March 30, 2007
Dear activists,
TILMA, the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement between British Columbia and Alberta, is scheduled to come into force this Sunday April 1.
Building on months of sustained opposition, citizens from at least 15 communities across British Columbia and Alberta will target their MLAs starting this Friday March 30 to demand that their provincial governments withdraw from TILMA.
For more information on these days of action please go to (in British Columbia) www.canadians.org/action/2007/30-Mar-07.html and (in Alberta) www.canadians.org/action/2007/13-Apr-07.html.
Additionally, activists in British Columbia and Alberta can support this effort by contacting your MLA today to indicate your opposition to TILMA. If you live in British Columbia, you can get the contact information for your MLA by going to www.leg.bc.ca/mla/3-1-1.htm. In Alberta, you can go to www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=mla_home.
BACKGROUND
In April 2006, without public consultation or legislative debate, the premiers of Alberta and British Columbia signed an unprecedented inter-provincial free trade deal called the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement.
Touted as an Agreement to erase interprovincial trade 'barriers' TILMA strips local government entities, including municipalities, school boards, publicly-funded academic, health and social service bodies, of protection from any private investor who deems a regulation to 'restrict or impair' their ability to profit. Under TILMA, even measures designed to protect the environment and public health are vulnerable to attack from corporate lawsuits with compensation penalties as high as $5-million.
Now that citizens have been able to see the agreement, they have identified it as a serious threat to democracy and the ability to govern in the public interest. Opposition has been fierce and proponents of TILMA are on the defensive.
The threat of TILMA also looms large for the rest of Canada. In the Harper government's Budget 2007, it states that, "The federal government...will work with interested provinces and territories to examine how the TILMA provisions could be applied more broadly to reduce interprovincial barriers to trade and labour mobility across the country."
Extensive information on TILMA - including fact sheets, backgrounders, media reports, and other key websites - can be found here.
The Council of Canadians media release "Citizens not fooled by TILMA: Demands grow for shelving April 1 implementation" can be found here.
You should also know that opposition to the far-reaching free trade pact continues to grow thanks to municipal action, where one successful tactic has been to consult municipal governments directly on the dangers TILMA poses to their ability to govern in the public interest. For more information on municipal strategies, please go to our "Contact your local mayor or city council" section.
Together we can stop TILMA. Our very health, the health of our environment, and our ability to create the kinds of communities we want to live in depends on it.
For more information about TILMA visit:
