in Quebec City just prior to the summit, arguing that the FTAA is bad public policy that promotes a disastrous model of development and deepens the undemocratic structures initiated under NAFTA and the WTO. "The mobilization of civil society organizations and social movements, as in Porto Alegre and now in Quebec City and elsewhere in the hemisphere signals the popular determination to resist the FTAA and replace it with a people-centred agenda," says Grinspun. He can be reached at (905) 886-2304. During the summit he can be reached at the Hotel Germain-des-Prés, Sainte-Foy.

Sam Lanfranco, a professor of economics in the School of Analytic Studies and Information Technology in the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies at York, specializes in research on the impact of information and communications technology on organizations, communities and markets, where time and distance are no longer effective barriers to open competition. He urges greater transparency in trade discussions about intellectual property rights, rules on access to telecommunications markets, and greater democratic accountability. Lanfranco can be reached only until April 17 at (416) 736-5232, or cell (416) 816-2852.

James Laxer, a political scientist in the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies at York, is author of Stalking The Elephant: My Discovery of America (Viking, 2000). He argues that the new Bush administration is now firmly on the path of unilateralism with its recent refusal to adhere to the Kyoto accord to fight global warming and plans to proceed with a missile defence system that could trigger a deadly new arms race. He says an FTAA will not prevent the United States from continuing to act only in its own interests, as demonstrated by its current softwood lumber dispute with Canada more than a decade after signing a free trade agreement. Laxer can be reached at (416) 544-9941.

Carla Lipsig-Mummé, a social scientist and director of the York Centre for Research on Work and Society (CRWS), will be joining protesters in the streets of Quebec City on April 20. Her research focuses on labour rights and globalization, employment standards, labour unions and movements and internationally coordinated labour action. She can be reach at (416) 736-5612 or by cell (416) 989-6243.

Yasmine Shamsie, a doctoral candidate in political science at York and a research associate at the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, has recently completed a report for the North-South Institute in Ottawa entitled, Engaging with Civil Society: Lessons from the OAS, FTAA and Summits of the Americas. She can analyze the complexities of the various opposition groups protesting against globalization and discuss the growing cynicism in Latin America about democracy, as education and the development of democratic institutions is increasingly dictated by the international trade agenda. Shamsie can be reached at (416) 516-6059.

Bernie Wolf, professor of economics and international business at York’s Schulich School of Business, specializes in international trade and the international monetary system. He is particularly interested in the motor vehicle, telecommunications and resource sectors. He is a strong proponent of the FTAA and says economists and the international business community have not done an adequate job of educating the public about the tremendous gains that have accrued from the trade liberalization of the last 50 years. He can comment on expectations for the summit and the repercussions of the current Canada/U.S. lumber dispute, as well as currency misalignments that cause problems for a potential FTAA. Wolf can be reached at (416) 736-5067, or at home (416) 223-2794.

Lorna Wright, a professor of international business and director of the International MBA Program at York’s Schulich School of Business, specializes in the impact of culture on trade negotiations and has been active in international and cross-cultural consulting for more than 25 years in North America and Asia. Her research focuses on international negotiations, strategic alliances, and conditions for Canadian success internationally. She notes that the different cultural values and assumptions that negotiators bring to the table can make trade negotiations a highly fraught process. Even when negotiators themselves have developed a separate ‘negotiators’ culture, differences arise when they try to sell the agreement they may have reached to their respective governments. Wright is in Tokyo for a meeting of the Pacific Basin Economic Council April 4-14, where she can be reached via email at lwright@schulich.yorku.ca and after that at (416) 736-2100, ext. 77894.

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