Tag Archives: canadian municipalities

Stop trade deals that undermine local power – CUPE

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May 27, 2016

Canadians want their communities governed in the public interest. But increasingly, trade deals like the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) threaten municipal rights and powers in favour of the interests of multinational corporations.

While the Canadian government has signed the TPP and CETA, both can still be blocked during the upcoming ratification process. There are many reasons why the federal government should not ratify either of these deals.

Canada is a trading nation and international trade is vital to all levels of our economy. But trade agreements must put the interests of Canadians before corporate profits. Modern trade deals like CETA and the TPP are more about expanding corporate rights and powers, and less about trade.

In fact, trade between Canada and its 11 TPP partners is already 97 per cent tariff free. The TPP’s 6,000 pages are mainly focused on giving corporations the power to challenge laws and regulations which affect their investments – and profits – in signatory countries where they do business. Both the CETA and TPP would give corporations the right to challenge, and potentially overturn, Canadian laws and regulations.

Unlike the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), CETA will fully cover Canadian municipalities. While the TPP does not currently cover subnational governments, like provinces and municipalities, Article 15.24 mandates Canada to begin negotiations to expand coverage, including to subnational governments no later than three years after the deal comes into force.

Trading away our democracy 

The TPP’s investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions, are similar to rules set out in NAFTA and CETA. The TPP’s investor arbitration rules will let transnational corporations bypass our public court system and sue governments over legislation or policies made in the public interest. The claims will be heard by secretive, pro-investor arbitration panels. It only takes two of three arbitrators – all corporate lawyers whose pay depends on the number of cases – to override legislation enacted by democratically-elected governments. This gives multinational corporations excessive power to undermine the authority of cities, provinces and the federal government to create reasonable rules and regulations such as environmental, health and labour safeguards; climate policy, food safety standards; protections for local jobs and businesses. As an example, when the Canadian government banned the import of a neuro-toxic gasoline additive called MMT, the US producer sued under NAFTA’s investment protections. Canada was forced to agree on a $13 million dollar settlement and reverse the ban.

CETA’s dispute settlement mechanism has recently been rebranded as Investor Court System (ICS) in order to make it sound more palatable. However, the accompanying cosmetic changes do little to prevent abuses from investors and arbitrators.

Locking in privatization and corporate profits

Under international trade rules, municipalities may find it expensive to bring a utility or service back in house, even if the costs of private delivery have sky-rocketed, or privatization has failed. Both CETA and the TPP ‘lock in’ privatization, and could make any attempt to bring contracted-out services back in house the target of an investor-state claim.

Similarly, living wage policies could trigger challenges. In 2012, the French utility company Veolia, present in some Canadian municipalities, launched a $115 million suit against the Egyptian government, under a bilateral investment treaty. The dispute stems from the City of Alexandria refusing to revise a waste disposal contract to meet higher costs, in part due to the introduction of a minimum wage.

Municipalities that want to favour local solar and wind energy over polluting fossil fuels may also face trade-related barriers. Under NAFTA, almost 40 per cent of investor claims using ISDS have challenged environmental regulations. A recent example is TransCanada Corporation suing the US government for $15 billion, after a democratically-elected president rejected the Keystone XL Pipeline over environmental concerns, and under mounting public pressure.

Driving up health, education costs

Major patent extensions in both CETA and the TPP will increase the price of prescription drugs as much as $2 billion per year, by some estimates. Drug costs are already the second-highest cost for provincial governments. Rising costs will mean pressure on municipal transfers and programs. Municipalities can also expect similar impacts on the costs of health benefit plans for employers.

Similarly, the TPP’s US-style copyright extensions will increase the time it takes for materials to fall into the public domain from 50 to 70 years. That will translate into up to $100 million per year in higher costs for municipal libraries, post-secondary libraries and public education more broadly.

Opening up municipal procurement

The total government procurement market in Canada is worth at least $100 billion per year. CETA will give access to provincial and municipal contracts and purchasing. The thresholds are so low (near $300,000 for goods and services contracts and $8 million for infrastructure projects) that most procurement contracts will be open to European firms. This will severely limit the ability of municipalities, school districts and other local authorities to establish ‘buy local’ or ‘buy Canadian’ policies. This would include banning measures that protect or promote local business opportunities and local jobs when municipalities contract for goods and services. Strategic purchasing strategies that promote local green jobs and local food policies may also be at risk.

Municipalities will likely also face increased costs associated with providing the federal government with information about their procurement activities. This includes publishing detailed notices and announcements of intended procurement, issuing tenders which comply with CETA procedures, and justifying procurement decisions to unsuccessful suppliers.

Need for more transparency and public debate

The investor protections and dispute settlement provisions included in both the TPP and CETA give too much power to corporations, at the expense of our democracy. Nobel Laureate and world-renowned economist Joseph Stiglitz recently described the TPP as “the worst trade deal ever.” And investor rights in CETA have sparked massive mobilizations across Europe.

Canada’s experience with NAFTA has meant the loss of between 300,000 and 400,000 well-paying manufacturing jobs, declining wages and a hollowing out of the middle class. Implementing the TPP and CETA will only entrench this new economic structure and further increase inequality.

More than 70 Canadian municipalities have passed resolutions expressing concern or asking to be exempted from CETA. Canadian municipalities are now beginning to pass resolutions raising similar concerns about the TPP. Cities and towns can use their voice at the table in provincial and federal forums to call for a real public debate and full, independent analysis of these trade agreements. Let’s ensure our public services, municipal rights and local democracy are not traded away.

For more information about CETA and the TPP visit cupe.ca/trade

Attachments Stop trade deals that undermine local power

Source: Stop trade deals that undermine local power – CUPE

A Race To The Floor For Minimum Wage: Can It Be Stopped?

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just-saying_thumb      By Andrew Chernoff     https://andrewchernoff.wordpress.com/

First it was Jordan Bateman of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation with his article, “The pay of government workers is way out of line” published July 31, 2013 in The Province, to which I made my feelings known about on August 3, 2013 in my commentary, “Bateman Advocates A Race To The Floor For Minimum Wage…You First, I’ll Give Ya A Push”.

Just like a bad smell you can’t get rid of, or a bad itch you just can’t seem to scratch, another proponent of the drive to lower wages——–using a corrosive and mean-spirited abuse of the privilege of free speech for hateful, venomous and spiteful unsupported comments with the intent to rile, incite anger and get an antagonistic reaction——comes forward.

Ms. Margaret Wente, a so-called journalist for the The Globe and Mail, woke up recently seemingly during that bitchy time of the month (the only way I can explain it), and decided to lambaste, insult and take undignified shots at Canada’s firefighters—all of the “Nations” firefighters—-without exception.

In her article on August 8, 2013,  “A Nation of $100,000 Firefighters”, Wente charges, “municipalities do not love firefighters.”

Further, she claims to speak and know the feelings of our municipalities and regions, proclaiming, “ Across Canada, towns and cities are getting hosed by the skyrocketing costs of their fire departments.”, of which firefighters, she suggests, are the main reason for those increased costs because, municipalities, “simply match the settlements that everybody else got, including police. So the costs spiral ever upward,”

She continues, by adding insult to injury when she claims, “Thanks to arbitration settlements, your firefighters are the best paid (and possibly the most underworked) guys in town.”

Really?? Possibly the most underworked in MY town? Hmmm….she’s been in my town??….I think not!

She claims to have nothing against fire fighters. “I have nothing against firefighters, personally. But times have changed. We can’t go on like this. I could write the same column about the police. You guys are supposed to protect us. But we can’t afford you any more.”

But she does say, “They look good on calendars.”  A sexist comment I dare say. And dare I do.

So nobody is safe. The police make too much. School teachers? Bus drivers? Janitors? Airline pilots? Ambulance drivers? Paramedics? Who is not a target for Ms. Wente?

She obviously has a lustful crush for Stephen Harper and his Canadian Austerity plan. In her desire to drive down wages, she is a true Harperite, spreading propaganda for that race to the floor for minimum wage, to increase that disparity between those that have, and those that don’t—between the 1% and the 99%.

According to Wente, our firefighters have barely anything to do, “Working conditions are pretty sweet too. Thanks to modern safety standards, there are very few fires left to fight. These days, most fire department calls are medical. To prove that they’re still needed, fire departments have been adding defibrillators and Jaws of Life, and frantically expanding their repertoires to respond to even minor non-fire emergencies. Still, there’s an awful lot of what we shall euphemistically call “down time,” which firemen fill by preparing meals, sleeping, watching television, polishing the trucks and rewinding the hoses.”

She claims that the costs and salaries for Canadian firefighters are for smaller cities, “typically the largest item in the budget. It accounts for upward of a quarter of their costs.” And that firefighters and their unions are so insensitive, greedy in the community and regions they live in, that “the costs spiral ever upward, and towns are forced to cut back on libraries and roads.”

This is one woman who has one hell of a bitchy time of the month; so much so, that a grizzly bear would be no match for her spite and hate.

“But the really crass way that the rich have of driving down wages is by subtly and not so subtly feeding people’s envy and greed…making us worry that someone else might be getting ahead, might be doing better than us. We aren’t talking about getting us riled over the wages of bankers, brokers and sports stars; we profile them in the fashion and shopping pages of the papers.”, OperationMaple writes in its reaction to Wente’s column, titled, “Let Us Count The Ways of Driving Down Wages”.

I continue with the following quote from OperationMaple’s article referred to above:

“The Rich and their Media Mavens saved the corrosive power of envy and greed for school teachers, fireman, bus drivers…all the folks that live next door and shop at the same stores we do. Let’s get agitated and angry with Joe down the street and Alice around the corner for having a job with a union, a negotiated wage and benefits and let’s try and pull them down to our situation…part time work and no benefits and lousy pay. Because when their economic situation is as desperate as ours, then everything will be ok.

They get paid too much and work too little and couldn’t we all get by with a volunteer firefighting force? Just because they are the ones who run into burning buildings when the rest of us are running from burning buildings, in Wente’s view, doesn’t justify the wage they get.

It used to be the case that when people got decent wages and benefits through collective action we’d all cheer them on and try to copy their efforts, create our own unions and seek our own collective success. Not anymore. Now we just want to tear down those folks lucky enough to have a union. The drive to lower wages by making all of us envious of our neighbours is succeeding. That’s why the 1% and their media allies, their media employees go after Employment Insurance and Firefighter wages…because it works and it distracts us from the folks that are truly criminally over-paid: bankers and brokers.”

I conclude with the following remarks.

The drive to lower wages may be succeeding in some minds, but it has not succeeded everywhere and with everybody. Are you going to let it happen to you? Will you start fighting back now, and let yourself be heard? Will you stand up? Will you get involved in civil disobedience and fight the good fight?

The drive to lower wages is nothing but a race to the floor of minimum wage. We are expected to give up more, so the rich can get richer? I think not.

The richest 300 people in the world are more wealthy than the poorest 3 billion combined, and every year rich countries take over 10 times more money from poor countries than they give in aid, according to therules.org. Find out more by visiting  http://www.therules.org

Don’t let yourself succumb to the race to the floor of minimum wage.