OTTAWA -- The Conservatives' former leader doesn't agree with the current leader's assertion that Canada got taken to the cleaners by Donald Trump on the renegotiated NAFTA.
Rona Ambrose, who was interim Conservative leader after the party's 2015 election defeat, says Canada did make some concessions to get a deal but it also made some important gains.
In terms of its impact on the economy, she says the new North American Free Trade Agreement is pretty much "a wash" for both Canada and the United States while Mexico got hardest hit.
Ambrose was a member of a panel Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked to provide advice and help create a united multi-party front during negotiations with the mercurial U.S. president, who repeatedly threatened to tear up NAFTA if a new deal favouring the U.S. could not be struck.
Andrew Scheer, who took over the Conservative helm from Ambrose in 2017, has called the new NAFTA a "historic humiliation" that exposes Trudeau's weakness on the world stage.
Former Conservative cabinet minister James Moore was also on the advisory panel but he's refusing to comment on Scheer's contention that Trudeau caved in to Trump.
