ACTION ALERT: Liberals must stop fast-track of Canada-Colombia free trade agreement (Bill C-2)
March 11, 2010

The Harper government has reintroduced implementation legislation for the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement in Bill C-2. As the number suggests, it is the second bill the government will handle after the budget, with second reading debate on the free trade agreement starting as early as this Friday. There is every reason to believe Harper will try to fast-track it through the House of Commons.

The Liberal Party was prepared to help last term's implementation legislation (Bill C-23) pass second reading and head to committee despite a June 2008 all-party recommendation of the Standing Committee on International Trade that an "impartial human rights impact assessment be carried out by a competent body, which is subject to independent levels of scrutiny and validation... before Canada considers ratifying and implementing an agreement with Colombia."

With the new bill (C-2) taking Parliament back to square one, there is no longer any justification for the Liberals to ignore the need for a human rights assessment before passing the free trade
agreement. We need to make sure they make that choice.

http://www.canadians.org/action/2010/CCFTA-0203.html
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CCFTA Prorogued. Be ready for action when Parliament resumes
2010-03-03

Widely Opposed CCFTA which died with prorogation will likely rise again.
By Janet M Eaton, Trade and Environment Campaigner, SCC.

Bill C-23, the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA) Implementation Act, which has created a furor of opposition in Canada, was temporarily sidelined, along with 35 other bills working their way through Parliament, when Stephen Harper prorogued parliament on December 31st 2009.

By Dana Gabriel

U.S.-Canadian state and provincial integration is being achieved in areas of transportation, the economy, energy and the environment. With some national, trilateral and global initiatives being discredited, stalled or ineffective, it appears as if the strategy has further shifted to a regional and local level in an effort to lay the groundwork for new agreements. 

Chris Hedges * (graduate of Harvard Divinity School, foreign  correspondent for over two decades a NY Times foreign correspondent and author of many books on war, American Fascism and most recently "The Empire of Illusion" ) begins with an example of the human pain of a corporatist system that throws its workers on the scrap heap of human misery. 

By Thom Hartmann

Globalization is killing Europe, just as it's already wiped out much of the American middle class.

Spain and Greece are facing immediate crises that many other European nations see on the near horizon: aging boomer workers are retiring with healthy benefit packages, but the younger workers who are paying for those benefits aren't making anything close to the income (or, therefore, paying the taxes) that their parents did.

By Dana Gabriel

The North American Forum on Integration (NAFI) was created in 2002, and is one of many think tanks pushing for closer continental ties. In 2005, NAFI organized the Triumvirate, a North American mock parliament which meets once a year. The exercise brings together university students from the U.S., Mexico and Canada with participants assigned the roles of legislators, journalists or lobbyists. Over the years, the mock parliament has debated and drafted resolutions on such key issues as trade corridors, immigration, NAFTA’s Chapter 11, along with the creation of a North American investment fund and a customs union. Infowars reported that last year’s Triumvirate gathering was cancelled due to the swine flu pandemic scare.

Activist Chats: John Bennett interviews Janet Eaton, Sierra Club Canada Pt. 2 of 5 From: SierraClubCanada | January 31, 2010 | 6 views Part two discusses the climate change movement in South America. 

Part 1 on home page http://www.sierraclub.ca/

 "The flaw at the heart of markets is essentially the idea that profit and corporations should govern the valuation of things and that everyone else should stand aside."

 Patel draws examples of the dominant paradigm shifting citing what is happening in Canada re the no-prorogation movement and what is happening with the localization of food all over the world.He says the way to correct that situation [ i,e the flaw at the heart freemarkets which serve corporate interests before people and planet], andthe ills it has visited upon the world, is to exercise more democratic control over markets by regulating, constraining and debating what it is that should be markets in the first place and allowing markets to proceed only after we´ve figured ways of living within our economic means and living with the consequences of our actions," Patel points to NorthAmerican exaxmples to rethink markets as well: "In North America now, there are nearly 100 food policy councils where city officials andcommunity activists and farmers and small businesses are getting together... He sees in this network of social movements happening around the world real constructive solutions and the real force of organizing that he finds quite exciting.

Patel is speaking at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Feb 4th at 7:00 p.m.  "FOOD Security: From Feast to Famine" http://internationalcentre.smu.ca/int-week.html  fyi-janet

Nova Scotia groups caution Dexter government on Canada-European Union trade negotiations

A coalition of Nova Scotia social justice, labour and environmental groups is cautioning the Dexter government against supporting a proposed Canada-European Union free trade agreement. Federal and provincial trade negotiators are wrapping up a second round of negotiations in Brussels, Belgium this week toward a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). The groups are asking the Dexter government to be open with Nova Scotians about what is being demanded of the province. They want Premier Dexter to establish a mechanism for receiving public input to assess the broader societal impacts of free trade with Europe.

Harper’s free trade talks with Europe another attack on democracy, say environmental, labour and social justice groups

Ellen Brown, December 7th, 2009
 

Europe’s small, debt-strapped countries could follow the lead of Argentina and simply walk away from their debts. That would shift the burden to the creditor countries, which could solve the problem merely by a change in accounting rules. 

Total financial collapse, once a problem only for developing countries, has now come to Europe. The International Monetary Fund is imposing its “austerity measures” on the outer circle of the European Union, with Greece, Iceland and Latvia the hardest hit. But these are not your ordinary third world debtor supplicants. Historically, Iceland was settled by the Vikings, who successfully invaded Britain; Latvian tribes repulsed even the Vikings; and the Greeks conquered the whole Persian empire. If anyone can stand up to the IMF, these stalwart European warriors can.

I voted against CAFTA, never supported NAFTA, and will not support NAFTA-style trade agreements in the future. NAFTA's shortcomings were evident when signed and we must now amend the agreement to fix them. While NAFTA gave broad rights to investors, it paid only lip service to the rights of labor and the importance of environmental protection

—Candidate Barack Obama, February 28, 2008

After 15 years there is now widespread agreement that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has fallen short of its stated goals. Rather than triggering a convergence across the three nations, NAFTA has accentuated the economic and regulatory asymmetries that had existed among the three countries. Since 2001, the region has actually seen a decline in levels of integration in key areas such as manufacturing.

Although some may have viewed President Barack Obama’s recent Asian trip as uneventful and perhaps unsuccessful, he appears to have recommitted to the principles of globalization as the answer to the world’s economic woes. Obama declared his intentions for the U.S. to be fully engaged in Asia economically, politically, and in areas of security. He announced that America would join negotiations for a Trans-Pacific deal.

With the demise of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America and the restructuring of many of its key priorities under the banner of the North American Leaders Summit, other trilateral initiatives are also passing on the mantle of deep continental integration.

The United States blocked on Friday requests by Canada and Mexico for World Trade Organization experts to examine new U.S. labeling rules that the two U.S. neighbors say are hurting their meat exports.

Both Canada and Mexico told the WTO's dispute settlement body that U.S. Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) rules -- requiring meat sold in U.S. stores to show which country it comes from -- were damaging North American trade.

"COOL is discouraging U.S. retailers, processors, feedlots and producers from buying Canadian livestock and meat. The negative impact on Canadian beef, pork and cattle exporters has been significant," Canada said in a statement to the dispute body.