(OTTAWA) New talks being launched today at the World Trade Organization (WTO) are designed to ensure the gradual privatization of virtually every public service from local water services and education to health care, culture and the environment, say members of the Common Front on the WTO (CFWTO). Government ministers and trade bureaucrats are meeting at the WTO in Geneva today to begin renegotiating the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

Member organizations of the CFWTO, a coalition representing over 50 national organizations, have written to Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew expressing their concerns. "The sole purpose of the current GATS negotiation," says Tony Clarke, Vice-Chair of the Council of Canadians, "is to open up public services to privatization and international competition and remove whatever controls currently exist to ensure they remain public. Private, for-profit companies will reap the rewards; the public will pay the costs."

CFWTO member organizations are joining with over 500 civil society organizations around the world in endorsing an international "Stop the GATS Attack" statement. Coming on the heels of CFWTO cross-Canada briefings on the GATS in Halifax, Toronto, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg and Vancouver and St. John's, they are urging Canadians coast to coast to contact Trade Minister Pettigrew, Prime Minister Chrétien and local MPs to voice their opposition.

"We see this agreement going even further than the proposed FTAA. In fact, it would set the benchmark for the proposed negotiations on services in the FTAA as well as any subsequent trade deals, and make possible the eventual privatization of over 160 public service sectors," says Jen Anthony, Deputy Chair of the Canadian Federation of Students.

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