For Immediate Release
April 27, 2009

Consult widely on NAFTA-plus with Europe, demands Council of Canadians

The Canada—European Union free trade agreement may have a green light from EU member states and Canadian provincial governments, but the wider-than-NAFTA scope of the proposed negotiations requires a much wider-than-planned public consultation, says the Council of Canadians.

“The Canada—EU trade negotiations could fundamentally change the way the Canadian economy works and our local communities govern themselves, more than any previous trade agreement, including NAFTA,” says Stuart Trew, trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians. “They’re not just talking about making designer Italian shoes a little cheaper for Canadian consumers. The European and Canadian investors pushing this deal have proposed a  shopping list of new restrictions on the extent to which local, provincial or federal governments manage corporate activity.”

Local purchasing policies at the city or provincial level, limits on private bidding for municipal infrastructure (including water) projects, and supply management in the dairy and other agricultural sectors could all become illegal under a Canada—EU free trade agreement, based on the terms of a scoping paper released at the end of March. This “scoping exercise” was endorsed by 100 of Canada’s and Europe’s largest corporations, including water multinationals Suez and Veolia, oil giants Royal Dutch Shell, Total S.A. and Suncor, financial players Deutsche Bank and Power Financial Corporation, mining companies Barrick Gold and Teck Cominco, genetically modified seed producer Monsanto Canada. The Canadian Department of International Trade hosted a limited web consultation for other groups but there is no evidence this input was incorporated into the framework for negotiations with the European Union.

“This new free trade agreement came out of nowhere. Canadians only found out late last year in media reports that a Canada—EU free trade agreement would dwarf NAFTA in scope by further ‘liberalizing’ trade and investment in the name of boosting corporate profits while further limiting the policymaking space of Canada’s cities and provinces,” says Trew. “At the very least, Canada’s cities should be part of these negotiations as they stand to lose the most from an agreement as currently laid out in the scoping framework. But more than that, all Canadians need a say in these free trade negotiations and other bilateral agreements currently being shielded from public debate by the Harper government.”

Trew notes that “liberalized” trade was conspicuously absent from discussions at the most recent Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, and that many countries that once embraced the free trade model in Latin America and elsewhere have turned their back on it and are looking for more democratic and egalitarian solutions. A far-reaching and unprecedented agreement with Europe makes no sense given that increasingly countries around the world are recognizing that free trade is not the panacea for economic and social development its proponents claim it to be.

“If the global economic crisis has taught us anything it is that a blind reliance on unregulated or under-regulated ‘open markets’ is part of the problem. Expanding and deepening these policies, this time with Europe, will not make average Canadians richer or more prosperous. It, like other free trade agreements before it, will only increase income inequality and reduce the amount of control have over our economies and our communities.”

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For more information or to arrange an interview contact:
Dylan Penner, 613-795-8685, dpenner@canadians.org