Will The Trudeau Government Ignore The Warnings?

As pointed out by The Mound, Joseph Stigliz has issued a dire warning to Canada about the dangers of the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership); essentially, it will enrich the few at the expense of the many. As well, he has warned about two other grave dangers the pact poses for our country:

The controversial but not-yet-ratified trade agreement could tie the hands of the Trudeau Liberals on two key parts of its agenda — fighting climate change and repairing relations with aboriginal people, the Nobel-winning professor warned Friday.

During the recent World Economic Forum in Davros, he spoke to his old friend and now International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland about his concerns, perhaps best summing up its impact on the daily lives of a great many working people this way:

... the deal benefits big business at the expense of working people, driving down the bargaining power of workers, including their wages.

Despite Freeland's openly-professed enthusiasm for another trade agreement, CETA, which carriess with it similar perils, one can only hope that she listens to her old friend with open ears and has influence with our new prime minister. So far, the signs are ambiguous:

Freeland’s spokesman Alex Lawrence said the government is keeping an open mind about the deal and is following through on its promise to consult widely with Canadians.

“Many Canadians still have not made up their minds and many more still have questions,” Lawrence said.

The House of Commons trade committee is studying the TPP — a process that Freeland has said could take up to nine months.
Lawrence said the committee would travel across the country as part of its outreach to Canadians.

After that, Freeland has promised that only a vote in Parliament would ratify the deal, which was negotiated under the former Conservative government.

When an economist of Stiglitz's stature speaks, none of us can afford to turn a deaf ear.

For a more detailed discussion of this issue, here is a Q&A with Stiglitz.

Embracing The Veil

H/t The Toronto Star





While our prime minister claims, when attacking the niqab, that Canadians hold openness and transparency as societal values, he is happy to keep us in the dark about all of the secret negotiations going on to conclude the highly controversial Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, leaked elements of which suggest we will be ceding a great deal of our sovereignty to multi-nationals.

Meanwhile, Mr. Harper is adopting a 'trust me' strategy, saying that no deal will be entered into unless it is a net benefit to Canadians, an assertion that others find hard to swallow, given that he has never met a multi-national that he doesn't like.



Thinking Canadians will legitimately ask why, if the deal is to be so beneficial, the negotiations have been conducted behind such a thick, almost impenetrable, veil. To those who distrust our government, the answer is likely very clear.

Things We Are Not Supposed To Know Or Think About

While The Star's David Olive recently wrote an article extolling the economic benefits of the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership, others strongly suggest the need for extreme caution, not just because of potential job losses, but also due to the very real losses in national sovereignty that will ensue if the agreement is ever finalized.

Consider the following from The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur, who argues that the secrecy behind the negotiations is understandable, given that its benefits will redound not to the people, but to the multinational corporations. While speaking from an American perspective, his observations are equally applicable to Canada:



As well, Star readers sound these notes of caution about free trade agreements:

Trade pact coming, despite opposition, June 19

David Olive’s championing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is so wrong-headed, I hardly know where to begin. In suggesting that state authority and power in developing countries should rather give way to corporate power, he is doubling down on the proven dysfunction of such corporate hegemony, in terms of income inequality, and the impact on workers and the environmental.

To suggest that countries will be better off in a corporate-dominated world is naive at best. His assertion that Canada has really done fine as a result of free trade so far is also an amazingly blinkered view of reality.

Even measured in that narrowest of measures, GDP, we have not done as well in the last 20 years as we did in the “protectionist” era of the 1950s through 1970s. When you look at distribution of this GDP, it is obvious that middle class families have not benefited at all.

John Simke, Toronto

Free-trade agreements are based on the premise that if every country exports what it makes most efficiently and if governments clear the way for market forces to engage in transactions, then everyone will be better off. However, in practice, only multi-national corporations have benefited from free-trade agreements as national interests are undermined.

Taxes are lowered, public services are cut, wages are downgraded, environmental protection is weakened, and regulations are abolished. In short, economic activities have taken precedent over other considerations, such as social justice and national democratic mandates.

The European and North American experiences have shown how, under free trade, governments lose the ability to be responsive to the national needs. Under NAFTA, the Chapter 11 clause has allowed investors to launch successful legal challenges against governments, undermining their efforts to enforce environmental, health or safety standards.

The free trade arrangements worked for the West in the follow up to World War II. However, in the complex 21st century world, they are no longer working. We should come up with a way to regulate the damage done by free trade without undermining its advantages.

Ali Orang, Richmond Hill

Trade deals a big threat to Medicare, Letter June 21

I sincerely hope that the Star is mustering its considerable investigative talents to check out the alarming allegations in Professor Meyer Brownstone’s letter. He claims that the new Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) “includes health among services to be shifted to the corporate sector in a wholesale global privatization process that includes education, prisons and other public services.” He also claims that “all participants are sworn to secrecy for five years even if the negotiations fail.”

Thanks in advance for your excellent service in this and so many other secretive and complex matters.

Jean Gower, Kingston

And so the world moves on, not always for the better, while we sleep.

Please Sign This Petition

While many of us know that the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is being conducted in unprecedented secrecy (except, of course, in the case of the corporate sector that has full access to the discussions), it is difficult to rally opposition to it with few facts. I received a petition request today from Doctors Without Borders along with a sobering reminder of what could emerge if the agreement comes to pass in its present form: