Your action on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement is working! Thanks to your letters, telephone calls, e-mails and meetings with MPs, Bill C-23, the implementation legislation for the FTA, has been pulled from the government order paper until the fall!
On Monday, the Liberals indicated they were reconsidering their support for the deal. This was the significant shift. Last month, Liberal trade critic Scott Brison said his party would not oppose the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement because “it’s easier to engage a country on human rights issues when you’re engaged on economic issues.” But this week, Brison called on the Harper government to conduct a formal independent Human Rights Impact Assessment before allowing the enabling legislation to proceed.
On April 30, more than 50 prominent individuals and organizations sent Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff a letter urging him to help stop the ratification of the proposed Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement until a full and independent human rights impact assessment could be carried out.
“We the undersigned are deeply concerned that Canada would abandon its values and its support of internationally recognized human rights in order to gain economic advantage for its companies at the expense of millions of displaced, impoverished Colombians,” said the letter, which was signed by Maude Barlow, Stephen Lewis, Ed Broadbent, Claudette Carbonneau, Alex Neve, Paul Moist, Rev. Bill Phipps, Farley Mowat, Sarah Polley, Naomi Klein, and others, as well as organizations like the Council of Canadians, Greenpeace, the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, Lawyers Rights Watch Canada, the National Union of Public and General Employees and many more.
Our Members of Parliament should be applauded for recognizing the problems with the Colombian free trade deal, but Bill C-23 could never have been stalled without the support of unions, non-governmental organizations, and Council of Canadians activists.
The struggle is far from over. We have won four more months (the House resumes sitting on September 21) to mobilize opposition against this trade agreement, but it’s crucial that we keep the pressure on our MPs.
You’ll find the tools to do that, including draft letters and fact sheets on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, at http://canadians.org/trade/issues/CCFTA/index.html.
The April 30 letter to the Liberals can be read at http://canadians.org/trade/documents/Letter-Ignatieff-CCFTA.pdf. The media release accompanying that letter is at http://canadians.org/media/trade/2009/30-Apr-09.html. Our action alerts – which generated hundreds of e-mails to MPs – are at http://canadians.org/action/2009/25-May-09.html, http://canadians.org/action/2009/24-Apr-09.html, http://canadians.org/action/2009/9-Apr-09.html.
Updates on the status of C-23, plus the text of the legislation and major speeches in Parliament on it, can be found at http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Sites/LOP/LEGISINFO/index.asp?Language=E&Session=22&query=5769&List=toc.
Thanks to all of you for your support!
