CLC Says SPP Not About Working Families

"They don't speak for Canada. Canadians don't even know who they are. Their shareholders did not send them there, so they are there to represent nobody but themselves. Private interests holding private discussions about their own business with public officials - that's lobbying. The Prime Minister might want to give his own Accountability Act a read before allowing this meeting to proceed," says Byers, Byers says the federal government has to learn that if it wants to pursue new trade deals, it has to do so out in the open, where Canadians can see what's going on and have their say. High security, top secret, backroom discussions that give access to only a few of the wealthiest special interests are doomed to fail. "Remember the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)? They all came flying apart as soon as people found out what was really going on. The same thing will happen to the SPP unless the process gets opened up," she says. Byers says that until the big corporate interests and their friends in government learn this lesson, summits like the upcoming meeting between the Prime Minister and the two Presidents are an insulting waste of taxpayers' money. "Our hard-earned tax dollars are being used to shut us out of a public policy decision-making process." Byers adds that Canadians are outraged at the double standard being show the small, elite group of CEOs who get access to the summit while everyone else is forced to stand behind fences and police barricades. "This is why we are asking people to phone their M.P.s and insist they put a stop to the SPP the instant they get back to work in Ottawa," concludes Byers . . . The Canadian Labour Congress, the national voice of the labour movement, represents 3.2 million Canadian workers. The CLC brings together Canada's national and international unions along with the provincial and territorial federations of labour and 136 district labour councils. Web site: www.canadianlabour.ca For more information, please contact Canadian Labour Congress Jean Wolff Director of Communications 613-878-6040 or Canadian Labour Congress Jeff Atkinson Communications 613-863-1413 http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=761849

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