What is the Progressive Trade Alternative process?

Trade that works for people and the planet: Building a Progressive Trade Alternative

The Trade Justice Network and coalition partners will facilitate consultations focused on building concrete alternatives to the current neo-liberal trade model.

The goal will be to establish Canada-wide local organizing capacity to:

• Raise awareness about the dangers of trade and investment deals and current negotiations.
• Dispel the myth that to oppose or criticize free trade deals is to be against trade.
• Understand the regional and sectoral impacts of Canada’s traditional trade agenda.
• Begin to outline and promote an alternative vision of fair trade agreements that benefit everyone – not just a global corporate elite.
• Engage traditional and non-traditional allies in the fight for trade justice, making the links between their struggles and the overarching economic order imposed in the free trade era.

This process will build on the principles and basic foundation of the European Alternative Trade Mandate, updating and expanding these documents to reflect the Canadian historical, political and social context.

Read the Trade Justice Network’s Progressive Trade Alternative (PTA) here. This document includes an outline of the PTA, the aims of a TJN-hosted session on PTA at the 2014 People’s Social Forum, a tool-kit for the PTA process, and a backgrounder on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) as a starting point for analysis.

View the tool-kit for hosting your own discussion.