Ottawa ─ Today, Stephen Harper pushed CETA, the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, to his European counterparts at the G7 in the German Alps.
He did so as 3500 people protested against CETA and TTIP, the EU-U.S. Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, at the G7 meetings. In Munich alone, 40,000 people protested.
The deals are unpopular in Europe because of its investor-state dispute settlement provisions that allow corporations to sue governments for lost profit. Recently under NAFTA, Canada lost a suit because it refused to accept a quarry in Nova Scotia due to environmental considerations.
“Harper is talking up CETA in a last-ditch effort to save it from dying in the European Parliament. As usual, he is promising jobs, but these promises are hollow. I urge the European leaders to ignore Harper and to listen to their own people who do not want these trade deals favouring the one percent,” said Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians.
Barlow recently released an op-ed on the empty promise of 80,000 jobs by International Trade Minister Ed Fast.
The Council of Canadians has lobbied members of parliament on both sides of the Atlantic about CETA.
-30-
