Ottawa – The Harper government may have secured German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s blessing for a speedy conclusion to Canada-European Union free trade talks, but the proposed Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) will and should remain controversial in Canada and the EU for a number of reasons, says the Council of Canadians. In fact, says the organization, critical parts of the deal should be pulled off the negotiating table entirely.
“We should think of CETA as a bit like the Conservative’s recent omnibus budget bill because it contains so many controversial policy changes that have little to do with trade and that will hurt our ability to protect the environment, keep drug costs low and create jobs here at home,” says Stuart Trew, trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians. “This omni-trade deal is also like the omni-budget in that parliamentarians and the public will have no real opportunity to make any changes to the deal once it’s signed.
“We can’t let that happen. Which is why we’re asking that if the federal and provincial governments move ahead with this trade deal they should give Canadians a chance to decide what parts should be changed or maybe pulled out entirely before it is signed,” adds Trew. “There should be no changes to Canada’s patent regime, no restrictions on how municipalities spend public money, and no opening up of new markets for drinking water, health care and other public services.”
The Council of Canadians lays out these requests and others, and explains the many ways CETA goes beyond trade, in a recent report called The CETA Deception. The report also answers some of the many misleading and deceptive statements the Conservative government has been making about its EU trade deal. These include claims that CETA will not affect the federal government’s or the provinces’ and municipalities’ right to regulate, will not allow companies to challenge environmental or public health measures, and will not affect the price of drugs. Each of these statements is demonstrably false, as the new report points out.
“One especially ridiculous claim is that CETA has been one of the most ‘transparent trade negotiations in Canadian history,’” says Trew. “But the text of the agreement is secret. And even if Harper gets to the point of signing CETA, there are few options for making any changes to the deal once it is making its way through the parliamentary process. A truly transparent trade negotiation would let the public see and make changes to the deal now before it’s too late.”
The Council of Canadians says its new report also serves as a broader challenge to Harper’s free trade agenda, including the NAFTA-plus Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which Canada was invited to join in June 2012.
“We’re pro-trade as long as it is sustainable, fair trade that leaves us with options for protecting the environment, creating good jobs and reducing inequality. These ‘next generation’ trade and investment deals simply push an ideological ‘free market’ doctrine to the extreme, putting public services, sustainable development and democracy at great risk without any prospect of creating good jobs,” says Trew. “These are trade deals for the 1% that the 99% has a responsibility to challenge.”
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