And This Is A Good Deal Because?

Despite the best efforts of the ever-secretive Harper cabal, details about the CETA deal are finally emerging thanks to leaked portions of the text. And as has been long-predicted, those details are not encouraging when it comes to Canadian sovereignty in general, and local sourcing of construction contracts, goods and services in particular.

While government websites, replete with encomiums from business entities, crow about what this deal will accomplish, more critical sources offer much to suggest the need for grave misgivings.

Take, for example, the matter of investor rights. Chapter 11, the investor-dispute mechanism under NAFTA, has resulted in numerous suits against the government from companies claiming loss of earnings due to legislation or judicial rulings. One such case involved Eli Lily suing Canada for $500 million over patent rights to two of its drugs. Another involved Lone Pine Resources, which is suing the federal government for $250 million due to Quebec’s moratorium on oil and gas fracking beneath the St. Lawrence River.

Yet the Harper government, in its apparent zeal to cede even more authority to multinational corporations, seems undaunted by these and many other ongoing suits.

With apparently almost identical provisions under CETA, perhaps the direness of the situation is best summed up by Scott Sinclair of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives:

"The outcome of the deal is that corporations win and citizens on both sides of the Atlantic lose."

Equally disturbing is the provision about procurement rights:

The main benefit for Europe is easy to name: Canada opens its public procurements to European corporations. European companies are much stronger when it comes to public tenders because there aren't as many Canadian companies willing to bid in European public procurements.

Today's Star offers more details of the public procurement provisions, and gives this bleak assessment:

The ability of provincial governments and cities like Toronto to boost their economies by favouring local companies on major goods and services contracts will be sharply curtailed under the terms of Canada’s free-trade pact with Europe, leaked details of the agreement confirm.

Specifically, provincial agencies and ministries will have to open up bidding to businesses from EU countries on goods and services contracts worth approximately $300,000 or more.

The threshold is higher for construction contracts: about $7.9 million.

Essentially, the same rules will apply to school boards, [p]ublic agencies or utilities that operate airports, rail or bus transport, marine ports, electricity distribution, drinking water provision or the production of gas and heat.

Once more, Canadian citizens must sit on the sidelines in government-imposed ignorance, thanks in large part to the most secretive government that has ever existed in Canada, Tony Clement's recent hilarious declarations about government transparency notwithstanding.

While it is highly unlikely the CETA deal will be finalized before the next election, given the millimeters of difference that exist between the major parties on most issues, holding an unsanctioned 'faint-hope' clause in our collective psyche may be all we can realistically aspire to.

Slamming Harper Secrecy

The Toronto Star recently revealed the following:

Health Canada is keeping secret the vast majority of the drug reviews it conducts despite a clear promise from the federal minister to publish this critical safety information.

Only 24 of 152 drug reviews completed last year by Health Canada are being considered for public release, the Toronto Star has learned. The drug safety reviews that will be open to the public are those triggered by alarms raised by foreign regulators, medical or scientific literature or Health Canada’s routine monitoring activities.

The main reason? Wholly consistent with the Harper regime's legendary secrecy and the preeminence it accords to all things corporate, is this justification:

The information is classified in part because it was provided “with the understanding that this information is proprietary,” a Health Canada spokeswoman told the Star in an email Wednesday.

In layperson's language, corporate concerns trump citizen safety. Aided and abetted by Health Canada, safety information falls under the rubric of commercial secrets - this despite some well-publicized tragedies that might very well have been avoided had the public had access to vital information about toxicity studies and drug side effects.

As usual, perspicacious Star letter-writers offer their views of this intolerable insult to all who believe that the free flow of information is one of the crucial elements of a healthy democracy:


Ottawa keeps drug reviews under wraps, April 12

The Canadian public is once again being “stonewalled” by the Harper government. The reason that I am calling this the “Harper Government” is the fact that Stephen Harper runs this government like a dictatorship. His ministers are muzzled until Harper approves of what statements they are allowed to make to the media.

He arbitrarily releases information only when he feels like doing so, not when the public has a genuine need to know the details of situations, such as rail safety measures put in place after the disaster in Quebec, and now the federal drug reviews of 151 various medications.
According to Dr. David Juurlink from Sunnybrook Hospital, “These drugs harm people and in some instances they kill people. Frankly, shame on (Ottawa) for even contemplating not publishing them.” The doctor doesn’t realize that in Ottawa there is no shame, only secrecy.

Why all of this secrecy when Ottawa has supposedly made a commitment to being more transparent? This government is as “transparent” as the heavily tinted windows in a motor vehicle.

In 1947, there was a movie starring Danny Kaye, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. This movie was re-made in 2013 with Ben Stiller as the star. In Canada, it could have been made as The Secret Life of Stephen Harper, starring our Prime Minister.

Also, Harper would have been the perfect guest on the 1950s and 1960s TV show I’ve Got A Secret. He has so many secrets that the panel would never guess to which one he was referring.

Warren Dalton, Scarborough


The reason Ottawa keeps drug reviews under wraps is the same reason Transport Canada keeps under wraps the movement of toxic materials through highly populated areas. The “conservative corporate party” in Ottawa is not about to bite the hand that feeds it. Ask yourself: who is damaged by disclosure?

Nicholas Kostiak, Tottenham


Drugs that have been developed under the sole funding of the private sector may, indeed, legitimize claims to exclusive rights to such information. Where the public has funded the research and development of pharmaceuticals, however, the public has a right to the results of such research.

Canadian taxpayers have contributed billions of dollars, under a multitude of programs, to the development of pharmaceuticals. We seem to have forgotten Harper’s Economic Action Plan and the Canada Foundation for Innovation, which funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars to the research and development of pharmaceuticals in the year 2009 alone. If you follow the money, you’ll discover that the public has just as many proprietary rights to the much-guarded research.

Those who wish to have exclusive rights to research results, data, analyses, outcomes or reports should also ensure their exclusive funding of such research activity rather than looking to the public purse for support. Until then, we have a right to know exactly what our money has produced.

Stella Kargiannakis, Toronto

Refusing To Become What The Harper Government Wants Us To Be

While Stephen Harper's trip to Israel is receiving wide domestic media coverage, coverage that I have been studiously avoiding out of deference to my at-times delicate sensibilities and constitution, the following Harper encomium strikes me as both chillingly ironic and hypocritical:

Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has rooted itself in the ideals of “freedom, democracy and the rule of law.”

Over time, ... this is the only ground “in which human rights, political stability and economic prosperity may flourish.”

Strange, this pronouncement of praise for a political principle that the Prime Minister and his cabal are working so hard to undermine here at home.

“Freedom, democracy and the rule of law” can only flourish in an open society, one in which citizens are treated with respect and given ready access to as much information as they want. Sadly, by this measure, Canada is quickly becoming a failed state under the ministrations of a government dedicated to suppression and vilification.

This process of re-engineering us into compliant, passive and unquestioning 'citizens' is ongoing, and has already been well-chronicled both in the media and the blogosphere. Nonetheless, it seems like a propitious time to offer a few salient reminders of what this administration has recently been doing to constrict the lifeblood of democracy, information, with such messianic zeal:

- Despite committing $22 million to an advertising blitz to promote the tarsands, 'Uncle Joe' Oliver, our Natural Resources Minister, has told Canadians they will not be permitted to know the details and ultimate cost until 2015 or 2016, after the campaign is over.

- Health Canada's main library has been closed, with some scientists being forced to squirrel away materials in their basements and borrow students' library cards to access university library materials.

- The Harper regime has been systematically shutting down Canada's national archives. Especially hard hit are those sources of environmental studies that provide a basis for analyzing the Harper assault on the environment. Amongst the casualties are:

the environmental research resources of the St. Andrews Biological Station in St. Andrews, New Brunswick (whose scientists Rachel Carson corresponded with when she was writing Silent Spring);

the Freshwater Institute library in Winnipeg;

the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre in St. John's, Newfoundland;

seven of eleven libraries operated by the Department of Oceans and Fisheries, as previously noted, have been closed.

And, as noted by Andrew Nikiforuk, the government has killed research groups that depended on those libraries such as the Experimental Lakes Area, the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission and the DFO's entire contaminants research program. The Freshwater Institute as well as the Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research (COOGER) has lost much of their funding and staff, too.

To continue this litany of darkness would be pointless and too depressing. Nonetheless, I continue to nurture the hope that increasing numbers of Canadians will become aware of the Harper-led assaults on fundamental democracy that are taking place, not only in the very public arena and institution of Parliament (don't get me started), but also on the publicly-funded repositories of information and analysis that are part of our rich heritage.

Who Do You Trust?

Two seeming unrelated stories, both connected by one pernicious element: unwarranted government secrecy.

In this morning's Hamilton Spectator is the sad tale of Marit McKenzie, an 18-year-old Calgarian who died after taking an anti-acne drug known as Diane-35. Often prescribed off-label as a birth-control pill, the drug's side effects can include formation of blood clots, a contingency that led to the girls's death.

Bruce McKenzie would like to know how a controversial acne drug suspected of killing his healthy teenage daughter this year has, in Health Canada's words, "benefits" that "continue to outweigh the risks."

But the report that could explain how the federal agency arrived at this conclusion is a secret. It's one of more than 150 classified safety reviews completed by Health Canada this year alone.

Despite the fact that France has banned the drug, and despite the fact that even the bastion of free enterprise, the U.S., along with the European Medicines Agency, routinely publish details of post-market safety reviews of drugs as a basic accountability measure, Health Canada refuses to provide any details about its alleged efficacy. The reason? According to our government, it is due to "confidential business information."

The implications of this stance are indeed frightening for anyone in Canada on long-term medication, given that the current database for adverse reactions is simply based on voluntary reports from doctors and patients. But at least the health of our pharmaceutical industry will be protected, the obvious priority with the Haper cabal.

On a similar, though ostensibly unrelated corporate note, is the CETA agreement that Stephen Harper is crowing about. Will it be a net benefit or a net detractor of Canadian jobs? Will it be an impediment to environmental protection and other matters crucial to our sovereignty? Who knows? As Tim Harper points out in today's Star,

But no one can say that definitively right now ...This was an agreement in principle, but there was no fine print.

Despite Harper's claim that these negotiations were the most “transparent and inclusive in Canada’s history”, the truth is that they have carried out in a cloak of secrecy that perhaps rivals that which shrouded the development of the atomic bomb. Secrecy, that is, for everyone but business groups who have been in a position to dictate their demands for quite some time.

And as for Harper's promise that affected sectors will be compensated for any losses, such as the probable $2 billion extra that the provinces will have to come up with due to increased drug costs thanks to another gift to the pharmaceuticals, a two-year patent extension on drugs, I leave that to the overly credulous to believe.

Who do you trust? Not this government, and not this Prime Minister who has proven countless times that truth and honesty are merely quaint notions that sound nice on paper, but have little to do with the debased elements by which he operates.

Shh! Don't Ask!

I have to confess to feeling a small measure of guilt each time I reproduce someone else's words with little editorializing on my part. Yet my ego is sufficiently robust to be able to acknowledge the fact that there are many others with views that merit space in this blog, views that are in many cases expressed more elequently and succinctly than mine.

Such is the following letter from today's Star by Judy Ward of Oshawa as she opines on CETA, about which I have written in the past. Ms Ward speaks for many as she strongly objects to the Harper cabal's obsession with keeping Canadians ignorant about a trade deal that could have devastating domestic effects:

Canada-EU trade deal is wishful thinking, Business June 20

We read day after day about our prime minister travelling about the world and talking free trade. Why doesn’t he talk to Canadians? He wants a free-trade pact with the EU. What is he planning to trade away in order to secure this agreement? Why doesn’t he let Canadians know what is on the table in these talks? We have a right to know.

It is rumoured that the EU wants to change our banking rules. Why? So we can end up like Spain or Greece or Portugal or Cyprus or even Ireland? It is also rumoured that if businesses didn’t like our rules they could sue us for loss of income.

But what frightens me is that our prime minister may be trading away our health care. We have a right to know what is on the table and health care should not in any way, shape or form be on the table. No hospitals, drugs or any aspect of health care should be bartered in the name of free trade.
The secrecy surrounding these talks is frightening. This information should be available to Canadians. We are the ones who have to live with the decisions made by the government. We have a right to know what its plans are. If the opposition parties know what is happening with these talks, then they should make it public.

This is the most secretive government I can ever recall. Tell us what is being bartered in these talks before an agreement is signed.

Harper Refuses To Release Taxpayer-Funded Study On Pensions

The conclusion the cynic would draw (that's me) is that the report suggests no need for the changes Harper has made in the OAS.

H/t Brandon Laraby

What Is Harper Hiding In The Pacific Trade Deal Negotiations?

Given the Harper government's flagrant contempt for democracy and the Canadian people, I think we should all be worried by the implications in this story and this one regarding ongoing secret Pacific Trade Deal negotiations.

Tory Revenge on Page

Well, that didn't take long.

A Good Environment For Mushrooms, Not Democracy

Government policy conducted in dark secrecy, as I suggested in my last post, is difficult for the critical thinker to evaluate; that task is made even more arduous when it is hidden within an omnibus bill, as is the case with the reforms to Employment Insurance eligibility.

However, one piece of information has emerged that perhaps makes the job a little easier. The CBC's Allison Crawford reports that a new Social Security Tribunal will replace about 1,000 part-time members of the Employment Insurance Board of Referees and 32 umpires, and that same tribunal will also hear appeals from Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security claimants.

Under the current system, most appeals on denials of benefits are heard within 30 days. Under the new Tribunal, to be in place next year, it is difficult to see how complaints will be dealt with expeditiously, since it will consist of only 74 members, half of whom will hear the E.I complaints.

University of Ottawa law professor Lucie Lamarche says the new measure, which comes on page 196 of the more than 400-page budget implementation bill, is "well-hidden," and she fears that under the new system, applicants will have to hire lawyers. She says it appears that under the legislation, people will have to make more technical, legal arguments.

So, a little more information, ferreted out by diligent journalists and citizens, has perhaps helped in my quest to critically assess the 'new and improved' E.I. program.

Just a Coincidence?

Surely there can be no other explanation for the fact that at the same time that Human Resources Minister Diane Finley has announced new rules for those claiming E.I. benefits, her department has cut off the flow of some key employment data that the public has a right to.

Now being withheld from public scrutiny is information showing the total dollar amount of benefits paid to each province and the average weekly payments by province. As reported by the CBC, the official explanation involves some inconsistencies in the Human Resources raw data that were discovered over a year ago, but, strangely enough, inconsistencies that did not prevent Statistics Canada from doing its usual job of aggregating data over the past year. However, as of May, that data has been cut off by the Harper government.

One can only hope that these 'inconsistencies in data' are resolved soon, lest uncharitable thoughts should emerge to undermine this government's 'credibility'.

Congratulations To The Harper Government

May the Prime Minister and his party enablers wear this award with distinction!

P.S. Check out some of the readers' comments on the site as well.