NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, is a household acronym in Canada. However, many Canadians would probably be surprised to hear that we also have free trade agreements with a handful of countries outside North America. Agreements with Chile, Israel and Costa Rica have been in force for years, and in January we signed a deal with a quartet of European countries. In the past couple of weeks, agreements have been signed with Peru and Colombia.

Despite its low public profile, the recent agreement with Colombia has managed to engender a fair amount of controversy, especially on the Canadian left. Colombia is a notoriously troubled country, and the writer and academic Todd Gordon objects to crawling between the economic sheets with a government having alleged links to paramilitary organisations that perpetrate “extraordinary levels” of political violence, especially against trade unionists. In Gordon’s view Colombia is also an “Israel of the Andes”, a U. S. client state acting to contain anti-American leaders like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and generally advance U. S. interests in the region.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government touts the agreement as a way to “promote increased prosperity, greater security and strengthened freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law” in the Americas. Taking this at face value, the suggestion is that economic engagement will allow Canada to exert a stabilising influence and help take some of the murderous heat out of Colombia’s internal tensions.

I find it unfortunate that so much of the discussion on both sides revolves around Colombia’s internal and regional affairs. The leftist argument that Colombia is too tainted to do business with strikes me as sanctimonious, whereas the government’s aspiration to prod Colombia down the True Path of human rights and democracy is simply condescending.

Although the free trade agreement has been signed, it still needs parliamentary approval. With our minority government, there is presumably a real possibility of approval being withheld or badly stalled (as happened with a U.S.-Colombian free trade agreement) if opinion in Canada turns heavily against the agreement. Up to this point, there has been remarkably little discussion of the issue in the Canadian media, and I certainly hope this will change. But the debate should focus on economics, not politics. If the agreement will bring economic benefits to Canada without taking unfair advantage of Colombia, it should be approved. Otherwise, it should be rejected.