Former Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge thinks the odds of the United States ratifying the Trans-Pacific Partnership before President Barack Obama leaves office are no better than a coin flip.

In an interview on BNN, Dodge said those odds deteriorate further after the next U.S. president takes office.

“Our best guess is that it’s a 50/50 chance that TPP will get approved during the lame-duck period in the United States,” he said.

“If it doesn’t make it in the lame-duck period, it is a very difficult call on whether it can get approved thereafter.”

Dodge says job losses as a result of increased automation paired with recent perceptions of manufacturing migrating to China are crystallizing anger among the working class, leading policymakers to take a hardened stance on free trade.

“It’s totally understandable why people are upset, worried about the future, in part because of what’s been going on in China and the rest of the world in terms of demand, but in part because they see technology going forward as undercutting their employment prospects."

He says technological innovation will continue to march forward and will impact more than just manufacturing jobs.

“We’re going to have, very soon, thinking machines if you will that can do much of the work that the lawyers do, that accountants do, that other white-collared workers do,” he said.

“It’s not just the blue-collar workers that are facing this threat here in Canada and North America; it’s people like me that face it because of artificial intelligence.”