Stuart Trew, trade campaigner for the Council of Canadians, and Claude Vaillancourt, general secretary of ATTAC-Québec, write in rabble.ca today that, “Premier Jean Charest is described as the savior of Canada-European Union free trade talks in this month’s l’Actualité magazine. It’s an honour that will come back to bite him. Because despite Charest’s belief the negotiations will increase provincial political and economic autonomy within Canada, the only possible outcome is the exact opposite.”
“Negotiations toward a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or free trade-plus deal between Canada and the European Union started this week in Ottawa. Some 35 EU negotiators will put on their best poker faces as they lay out a list of federal and provincial policies they’d like to see eliminated in order to boost European access to Canadian markets.”
“Of course Canada’s negotiators will be doing the same, hoping, for example, to convince the Europeans they should be eating more genetically modified produce (which they revile) and relaxing quotas on Canadian beef imports (which were put in place because of our growth hormones).”
“The scope of negotiations is huge, politically sensitive and to date largely shielded from public scrutiny. But it goes on with enthusiastic support from some premiers, including Charest and McGuinty.”
“The reason provincial participation was so important to the EU is because so much of what they are asking of Canada — access to provincial and municipal public contracts for European companies, the removal of foreign investment caps (particularly in telecommunications and finance), taxation policy reforms, a single national securities regulator and enhanced services (including health and possibly water) liberalization — involve provincial jurisdictions. Even sacred cows like culture and supply management, which curbs overproduction of eggs, dairy and poultry in Ontario and Quebec, provides stable prices for consumers and stable incomes for farmers, are in Europe’s crosshairs…”
“Also contentious are provincial spending powers. NAFTA’s procurement chapter prohibits favouring Canadian or provincial companies when spending public money on goods or services over a certain threshold. Like the World Trade Organization’s procurement agreement, NAFTA also forbids many local minimum content rules or local hiring requirements. Provincial exemptions from these rules were crucial in developing Ontario’s internationally recognized wine industry. We’d be crazy to give them up.”
“Neither NAFTA nor the WTO procurement agreement applies to Canadian provinces or cities, which is a bone of contention not just for the Europeans, but also a rallying call for corporate lobby groups in Canada who are successfully using the ‘Buy American’ controversy to push for unnecessary limts on provincial and municipal government spending powers.”
The full op-ed can be read at http://www.rabble.ca/news/2009/10/charests-european-free-trade-gamble.
