(OTTAWA) New talks at the World Trade Organization (WTO) could end up handcuffing democratic governments even more severely than last year's proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), say members of the Council of Canadians, the Canadian Labour Congress, the Sierra Club of Canada and the Polaris Institute, who today announced a national campaign aimed at halting the upcoming talks.

The Canadian campaign is part of an international effort to convince WTO countries to assess the damage already caused by trade liberalization. Officials from the 134 member countries of the WTO are scheduled to meet in Seattle, November 30 - December 3, 1999 for the so-called Millennium Round of trade talks.

"It's very clear that our government has so far learned nothing either from recent WTO rulings against the Autopact and Canadian magazines or from the criticisms raised by countless Canadians against the MAI," said Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians, who was scheduled to meet this afternoon with International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew about Canadians' concerns.

"The WTO contains no minimum standards to protect the environment, labour rights, social programs or cultural diversity, yet it has already been used to strike down a number of key nation-state environmental, food safety, and human rights laws," said Barlow.

Among the deals already brokered by the WTO is the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS), which critics say could be used in the upcoming talks to launch an assault on public health care and education. The United States and the European Union have already said they want to see national health care systems opened up to foreign competition. Opening up the GATS for minor changes could allow them to do it.

"The WTO is alone among international institutions in having the authority to challenge laws, policies and programs of countries that do not conform to WTO rules and to strike them down if they are seen as too 'trade restrictive,'" said Tony Clarke of the Polaris Institute.

"The government needs to come clean on its negotiating position heading into these talks. It can't keep going to the WTO and trading away its power to protect Canadian industry and society," said Hassan Yussuff, Executive Vice-President of the Canadian Labour Congress.

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