In a recent article Maude Barlow, national chair of the Council of Canadians, points out the dangers Canada faces with the current CETA trade model. She warns that, “CETA will open up the rules, standards and public spending priorities of provinces and municipalities to direct competition and challenge from European corporations.” Barlow goes on to say, “Europe is seeking a comprehensive and aggressive global approach to acquiring the raw materials needed by its corporations. At its heart, this deal is a bid for unprecedented and uncontrolled European access to Canadian resources.” She also added, “CETA will likely have a NAFTA-type investor-state enforcement mechanism, which means that European corporations will have the same right that U.S. companies now enjoy to sue the Canadian government if it introduces new rules to protect the environment.” If CETA includes something similar to NAFTA's Chapter 11 which gives corporations the power to challenge laws and regulations that restrict their profits, U.S. and Mexican companies could benefit from any rulings that favour the EU. Ultimately, like NAFTA and other trade deals, CETA will further serve corporate interests.
full article http://beyourownleader.blogspot.com/2011/01/from-nafta-to-ceta-canada-eu-deep.html
From NAFTA To CETA: Canada-EU Deep Economic Integration
Posted on Saturday, January 15 at 14:31 by NAUWATCHContributed By
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The Council of Canadians will be in Brussels from January 17 to 21, 2011 for the sixth round of Canada-EU free trade negotiations. We will be part of a Trade Justice Network delegation to Brussels and also to Strasbourg, where the groups will encourage Members of the European Parliament to put the CETA negotiations on ice while the negotiating mandate is debated publicly in Canada and the EU.
read more http://canadians.org/trade/issues/EU/index.html
Your news about Canada?s current negotiations with the European Union through CETA makes me wonder about whether this relationship constitutes a Bilateral or Multilateral relationship, and what this implies about the future trajectory of Canadian foreign trade and relations. The EU is itself a ?multilateral? entity, and holds certain ?European? values and a ?European? identity. This means that Canada?s entry into trade relations would require Canada?s conformity with ?European? values, which, as you said, could threaten Canada?s sovereignty (consistent with Maude Barlow?s statement). However, EU governance has been moving towards a ?supranational? rather than ?inter-governmental? politic, which suggests that Canadian relations with the EU through CETA could be considered a bilateral relationship.
It is interesting that Barlow mentions NAFTA, because MacDonald discusses this relation in her article. She compares and contrasts Canada?s Bilateral relationship with the US with its ?Multilateral? relationship in NAFTA. However, she argues that Canada?s relationship is more like a ?dual? bilateral relationship (US-Mexico and US-Canada) than a multilateral relationship (Canada-US-Mexico), because it has not been accompanied by this ideological coordination.
The talk of CETA as a ?stepping stone? towards US-EU and NAFTA-EU free-trade complicates this issue further?