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CORVALLIS - Speakers from the United States, Mexico and Canada will analyze the impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, during a free public forum on Tuesday, April 29, at Oregon State University.

The forum will run from 3 to 5 p.m. in Memorial Union Room 213. OSU's Department of Philosophy, the University Honors College, and the Program for Ethics, Science and the Environment are sponsoring the forum in conjunction with Global Exchange.

Jose Dolores Lopez, of Mexico, Cheri Honkala, U.S., and Jamie Dunn, Canada, will look at some of the impacts of NAFTA 10 years after its implementation. They cite the introduction of genetically modified organisms in Mexican agriculture, the evaporation of Canada's health care system, and the disappearance of well-paying jobs in the U.S. as negative outcomes from the pact.

As part of their presentation, they will address grassroots movements under way in their respective countries to end or reform NAFTA.

Lopez is the secretary of organizational communications for the Central Independiente de Obreros Agricolas y Campesinos (Independent Center for Agricultural Workers and Peasants), where he has worked since 1993. The 40-year-old organization advocates for land rights and the ability of campesinos to produce and sell agricultural products and rights to credits and subsidies. He previously worked at the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture.

Honkala is founder and executive director of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, and national spokesperson for an initiative called the "Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign." A former history teacher and social worker, the single mother started the Kensington union in 1991 with a group of mothers on welfare. The Philadelphia-based group has helped secure housing for more than 500 families and Honkala has won numerous awards in that city for her work.

Dunn is an activist, writer and speaker who has advocated for citizen and worker rights in Canada for more than a decade. He campaigned for the Council of Canadians to protect water from trade agreements and in 2000 he co-founded the Blue Planet Project - an international initiative to protect water from privatization and commercial overuse.