Today, the House of Commons voted to adopt C-30, the bill to implement the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) in third reading. It did so without any public consultations or substantive economic analysis.
“After promising openness and transparency on trade, and vowing to do things differently, the Liberal government has pushed through CETA in a climate of total obscurity,” said Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians. “We don’t know how much this deal will cost our health care system or our municipalities. We don’t know how the loss of Britain – our largest European trading partner – will affect the deal. What we do know is that it will further subject us to more corporate lawsuits from European companies newly empowered to sue our country over legitimate public policy changes. We know it will cost us an estimated 23,000 jobs.”
The agreement still has to pass the Canadian Senate, and is scheduled to be voted on in the European Parliament tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. EST (12:00 p.m. CET). After that, it will have to pass 38 different national and regional European parliaments.
“This is definitely not a done deal,” said Sujata Dey, Trade Campaigner with the Council of Canadians. “The agreement still has to pass 38 parliaments where CETA is a lightning rod for opposition, and many governments have indicated that they do not accept the deal as is.”
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For more information or to arrange interviews, please contact:
Elizabeth Berman, 613-400-1633, eberman@canadians.org
