MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 8, 2003

WTO collapsing under the weight of its contradictions
Council of Canadians sends 15 delegates to Cancun

OTTAWA, ONTARIO – International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew might be trying to soften the blow by lowering expectations before the upcoming WTO Ministerial Meeting in Cancun, but media representatives and citizens alike should make no mistake: the WTO is in difficulty.

“The Cancun meeting is not a mid-term review of the Doha negotiations,” says Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians, who will be in Cancun as an accredited NGO member. “Promises have been made to developing countries to convince them to sign on the Doha Declaration and undertake a new round. These promises have not been kept and as a result, important deadlines have been missed.”

The Council of Canadians will have 15 representatives in Cancun for the duration of the meeting. Ms. Barlow, Trade Campaigner Jean-Yves Lefort and Director of Campaigns and Communications Bill Moore-Kilgannon are all accredited as NGO members and will be available to meet with media representatives after each Canadian government briefing to NGOs and the media.

Seven board members will also be present to comment on the negotiations in the perspective of the issues being discussed, as well as Council’s campaigners with an expertise on genetic engineering, health and water.

The Cancun meeting offers an excellent opportunity to inform Canadians on how the WTO negotiations will affect them. The Canadian government is forcing many issues on developing nations and Minister Pettigrew has made no secret of his desire to use his position as Chair of the Trade and Investment Committee to launch negotiations on a new Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). Also of concern is the text of the draft declaration, which is proposing that all public services be on the GATS negotiating table.

The agreement in principle announced earlier this week on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) is deeply flawed and the compromises agreed upon will render them useless to the countries it is supposed to help. The fact that the pharmaceutical industry applauds the deal should make observers sceptical that this deal will be in the interest of the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and other diseases that ravage the poorest countries.

“For the WTO to ever work, the needs of developing countries have to be paid respect, not lip service.

“As for Canadians, they need, now more than ever, to carefully watch the proceedings. What the Canadian government and the WTO are debating will affect all our lives,” concludes Ms. Barlow.

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