Leaked documents expose looming political challenge for Canada

(OTTAWA) The Council of Canadians released today a copy of the European Union's requests to Canada for the negotiations of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) at the WTO.

This secret document exposes for the first time the far-reaching implications of what is going to be negotiated behind closed doors. The GATS agreement touches practically every aspect of our lives and the Europeans' proposal will have serious implications for all levels of governments.

"This is very bad news for Canada that the Europeans are going to be aggressively pushing for liberalization of so many aspects of our services," said Maude Barlow, Chairperson of the Council of Canadians. "This is a direct attack on our rights to protect our water, culture and economic sovereignty."

On behalf of the EU's giant water corporations, the European Commission is asking Canada to completely open all water services involving "water collection, purification and distribution services through mains" to foreign competition. "The loss of public control of our water, is a recipe for further disasters like Walkerton," said Maude Barlow.

The Commission is challenging Canada's exemption for the distribution of "musical scores, audio and video recordings; and books, magazines, newspapers, journals, periodicals and other printed matter." They are asking Canada to remove all restrictions, such as limits on foreign ownership, of news agencies and the removal of limits of aspects of the printing and publishing industry committed to GATS rules.

"The EC requests are extreme and aggressive," said Scott Sinclair senior researcher with CCPA. "The EC is looking to eliminate most of Canada's existing GATS exemptions: from controls on non-resident ownership of land, local benefit agreements in major energy projects, to the 10% limits on ownership of Canadian banks. It's important to realize that, if accepted, these requests would not only eliminate many existing policies, they would prevent any Canadian government (federal, provincial or local) from adopting similar policies in future. This is a very significant constraint on our democratic flexibility."

"A broad range of Canadian policies at every level of government would have to be eliminated or changed to accommodate the Commission," says trade expert Ellen Gould. "These include federal reviews of foreign takeovers of Canadian companies, provincial restrictions on who can own land (eg- P.E.I. costal lands), and municipal regulations of activities like outdoor advertising. The Commission is challenging the ability of Canadians to determine how professionals are licensed and accredited, with potentially negative consequences for the reliability of the full range of professional services."

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