PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 12, 2005

Council of Canadians opposes service negotiations at WTO

The Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest citizens’ advocacy group, will be at the WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong this week to demand that the Canadian government refrain from participating in the WTO service negotiations before assessing the threat to Canadian public services.

“Canadians have always been told that our public services were exempt from the General Agreement on Trade Services (GATS),” explains Maude Barlow, national chairperson for the Council of Canadians. “Now Canada has joined other industrialized countries to push for a broader, more coercive deal on services, which could jeopardize our public services.”

Two WTO panel decisions on the GATS reveal that the GATS restricts domestic regulation to a greater extent than assumed by member countries when they originally signed on.

In a dispute launched by the U.S. against Mexico on telecommunication, the panel ruled that the right to regulate included in the introduction to the GATS extended only so far as regulations did not impair the trading rights guaranteed by the GATS. In the Antigua gambling case, the U.S. lost the argument that it had never intended to make gambling part of its GATS commitment.

Similarly, the Council of Canadians argues that Canada is at high risk of losing its ability to protect health care services, education, culture and the environment from international trade interests under the GATS.

“Before International Trade Canada continues its reckless endorsement of the GATS the Canadian government should make a public assessment of its impacts,” argues Jean-Yves Lefort, trade campaigner for the Council of Canadians. The WTO is currently under the obligation to conduct such an assessment internationally, but this has not been done.

“The overriding goal of the Canadian government should be to improve overall conditions for Canadians and not just to seek foreign markets for Canadian exporters,” says Barlow.

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For more information, contact:
Dylan Penner, Media Officer, Council of Canadians: (613) 233-4487, ext. 249; 1-800-387-7177, ext. 249; .