Not just in Canada, but around the world, the Council of Canadians was a leader in the citizen fight to defeat the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). Had it been adopted, the MAI would have been a "charter of rights and freedoms" for global corporations - setting the stage for a two-tier health system in Canada, the erosion of our culture and the endangerment of our environment. Its defeat in 1998 marked a turning point both in efforts by corporations to place democratic countries under the thumb of trade and investment agreements and in the struggle by ordinary citizens around the world to bring globalization under democratic control.
The revelation in the spring of 1997 that the Canadian government, along with the other member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), was privately working with the International Chamber of Commerce to create a new global investment treaty of unprecedented power set off a firestorm of protest all across the country. So secret had the talks been until then that even most politicians and some Cabinet ministers knew nothing about them.
As information leaked and then poured out, it became clear that this new treaty would alter life for every person on the planet. Soon, a consensus was building among "civil society" groups - those representing human rights, the environment, workers, women, the poor, public health and education, farmers, seniors, the cultural community, and many others. The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) would give private corporations in every signatory country not only the legal status of nation-states, it would also give them - and them alone - such powerful tools to enforce their newly acquired "rights" that governments would be compelled by law to safeguard corporate interests over those of their own citizens.
MAI Update
An Update on MAI Negotiations: October 14, 1998
On October 14, 1998, less than a week before Canada and the other 28 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) were scheduled to resume talks on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), France declared that it was pulling out indefinitely from negotiations. French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin summed up the state of discussions succinctly, stating "it does not seem wise to allow private interests to chew away at the sovereignty of states."
Opponents of the deal, which would have granted enormous powers to large corporations, celebrated France’s announcement with cheers. The Council of Canadians immediately called on Trade Minister Sergio Marchi to follow suit and withdraw from negotiations (Australia has since done so). Although Canada has not officially withdrawn, it is widely perceived that the French withdrawal has signalled the end of the MAI – at least at the OECD.
Long-time critics of the deal, however, know that the corporate pressures which gave rise to the deal will not go away. The search for MAI substitutes will continue. And that makes the search for citizen-based alternatives to the MAI all the more important.
