The Montreal chapter, Daniel Green, Sujata Dey and allies.
The Council of Canadians Montreal chapter held a public forum on the Trans-Pacific Partnership at Concordia University on March 2.
The two main presenters were Montreal-based Council of Canadians trade campaigner Sujata Dey and federal Green Party deputy leader Daniel Green. Prior to becoming deputy leader, Green led the Société pour Vaincre la Pollution (SVP), an environmental organization that worked on many major issues dealing with environmental contamination affecting Quebec and Canada. The NDP MP for Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie was also to attend, but sent his regrets.
Chapter activist Abdul Pirani tells us, “Many many contentious issues like the economy, poverty, job losses, investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions, small agri-business, Bovine Growth Hormones in milk, supply management, drug costs etc. are all interconnected to trade accords and will be more harmful to developing countries. People need a public process and open public debate and that doesn’t seem to be taking place so far. It’s not fair. It’s time for people to mobilize, call their Member of Parliament, have town halls, establish committees etc. to work on the TPP and the Liberal government should listen.”
The Council of Canadians is opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
As Abdul notes, we have highlighted:
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the deal’s investor-state dispute settlement provision -
the job losses expected to come with it -
the harm it would do to the auto parts sector -
the Bovine Growth Hormone-tainted milk it would allow into Canada -
the further exploitation of temporary foreign workers it would enable -
the extended patent protection it would give to transnational corporations for expensive life-saving pharmaceuticals -
the threat posed to public water services and water protection -
the lack of transparency in its negotiation and now in its ratification process.
To read a letter we sent to the government with some of these concerns noted along with their responses to us, please see our Over 1,000 emails sent to Trudeau government about the TPP blog.
To tell the Canadian government you are opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, send your messages here.
More than 11,000 people have already responded to this action alert so please help us keep up the pressure.
For our campaign web-page against the TPP, please click here.
