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However, this presents Tom Mulcair, the New Democratic Party leader, with the biggest headache. He is trying to reassure voters that he and his party can be trusted to run a Group of Seven economy, yet he is as convincing on the trade file as a chocoholic learning to love lettuce.

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Don Davies, the party’s trade critic, skates around whether the NDP will endorse TPP. “Canada was late to join TPP, which has put us at a disadvantage in this very U.S.-dominated set of trade talks. We also believe the secrecy surrounding it is unnecessary and unacceptable. We’re never going to give a blank cheque or blind support to an agreement we’ve not seen,” he said. “It’s impossible to form a conclusion before anyone has read the darn thing. Anyone who does that is being blindly ideological.”

I suggested that, while details are not available, broad judgments about gaining preferential access to Japan could be made.

Adam Taylor, a consultant at Ensight Canada and former senior adviser to Trade Minister Ed Fast, said failure to join TPP will see us lose export business to countries that do sign up, as happened in South Korea, where the U.S. stole $1.5 billion of Canadian business after it signed a deal with the Koreans and we did not.

Mulcair is as convincing on the trade file as a chocoholic learning to love lettuce

Davies said his party supported bilateral agreements with Japan and South Korea (a deal was eventually signed this year). But he said the benefits of TPP would have to be lined up against potential costs, such as the dismantling of supply management. “We are the official opposition and it’s our job to hold the government to account,” he said. “That’s not a cop-out, that’s responsible, sensible policy making.”