Tag Archives: trans-pacific partnership

Workers on both sides of Pacific oppose trade pact: Thomas

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SYDNEY, Australia, July 5, 2016 /CNW/ – Workers on both sides of the Pacific Ocean oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the President of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union says.

“I’m talking to working people on the other side of the world, and they’re echoing the sentiments I’m hearing about this latest trade deal from my members and Canadians at large,” said Warren (Smokey) Thomas from a union conference in Australia. “People don’t want to see public services cut and privatized, they don’t want public assets sold, and they don’t want more price-gouging by pharmaceutical companies. Yet this is exactly what the TPP would mean for all of us.”

A guest of the Health Services Union New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory (HSU), Thomas is meeting with union leaders and touring worksites to meet frontline health and social services workers.

“Our answer to the Trans-Pacific Partnership is Trans-Pacific Solidarity,” he said. “Working people working together can build a better, fairer world. I truly believe that.”

In a letter today to Canada’s House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade, Thomas outlined the multitude of ways the TPP would hurt all countries in the areas of trade, jobs, labour protections, and public services. He also pointed out the agreement’s total omission of the subject of climate change.

“While the federal government has committed to studying the potential impacts of the agreement, we have not seen a single update from them. This is not research-based policy-making.”

Perhaps the most ominous parts of the TPP, according to Thomas, are the “standstill” and “ratchet” provisions. The standstill provision requires governments to move only in the direction of greater privatization, while the ratchet provision bans governments from reversing any privatization efforts.

“Canadians don’t want to see their elected governments giving up power to corporations,” Thomas warned. “Signing on to this deal would set in motion a chain of events that threaten the hard-won victories of the global labour movement. It would have detrimental effects on generations of workers to come.”

SOURCE Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU)

Source: Workers on both sides of Pacific oppose trade pact: Thomas

TPP: Urgent need for full, independent assessment | Canadian Union of Public Employees

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Apr 18, 2016

Hearings into the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership kicked off in Vancouver with a stark warning from the Trade Justice Network about the deal’s many negative consequences, and an urgent call for a comprehensive, public and independent assessment of the pact.

TJN co-chair Blair Redlin told members of the House of Commons Committee on International Trade there is no rush to ratify the TPP, and every reason for a proper economic, social and environmental evaluation of the deal. CUPE is a member of the Trade Justice Network.

Outside the hearings, demonstrators rallied against Canada ratifying the deal, and advocacy group OpenMedia organized a giant TV screen displaying protest messages from across the country.

Redlin told the committee the TPP’s main goal is to protect foreign investors by securing and expanding corporate rights. The deal is less about trade, as 97 per cent of Canada’s exports to TPPcountries are already duty-free.

The TPP’s investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system will let foreign corporations sue governments if a law or regulation interferes with their investments – and profits. Under theseNAFTA-style rules, Canada is already the most-sued developed country. Expanding access to this one-sided process could mean a spike in new cases.

The TPP’s controversial ISDS rules will limit government powers to regulate in the public interest, including by supporting industries that create good local jobs, and protecting the environment. A government investing in transit or wind turbines could face challenges for favouring local procurement.

Ratifying the TPP comes at a high price, said Redlin. Independent analysis of the deal has found it will:

  • Cost Canada 58,000 jobs
  • Increase income inequality
  • Limit access to generic drugs, which in turn will drive up health care costs
  • Let corporations move to countries with cheaper labour and weaker labour laws
  • Hurt Canada’s agricultural, manufacturing and technology sectors
  • Threaten internet freedom

Redlin highlighted the outcomes of a recent TJN-sponsored forum, where Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz described the TPP as the “worst trade deal ever.”

The TPP was finalized by the former Harper government during last year’s federal election, and then signed by the new Liberal government. Consultations on the deal have been limited, poorly publicized, and have appeared to favour the voices of corporations – not citizens.

Source: TPP: Urgent need for full, independent assessment | Canadian Union of Public Employees

U.S. trade representative confident Congress will approve Pacific trade deal | GlobalPost

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) — U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman expressed confidence that U.S. Congress will ultimately approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, which was reached between the United States and 11 Pacific Rim countries earlier this month.

Source: U.S. trade representative confident Congress will approve Pacific trade deal | GlobalPost

Trans-Pacific Partnership | Doctors Without Borders Canada/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Canada

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Learn more about how the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is on track to become the most harmful trade pact ever for access to medicines in developing countries.

Source: Trans-Pacific Partnership | Doctors Without Borders

Will The Fight for Gay Rights Stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership?

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May 12, 2014

sultanofbruneiRT 500x333 Will The Fight for Gay Rights Stop the Trans Pacific Partnership?

By TJ Acena, PQ Monthly    May 12, 2014

You may have heard that wealthy Hollywood types are boycotting the Beverly Hills Hotel (assuming you follow news about places only rich Hollywood types can afford to stay). This is because the hotel is owned by an investment firm that is owned by the Sultan of Brunei. The Sultan is implementing Sharia law in the tiny kingdom, which would make it legal to stone adulterers and LGBTQ people to death and place harsh sentences on women who have abortions or become pregnant outside of marriage.

This on its own is upsetting enough, but I came across an article on the Huffington Post that pointed out that Brunei would be part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and this recent controversy could threaten the TPP.

What is the TransPacific Partnership? Well it is similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement and establishes a free trade zone around the Pacific Ocean, encompassing (currently) fourteen countries, 800 million people, and 40 percent of the global economy. President Obama has been trying hard to get this passed but it has come up against some opposition for some very good reasons:

  • From Médecins Sans Frontières: The TPP would establish strong intellectual property regimes that would extend patent monopolies on medications, delaying the production of generic drugs, including HIV medication. This would especially hurt people in developing countries at the expense of pharmaceutical companies, who have worked with the US government to help create the TPP.
  • From The Nation: Text from the Stop Online Piracy Act appears in the TPP. You might remember that Internet activist Aaron Swartz lead the public campaign to stop SOPA.
  • From Democracy Now!: The TPP is creates trade agreements similar to NAFTA, which hasn’t had the most amazing effects on the economies or the environments of the US or Mexico. According to Public Citizen Oregon lost over 18,000 manufacturing jobs (10%) during the NAFTA and WTO period (1994 – 2013)
  • From Democracy Now!: It would make it easier for corporations to sue countries for lost profits. To use a recent example: In El Salvador the government shut down a Canadian mining firm after it dumped poisonous chemicals into the drinking water. Under the trade agreement the company sued the country for $315 million. Hypothetically this could also allow Brunei to sue the United States for lost profits over the boycott of the Beverly Hill Hotel.

So we have a trade deal which could keep developing countries from getting HIV medication, curtail internet freedom, affects the global economy in ways we can’t imagine yet, give immense power to corporations, and we would enter into this agreement with a country (exercising its religious freedom) that thinks (even if the standards of proof are high) that it is OK to stone LGBTQ people to death or put women in prison for getting an abortion.

Now I hope that all this attention does change the mind of the Sultan of Brunei and stops the TPP.

BlogTail TJ 1 Will The Fight for Gay Rights Stop the Trans Pacific Partnership?