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Victory! Well, sort of... Council welcomes NAFTA victory while decrying NAFTA rules

Thanks to a NAFTA tribunal decision in June, courier giant UPS will have to keep its hands off our mail. The Council of Canadians and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers are pleased that United Parcel Service’s complaint under the North American Free Trade Agreement was rejected by the tribunal hearing the case. Still, we remain unhappy with the tribunal process and particularly object to NAFTA’s Chapter 11.

UPS sued Canada over six years ago under Chapter 11, which allows corporations to challenge governments if they think their investments are restricted by government measures. UPS claimed that its investments were being threatened by Canada’s publicly funded network of mailboxes and post offices because this network allegedly provided Canada Post with an unfair advantage.

“We are very happy that the tribunal rejected UPS’s complaint, but that doesn’t mean we think NAFTA works,” said CUPW National President Deborah Bourque. “NAFTA allowed UPS to put the public postal service and jobs on trial. A secret trial.”

Jean-Yves LeFort, campaigner for the Council of Canadians, said, “Investment rules such as Chapter 11 need to be removed from NAFTA and all other trade agreements signed by Canada.”

The Council was disappointed this summer when the Supreme Court of Canada denied our request to appeal a lower court decision ruling that Chapter 11 was not unconstitutional. Still, we remain committed to raising awareness of the dangers associated with investor-state litigation, and will fight the introduction of similar provisions in other trade agreements such as the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement.

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updated October 21, 2007