Canada-Europe
Free
Trade Agreement
Loss of Sovereignty and Public Control
Public Meetings on Threat to Communities
Posed by Canada-European
Free Trade
Hamilton
Tuesday,
September 27 -- 7:00 pm
Hamilton Convention Centre, 1 Summer’s Lane, Albion Room
Featuring: Maude Barlow, National Chairperson, Council of Canadians;
Paul Moist, National President, Canadian Union of Public Employees;
Rolf Gerstenberger, President, USW Local 1005
For poster (PDF), click here.
Windsor
Wednesday,
September 28 -- 7:00 pm
Giovanni Caboto Club (Caboto Hall), 2175 Parent Ave.
Featuring: Maude Barlow and Paul Moist
For poster (PDF), click here.
For information: cupe.ca / canadians.org / 1-800-387-7177
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Public
meetings
organized
by
the
Canadian
Union of
Public Employees and the Council of Canadians to inform of the negative
implications of the Canada-European
Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) are taking place
across the country. The next two are scheduled for Hamilton on
September 27 and Windsor on
September 28.
Several rounds of CETA negotiations have been held since
last year; the next is scheduled for Ottawa at the end of October. The
website of the Department of Foreign
Affairs and International Trade reports on the present state of
negotiations:
"Canada and the European Union (EU) have completed the
eighth round of negotiations toward a Comprehensive Economic and Trade
Agreement. Significant progress
continues to be made in key areas, including goods, services,
investment, government procurement and many others. The negotiating
text is now well-advanced, with a number
of chapters closed or parked pending further development, and issues in
the remaining chapters narrowed down to key differences where solutions
are now being actively
explored.
"The parties are committed to resisting protectionist
pressures in challenging economic times, and are seeking to achieve an
ambitious outcome across all negotiating
areas. The Government of Canada has made the CETA negotiations a
priority in its international trade agenda and negotiators continue to
move the negotiations forward
as quickly as possible.
"Both Canada and the EU are committed to maintaining the
momentum of the negotiations thus far with the aim of concluding by
2012."
Canadians are already familiar with the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) brought in by the Mulroney Conservatives,
and the nation-wrecking it continues
to cause by making Canada's needs and economy subservient to those of
the rapacious U.S. empire and its monopolies. CETA will bring more of
the same, but it goes further,
exposing municipalities and their delivery of public services to
"competition" with European monopolies. It is unacceptable that the
affairs of Canada's municipalities be
permitted to be privatized and put at the disposal of the monopolies,
native or foreign. Canadians have already
seen with their own eyes what
happens when their public services are privatized. In Toronto, the
Mayor is now trying to privatize public services and assets through
deals which have been exposed
as being for personal gain. For the government of Canada to be doing
this as well, using the prerogative of the Prime Minister to negotiate
treaties with foreign countries
that grossly interfere in provincial and municipal affairs is a very
serious matter. Canadians need to be aware of what the government of
Canada is up to because it is their
birthright which is being systematically whittled away.
The Council of Canadians points out on its website:
"Procurement, or the money our municipalities, school
boards, provincial Crown corporations and utilities spend on public
contracts, is the EU's first priority in the CETA
talks with Canada. If concluded, a deal would ban these public bodies
from favouring local or small-business bidders even when the tendering
process was completely
transparent and fair. The procurement chapter in CETA would remove one
of the last remaining tools our local communities have to foster
sustainable, local development.
"Services and investment commitments could include
promises to liberalize (i.e. encourage more privatization of) drinking
water or sanitation services, or to chip away
at the relatively weak protections in NAFTA for public health care.
They could make it impossible to put local investment conditions on
major foreign takeovers such as
local production targets in U.S. Steel's takeover of Stelco. The
provincial offers we are not allowed to see could also remove foreign
ownership caps on so-called strategic
industries such as fishing and finance."
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives makes a
similar point, adding:
"The exclusion of local purchasing and services from the
procurement restrictions of trade treaties [...] has also reduced the
risk of litigation and demands for compensation
from foreign investors and service providers when privatisation schemes
are halted or reversed."
It is important to participate in these meetings, to
become informed of the implications of the Canada-EU free trade
agreement and join in actions to oppose the
government's further sell-out of Canada.
Public Right, Yes! Monopoly Right, No!
Trade for Mutual Benefit, Yes, Not Nation-Wrecking Neoliberal "Free
Trade"!
Europeans Oppose Negative Impact of Trade Deal
Besides the opposition to free trade with Europe in
Canada, Europeans are also expressing concern about the clandestine
nature of the negotiations and that such an
agreement will be a direct attack on various public services in Europe
and public health and safety standards.
In a January 18 statement issued by the European
organization Seattle to Brussels (S2B), it is pointed out that:
"Using a dispute resolution mechanism under CETA,
Canadian businesses would be able to attack policies regulating
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) -- which
are stricter in Europe than in Canada -- under the pretext that they
would be a distortion of trade."
S2B adds that CETA would also reinforce intellectual
property rights on patented seeds and hormones used in livestock
production. "In this way the Canadian and
European biotechnology and agribusiness companies would finally be able
to override regulations brought in democratically to ensure public
health," the group adds.
Meanwhile, regulations aimed at protecting the
environment "would also be open to attack by Canadian and European
businesses, given that environmental and social
regulations are generally weaker in Canada than in Europe. Market
access without regard to the social or environmental impacts is not
just a one-way street that benefits
European business. The interests of agribusiness, and transnational
firms more generally, would prevail over European public interest."
As concerns the issue of privatization, S2B points out
that "The EU is today the spearhead of public service privatisation (in
telecommunications, postal services,
electricity, water distribution, etc.). It sees in the Canadian public
markets new opportunities for its big multinationals (e.g. Veolia).
CETA threatens to include an extensive
interpretation of public services that are targeted for liberalisation
and privatisation, since it would automatically cover all public
services except those actively listed as
exceptions (the negative list approach).
"Moreover, it would be almost impossible for local and
national authorities in Europe to roll back liberalisation policies
where they find that they have failed (e.g. the
remunicipalisation of water services in France), as they would face the
threat of action by multinationals to protect their interests through
the dispute resolution
mechanism."
The S2B statement concludes:
"[U]nderlying this agreement is the ambition to create a
vast free trade zone and, as stated in the EU's new trade strategy, to
drive an insidious harmonisation of legislation
between the USA, Canada and Europe towards a lower level of standards
in social protections, environmental regulations, health and safety and
other policies. As with other
free trade agreements, CETA is being sold on the basis of benefits to
the public (e.g. lower prices through competition), while in reality it
poses numerous and grave threats
to social and environmental standards and protections and public goods
in general.
"In view of these threats, the Seattle to Brussels
network demands that:
"a) the European Union immediately cease negotiating the
CETA.
"b) the European and Canadian governments start public
consultations to establish a different basis for future environmental,
social and commercial cooperation."
September 24, 2011 Bulletin • Return to Index • Write to: editor@cpcml.ca
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