FACT: FTAA stands for the "Free Trade Area of the Americas".
OPINION: No wonder everyone's all pissed at the FTAA. You gots to get paid before you go trading your area with other people.

FACT: Based on the model of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the FTAA would include Canada, the US, Mexico, and all of the Americas, not including Cuba.
OPINION: After that Elian Gonzales thing, Americans still haven't forgiven Cuba for wanting to reunite a little boy with his father. Those sick commies.

FACT: Through April 20-21, 2001, the "Summit of the Americas" brought representatives from 34 countries to Canada to meet and begin to build a complete text for the trade agreement.
OPINION: Kind of like what me and my buddies do when we get together. Except instead of building a text for trade agreement, we light things on fire.

FACT: The FTAA is slated to be completed and implemented by no later than 2005. (Canada and the USA are pushing for earlier implementation).
OPINION: Might as well get it over with. George Burns is not getting any younger. No wait, isn't he already dead?

FACT: Although it is based on the model of NAFTA, the FTAA goes far beyond NAFTA's scope and power. It would introduce all the disciplines of the proposed services agreement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) - the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) - with the powers of the failed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), to create a new trade powerhouse with sweeping new authority over every aspect of life in Canada and the Americas.
OPINION: You won't be able to go to the bathroom without a signed letter of reference from the president of the WTO if they get their way.

FACT: The GATS is mandated to liberalize the global trade in services, including all public programs, and gradually phase out all government "barriers" to international competition in the services sector.
OPINION: Those bastards in the government are always getting in the way of my business to sell illegal fireworks to school children.

FACT: Combining these two powers into one agreement will give unequalled new rights to the transitional corporations of the hemisphere to compete for and even challenge every publicly funded service of its governments, including health care, education, social security, culture and environmental protection.
OPINION: If the environment wanted our protection in the first place it wouldn't rain so damn much.

FACT: All negotiations for this deal have taken place in secrecy with no public text available.
OPINION: It is important to keep these texts confidential because they could potentially reveal which political leaders are gay.

FACT: The FTAA could remove the ability of all the governments of the Americas to create or maintain laws, standards and regulations to protect the health, safety and well being of their citizens and the environment they share.
OPINION: But with all the money we'll be making from relaxed trade regulations we'll be able to buy more things.

FACT: As in former trade agreements like NAFTA and the WTO, this free trade agreement will contain no safeguards in the body of the text to protect workers, human rights, social security, education, health and environment standards.
OPINION: That's the type of stuff commies worry about. No wonder Cuba's not involved.

FACT: Civil society and the majority of citizens who want a different kind of trade agreement have been excluded from the negotiations and shut out of the deliberations in Quebec City.
OPINION: The negotiators are kind of like those popular kids in high school who wouldn't let you hang out with them, and if you got upset they'd build a giant wall around the city, spray you with massive amounts of tear gas, and fire rubber bullets at you. High school was rough for me.

Stephan MacLeod is happy and safe.