Category Archives: CETA

ACTION ALERT: Defend B.C. Municipalities from CETA

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September 6, 2013 http://www.canadians.org

From September 16 to 20, mayors and councillors from British Columbia will meet for the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities convention in Vancouver. At each year’s meeting since 2010, the UBCM has passed a motion asking the provincial government to negotiate “a clear, permanent exemption for local governments” from the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

Local governments have to be excluded from CETA or they will lose the ability to put “buy local” or “Buy Canadian” conditions on public spending. Local preferences on big government purchases or major construction and other projects make a lot of sense a lot of the time. “Buy local” food policies, for example, are important food security measures globally. Local content quotas on green energy projects can foster innovation in renewable power technology.

But we know from leaked CETA documents that the B.C. Liberal government is ignoring the municipal request to be excluded from these CETA prohibitions, as are other provinces where local governments, school boards and municipal associations are passing CETA motions. So the City of Cumberland is putting the EU deal back on the UBCM agenda with yet another motion seeking a municipal carve-out (see B40 in the 2013 Resolutions document).

TAKE ACTION – Support the Cumberland motion, demand more of UBCM

With the CETA negotiations nearly concluded, according to the most recent news, we’ve got to make this Cumberland motion count. There are a few things you can do in your community to help:

1. Write or visit your councillors and mayor to ask them to support Cumberland’s CETA motion going to UBCM (B40 in the resolutions document). To find your councillor’s contact information, use the CIVICINFOBC website here: http://www.civicinfo.bc.ca/11.asp.

Sample message (or talking points if you visit in person):

Dear Councillor/Mayor ____________, I am very concerned about the impact that a Canada-European Union trade deal will have on our community if it includes a ban on “buy local” policies as demanded by the EU. I think we should be looking for ways to support local companies, workers and farmers when we spend public money. But CETA would make those policies illegal or else very difficult to put in place. That’s why I hope you will support a motion from the City of Cumberland asking the Union of B.C. Municipalities to request “a clear, permanent exemption for local governments from CETA.” Thank you, [Your Name]

2. Write UBCM executive members to ask what they are doing to make sure that the B.C. Liberal government listens to the repeated requests of B.C. municipalities for an exemption from CETA. Last year’s executive committee members can be found here: http://www.ubcm.ca/EN/main/about/executive/executive-members.html. You can use CIVICINFOBC again to easily find their contact information by searching for the city of each member.

Sample message:

Dear Councillor/Mayor _______________, I am very concerned about the impact that a Canada-European Union trade deal will have on B.C. communities if it includes a ban on “buy local” policies as demanded by the EU. That’s why I support the repeated calls of the Union of B.C. Municipalities for a “clear, permanent exemption for local governments from CETA.” As an executive member of the Union of B.C. Municipalities, I believe it is your role to do more to make sure the province listens to this widely held position. The UBCM cannot be satisfied with anything less than proof the B.C. government will exempt local governments from CETA’s overly restrictive rules on public spending. Thank you, [Your Name]

3. Write or visit your provincial MLA asking her/him to listen to UBCM on CETA. You can find your MLA’s contact information on the B.C. government website here: http://www.leg.bc.ca/mla/3-1-1.htm.

Sample message (or talking points if you visit in person):

Dear __________, I’m writing to express my strong concern with ongoing Canada-European Union trade negotiations and their impact on my community. The Union of British Columbia Municipalities has three times now requested “a clear, permanent exemption for local governments from CETA.” That’s because they can see that the EU agreement will ban “buy local” policies on public spending, and put other restrictions on local governments that don’t make sense. Around the world, local governments are trying to increase the amount of money they spend locally – for environmental reasons as much as to create jobs or support local farmers in the case of food purchases. I don’t see why pro-local policies should be made illegal by a trade deal. The B.C. government has a responsibility to listen to the UBCM by excluding local governments from these rules in CETA. I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, [Your Name]

4. Draw attention to the UBCM motion on social media. Leading up to and including the dates of the UBCM convention (September 16 – 20), you can let people know about CETA and the UBCM motion by tweeting a link to the motion and saying you support it. Make sure you use the hashtag for the UBCM convention, which is #UBCM2013. If your councillor is on Twitter, you can also direct your message to her/him.

Sample tweets (@MarySjostrom is Mary Sjostrom, the current president of UBCM):

BC communities want to be excluded from Canada-EU deal. Tell your councillor you support @ubcm2013 motion B40 http://www.ubcm.ca/assets/Resolutions~and~Policy/Resolutions/Resolutions%20Book%202013.pdf

@MarySjostrom The @UBCM can do more to make sure communities are excluded from #CETA. Pls make sure @christyclarkbc listens! #ubcm2013

Good luck and please let us know what you hear from your councillors and MLAs. The provincial government has a responsibility to listen to its municipalities on CETA. They are the ones who will be the most impacted by this strange trade deal with Europe that would ban “buy local” policies.

C.E.T.A: “Final Push” In September

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By Terry Wilson      August 21, 2013    http://canadianawareness.org

Canadian trade minister Ed Fast says negotiations with the Europe Union are re-launching early next month in a final push to complete a comprehensive deal, adding all that is needed is a “little flexibility” on both sides.

“Early in September we will be re-engaging and there’s no reason to believe that with a little bit of flexibility on both sides that we can’t resolve the remaining outstanding issues,” Fast said “There’s only a very small handful of outstanding issues and we’re trying to bring some creative approaches to try to bridge those gaps.”

He gave no specifics but sources have said the major stumbling blocks include the EU’s reluctance to allow more access for Canadian beef and pork, outstanding issues on drug patents, financial services and provincial procurements.

“We’re getting very close,” Fast said in a telephone interview from Brunei, where the minister was engaged in two other trade liberalizing initiatives with the 10-nation ASEAN pact and the 12-country TransPacific Partnership. Source: theglobeandmail.com

Never heard of C.E.T.A (Comprehensive economic trade agreement)? Here are two great video’s that show what it will do for Canada.

 

 

It is a well know fact that the European Union was started with trade agreements. We now are seeing this on a global scale, ushering in globalization.

Nafta, then the SPP agreement, and now the North American Security Perimeter Deal will become facets of the North American trading block (similar to the EU). The same is/has been done in other regions of the world (Asian Pacific Union, African Union, etc.). The “deals” like C.E.T.A and the TPP. Will be the global “trade” regulations between the Unions.

If we are to preserve what is left of Canadian sovereignty and resist the coming corporate run world government that is being built up before our very eyes. We must (peacefully) fight against these agreements with everything that we have!

CETA talks ‘re-launch’ in September: Council of Canadians to deliver petitions in Brussels

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By Stuart Trew   August 22, 2013   http://rabble.ca

Council-of-Canadians's picture      Council of Canadians’ blog

CETA talks 're-launch' in September: Council of Canadians to deliver petitions in Brussels

Between September 17 and 19, the Council of Canadians will hand-deliver a CETA petition, signed by thousands of people in Canada, to Members of the European Parliament in Brussels. The petition focuses on the excessive (FIPA- or NAFTA-like) investor protections built into the proposed Canada-EU deal but it is more broadly designed to protest a deal that few people have heard of, even after four years of negotiations, and that a growing number oppose.

The timing of the petition delivery is especially important after news that the Harper government will “re-launch” the Canada-EU trade talks in early September, with the aim of wrapping up the negotiations before parallel EU-U.S. talks begin in October.

We need your help gathering signatures for the petition so it can have maximum effect in Europe and right here in Canada. There are two easy ways that you can help:

1. Circulate the petition to your friends and, if you’re a member of a union or other organization, to your colleagues as well. If you have a website, consider copying our web action image (top left) and use it on your site to link back to our petition page.

2. If you are holding or attending public events in the next two weeks, you could print off the letter and have people sign it right away. Hard-copy letters can be mailed to our offices at 170 Laurier Avenue West, Ste. 700, Ottawa, Ontario, K1P 5V5.

Council of Canadians Executive Director Garry Neil will travel to Brussels on September 17 to meet with Members of the European Parliament and trade justice allies, and will deliver the petitions at this point. So we would need to have all hard-copy petitions/letters at our head office by Monday, September 16. We will continue to accept online signatures to the petition up to September 17.

Thank you for your help and good luck!

For more information about the Canada-EU deal, visit Canadians.org/CETA

The Council of Canadians is Canada’s largest citizens’ organization, with members and chapters across the country. We work to protect Canadian independence by promoting progressive policies on fair trade, clean water, energy security, public health care, and other issues of social and economic concern to Canadians.

Corporate elite grumbles over possible CETA failure

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By Stuart Trew   | August 5, 2013   http://rabble.ca

Corporate elite grumbles over possible CETA failure

John Manley, the former Liberal deputy prime minister and current mouthpiece of Canada’s corporate elite, wants Prime Minister Harper to send a “high-level” political mission to Europe to save the stalled Canada-European Union free trade negotiations. Manley made these comments in an interview with The Canadian Press last week, a few days after publishing an op-ed in the Globe and Mail that argued “quitting [the CETA] is not an option.”

“Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched the talks on Canada’s behalf, and he is the only person with the authority to make the hard choices that inevitably arise in negotiations this complex,” he wrote on July 25. “On the EU side, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso must summon the political courage to carry his 28 member states over the finish line. No new issues or backsliding can be tolerated. The only acceptable direction is forward.”

It is typical Manley — not a second thought for democracy, just big, strong leaders making tough decisions that will help us all in the end because they help Big Business.

Manley also doesn’t explain what would make this urgent political delegation different from the past two or three attempts to seal a deal, including Harper’s multi-country trip to Europe before the G20 summit this June.

But cut the guy some slack. The CCCE has not been paying as much attention to the CETA negotiations as past trade efforts or Canada’s current Asian trade and investment talks like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and bilateral negotiations with Japan. At least that’s how it seemed until now.

Is corporate Canada getting nervous? Maybe. And it’s probably not because of the actual payoff from a deal with Europe, which is flimsy. (See Public Citizen’s recent assessment of the value to the average American — a chocolate bar a month, starting in 2029 — of a proposed U.S.-EU trade deal.) This is about free trade machismo.

“Canada needs to demonstrate that it can reach an agreement with Europe if it is to have much hope of making headway in trade negotiations with emerging markets in Asia,” wrote Manley in the Globe and Mail. “The government’s trade policy is dependent on this,” he later told CP. “If we don’t do Europe, there’s not a lot to show for our trade policy.”

The CP article explains that that the problems facing the Canada-EU talks include “counter-balancing Europe’s need to win greater access for cheese producers, with Canada’s demand that Europeans open the gate to Canadian beef and pork exports.” As well, “Canada is being asked to accept stricter European standards on patent protection for pharmaceutical drugs, which provinces have resisted because it could push up drug prices by as much $2 billion annually.”

The article also quotes trade lawyer Laurence Herman suggesting the government and business sector have not done enough to sell the benefits of CETA to the masses, “particularly as the critics — such as the Council of Canadians and other civil society groups — have been successful in underscoring the concessions Ottawa and the provinces must make.”

So when might a Manley-endorsed high-level meeting be possible? Not until after the European vacation month of August, according to iPolitics.ca.

“One challenge that we face is that in the summer — August, usually — the Commission…this is their period where they usually close down, so it is more challenging right now to engage with them,” Frédéric Seppey, Canada’s chief agriculture negotiator, told iPolitics at the U.S. Grains Council Annual Board of Delegates last week. “But we’re hopeful that in September it can resume and conclude in a timely fashion.”

Take action

Two billion bucks in extra drug costs is not chump change. The drug patent demands of the European Union are unacceptable. They render any modest economic benefits almost meaningless to Canada. The new limits CETA would put on provincial and municipal public spending, on the creation new public services, on telecommunications policy, on financial services regulation — all of this already in Canada’s offers to the EU, which have leaked — are also already too much to pay for small potential market access gains in Europe for Canadian agricultural products.

Manley says quitting CETA is not an option. We think it’s the best one. Whichever you believe, we can’t let Corporate Canada’s rush for an EU deal get in the way of democracy and our right to have a say in the CETA negotiations before anything is signed. You can tell the PM and opposition parties how you feel by using our action alert, WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH EUROPE? As always, let us know what you hear back from the government and opposition parties.

Premiers urged to hold public hearings on Canada-EU trade deal

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The Canadian Press
Published Monday, July 22, 2013 6:37AM EDT

OTTAWA — Critics of the free trade talks with Europe are urging provinces to ensure any negotiated deal gets a full public airing before it is formally signed.

The Trade Justice Network and Quebec-based Le Reseau quebecois sur l’integration continentale has sent premiers a letter in advance of their meeting in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., next week, saying the federal review mechanism is not sufficient.

The umbrella groups, which represent unions and civil society organizations, say provinces must step in because “the current federal government has rejected virtually every amendment proposed by opposition parties to every trade agreement that has come before Parliament for review.”

The Harper government has made a successful Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with 28 European Union nations a key economic and political goal — it would constitute the only major free trade deal since NAFTA two decades ago.

Unlike trade talks of the past, however, Canadian provinces have had to be directly involved in the process since some of the biggest issues — such as liberalized government procurement and public hydro-electricity tenders — fall under provincial jurisdiction.

As well, expected extensions in pharmaceutical patent protections will likely result in higher provincial health care costs.

With so much involved, the groups say the provinces must hold public hearings, adding there is precedent for doing so.

“If there is a difference between the CETA and these other trade and investment agreements it is surely that the Canada–EU agreement will have far greater impacts on provincial sovereignty, as well as on policy flexibility at all levels, including municipally,” the letter notes.

“We therefore urge your government, and the Council of the Federation, to champion the idea of a democratic review of the CETA in between conclusion of the negotiations and a formal signing of the agreement.”

Adam Taylor, a spokesman for International Trade Minister Ed Fast, insisted Sunday that the talks with the European Union are the most transparent and collaborative trade negotiations Canada has ever conducted.

“From the beginning, provinces and territories have been active participants, and municipalities and stakeholders from across the country from a variety of sectors have been consulted regularly,” Taylor wrote in an email to The Canadian Press.

“Together, we are working hard to conclude an agreement that generates benefits in every region of the country and creates jobs, growth and long-term prosperity for Canadian exporters, workers and families,” he said.

Most analysts believe a deal could be signed in principle this fall, despite several missed deadlines.

Officials on both sides of the Atlantic contend only a few difficult issues remain to be resolved, including expanded access for Canadian beef exports and European demands that Canada allow more imports of European dairy products.

But analysts also warn momentum could be stalled if the talks are not concluded quickly, particularly as the European Union is refocusing its attention on a deal with the more lucrative market in the United States.

Ottawa has maintained a deal could boost Canada’s economy by $12 billion and create about 80,000 jobs, although critics say the benefits are exaggerated.