Vancouver Sun
March 5, 2008
By Maude Barlow
Two Democratic contenders for the U.S. presidency suggest they'd like to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and it's as if the sky were falling in Canada.
Conservatives and Liberals joined frightened CEOs across the country last week to describe a potential U.S. abrogation of NAFTA under a Democratic presidency as "disastrous." It is as if they all believe that trade between Canada, the United States and Mexico would simply dry up without an official treaty binding it together.
Either that or we would stop "building things together," as other commentators have suggested as more true to the North American relationship.
Nothing could be further from the truth. And if the Democrats are honest enough to recognize NAFTA's numerous failings, then our politicians owe Canada more than useless doomsday rhetoric.
Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have declared that --failing a complete renegotiation of the trade deal to include better, enforceable protections for the environment and labour -- they would withdraw from NAFTA within six months of taking office.
These issues were dealt with in toothless side agreements at the time of signing the treaty in 1994 while corporate trade and investment remains protected by NAFTA's Chapter 11, which allows companies to sue governments for lost profits due to local, provincial or federal regulations and policies.
As of Jan. 1, 2008, there had been 49 investor-state claims under Chapter 11 (14 of them in Canada), nearly half of which have involved challenges to government efforts to protect the environment or manage resources. Wealthy oil giant Exxon Mobil is suing the federal government for Newfoundland's requirement that some of the company's revenues from offshore development be reinvested locally.
This discrepancy between citizens, or democratic rights, under NAFTA on the one hand, and corporate rights on the other has not gone unnoticed in North America. It has accompanied a widening gap between corporate profits and real wages in both Canada and the United States; real wages have been stagnant for 30 years while corporate profits have never been higher.
If the issue of inequity is finally taking centre stage in the run-up to the 2008 U.S. election, it is an indication of just how many Americans want a new trading relationship with their neighbours -- one that protects their jobs and the environment from the often socially and physically destructive whims of large corporations...
Full article: http://www.tradeobservatory.org/headlines.cfm?RefID=101881
Stumble It!
Subject: From Peter Julian
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MARCH 6, 2008
PARLIAMENTARIANS FROM THE THREE NAFTA COUNTRIES ANNOUNCE TASK FORCE ON NAFTA RENEGOTIATION
WASHINGTON, DC - Following a conference held on March 5th at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which took a critical look at how NAFTA has impacted the North American region, legislators from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico agreed today to launch a Task Force to push for renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The Task Force on Renegotiating NAFTA, will be chaired by NDP Trade Critic, Peter Julian (Burnaby-New Westminster), U.S. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), the Honourable Yeidckol Polevnsky (Senator for Mexico State and Vice-president of the Mexican Senate), and the Honourable Victor Quintana (Deputy of the State of Chihuahua, Mexico), with support from their respective political parties. Members of the Task Force undertake to promote within their respective legislatures the renegotiation of NAFTA.
The objectives of the Task Force include transforming and rebuilding NAFTA in order to achieve a fair trade policy. This fair trade model is designed to safeguard the sovereignty of the three countries, and includes enforceable measures for the protection of workers and the environment, and allows for all three governments to regulate in the public interest.
“In the United States, Mexico and Canada, income inequality has grown dramatically in the almost fifteen years since the free trade agenda took effect. In Canada, families are worse off today than they were when the first agreement was implemented in 1989,” said Julian. “More and more Canadians work harder without being able to keep up. Over 291,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in Canada since 2002 with increasing hardships in softwood lumber communities and elsewhere in Canada.”
“NAFTA has sucked good American jobs away, destroyed the Mexican countryside, deepened our immigration crisis, wiped out the Mexican and middle and small business classes, not brought about promised investments in infrastructure, and hammered communities across the continent. It’s time for Mexico, Canada, and the United States to work together to change this flawed trade model”, said Kaptur.
“It is indispensable that legislators from all three North American partner countries work together to design an alternative project that takes into account each nation’s sovereignty, environmental protection, economic competitiveness, migration, and labor rights,” said Polevnsky. “We must work hand in hand with civic organizations to launch a progressive program that considers the well-being of human beings as the raison d’être of public policy. The Mexican Senate is looking forward to host this Trinational Task Force in the near future”, she said.
“I am pleased that our three nations are working together to build better trading partnerships that support the principles of social justice, environmental sustainability, and human rights”, stated NDP Leader, Jack Layton.
Members of the Task Force are scheduled to meet in the spring 2008, at a location to be announced soon.
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For more information, please contact:
Office of Peter Julian at 613.992.4214 juliap@parl.gc.ca