Some questions suggested by the text:

1. What is regulation for? The article implies a number of possible responses:-
-To enhance public safety (through certification of parts and establishing performance standards)
-To help strengthen domestic industry competitiveness
-To enhance market efficiency by ensuring complete information is supplied to consumers (e.g. fuel standards)
-To enhance returns to segments of the industry and/or accelerate the flow of additional benefits to bureaucrats (performance bonuses, promotions, program expansion, etc.). Parts of this argument Mr. Hart draws from public choice economics.

2. An underlying theme of the article is the economic integration of the automotive industry in North America, beginning with the 1964 Auto Pact, contrasted with the divergence of regulatory approaches and outcomes. Students could be asked to account for the regulatory differences, given the common North American industrial base, and in particular, the relatively tight network of Canada-US bureaucratic cooperation, using any or all of the theories of regulations

3. How has the EU achieved joint regulation of the automotive industry, despite the fact that it the European industry is less fully "integrated" than is the North American one? The European countries, working through the UN Economic Commission for Europe, as the article mentions, constituted a working group composed of European countries with Canada and the US also as members. The group approves automotive equipment by approving technical standards. Canada and the US take part in these deliberations and conduct technical studies with recommendations. Nevertheless, as the article also emphasises, North American regulators have adopted a different approach to industry regulation.

Perhaps surprisingly, Hart recommends a direct Canada-US approach to harmonization, rather than working through the ECE Automotive Working Party-despite the fact that bilateral regulatory harmonization has not performed that well.

4. The NAFTA agreement, like the CUFTA before it, and the WTO, are all based on "national treatment" -non-discrimination against foreign companies while respecting the national basis of regulation. The WTO agreement also includes "common standards" agreements that go beyond national treatment, such as the TRIPS (trade related intellectual property standards) accord. These impose a uniform duty on countries to respect intellectual property, in particular patents and copyright, irrespective of stages of development or other national particularity. Is Hart now arguing AGAINST national treatment, instead advocating common regulatory standards across Canada and the US?

5. Why does Hart argue against including Mexico? Is this position justified? (See, for example, "Canada Spends Big to Save GM: So Why Not Mexico?" at http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1908205,00.html.

6. At the root of the article is an even more fundamental question: whether harmonizing auto regulations will have the effect of simplifying cross border flows for just-in-time manufacturing in Canadian plants. On might be inclined to be skeptical in light of the fact that the US position remains that "stop and search" offers more security than "seal and ship".

7. Other important questions are also implied by the article. One is whether the national interest of either country should include public spending to aid the recovery of the North American headquartered auto industry. A second is whether such spending amounts to a violation of the non-discrimination principle of the WTO. A third is Hart's use of the term "harmonization": what machinery would be necessary to ensure that "harmonization" indeed maximized welfare in both national jurisdictions...and what machinery could accomplish that, given the size advantage of the US..and whether indeed such changes would in fact be "cost free".