By Dana Gabriel

The United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) is another one of those international agreements that the U.S. has yet to ratify. President Reagan rejected the treaty, but a revised version was signed by President Clinton in 1994. As a result of intense opposition, LOST was never brought before the Senate for a full vote. Several failed attempts were also later made by the Bush administration to galvanize support for the accord. The Democrats are now laying the groundwork to finally ratify LOST. Proponents view ratifying the treaty as an opportunity for the U.S. to further promote global security and stability. Critics maintain that under LOST, the U.S. would be forced to surrender more sovereignty to the UN.

By Dana Gabriel

As a result of the demise of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America, the NAFTA trilateral relationship has suffered. This has forced many of the SPP’s objectives to be funneled through various bilateral initiatives. Mexico’s drug war is also serving as a catalyst for more North American cooperation and integration in areas of border security, law enforcement and the military. Canada is being encouraged to further engage and commit itself alongside the U.S. in helping Mexico. 

Excerpts::
The explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon well was the inevitable result of deliberate decisions made by avaricious corporate executives, laissez faire politicians and obsequious regulators. As the ruinous gulf oil blowout spreads onto land, over wildlife, across the ocean floor and into  people's lives, it raises a fundamental question for all of us Americans: Who the hell's in charge here? What we're witnessing is not merely a human and environmental horror, but also an appalling deterioration in our nation's governance.. We are living under de facto corporate rule that has rendered our government impotent... Obama should personally take charge... go to Congress with sweeping legislation to replace America's oil dependency with a crash program of conservation and renewable energy sources [and]  wring a few corporate necks ...  prosecute them ...and put the public back in charge of our government.     ----Jim Hightower, June 2

Our Canadian system is not much better under the present government. We seem to have lost all pretense of democratic governance.... Harper acts with impunity under a dysfunctional parliament clawing back existing environmental regulations, blocking implementation of climate change legislation,  gagging  MPs and senior bureaucrats, muzzling the media;  denying access to information; blocking parliamentary committee procedure with a manual of 'dirty tricks'; emasculating Environment Canada's climate change programs and scientists; and denying funding for majority of established principle centred NGOs that have been the  positive face of Canada internationally as well as contributors to progressive policy in this country etc etc. At the same time Harper renders Canada more undemocratic, and Canadian and global ecosystems more  unsustainable by continuing to push aggressive free trade agreements, de- regulation, privatization, smaller government and petrostate politics all based on an unlimited economic growth model which is contributing to  climate change, peak oil, ecosystem collapse, and  the global financial crisis.  Corporate power along with an ideologically based neo-conservative political agenda seem to be driving the Harper government and as in the US placing corporate profit before public interest.   jme  
 

“Such proposals are all hugely controversial — or they would be if anyone were paying attention. The problem is that the Canada/EU negotiations are taking place below the Canadian radar screen. Helena Guergis and Rahim Jaffer are getting more ink and air time here than free trade with Europe. In Parliament this week, just one question was asked about the negotiations. In principle, broadening trade with Europe and lessening dependence on the U.S. is an attractive idea. But the details of a deal with the EU could negatively impact many Canadians. It is time, then, to make these negotiations part of the political debate in Canada.”

Here is a very good overview by Council of Canadians' Campaign and Communications Director, Brent Patterson on  what has been written so far about Water Services and the CETA agreement. The Council is standing on guard for our water as always as can be seen from Brent's  concluding statement:

"We will be further developing our analysis on this question,  tracking Mr. Harper´s words in Brussels [at Can-EU Summit May 5], and raising this issue at key moments including at the last two rounds of talks on this deal in July (in Brussels) and October (in Ottawa on the eve of our annual general meeting here)."

fyi-janet

for further analysis of the impacts of CETA and information on press releases, statement, fact sheets, leaked CETA document etc see:

http://www.tradejustice.ca
http://www.canadians.org/tradeblog/
http://www.sierraclub.ca/en/trade-environment

 

Canada's minister of state for agriculture,Jean-Pierre Blackburn, says Ottawa will defend the supply management system of dairy and poultry products in any free trade talks with the European Union....
He said supply management allowed dairy and poultry industries to remain among the most profitable and stable in Canada...Blackburn said the Conservatives and Canada's agriculture industry have long had a strong relationship. "It's part of the Conservative government's tradition, to be close to the farmers," he said.
 

[1] Would You Like to Look at Some of the Other European Union Free
Trade Agreements? Saturday, April 24, 2010 at 09:51 PM
The leaked draft of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and
Trade Agreement (Canada-EU CETA) chapters and parts of chapters causes
Canadians to wonder whether the European Union's other free trade
agreements are as demanding. The answer is "no", the European Union has
not made the same degree of requests for fundamental changes in other free
trade agreement negotiations. In fact, some EU free trade agreements are
shorter than the draft Canada-EU CETA intellectual property chapter alone.

[2] There Is More Than A Volcanic Ash Cloud Hanging Over the Canada-
EU CETA Negotiations Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 06:09 AM
If my Grandmother were still here and she was giving relationship
advice, she would be asking a simple question, "Is this partner worth the
fundamental changes I am being asked to make?" The answer to this question
is what hangs over the Canada-EU negotiations. With all the Canadian
provinces and territories at the negotiating table, I can hear a few
provincial premiers (and opposition parties) shouting "No Way!". The
interested parties should get involved in the Canada-EU CETA negotiations
in a meaningful way - there is a big cloud that is getting darker.

[3] Published Reports About Canada-EU CETA Are Discouraging
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 12:00 PM
By: Cyndee Todgham Cherniak
Reading all of these reports [from the Trade Justice network, CCPA
etc] , one conclusion is that the Canada-EU CETA negotiations have
lost some of the glow.  Canadians want  deeper trade partnership with the
EU.  However, public opinion is starting to question whether the cost of a
deal is too great.

fyi- janet
 

This fact sheet answers the following questions:

1. What is the Global Europe Strategy ?

2. How does the Global Europe Strategy help dispel the belief of many
Canadians that a trade agreement with Europe will be beneficial
because of stronger environment and social polices in the EU?

3. Why  we must reject this approach to global economic recovery?

4. Why we must reject CETA as part of this strategy ?

REFERENCES
 

The following press release was issued April 19 by the new Trade
Justice Network (TJN) during a press conference in Ottawa  where
representatives of the many groups that are part of the newly formed  TJN
spoke and responded to questions. This was timed to coincide with the
third in a series of Canada-EU negotiations with officials from Belgium
meeting with DFAIT officials in Ottawa this time around.

The key points associated with this press conference were:  

[1] The release of the leaked Can-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade
Agreement (CETA) document now on line at http://www.tradejustice.ca/  
Check bottom of Home Page

[2] Information on three concurrent TJN organized public panels with
participation by  European civil society associates See
http://www.tradejustice.ca/Events&bl=n

[3] Launch of the new Trade Justice Network website with Fact Sheets on
potential impacts of the agreement. See:
http://www.tradejustice.ca/FactSheets?bl=y

[4] Participation of Scott Sinclair, Dir. CCPA Trade & Investment
Research, to speak to the jointly released CCPA  study
"Negotiating from Weakness: Canada-EU trade treaty threatens Canadian
purchasing policies and public services"
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/negotiating-
%E2%80%89weakness

See below for the press release and more details on the above.

Janet M Eaton, SCC Rep, Trade Justice Network

 

Dear Friends, 

If you are concerned with how sweeping free trade negotiations between Canada and the European Union may affect public services, labour rights, environmental policy, culture, economic development, food policy, water services, and more, then please read on.

 We would like to invite you to an important event on the Canada-European Union comprehensive economic and trade negotiations. We wish to invite discussion on the largest, most intrusive free trade deal that Canada has ever entered into. Negotiations are progressing quickly, with little public scrutiny.

Canada is offering to make commitments that go beyond NAFTA and the WTO. On the table are chapters on services and investment, domestic regulation and standards, public procurement, and intellec
tual property rights.

Canada is also pushing to include a controversial, NAFTA-like, investor-state dispute mechanism that will allow European companies to sue the federal, provincial and municipal governments if they enact policies that interfere with profits.

To help us shed light on the European Union’s free trade agenda, we have invited three people from the trade
 movement in Europe to speak at public events in Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto from April 19 to 21, 2010.....

I

 

Nova Scotia activists are expressing surprise that former US president Bill Clinton has apologized for flooding Haiti with cheap American rice beginning in the mid 1990s. During testimony before a US Senate committee three weeks ago, Clinton admitted that requiring Haiti to lower its tariffs on rice imports made it impossible for Haitian farmers to compete. The trade policy forced farmers off the land and undercut Haiti's ability to feed itself.

Janet Eaton, trade and environment campaigner for Sierra Club Canada, says members of the global democracy movement have long known about the failures of the globalized food system and Clinton’s apology to Haitians only reinforces what many activists have talked and written about for years..

“When high-profile leaders admit that economic globalization isn’t working, then it’s time for governments to get on board and look at alternatives.” Eaton adds. “It is time to admit that these failures exist and put an end to the aggressive free trade frenzy that is now occurring in Canada, the US and Europe as they vie for foreign markets, raw materials and unfettered free trade.”

By Dana Gabriel

Although there is a need for Canada to expand its trade horizons, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) currently being negotiated with the European Union (EU) appears to be based on the flawed NAFTA model. Many view it as an opportunity to decrease its trade reliance on the U.S., but it could serve to accelerate the corporate takeover of the country. The deal would exceed NAFTA in its scope and with the third round of negotiations scheduled for April 19-23 in Ottawa, there are lingering concerns regarding its lack of transparency. A Canada-EU CETA could be used to expand NAFTA, strengthen U.S.-EU economic relations and further advance the transatlantic agenda.

From Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico — in the name of reducing travel time, transport and trade processing costs.

The Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor consists of a series of interconnected transportation systems, including: rail, road, air and marine shipping, that run through the centre of North America from the Arctic Port of Churchill in Manitoba, though the American Heartland to Mexico.

Last April, the US Trade Representative explained to us that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement had to stay secret in order to provide room for negotiating. In fact, ACTA was so inchoate that "a comprehensive set of proposals for the text of the agreement does not yet exist." In other words: there's nothing to release.

That was true in early 2009, but by 2010, there was such a comprehensive set of proposals—and still we got nothing from the ACTA negotiating nations, except a long series of piecemeal leaks that appear to have emanated from Europe. This week, those leaks became a flood as French digital rights group La Quadrature du Netreleased a complete copy of ACTA's consolidated text, filled with various textual proposals from the different negotiating countries.