Showing posts with label fipa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fipa. Show all posts

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Another Compelling Video From Operation Maple

Operation Maple (Take Canada Back) is continuing its fine job of reminding us of the terrible way we are governed, offering us frequent and compelling evidence that demonstrates how the neo-liberal agenda, pursued with such diabolical glee by the Harper regime, is continuing to undermine our country. I suspect its resources, and others (the Salamander, for example, has some interesting ideas in this regard which I shall soon write about) will become increasingly important as we move ever closer to the next federal election. Please visit their site and disseminate their material as you see fit.

The following video explores the history of the free trade agreement and its costly consequences, consequences that continue to this day and promise to grow even more grave under the Canada-China Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) and the Canada-Eu (CETA) deal.

Our sovereignty as a nation continues to erode thanks to these agreements, brokered with such secrecy, with the only true beneficiaries the corporate elites and the multinationals.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

On Harper's True Loyalties

In response to yesterday's post about Stephen Harper's boycott of a major climate change summit hosted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York on September 23, Anon wrote the following, and offered this video which, I think you will agree, is a most appropriate choice:

Harper, early on, seemed to care about human rights and UN initiatives:

"'I think Canadians want us to promote our trade relations worldwide, and we do that, but I don't think Canadians want us to sell out important Canadian values,' Harper said.

Chinese President Hu Jintao won't meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Hanoi, which is being seen by some as a snub over Canada's criticism of China's human rights record. 'They don't want us to sell that out to the almighty dollar.'"

After that crazy talk, I think Harper's sponsors sat him down in a boardroom in Calgary and explained the facts of life to him. The fact that he always was, and always would be, an Imperial Oil mail room clerk. I imagine that meeting would have gone something like this:


Tuesday, April 23, 2013

On FIPA, Justin Trudeau, and Chauncey Gardner

Last night while checking my Twitter feed, I noticed several people expressing their deep disappointment over the fact that Justin Trudeau led his Liberal Party to vote with the Harper regime against an NDP motion to inform China that it will not ratify the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA). While much has been written about the pact, the chief objections seem to revolve around the following:

- it will severely circumscribe our ability to regulate our environment, since any such measures that lead to loss of corporate profit would result in compensation demands from the aggrieved businesses;

- lawsuits will take place in secret tribunals outside of Canada;

- the negotiations have been conducted in secret, completely devoid of transparency;

- as opposed to NAFTA, which can be cancelled with six months' notice, FIPA will have a lifespan of 31 years

- China will be able to circumscribe local preferences on suppliers and employment.

To be fair to Trudeau, the Liberals are on record as saying they oppose some of the provisions of the deal, but were not prepared to side with the NDP motion to definitively declare the deal dead, banking instead on the possibility of changing some of the treaty's terms.

Nonetheless, the reaction of disappointment toward Trudeau's vote got me thinking about his dearth of policy pronouncements and the fact that in the run-up to the leadership convention, so many were projecting their own hopes and interpretation onto the blank canvas that he touts as a strength, since he claims to want to talk to Canadians about their concerns and priorities. Indeed, all we know about where he stands comes from his announcements about concerns for the middle class, youth unemployment, and similar platitudes.

Which got me thinking about a book I read several years ago, later made into an outstanding film featuring the peerless Peter Sellers in his last performance. Entitled Being There, it told the tale of a simple man, Chauncey Gardener, a gardener who is forced out into the world upon the death of his employer. In some ways a savant, he knows nothing except the world of gardening, but is mistaken for a well-educated, affluent upper class man, and ultimately his 'counsel' is sought by the high and mighty of society, who infer deep meaning, never intended by the speaker, from his literal and simplistic observations.

Clearly, Justin Trudeau is no savant. But then, the movie was not so much about Chauncey than it was a sendup of the credulity and shallowness of the people around him, searching for meaning and wisdom where there was none.

Perhaps these two clips best demonstrate my point:

Friday, November 16, 2012

Foreign Investment Rights Versus Canadian Provinces

That the corporate world is ruled by only one imperative, to maximize profits, is self-evident. That it almost always gets its way, no matter what the environmental and social costs, is another truth that our current right-wing political 'leaders' would have us believe is a fiction that exists only in the fevered imaginations of paranoid left-wingers. Fortunately, certain facts are undeniable, no matter how much political spin is administered.

A story appearing in today's Star is quite instructive in this reality. Entitled Ottawa faces $250-million suit over Quebec environmental stance, it discusses how Lone Star Resources Ltd is suing under NAFTA:

Lone Pine contends it deserves $250 million in compensation by Ottawa for the Quebec government’s expropriation of its drilling permit, which it says violates Canada’s obligations to treat foreign investors from other NAFTA countries fairly.

The problem stems from Quebec's moratorium on fracking, a controversial drilling technique for releasing oil and natural gas from underground shale rock formations as it studies its environmental impact,

which some say consumes unacceptable volumes of water and may be contaminating groundwater. Quebec also passed legislation in June banning drilling below the St. Lawrence River.

Indeed, the challenge is yet another reminder of the dangers posed by Stephen Harper's current dalliance with China and the recent signing of the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement. Many claim that the pact, which the Prime Minister has refused to allow Parliament to scrutinize, will in fact open Canada up to the same kinds of challenges that have repeatedly occurred under the NAFTA agreement.

Mr, Harper's hollow reassurances notwithstanding, extreme caution before proceeding seems to be more than warranted.