On the matter of free trade: je suis Walloon.

• Author: Atkins, Michael
• Position: President's Note

I'm sure I must have studied these folks at some point. Didn't we all? What else was there to do in Grade 7 history class but memorize European history? When Wallonia became news a month ago, petrifying the European Common Market en route to a free trade agreement with Canada, I remembered nothing. I thought Walloon must be something out of Harry Potter or the Chronicles of Narnia. I did know Belgium was almost impossible to govern. A few years ago, it took them 589 days to find a coalition government to run the country. This is a record for modern dysfunctional administration, although the struggles for a president in Lebanon is close.

The Dutch (Flemish) and the Walloons (French) who share this nation-state don't agree on much. The Flemish would just as well separate and run their own country. The French, not so much. Either way, everybody has to agree or you can't make a decision. Messy, democratic and inefficient.

The Walloons are skeptical about the right things. I'm glad 3.5 million Walloons scared the pants off 500 million Europeans and brought Canadian International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland to tears.

Although Justin Trudeau and others would beg to differ, free trade is not for people. It is for multinational corporations--and although corporations can be efficient and innovative and resourceful, they care about shareholders, not trading partners. You have to watch them like a hawk. They are often amoral, whether it is the drugs they sell, the food additives they deploy, the environmental practices they sanction, or the taxes they avoid.

No, I am not Bernie Sanders, but I am a realist. I've been watching this stuff for too long.

The rules of the road for trade agreements are meant to lower tariffs and protect businesses from spurious non-tariff interventions governments make up to improve their advantage. They are also meant to embed protection for local, regional and national governments to legislate on behalf of their constituents, although that's where it gets a little murky.

It should mean if a local or regional government feels a tax on sugar is an appropriate way to protect citizens from the known impacts on obesity in children, they are free to do so, no matter the power of the sugar lobby. If a local or regional government feels it needs to protect its aquifer from overuse for water bottling...