Introduction Adding to the expertise were two new faces, Timothy Whitehouse and his wife Joan Olmstead, both lawyers, who met during their respective work with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) http://www.epa.gov/implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on January 1, 1994, the disruption that it has caused to various segments of industry in participating signatory countries has figured far more importantly than the virtues of the agreement. Today, we now have a more integrated economy and a resulting increase in productivity. The great unanswered question relates to plans for the future. None of the three participating countries appears to have thoughts beyond the treaty itself. Canadian manufactures have become hugely dependent on the U.S. market, aided by a weak Canadian dollar which encouraged inefficient business practices. The strengthening Canadian dollar in relation to its U.S. counterpart now provides an additional challenge. A further problem resulting from short-sightedness and lack of imagination on the part of the three countries is that North American infrastructure largely relies on the technology of the '50s and '60s; the new technology is available, but the requirement for huge investments will most likely not be made. Radio Canada International reports on February 3 that there will be a summit to discuss the partnership in the North American Free Trade Area. …Mr. Martin says the accord has gaps in its rules that need fixing.[He] cited as an example the panel litigation process concerning the Canada-U.S. dispute over imported Canadian softwood lumber, … [and] says NAFTA needs a stronger dispute-settlement mechanism. Unfortunatelythis statement does not reflect the need to determine what North America should look like in the future.] Some see our weakness as having encouraged north-south, rather than east-west trade, but in the current situation Canada provides raw materials to Asia and in exchange purchases finished goods, to the near exclusion of Mexico, our NAFTA partner. In order to see the picture more clearly, we must keep in mind that the effect of NAFTA is more to create an integrated economy than it is to increase north-south trade. For more on this topic see: http://www.irpp.org/indexe.htm