Ottawa

Idea alert

Conservative Senator Hugh Segal proposes a North American community.

Segal outlines several goals the North American Community could accomplish: – Enhanced market size and trading opportunities for Canadian companies, employees and investors with fewer trade barriers. – A continentwide commitment to economic and social development, through which models such as Canada’s equalization program could be applied elsewhere. – Co-operation in environmental, social and military activities that help nations face “threats” and “challenges” that cross borders. – The creation of a North American Assembly, similar to the European Parliament in its early days.

Segal believes the assembly could take the shape of a place where politicians who are already elected in their own nations regularly gather to share “best practices” and work together. The question of whether it should ever become a directly elected body could up be for discussion in the White Paper.

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