Trade lawyer Steven Shrybman presents on CETA at Toronto’s executive committee meeting, January 24
I was at Toronto city hall most of yesterday waiting for a CETA motion to come forward at an executive committee meeting with a packed agenda. The right to strike for emergency medical workers, the sell-off of 10 per cent of Toronto Hydro to private investors, funding for public housing — these were big issues that drew big crowds and passionate presentations. It was almost 6 p.m. when CETA finally hit the agenda… and was then deferred to a February 13 meeting.
But before ending the meeting, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford agreed to hear from trade lawyer and Council of Canadians board member Steven Shrybman since he had flown in for the meeting. Others who waited all day to speak will have to come back next month. They included CAW economist Jim Stanford, Gus Van Harten, a trade and investment expert at York University, Kyra Bell-Pasht with the Canadian Environmental Law Association, James Nugent of the Toronto Good Jobs for All Coalition, Dylan Gadwa, president of CAW Local 2000, Angelo DiCaro, also of CAW, Erin Weir, an economist with United Steelworkers, members of the Toronto chapter of the Council of Canadians, a representative of Occupy Toronto, and myself, among others.
Shrybman’s presentation was enough to convince the executive committee to seek a staff report to be presented to committee prior to its Feb 13 meeting. This was promoted by Pam McConnell, a non-committee member councillor who showed up to keep up with the CETA file she carries with her at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
And you know what? That’s not such a bad outcome after all. It was Plan B in a way. If the committee would not agree to call now for an exemption from the Canada-EU trade deal, as dozens of Canadian municipalities have, then at least we hoped they would engage the issue by learning more about the deal, which they have done. Stanford said at the end of the day it was probably because there were so many of us at the committee meeting that the motion survived to be debated again.
So in Toronto we’ve got 20 more days to campaign for this motion. The Toronto chapter is planning a public event in early February to build up a Toronto campaign against CETA. We may be able to stack the speaking order on February 13 with even more voices.
TROJAN HORSE CAMEO
On Monday morning it was good to see the Trojan Horse in action again. Louis Rodrigues with the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions was extremely kind to drive the horse to Toronto from its home in Napanee. Councillor Glenn de Baeremaeker, one of two councillors to propose the motion against CETA, is known in the media for his stunts. The popular online news and cultural blog Torntoist wrote:
Today marked, perhaps, a new high for De Baeremaeker, who has a reputation for being council’s prop-master. Toilets and inflatable, remote-controlled sharks are one thing, but this? This was too big to even fit through the doors.
The post on Torontoist also drew attention to the Council of Canadians’ role in campaigning for municipal exemptions all over Canada:
Trojans! Greeks! Stealth attacks! Or, at least, a photo op, held by two councillors, the Council of Canadians, and one large horse (we estimate about 10 feet tall) to call attention to concerns they have about the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, currently being negotiated between Canada and the European Union. The Council of Canadians has been campaigning to get municipalities across the country to call on higher orders of government to exclude them from the agreement, worried that it would unduly limit cities’ ability to issue contracts to local goods and service providers, or to make purchasing decisions based on policy goals (for instance, buying local produce in order to support the regional economy).
SASKATOON COUNCILLORS QUESTION VALUE OF CETA
The Toronto campaign will will happen simultaneously with a push in Saskatoon following a vote this week by its executive committee to seek exemption from CETA. The city’s executive committee there voted in favour of an exclusion for local governments from CETA and that goes to a full council vote in early February. Councillor Charlie Clark may have had the winning argument in favour of the motion when he said:
“There’s enough unknowns about how this could impact the city and because we don’t have a seat at the table it’s best to request an exemption… think that as a democratically-elected city council we should make sure we can make the decisions we need to make to protect citizens and there’s no real benefits from what I can see for cities to be included – so it’s easier to be excluded.”
You can read all about it in the Star-Phoenix here and here.
There’s momentum at the municipal level here as we cruise into the final stretch before the suspected CETA signing date in the next few months. Cities and towns are realizing there’s no good reason to accept the restraints CETA would put on them, not just on procurement but related to delivery of essential services at the municipal level, the cost of drug plans, etc.
To see a map of cities to have passed CETA resolutions, click here.
