Tomorrow through Friday, European trade negotiators are supposed to be in Ottawa for a third round of free trade talks with Canada. We’re still not sure they’ll make it with all the ash over the Atlantic, grounding flights and threatening to put air carriers out of business. Thanks to modern communications the newly formed Trade Justice Network will be cutting through the smoke this week with a major announcement on Parliament Hill Monday morning, followed by a series of public events in Ottawa (Monday), Montreal (Tuesday) and Toronto (Wednesday) on the proposed Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.
Joining us via Skype will be Rolv Hanssen with Public Services International, and by pre-recorded video Frédéric Viale of Attac France. Both are experts on the European Commission’s internal privatization and aggressive external free trade agenda that puts public services, food sovereignty and other important public policy areas at risk in Europe and Canada. Tomorrow’s free Ottawa event at St. Paul’s University Amphitheatre, 223 Main Street at 7 p.m., will also include a presentation by Terry Boehm, president of the National Farmers Union, which is extremely concerned about how the proposed (leaked) intellectual property chapter in CETA would affect the rights and livelihoods of farmers.
The Council of Canadians is a proud member of the Trade Justice Network, a collection of environmental, civil society, farmer, cultural and labour organizations in Canada and Quebec that have come together to challenge the scope and process of the Canada-European Union free trade negotiations, and to highlight the need for a more sustainable, equitable and socially just international trade regime.
