Elizabeth Warren On The Trans Pacific Partnership

Recently, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a woman I much admire, released a five-minute video that takes aim at the Trans Pacific Partnership, specifically denouncing the Investor State Dispute Settlement provisions that give corporate entities the right to impinge upon a country's sovereignty through lawsuits if legislation affects their ability to make a profit.

Even though it is aimed at an American audience, Canada is mentioned in the warning; all of us would be very wise to take what she says very seriously, given the enthusiasm our 'new' government has for globalized trade.



I look forward to the day when our 'leaders' explain to us why these investor rights are good for all of us.

For more information about why this deal is bad and dangerous, click here.

Canada To Sign TPP

The federal government has confirmed that it intends to sign the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal at a meeting next week in New Zealand.

But that doesn't mean the Liberal government will ultimately ratify the 12-country treaty, International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland said Monday.

"Just as it is too soon to endorse the TPP, it is also too soon to close the door," Freeland wrote in an open letter posted on her department's website.

"Signing does not equal ratifying.... Signing is simply a technical step in the process, allowing the TPP text to be tabled in Parliament for consideration and debate before any final decision is made."

'We're very much not there yet' on TPP, says trade minister

Only a majority vote in the House of Commons would ensure Canada's ratification of the deal, she added.

Methinks that with a Liberal majority, that ratification is a foregone conclusion.

"It's A Trojan Horse In A Global Race To The Bottom"

That's how Former Secretary of Labour Robert Reich, in this brief but very illuminating explanation, describes the Trans Pacific Partnership, approved by the Harper government but not yet ratified. It will be the first real test of how well the new Trudeau government listens to people.

A Quick Thought About The TPP

I was not planning to write about the Trans Pacific Partnership deal gleefully announced by Mr. Harper yesterday, trade and economics not being my strong suits. However, looking at the overall details of what it entails prompts me to make an observation.

First, a few of the details:

Beef and Pork

Under the deal, Canada could double or triple its annual beef exports to Japan to nearly $300 million, according to the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association. The beef industry would see a phase out in tariffs to those countries from 39 per cent to 9 per cent over 15 years. The deal also secures Canada’s ability to export more pork to Japan, where producers sell roughly $1 billion worth of the meat annually.

Fish and Seafood

The deal means far greater access for Canadian producers to other Pacific Rim markets. Canadian seafood — from frozen fish to fresh crab and lobster —is currently slapped with tariffs of up to 15 per cent in Japan and Malaysia, 34 per cent in Vietnam and 5 per cent in New Zealand. The tariffs on fish and seafood to those countries would be gone within a decade. Japan imports a number of premium seafood products from Canada such as crab, shrimp, lobster, herring roe, sea urchins, salmon and halibut.

Forestry/wood products
About $1 billion in Canadian forest products were subject to tariffs last year. Exports to countries like Japan, Vietnam and Malaysia will gradually be reduced, thereby increasing access for these products.

Metals and Mining

Iron and steel products would benefit from Japan eliminating tariffs of up to 6.3 per cent within 10 years, Vietnam wiping out tariffs of up to 40 per cent within 10 years, Malaysia doing away with tariffs of up to 25 per cent within a decade, and Australia cutting tariffs of up to 5 per cent within four years.

I trust that you can see the pattern here. The gains under this deal for Canada reside almost exclusively in what are called primary industries. What is a primary industry?

An industry involved in the extraction and collection of natural resources, such as copper and timber, as well as by activities such as farming and fishing. A company in a primary industry can also be involved in turning natural resources into products.

Primary industry tends to make up a larger portion of the economy of developing countries than they do for developed countries.

It seems to me that the deal Canada is entering into is merely a continuation of the Harper retrograde vision of Canada as the traditional hewer of wood and drawer of water, a vision he based the bulk of our economic hopes on in his relentless promotion of the Alberta tarsands.

Value-added jobs will take a real hit under the TPP:

Automobiles and Auto Parts

An auto will need to contain just 45 per cent TPP content to qualify for free trade. And for auto parts, the figure is 40 per cent. that’s down from 62.5 per cent and 60 per cent respectively under the North American Free Trade Agreement, which this will replace. Japan already offers duty-free access to passenger vehicles and auto parts. Canada agreed to phase out its 6.1 per cent tariff on imported vehicles over five years. Malaysia and Vietnam, which have tariffs of 35 per cent and 74 per cent respectively, agree to phase them out over 12 years.

According to Unifor president Jerry Dias, that betrayal concession will cost upwards of 20,000 auto industry jobs.

And what do we get in return? Long-term elimination of tariffs that may allow for more sales of industrial pumps, medical equipment, and harvesters and mowers.

As well, there is the opening up of Canada's dairy market, in exchange for which Harper is promising billions of our tax dollars to farmers who will suffer losses.

I'll leave it to others with more wisdom to decide if all of this sounds like it will produce a net benefit for Canada.

Robert Reich's Warning About the Trans Pacific Partnership

Although directed to an American audience, these warnings are equally applicable to Canada:

The Trans Pacific Partnership is a zombie that refuses to die no matter how many stakes are driven through its heart. Today the Senate voted 60 to 37 in favor of “fast track” negotiating authority, and final passage of fast track is expected tomorrow – laying the groundwork for an up-or-down vote on the TPP without amendment or full discussion. The big global corporations and Wall Street banks that initiated and have lobbied hard for this anti-worker deal smell victory. Don’t let them have it. Please call your senators and representative now, even if you’ve phoned before, and tell them: No to fast-track and no to the Trans Pacific Partnership. Congressional switchboard: 202-225-3121. Here, again, is what’s at stake:

Posted by Robert Reich on Tuesday, June 23, 2015

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.

Canada and Egypt: A Study in Contrasts

My wife, well aware of my anguish over the disengagement with democracy of so many Canadians, made a comment this morning that has inspired this post. She observed the sharp contrast that exists with Egypt, where the notion of democracy is still more a dream than a reality, a dream the people feel is well-worth putting themselves at risk of arrest, injury, and even death, to achieve. This became quite apparent less than two years ago with the vigorous protests leading to the toppling of Hosni Mubarak, and the people's passion continues to this day, evident in the demonstrations against President Mohamed Morsi's attempt to arrogate dictatorial powers in the guise of 'protecting democracy.'

Well, it seems that taking the notion and promise of democracy seriously has paid off for the Egyptians. As reported in today's Star, Morsi made unexpected concessions Saturday in a move to appease opponents — even rescinding most of the Nov. 22 decree that gave him sweeping new powers. While there remains the very real question of whether these concessions will be enough to quell the strong opposition to Morsi, it is nonetheless instructive in what an engaged citizenry can accomplish.

The contrast with Canada couldn't be sharper. I have written several times on the state of democracy under Harper, most times with a note of despair over the willful contempt the Prime Minister has shown for our traditions, and the singular lack of outrage expressed over that contempt by the majority of Canadians. But it would also seem that even when people attempt to participate in the 'discussion,' their voice is ignored, even suppressed.

One of the latest examples demonstrating the contemptuous and autocratic rule of the Harper regime is to be found in the machinations playing out in the Trans-Pacific-Partnership talks, which many claim is one of the biggest threats to our sovereignty to come along in decades. In his column today, Michael Geist reports on the Harper propensity for secrecy and the suppression of any information that contradicts his policies.

Observing that the deal may require a major overhaul of Canadian agriculture, investment, intellectual property and culture protection rules, Geist reports:

The talks remain shrouded in darkness, with a draft text that is secret; public interest groups are largely banned from where the negotiations are being held.

Moreover, the Canadian government has failed to engage openly with the public on the TPP. Foreign Affairs has created an insider “consulting group” that will be granted access to secret and confidential information regarding the negotiations (members of the group are required to sign a nondisclosure agreement). The department has not publicly disclosed the existence of the consulting group or indicated who might be granted privileged access to otherwise confidential information.

To compound this open disdain for any semblance of democratic transparency, despite the fact that the Harper regime launched a six-week public consultation on Canada's potential participation in the trade talks,

... the government never revealed the results. The individual submissions were not posted online and no public report summarizing the responses was ever published.

Yet, according to documents obtained under the Access to Information Act, the government was overwhelmed with negative comments urging officials to resist entry into the TPP and the expected pressures for significant intellectual property reforms as part of the deal.

In addition to tens of thousands of form letters and emails criticizing the TPP, the government received hundreds of individual handcrafted responses that unanimously criticized the proposed agreement.

Suppression of information. Contempt for the will of the people. Disregard for democracy. They all sound like pretty good reasons to take to the streets.

I'm sure the Egyptians would agree.

More on The Harper Betrayal of All of Us

I wrote a recent brief post on the Trans Pacific Partnership that Canada recently signed onto, the price of admission being the surrender of much of our sovereignty over the environment, working conditions, etc.

A new article published in The Nation paints a grim portrayal indeed of the future we face as a nation when this pact is finalized, going well beyond the compromises made in NAFTA.

I urge you to read it, and consider what each of us can do, given the fact that we, our children and our grandchildren will all be the poorer for this absolute betrayal by the Harper government.

H/t to Kev.

Trans-Pacific Partnership: Harper To Surrender More Of Our Sovereignty To Corporations

As has already been reported, the price of admission for Canada's entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations is the acceptance of everything thus far negotiated. Although all of the talks are secret, with corporations but not citizens privy to its contents, this much is known: the TPP enhances corporate rights to sue governments when public policies interfere with how, when and where they make profits - in others words, a further abdication of our national sovereignty, a process that began under NFTA.

This link includes a video that offers some insight into what is going on behind our backs, and it is nothing less than an absolute and utter betrayal of all of us. Although spoken of from an American perspective, don't forget that the changes discussed will apply to all signatories.