The Dominion - trade agreements

Free Trade Goes Local

Cameron Fenton — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:54:22 +0000

Provincial “barriers to trade” broken under new regional agreements

WATERLOO—While the Canadian government was prorogued and the Canadian public was watching the Olympics, Prime Minister Stephen Harper quietly signed the Canada-USA Procurement Agreement (CUPA).

The agreement navigates around a recently enacted United States “Buy-American” policy. Critics of the CUPA argue that the agreement further locks neoliberal ideologies into Canadian-American trade policy. This free-market expansion challenges or removes much of the capacity for provincial and local governments to control local economic development decisions.

The implementation of the CUPA foreshadows Canada’s agenda at the June 2010 G8/20 meetings where, as Harper stated during a planning meeting in Ottawa in March, he will be urging the G20 to “open global markets” and “resist protectionism.” Miranda Goeltom, Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Indonesia, noted at the G20 Workshop on the Global Economy in May 2009 that the G20 agreed upon commitments to “reinvigorate world trade and investment,” primarily through “reducing trade and investment barriers and financial protectionism.”

The CUPA overcomes what a March 2010 edition of the Global Trade Alert report calls a “worrying measure” of protectionism. Under the CUPA, resisting protectionism means decision-makers will have to consider bids from American contractors for procurement contracts, giving no favour to local companies. In an appendix in the CUPA titled “Market Access,” procurement associated with publicly funded schools and local economic development programs in Ontario and Quebec are not protected from the CUPA’s reach. For other provinces and territories, specific exclusions were created for education and local economic development programs.

While there are no tariff barriers between provinces in Canada, differences in regulation and approaches to management in environmental protection, labour rights, health care delivery, and public education are equated to barriers by trade economists. These views are shared by a group which holds considerable influence at the G20 summits—the World Trade Organization. Agreements such as the 2007 Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) between Alberta and BC aim to eliminate these barriers.

In 2009 the Council of Canadians (CoC) released “State of Play: Canada’s Internal Free Trade Agenda,” a report giving updates on TILMA and other interprovincial Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). The report critiques these agreements for allowing “corporations and individuals to challenge any provincial or municipal government measure they feel ‘restricts or impairs’ their investment. Even measures designed to protect the environment and public health can be brought to an unelected TILMA dispute panel with the authority to impose penalties as high as $5 million [against the challenged government].”

This allowance is akin to the CUPA provisions in Notes to Appendix A, which challenge strengthening environmental protections as “disguised barrier[s] to trade,” or the Chapter 11 review panels of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which allows corporations to sue governments when they change policies or regulations that could affect trade. A 2009 case brought to the NAFTA review panel by DOW Chemicals found that Quebec’s restrictions of certain toxic pesticides were considered a disguised trade barrier.

“It [TILMA] will dramatically restrict the ability of governments—including local governments—to act in the public interest,” said Murray Dobbin of the CoC.

Unlike NAFTA, in TILMA there is no limit on how many times a corporation may bring an issue to the dispute panel. If a regulation is found to be a “disguised barrier to trade,” foreign corporations may continue to sue the offending government until that regulation is changed. To avoid continual negative repercussions, governments may avoid implementing stronger standards and policies.

The CoC reported that “some US states have shown an interest in signing TILMA, which would lead to massive deregulation in Canada as we harmonize policies with the United States. TILMA thus becomes an issue of democracy and of deep integration with the US.” With the two agreements sharing many of the same clauses, the implementation of the CUPA forces many of TILMA’s clauses onto provinces, states, and municipalities who had little-to-no input into the agreement.

Canada is discussing a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Europe that the CoC says “is likely to put pressure on provincial governments to increase privatization, including in areas such as child care and public health care...municipal governments will also be forced to fall into line.”

Fraser Institute economist Amela Karabegovic and trade advisor Robert Knox wrote that “interprovincial barriers are, and will remain, a major roadblock in the current negotiations... the free-trade agreement with the EU is an opportunity for Canadian governments to finally resolve the remaining interprovincial barriers.” It becomes clear that the regulatory harmonizations that result from TILMA and the CUPA must take place for FTA negotiations to continue.

“The [G8] recognized in its Pittsburgh statement last year that ‘there are different approaches to economic development and prosperity,’ which is the same as saying that free trade, privatization and open markets don’t always work,” Stuart Trew of the CoC told The Dominion. “Harper disagrees with that idea and has made noises that he’d like the G20 to broaden its mandate to go after ‘protectionism in all its forms,’ which would include important national measures to protect the environment or help local industries grow up and compete.”

Dan Kellar is an organizer with AW@L and is co-host of AW@L Radio. He will see you in the streets of Toronto in June.

This story was published in The Dominion's special issue on the G8 and G20 summits in Ontario. We will continue to publish independent, investigative news about the G8 and G20 throughout the month of June.

For up-to-the-minute G8/G20 news from the streets of Toronto, visit the Toronto Media Co-op.

CUPA chainsaw

Justice Served Cold

hillarybain — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Four Atlantica arrestees declare police and prison mistreatment

HALIFAX–It was a cold winter's day nearing Christmas, and not much was stirring on the streets of Halifax. In front of the Provincial Court on Spring Garden Road, a group of people huddled together, entering the court for a long-awaited trial date. On December 22, 2008, four Haligonians took the stand and testified in front of a judge to a courtroom packed with supporters.

The defendants had been charged a year and a half earlier after hundreds took to the streets of downtown Halifax on June 15, 2007, to oppose a regional integration proposal known as Atlantica. Charges included carrying weapons, wearing masks with intent, unlawful assembly, and resisting arrest.

The Atlantica demonstrations numbered 400 protesters and included a militant tactic known as a black bloc that intended to shut down the conference.

Demonstrators were targeted by police and reported extreme police brutality, including being choked until unconscious, shocked with taser guns, and beaten by batons.

George Dalli was one of the defendants on trial. "I saw police hitting other people, pepper spraying, tasers were drawn: it was an intense and intimidating situation before the arrest. I told the officers, 'I'm not resisting arrest, not trying to be violent.' I was rolled onto my stomach, hands behind my back. I was choked, fingers were jabbed into my neck, I said, 'Don't do this to me, I'm losing consciousness, don't do this to me,' and I continued saying this until I lost consciousness."

The 21 individuals arrested that day spent the next three days in jail, the first 48 hours in lockdown.

Leading up to June 2007, the Maritime provinces of Canada and the American New England states saw growing popular resistance to the Atlantica project (also known as the Atlantic Gateway) from multiple sectors of the left, including labour unions, workers, environmentalists, NGOs such as the Council of Canadians, anti-capitalists, anarchists, anti-poverty organizations, families, and concerned citizens.

This was the first time anyone had served time or faced charges for an action against the Atlantica proposal. It marked a breaking point. For those braving the cold to gather in court in December 2008, the story was far from over.

Atlantica is a proposed free trade agreement that would bring goods from Asia into larger markets in the US, lowering environmental and labour standards and increasing the transportation and energy industries. The region comprised of the Atlantic provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula of Québec, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and upstate New York has been identified as Altantica by the largest corporations operating in the area, such as Irving Oil and Emera Inc. Irving Oil controls regional oil and gas, and has many holdings in New Brunswick. Emera Inc. owns energy infrastructure in North East USA and the Atlantic provinces and is the parent corporation of Nova Scotia Power.

The proponents of Atlantica hope to create a free trade zone that would harmonize regulations between Canada and the US. Environmental standards, minimum wage and trade unions are all considered barriers to increased trade according to some proponents of Atlantica.

Asaf Rashid, a protester arrested at the Atlantica demonstrations, fears that one result of Atlantica might be lowered environmental standards for the creation of proposed Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) terminals. One terminal in Saint John, New Brunswick is close to completion, and three more are proposed on the Passamaquoddy coast of Maine.

Other proposed projects include a second nuclear reactor in New Brunswick, and pipelines transmitting natural gas from New Brunswick to Maine and New York State, moving straight through properties, agricultural areas and wildlife habitats.

"Atlantica will lead to further environmental degradation by lowering environmental standards and increasing energy consumption, production and export in the region,” says Aaron Doncaster, also arrested at the demonstrations in 2007. “We as citizens are subsidizing this destructive activity. Atlantica needs to be shut down."

Out of the 21 demonstrators arrested, most were let off with “diversion,” where in exchange for some restitution the defendants do not retain a criminal record. However, four among them still must abide by restrictive conditions while they await their verdict.

"Right now, they can only associate with each other to prepare for the trial, and all of them are not allowed to participate in any protest," says Vaughn Barnett, the legal defense for the defendants. "That's what they've been putting up with for 1.5 years. [It's a] serious infringement of their freedom of expression. They had to agree to those conditions, they were coerced into it during their mistreatment during custody. They suffered brutal treatment by police, plus denial of their rights while in jail.

"[The] defendants shouldn't be punished by police and authorities. That's something that a judge should decide after a fair trial."

In court, Barnett presented his constitutional challenge, a defence strategy that has been front and centre in all of his defendants' cases from the Atlantica demonstration. His challenge argues that it would be unfair to make the defendants go to the trial proper, based on the way they were mistreated, which he considers extra-judicial punishment by police and jail authorities.

All four defendants had the opportunity, through Barnett's examination, to detail the extent of their mistreatment by police and jail authorities from the time of their arrest until their release from prison three days later.

Dalli recounted the three days in jail. For the first 24 hours he had only one power bar and one bottle of water given to him, the same as all the others. Despite jail policy being fully described in a handbook that prisoners are supposed to see, including how to successfully make a complaint to the jail authorities, none of the arrestees knew where the handbook was, nor that it existed, until the court date in December.

"We're not going to find it or ask for it if we don't know it exists," said Dalli.

In December, the defence presented evidence of mistreatment by police and prison authorities. On the next trial date in August 2009, the Crown will respond with its own evidence. Barnett assumes the Crown will be calling police and jail officials. At that point the judge will decide whether Barnett’s constitutional challenge will succeed.

If it succeeds, the charges will be dropped on the basis that it would be unfair to make the defendants go to the trial proper. If not, it might succeed partially, which could mean certain charges are dropped or sentences are reduced.

The Judge might decide to continue with the trial and consider the constitutional breaches at the sentencing stage.

Rashid is unsure of what the future of the case holds. According to him, the Crown was unprepared for the constitutional challenge. However, the Judge did decide to postpone the proceedings until August, and did not drop the restrictive conditions of the defendants. "It's hard to say where the Judge is leaning right now. He's not making it obvious."

David Parker is an independent journalist and Spoken Word Coordinator at CKDU 88.1 fm in Halifax.

Atlantica

EU & Canada Free Trade Deal: Huh?

Geordie — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 21:55:38 +0000

Was reading the less-than-stellar analysis of Globe Opinion writer Jeffrey Simpson the other day when I noticed this little gem:

France and Canada are on the same wavelength on issue after issue, including Afghanistan and trade (Canada and the European Union are entering serious talks about a free-trade agreement). They both opposed the invasion of Iraq.

Canada and EU free trade deal? I read a lot of news so I was wondering why I hadn't seen more of this before.

A quick google search found a couple of news pieces here, here and here about the issue, but this could potentially be major.

I'm no fan of free trade and think NAFTA should be abolished, but do believe in the benefits of fair trade as long as never-ending growth isn't part of the deal.

Canada's trade has been almost entirely dependent on the US since colonization. Would a free trade agreement with the EU mean less dependence? Would Canadian standards plummet on certain issues? What would the impacts on social justice, the tar sands, mining and other issues be?

Free Trade or False Logic?

hillarybain — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:06:10 +0000

Exploring the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement

On Saturday, June 7, the Canadian government announced that it had wrapped up negotiations with Colombia for a Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA). "The free trade agreement will expand Canada-Colombia trade and investment, and will help solidify ongoing efforts by the government of Colombia to create a more prosperous, equitable and secure democracy," Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs David Emerson said in a statement following the announcement.

The notion that an FTA between Canada and Colombia would result in increased prosperity for Colombians is based on the much-repeated concept of ‘free trade,’ which, according to the dominant economic model, opens up markets and encourages investment.

“Colombia exports coffee, oil, coal, gold, emeralds and bananas. These are the same kinds of products that Colombia was exporting 100 years ago,” states Mario Valencia, an economist with the Colombian Network in Response to Free Trade (RECALCA). “We import technology and industrial goods, and it is necessary to export more and more primary materials to buy the same amount of technology and machines. This type of exporting scheme is deepened with the signing of free trade agreements.”

When governments and corporations speak about free trade, they are often referring to tariffs, which are per cent taxes charged on products as they are being imported. According to Colombian researcher Héctor Moncayo, "Tariffs are considered 'barriers' to international trade, but these tariffs provide benefits for the importing country: tax revenue and protection for local industries."

Moncayo explains: "Multinational corporations claim that these tariffs are denying them access to international markets and that these tariffs must be eliminated. This is generally what is referred to as 'free trade.'" He goes on to state that there have always been tariffs, and that, "while the oligarchies and governments of weak countries [like Colombia] will drop import tariffs if there is pressure for them to do so, the powerful countries maintain their tariffs."

In Canada, trade barriers on foreign products are designed to protect Canadian industry and agriculture.

Examples of Canadian trade barriers that apply to trade with Colombia include:

- sanitary requirements for seafood, plants, seeds, vegetables and fruit
- special permission for textiles, fowl and dairy
- quotas on coffee
- eight per cent import tax on sugar
- seasonal tariffs on vegetables and fruit

[Data: Colombian Network in Response to Free Trade (RECALCA); Canadian Sugar Institute]

Canada's general tariffs-–ones that could eventually be lifted with an FTA-–are already considered low. And, according to RECALCA, 90.6 per cent of imports to Canada are already tariff-free.

In terms of being able to compete in Canada, an FTA is not expected to open up the market in a significant way for Colombian products. Nor will it address agricultural subsidies that grant Canadian farmers a competitive advantage over their Colombian counterparts.

Agreements on the Rights of Transnational Corporations

If the FTA between Canada and Colombia is not so much about lowering tariffs and improving market access for Colombian exporters, what are the benefits of this kind of agreement, and to which economic sectors will these benefits flow?

According to Colombian economist Héctor Mondragon, "These agreements should be known as 'Agreements on the Rights of Transnational Corporations' instead of as 'Free Trade Agreements.'" Indeed, investment guarantees for Canadian corporations are a key element of the FTA between the two countries.

Canada has recently finished negotiating an FTA with Peru, the texts of which are public, and the deal with Colombia is expected to look similar. According to Foreign Affairs Canada, "An investment chapter in the Canada-Peru FTA locks in market access for Canadian investors in Peru and provides greater stability, transparency and protection for their investments."

This means that Canadian corporations investing in Colombia or Peru stand to further benefit from FTAs, because the agreements remove the possibility that the host government will raise taxes, change its laws, or expropriate properties.

Lobbying by industry in favour of an FTA with Colombia has been intense. In mid-May, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to Lee Richardson, chair of the Standing Committee on International Trade, to “strongly encourage [the] committee to endorse these negotiations and the benefits that they will bring to Canadian companies and to Canadians.” Eight companies signed on in support of the letter, including Barrick Gold Inc., Teck Cominco, Nexen Inc. and Talisman Energy Inc.

Hush, rush and sign

According to a press release issued by RECALCA, the Canada-Colombia FTA negotiations "were extraordinarily fast and unlike the negotiations with the United States, which lasted 16 rounds, they were wrapped up in the fifth round of negotiations, out of the six rounds planned at the outset in July of 2007."

The texts of the Canada-Colombia FTA are still hidden from the public, despite the fact that negotiations have finished. One of the justifications used to push forward free-trade agreements is increasing ‘transparency.’ Instead, unelected Canadian and Colombian bureaucrats negotiated the Canada-Colombia deal in total secrecy. In fact, the end of Canadian negotiations with Colombia was announced before the Standing Committee on International Trade had finished the report it was preparing to advise the government during negotiations.

"By making this announcement only days before the Standing Committee on International Trade report would have been completed, the government is clearly saying that it does not respect the work of parliament," stated Liberal International Trade Critic Navdeep Bains.

The report, meant to "guide negotiations," was released more than two weeks after negotiations were concluded. It contains eight recommendations, of which the second "recommends that the government of Canada maintain close ties with Colombia without signing a free trade agreement."

Free trade on the table this fall

Now that an early election has been called by Stephen Harper, the FTA will be sidelined during election campaigns. Because the agreement is already negotiated, however, once the new government is installed in Canada, the Canada-Colombia FTA may be among the first items to be tabled – presented to MPs – this winter, once Parliament sits again.

Previously, the prime minister had the authority to sign an FTA without discussion in the House of Commons. However, the current process is the result of an election promise by the Harper Conservatives, and "nobody has much experience with this new process or really knows where it leads," says Burnaby-New Westminster MP Peter Julian, the NDP Critic on International Trade.

Once tabled, the FTA will sit before the House for 21 days. Voting will not necessarily take place. In Canada, a vote in parliament is not necessary to ratify the agreement, unlike in the United States, where the Democrat-led congress has thus far 'frozen' the ratification of the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement partly due to concerns about human rights in Colombia.

Chiquita bananas

Álvaro Uribe

South Koreans Have a Beef

hillarybain — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:07:05 +0000

Crackdown on demonstrations against US beef imports

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA -- On June 28, a crowd of at least 13,000 (some estimates report 30,000) gathered near the city hall in Seoul to protest the government’s decision to allow US imports of beef to South Korea. The issue is huge in South Korea, where a June 10 demonstration-–which coincided with the 21st anniversary of the demonstrations that toppled the country's military dictatorship-–drew out up to half a million protesters.

The latest demonstration came on the heels of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visit to Seoul. Rice vouched, “I can only say that American beef is safe and that we hope in time the South Korean people will listen to that, and will be willing to listen to what their government is saying and what we are saying.”

On June 2, the thoroughfare of Sedong Street, which ends at the landmark gate of Gwanghwamun, was lined with over 100 buses that had been converted to transport vehicles with barricaded windows for riot gear-clad police. The fleet of buses, many marked with graffiti, were arranged to impede access to sections of Sejong Street, where the US embassy is located.

Later that night, when people tried to break through the bus barricades, the police used water cannons and reportedly detained more than 130 demonstrators.

President Lee Myung-bak of the Grand National Party, elected with 48.7 per cent of the vote in December 2007, has borne the brunt of South Korean anger during a growing number of demonstrations.

In April 2008, Myung-bak proposed lifting prohibitions on US beef imports, prohibitions that had been imposed in 2003 after a case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease) was discovered in the US. Many South Koreans have reacted strongly against the perceived risks of BSE, which have been inflamed by Korean media.

In June, the pressure was such that Myung-bak's entire cabinet offered to resign in response to the street protests.

A senior policeman who wished to remain anonymous said, “The demonstration is okay if it is done in the proper manner with permission, not in the middle of the street, stopping cars and causing problems.”

The organizers, who addressed the milling crowd throughout the evening, emphasized that the demonstration should remain peaceful. Dozens of young men wearing military fatigues were present at the demonstration. Having completed their compulsory military service, they now call themselves the Guardians of the Citizens. They say they’re protecting the people from the state.

One of the Guardians, Kim Jin-kang, said the protestors were there “because the president has been lying...about the Great Canal and American beef.”

Much of the media has portrayed the protests as being solely about imports of US beef, but many voiced concern about the Great Canal project. The project proposes the construction of three great canals connecting four large rivers, and the city of Busan in the southeast with Seoul in the northwest.

A slim military officer, who wished to remain anonymous, manned an information table about the Great Canal project and said he was opposed to the project because of the environmental destruction it would entail. He saw Korean conglomerates as the only winners from the project.

Pak Jong-ju, who manned a table for the Korea Socialist Party, said he was at the demonstrations because of injustice. “The US and Korea alliance is a critical issue in Korea,” said Pak, who saw the protests rooted in a great polarization in South Korean society among those who support an alliance with the US and those who seek independence from the US.

Jong-ju is opposed to the “free trade” agreement between South Korea and the US. “There are a lot of rules with FTA [Free Trade Agreement] that oppress freedom of human beings, and favour business over government,” he said.

An elderly man who called himself “Mr. Korea” said the Great Canal had been added to the backside of the FTA. He believed that although most Koreans opposed the canal project, they would support the FTA if it was along the same terms as NAFTA.

Standing in the crowd was Kim Ji-hyun. She said she was against both US beef imports and the Great Canal project. She saw beef as a “life and death” issue and expressed contempt for the president.

Many demonstrators could be seen carrying slogan-bearing red cards printed by the Candlelight Movement of Korea that echoed these sentiment: “Who are you protecting with the power that we give you?” and “How can you let us down like this?”

A large white banner with blue lettering that hung high across the wide expanse of Sejong Street proclaimed: “Someday, this road will surely demonstrate the last days of a man who denied [that the] Republic of Korea’s state power originates from its people, but foolishly believed it comes from America, dirty richs [sic] and crap newspapers. Therefore, we will resist until our last breath to his idiotic ignorance, incompetence, irresponsible subterfuge, reckless beliefs, and ensure not to be victims of such.”

One Korean woman spoke of a Korean proverb that says a pot which boils quickly also cools quickly--something that the Myung-bak government is hoping for.

According to Agence France-Press, police blocked the rally planned for June 29 at Seoul Plaza before it could start, detaining 130 people and blocking nearby roads.

On June 30, investigators raided the office of the People's Association for Measures Against Mad Cow Disease and the office of the People's Solidarity for Korean Progress, seizing computers and other items, as well as arresting one organizer.

The following two weekends were relatively quiet and wet around Seoul city hall. The grass lawn has been replaced with new turf, and the vendors have disappeared. The season has changed. Middle- and high-school students who began the demonstrations are now out of school and an intense rainy period has deluged Seoul.

It seems that in the face of increasing government and police crackdowns, the boiling pot has cooled for now.

Police Crackdown

Candlelight Vigil

Impacting Unimpaired

dru — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:36:25 +0000

New agreements like the SPP and TILMA are aimed directly at unimpeded extraction in the tar sands

Demonstrations against the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) began in the Summer of 2007, but several of the issues raised by anti-SPP organizers invoked déjà vu for many observers: informal agreements, secret talks, plans to do away with layers of national sovereignty in favour of corporate rules of engagement set to supersede labour organizing, environmental regulations or human rights. The laundry list of rule changes sounded a lot like debates of years past--the FTA, MAI, APEC, FTAA and NAFTA.

However, a deeper look at the driving force behind the new acronyms tells a different story, one of a world with new dynamics like peak oil, tar sands and the extreme measures that North American governments are attempting to use in the tar sands to keep an oil-dependent economy going.

Before the SPP became a larger issue nationally and continentally, the Trade, Investment & Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) had already been passed in British Columbia and Alberta. The agreement, having passed as legislation and set to be "phased in" by April 2009, plays a role complementary to the SPP and continues to be similarly criticized by many organizers for the anti-democratic way it has been implemented.

According to an analysis published by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, TILMA "encompasses provincial and local governments, regional districts, school boards, health and social services.

"Nearly every action by a government, now and in the future, is potentially constrained unless expressly excluded in the agreement. Measures are defined broadly and include any legislation, regulation, standard, directive, requirement, guideline, program, policy, administrative practice, or other procedure."

CUPE also describes the SPP as "another attempt of corporate America, in partnership with their political and corporate allies in Canada and Mexico, to reduce the power of government to protect citizens from profit-hungry business.

"Their intention is to scale down government regulations and controls that try to protect our society, culture and environment. Specifically, the SPP will minimize controls in areas like immigration, food and agriculture, natural resource exploitation, public services and entertainment."

TILMA is a new set of limitations on government's ability to regulate and the SPP is the removal of a pre-existing set of regulations. Both TILMA and the SPP have specific aims that go beyond the usual attempt to enshrine investors' rights and protect corporations from government regulations.

Both agreements pave the way--in many cases literally--for the largest industrial project in history to move forward: a project that calls for the extraction of over 170 billion barrels of recoverable oil from the tar sands of Alberta's Athabasca, Peace and Cold Lake regions.

The SPP and TILMA have anticipated popular resistance and preemptively removed the ability of governments to control the massive supply of energy, land, water and labour needed in the tar sands. They similarly preempt governments' ability to regulate the destruction and pollution that the "gigaproject" will create.

The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union (CEP) is concerned.

"As energy workers, we are compelled first of all to respond to the SPP energy agenda," the CEP said in a statement. "Through the SPP and the North American Energy Working Group, the governments of Mexico, United States and Canada have formed an unprecedented collaboration with energy corporations to promote the continental integration of our energy industries and infrastructures."

The result has surprisingly few benefits for Alberta or Canada. A massive, ecologically rich region will be reduced to an industrial sacrifice area. The synthetic crude that it renders will go south to the US. Royalties for Albertans and Canadians are minimal, and communities living in the vast area that will be strip-mined--Indigenous and settler alike--will be dismantled.

The "Oil Sands Experts Working Group," a part of the 2006 SPP meetings in Houston, calls the tar sands "a significant contributor to energy supply and security for the continent." According to the group, it was founded "when the three countries agreed to collaborate through the SPP on the sustainable development of the oil sands resources." The working group includes the US, Canadian and Alberta government representatives.

What does "sustainable development of the oil sands resources" consist of? The same SPP report says that it requires expanded "integrated long distance pipelines," plans for which are "already in place" to accommodate "the certain doubling of oil sands production to two million barrels per day by 2010.

"The five-fold expansion anticipated for oil sands products in a relatively short time span," the report says, "will represent many challenges for the pipeline industry."

To accomplish this, the report concludes, "Governments are encouraged to streamline the regulatory approval process and better manage the risk to both pipeline and energy projects.

"Canadian governments have already gone a long way to co-ordinating and streamlining the environmental and regulatory approvals, but more needs to be done."

TILMA sets up a free trade zone between Alberta and B.C. that "breaks down barriers" for all industries. April 2007 saw the official beginning of the TILMA agreement, sold as giving Alberta and B.C. a "competitive" way to deal with Ontario's vast size advantage. In reality, TILMA turns the provinces into locations where corporations can sue any person or entity that tries to legislate or otherwise invoke regulations that would make investment more "troublesome." The agreement bans measures which "impact or impair" investment and allows even an individual investor the right to sue governments to knock down such "impediments" and receive compensation for loss of revenue.

What can be seen as an impediment under TILMA is extensive. Under NAFTA, corporations can "challenge" legislation that affects their profits. A third party then rules on the "dispute" at hand. This has seen Canada paying to maintain some of its legislation around tobacco and environmental regulations, for example.

TILMA, however, starts on the assumption that the investor is correct. Unlike the resolution process seen in Chapter 11 of NAFTA, the current agreement includes an automatic up-to-$5 million penalty for a government body (at any level other than federal) that violates the rules of "free access" for capital. For example, if a city blocks the construction of a building for reasons of heritage, costing a corporation a projected $4 million, then the governing body that invokes the regulations "impacting or impairing" owes that corporation $4 million.

Article 3 of TILMA reads, in part: "Each Party shall ensure that its measures do not operate to restrict or impair trade between or through the territory of the Parties, or investment or labour mobility between the Parties." The agreement has specifically designed protocols for hearings to be held if one or more of the signatories are in breach of the agreement.

These secretive deals and agreements are taking place during the single largest energy policy shift in North America since the peaking of US domestic oil production in the seventies.

Internationally, the US is in a scramble for remaining oil reserves. Chinese demand for oil continues to grow. Disasters such as hurricanes and war--and the fact that only one barrel of oil is discovered for every nine that are used--have brought oil prices to record highs since the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003. With an economic and military structure that needs vast supplies of hydrocarbons everyday, North American energy concerns have found the oil "boom" in Northern Alberta that was expected in the aftermath of a regime change in Iraq.

In response to Chinese interest in the tar sands, US energy expert Irving Mintzer blurted out, "The problem with the Chinese is that they don't know that the Canadian oil is ours. And neither do the Canadians." In the same breath Mintzer noted, "One provocation for rethinking US energy policy will be when Chinese investment in Canadian tar sands and Venezuelan oil development make it increasingly difficult for us to get access to the resources."

That hypothetical situation has come about more quickly, since the Iraqi resistance has cut off access to "stable" flows of petroleum and Venezuela has reduced its contribution to US energy markets by one third. The US has shifted their boom from Baghdad and Kirkuk to Fort McMurray and Grand Prairie. Many Venezuelans who oppose their country's socialist government have re-settled in Alberta.

Whether led by Liberals or Conservatives, Canada has been more than willing to help this shift. Approvals for tar sands operations and newly designed agreements help to take Tar Sands development to unfathomable levels of expansion.

The industry that extracts bitumen and then crude oil from tar sands was once aiming to get to production levels of one million barrels per day (bpd) by 2012. Last year, the average already surpassed 1.3 million. The swiftly rising price of oil and the near-impossibility of a long term drop in price has suddenly allowed a major shift towards producing this oil, which is only profitable at a barrel price of at least $30.

The production process of the synthetic oil is unlike anything else: there are huge labour and energy needs currently unavailable to the producers, needs that are being drawn up and planned through TILMA and the SPP.

The US Department of Energy and Natural Resources Canada had another secret meeting, along with US energy corporations, in February 2006. Some details of the meeting were leaked earlier this year to the CBC. The agenda: to reduce labour and environmental rights in order to ramp up production from the Athabasca, Peace and Cold Lake tar sands to five million barrels per day.

The United States has reorganized their long-term plans for petroleum energy by setting a goal to get up to 25 per cent of their daily oil from tar sands based operations (in addition to Canada's conventional oil). In 2003, the US Department of Energy began declaring tar sands reserves part of their calculation of oil imported from Canada. This will include massive pipeline construction across territories within British Columbia, made nearly impossible to block by TILMA.

The SPP is setting the stage for the creation of a series of "super highways" that may extend from as far as Panama City north to Edmonton and branching off to the three "hot spots" of the Albertan Peace and Athabasca Regions and northeast British Columbia.

Along with the reduction in labour rights across both provinces through TILMA, the SPP will provide much-needed labour through the expansion of the "temporary foreign workers" program. The growth of Alberta's economy has already exceeded the available population of workers. Workers from the Maritimes are paid to fly to Fort McMurray from Moncton, Halifax or St. John's and work in camps in the tar sands.

The energy needs of production in the tar sands process--whether the strip-mining operations or the "in-situ" underground "Steam-assisted gravity Drainage" (Sag-D) procedure--are equal to almost a third of what is produced. (For comparison purposes, the crude in Iraqi reserves produces about 100 times the energy that is needed to pump it out.) Sag-D consumes more energy and water than strip-mining operations, setting the stage for the requisite equivalent of four to five billion cubic feet of natural gas per day required in tar sands operations if they become fully operational.

This reality is what is leading Energy Alberta to promote nuclear power for the Peace Region, where Sag-D has barely even begun to operate.

The two maps included show the plans for this vast expansion, both in terms of the importation of labour by highway and the construction of needed energy supplies by pipeline to get to the planned five million bpd.

The first one shows the flow of goods and labour. The aim of TILMA and the SPP is the immediate creation of far more labour inflow from places such as Mexico and China, most of it ultimately destined to work in the tar sands. Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) began using 500 Chinese labourers on a "guest worker" program at their Horizons Oilsands Project last year. The SPP is a cost-effective means of importing needed labour and keeping costs down at the same time, through enacting 'labour mobility' and allowing non-citizen workers to be exploited at rates currently unreported.

The Alberta Federation of Labour points out that 2006 was the first year that the number of people admitted into Alberta who were not even allowed to apply to become landed immigrants (let alone citizens) exceeded the number of new immigrants. With agreements like the SPP in place, this will increase sharply. With TILMA, every time a labour right is undermined, it becomes the new bottom line.

According to Gil McGowan of the Alberta Federation of Labour, "Employers are using temporary foreign workers as a way to suppress wages and working conditions and to avoid legitimate unions...we oppose the importation of hundreds of workers just to complete a job and then sending them back home. That is exploitation."

The truly daunting reality is that the production level being proposed will have no other option: the only way to keep up with projected production rates is to bring in people from outside.

The guest worker programs keep non-status workers in camps where they are not allowed visitations by any union. The only means by which such a "guest" will be allowed to stay beyond the term of their contract (up to 24 months) is if the employer applies, not the individual. Figures on pay and to whom it is delivered are not available and have not yet been obtained by organized labour in Alberta--we simply do not know how much migrant workers in the tar sands are being paid.

The "guest workers" may not end up only in the camps. The proposed size of tar sands expansion is such that constructing infrastructure for vast new energy "inputs" will take thousands of workers as well. Two pipelines of various gas are needed "in" to the tar sands for every pipeline going "out."

The energy needed to go into the tar sands are slated to come from the natural gas in such places as Alaska's north slope, coal-fired mega plants in Alberta, proposed nuclear reactors in the Peace Region and near Whitecourt, along with the industrialization of the Mackenzie Valley (and much more). The outward shipping of bitumen-sludge (later converted to mock oil) entails corridors across Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and more, all the way to Texas and Louisiana. These schemes, in particular the one known as the Keystone Pipeline headed by TransCanada, is already causing the AFL to warn of dire consequences for job loss and deregulation of currently union-run operations.

The other corridor for sending sludge to refineries is slated to be across British Columbia, over the lands of the Carrier, Gixtsan, Haisla, Tsimshian and other unceded nations to a yet-to-be-constructed port to operate out of Kitimat, where oil could theoretically be shipped to California, Japan and China. The same port would serve to import "diluent" from Russia, a kerosene-like substance used to make the thick mud of bitumen flow like oil in a pipe.

"Pipeline ruptures happen, they're inevitable," says Gerald Amos of the Haisla Nation from Gitamaat Village on the Coast of B.C., where the construction of a Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) port is being planned.

"We just don't know the location yet...All of the proponents of the Gateway project and all the other pipelines which would mean more tanker traffic here point out that we've had tanker traffic here, big ships coming in for about 40 to 50 years now. I think you are talking about a substantially different ball game when you talk about supertankers."

This project, the "Enbridge Gateway," is currently delayed due to lawsuits launched by seven First Nations, Indian Act-mandated governments and the China National Petroleum Company's withdrawal from the project.

Other pipelines heading southward are the Alberta Clipper Project and the Spearhead Expansion Project, also led by Enbridge, a self-described "leader in energy transportation." In June of this year, the first new refinery in the United States in decades was announced. The map shows only some of the refineries planning to receive tar sands bitumen.

Under the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, every single project in the Athabasca, Cold Lake and Peace River tar sands region has been approved. TILMA will streamline the regulations in line with these projects across all of B.C. and Alberta. It will also mean the elimination of a long-time moratorium on oil and gas offshore tankers on the central coast of B.C.

Kitimat and Gitamaat Village, currently host to major Gray and Humpback whale migration, would see 330 super tankers of oil and gas a year migrating offshore, according to the Dogwood Initiative. Nations up and down the proposed corridor would see a loss of forest cover in areas where giant grizzlies still roam near ranchlands.

The oil and gas going to and from the tar sands would cross rivers and streams and the tankers will come near 1,000 salmon spawning areas. Upon completion, the entire 1,200-plus kilometre pipeline systems would provide 75 full-time jobs. Enbridge has quietly shifted gears towards building the infrastructure to send the current bump in oil production to Texas, promising to complete this project at a later date.

That later date may well coincide with the B.C. government's other "Pacific Gateway Strategy," designed to use TILMA, the SPP, the 2010 Olympics and vast tar sands export growth to make the West Coast of Canada a major hub of de-regulated trade with Asia.

It could soon be illegal and not 'merely' politically difficult to regulate how these constructions go ahead. Environmental regulation, revenue for nations who approve the use of their lands, taxation for reclamation purposes, requirements on unionization for the construction--all of these things are being legislated and signed away.

With TILMA, Alberta and B.C. have united to ensure that the oil dug out of the earth is sent south, at an incomprehensible rate. The primary legacy of the project will be run-away climate emissions, the second fastest rate of deforestation on earth, the dismantling of previously won workers' rights, a sacrifice area in Alberta the size of Florida and the removal of meaningful democratic oversight at the community level.

The usual critiques of the SPP and TILMA are not inaccurate. Placing new developments in a global context, however, changes our understanding of what is driving this latest set of deals. Instability around the planet, dwindling reserves of oil, a collapsing American dollar and more are exposing imperial economic structures to a level of insecurity unknown in a generation. By lurching headlong in 2003 towards the Albertan tar sands, the US has made the rising price of oil work to their advantage, rather than its opposite; when the price of oil goes up, those who invest heavily in expensive, unconventional oil gain a larger foothold in market share.

The SPP and TILMA have been drawn up to increase and integrate this into a decades-long strategy for North American economic stability, a strategy that does not address our dependence on oil. Understanding the true nature of these plans allows people to make informed decisions about what to do during the rapid changes in energy politics--changes that will affect the entire population of North America (and the planet) for decades to come.

SPP Tar Sands

NAFTA Trade Corridors

The Tar Sands and Canada's Food System

dru — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 14:01:07 +0000

Are beans the only cure for natural gas?

Tar sands opponents point out that burning natural gas, a relatively clean fuel, to extract oil will result in massive increases in greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, some experts say the implications of using natural gas go far beyond global warming.

North American agriculture is deeply dependent on natural gas. Nitrogen fertilizer is chemically produced using a process that -- currently -- cannot be conducted efficiently without large amounts of natural gas. This fertilizer, in turn, is an essential nutrient in North America's food production system. "In a fairly direct way," says Darrin Qualman, Director of Research at the National Farmers Union, "natural gas is a primary feedstock for our food supply."

While "peak oil," the point at which global production of oil begins to decline, is subject to speculation, natural gas peaked in North America in 2003. Since then, more wells have been added, but production has declined slowly, while prices have increased sharply.

As a result, says Qualman, fertilizer companies are closing up shop and are moving their operations to places like Qatar, Egypt and Trinidad, where natural gas is cheap and plentiful, for now.

Canada has thus begun to import natural gas. At least 10 Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) terminals are planned in Quebec, British Columbia, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, where liquified gas will be brought in from Saudi Arabia, Russia and other producers.

It is, he says, a cause for concern in the coming decades.

"If you're farming in Saskatchewan or Manitoba, using a fertilizer supply based on natural gas from Alberta looks workable," says Qualman. "But if tomorrow our fertilizer is made from natural gas sourced in Russia or the Middle East, we in effect become dependent on offshore, highly unstable supplies for our food system."

In terms of fueling the current food system, there are few compelling alternatives to natural gas. Coal is a possible source of nitrogen but is not nearly as efficient. In some scenarios, nuclear power plants can be used to produce fertilizer.

A more fundamental alternative, says Qualman, is to begin restructuring the food system. Traditionally, nitrogen fixing is performed by crops like beans and chickpeas. Or, it is recycled to cropland from animal manures. Using crop rotation and natural sources to provide nitrogen and reducing energy inputs to agriculture requires changes to diets and far more intensive use of human labour.

Says Qualman, "Given the industrial food system and given a meat-based diet, nitrogen and natural gas are absolutely essential."

This basic fact has global implications.

Vaclav Smil, a professor of Environment & Geography at the University of Manitoba, estimated in his 2004 book Enriching the Earth that 40 per cent of the protein in human bodies worldwide could not have been produced without the use of synthetic nitrogen. He concludes that roughly 2.5 billion of the world's 6.7 billion people could not exist without synthetic fertilizer.

The number of people who depend on synthetic fertilizer for their existence will increase as the world population increases by an estimated two to four billion by 2050.

For Canada, the problem doesn't stop at the food system. "When you think about the Middle East using up its gas supplies," says Qualman, "that's a non-recoverable resource, but those places aren't cold. Canada depends on natural gas for heating. It’s going to be cold here for thousands of years and we’re using up our natural gas supply in decades." According to Natural Resources Canada, nearly half of all Canadian homes -- over six million households -- are heated with natural gas.

Climate change -- propelled by industrial projects like the tar sands -- is also slated to have an adverse impact on agriculture. "Climatologists will tell you that evaporation trumps rainfall," says Qualman. Small increases in temperature could mean much drier growing conditions on Canada's prairies, even if rainfall increases.

The decision to invest huge amounts of natural gas into the tar sands will have ripple effects through the Canadian food system, says Qualman. "As North America becomes natural gas short, as we pass peak and become net importers, we're going to set up a competitive trade-off between the uses of natural gas" -- tar sands, food, heating and power generation among them.

"We really should have a long-term plan around fertility and food before we even think about ramping up production in the tar sands...we have to look at the next 100 years of agriculture and the next 100 years of heating."

"We should be saying: 'Show us the 100-year plan for agriculture and then show us you've got a surplus left over that can be used for the tar sands.'"

In theory, some of the business world seem to agree that "letting the market decide" may not be the most sound energy strategy. A January 2005 article in Canadian Business asserts that "with no long-term guidelines and no surplus capacity, the only thing the market can deliver is 'volatility.'"

The article concludes by quoting the president of a Calgary-based LNG company, saying "Economics 101 will solve the mess, but the trouble is it will do so with a machete...It will hurt."

Harvester

Welcome to Ambiguica

hillarybain — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 23:51:51 +0000

Round Two of the Atlantica Debate

With the exception of the Provincial-Federal row over the Atlantic Accord, the biggest news story, in terms of sheer column space, to hit Atlantic Canada over the past month centred on Halifax street demonstrations campaigning against a proposed ‘Atlantica’ trade zone. On June 15, a demonstration of about 400, organized to coincide with an “Atlantica: Charting the Course” conference of corporate and government leaders from throughout the Northeastern region, ended with scenes of brief confrontations between black-clad demonstrators and police. Photos of the ‘black bloc’ would be splashed across the front pages of local and regional newspapers for days, almost entirely supplanting any discussion or coverage within the mainstream media of the Atlantica trade corridor itself.

In the midst of this near-blackout of media scrutiny, the announcement of $558,000 in funding by the federal government for the development of an “Atlantica Council,” whose main objective will be to lobby for and “champion” the Atlantica notion, passed almost unnoticed. Similarly, the bizarre appointment of American businessman Jonathan Daniels, head of the Eastern Maine Development Corporation, to head the Atlantic Provinces Chamber of Commerce, also received little media focus. Daniels’ appointment, which had been expected for more than a year, signals the centrality of the Atlantica proposal within the agenda of Atlantic Canada’s business elite.

The Atlantica trade zone would link Canada’s Atlantic provinces with Eastern Quebec and the New England states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Upstate New York. According to Charles Cirtwell, president of the right-wing Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), which has been a leading proponent of Atlantica, the scheme is simply “about people with common needs –- in a common neighbourhood –- coming up with common solutions.”

Lost in this neighbourly rhetoric are the concrete realities of the Atlantica proposal. The Atlantica website outlines a proposal whose main thrust is the re-orientation of the port of Halifax and the rest of the northeastern region to a transportation entry point and highway corridor for cheaply produced goods from China and India. Such goods would be trucked from Canada’s East Coast and through New England to the ‘heartland’ urban markets of Montreal, New York and Boston. In addition, the website includes a number of proposals focused upon further facilitating the export of oil and natural gas resources from Atlantic Canada exclusively to the United States, creating a combined energy grid between Atlantic Canada and New England and generally harmonizing regulations and immigration policies between the two regions. The website is also remarkably frank in its dislike for social policies and refers to minimum wages, union density, government spending and the size of the public sector as “public policy distress factors.”

Of Highways, Truck-Trains and Prosperity

The Atlantica proposal has generated protests from labour, environmental, trade justice, and anti-imperialist organizations in Atlantic Canada. Scott Sinclair, researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and author of the critical report Atlantica: Myths and Reality¸ notes that the Atlantica proposal, although guided by the free market fundamentalism of global trade initiatives like NAFTA, places remarkably little emphasis on trade between New England and Atlantic Canada.

“There’s something wrong with an economic development strategy that's based on turning the region into a conduit for goods that are produced outside the region in Asia and are intended to be consumed outside the region,” said Sinclair.

Atlantica could also carry with it devastating environmental costs due to increased greenhouse gas emissions from giant “truck-trains,” multi-cargo transfer trucks. Environmental journalist Tim Bousquet, in a recent article for the Halifax weekly The Coast, estimates that the tripling of truck traffic in the northeastern region, as a result of the Atlantica scheme, could increase Nova Scotia’s greenhouse gas emissions by “something like five million tonnes.”

In addition, the Atlantica proposal also contains remarkably little mention of the fishing or farming sectors, which have traditionally been a staple of the local economies of both Atlantic Canada and New England, or of the details about how the Atlantica proposal would impact local indigenous communities.

Such sectors appear to be expendable within the worldview of some of Atlantica's more radical proponents."The painful reality is that the world changes and traditional ways of life often do not fit with the new circumstances," wrote Cirtwell in a column in Halifax's Chronicle Herald on the opening day of the Atlantica conference.

“If urban centres are growing, then serve that market and don’t worry about the declining local one.”

Exclusion

As unpopular as such notions might be within regions of Atlantic Canada, where the rural population constitutes nearly half of the total population, Atlantica’s proponents have managed to line up prominent political support for the cause. The conference in June began with a keynote speech by Nova Scotia Premier Rodney Macdonald and featured a presentation by Conservative Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mackay. The announcement of federal funding for the Atlantica council followed a $2.1 billion federal commitment to ‘gateway initiatives,’ of which Atlantica appears to be a primary target.

Critics pointed out that it seemed accepted as a matter of faith that the economic fate of the “Atlantica” region would be decided solely by business and corporate leaders. Participants of the “Atlantica: Charting the Course” Conference paid a $600 fee to attend. This alone ensured that the representation from labour, environmental, indigenous, or even farming organizations would be left off the table entirely.

When asked about the lack of representation from other parties outside of the business sector, the Atlantic Provinces Chamber of Commerce's in-coming American President Jonathan Daniels replied that “everybody has been invited into this process.”

When asked about the prohibitive nature of a $600 entry fee to such an invitation, Daniels then shrugged. “Well, we’re not going to be able to get everybody to the table. We’re going to get the people who really truly want to be interested in the development of this.”

The Uninvited

Outside of Halifax’s World Trade and Convention Centre, the anti-Atlantic protests had a remarkably different flavour than during the inaugural Atlantica conference, held in Saint John, New Brunswick, in early June 2006. During this conference, trade union leadership in the region had mobilized significantly, bringing in representation from Acadian workers in the Mirimichi, Moncton and Bathurst regions as well as the predominantly Anglophone regions of Fredericton and Saint John. The heads of the Federations of Labour of Nova Scotia, PEI, New Brunswick and Newfoundland were also present at this mobilization and spoke out publicly against Atlantica.

By contrast, organized Labour in Halifax played little role in the mobilizations and teach-ins outside of this year’s Atlantica conference, aside from a well-attended town hall featuring Maude Barlow at Dalhousie University on June 13. Although the main demonstration was arguably as large as the Labour-sponsored march in 2006, the makeup this year was predominantly composed of smaller, grassroots organizations operating under the banner of the Alliance Against Atlantica. There was also a larger contingent of individuals who had travelled a fair distance, from places as far away as Guelph, Hamilton, Montreal, Fredericton, Maine and Indiana, in order to oppose Atlantica. Actions throughout the week included a sizeable critical mass bike ride, a full day of workshops, a Friday evening street party and a spontaneously organized disruption of the lunch of former AIMS director Brian Lee Crowley.

The split of the ‘black bloc’ demonstrators from the main march on June 15, as well as the subsequent scattered confrontations with police, resulted in an overwhelming use of force by police. Ironically, the majority of the 21 arrests occurred after demonstrators within the ‘black bloc’ march were attempting to disperse by moving towards the base of Citadel Hill. They were corralled, surrounded, and heavily tasered by police. One demonstrator was held down by three police officers and tasered until he became unconscious. It took more than five minutes for an ambulance to arrive on the scene. Michael Doyle was also pepper-sprayed by police, seemingly because he witnessed police use of tasers.

“I was yelling ‘that guy is getting tasered for no reason,’” said Doyle.

“And then the guy just sprays me.”

Police subsequently laid a combined total of 70 charges against demonstrators, including assaulting a police officer, unlawful assembly and wearing a face-mask with intent to commit an offence.

Welcome to Ambiguica

In the midst of all the arrests, demonstrations and photo-ops to emerge from the second round of Atlantica/anti-Atlantica events, the Atlantica concept itself has become extremely muddied and largely ambiguous. Even political support for this initiative appears ambiguous; Premier Macdonald has been using the words ‘Atlantica’ and ‘Atlantic Gateway’ interchangeably to describe the initiative, despite the fact that many view the ‘Gateway’ as a more limited project aimed almost solely at expanding the traffic within the Halifax harbour. As Here! New Brunswick columnist Chris Arsenault has noted , even Atlantica’s proponents have stated that regional business leaders have become confused about whether to put their support behind the concept of an ‘Atlantic Gateway’ or a broader ‘Atlantica’ concept currently advocated by AIMS.

The confusion seems to be magnified further by the fact that the Atlantica discussions have been largely informal. At present, there is no signed agreement or proposal that has been put forward for an Atlantica trade zone. All the decisions regarding the proposal appear to have taken place within board meetings of either the Atlantic Provinces Chamber of Commerce or the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies.

It is the ambiguity of the Atlantica proposal that may offer the greatest threat to its success. However, given the entirely closed-door nature of the discussions that have taken place, it would be premature for Atlantica’s opponents to claim victory. The “Atlantica: Charting the Course” conference concluded with no specific recognition amongst the 200 delegates of any need to include farmers, environmentalists, labour organizations, or Atlantica critics within the discussion of the economic future of Atlantic Canada and New England.

This article was corrected on July 23, 2007; a quote was wrongly attributed to Scott Sinclair.

Anti-Atlantica March 2

Anti-Atlantica March

Where is Atlantic Canada Heading?

hillarybain — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:20:06 +0000

An interview with Maude Barlow on Atlantica

From June 14-16, corporate executives, the think-tanks they fund, and some government officials from Eastern Canada and Northeastern United States will gather in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to discuss Atlantica; “a broad social project” according the initiative’s leading intellectual architect Brian Lee Crowley.

“There are a lot of people with an interest in seeing Atlantica proceed,” said Crowley, former director of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and now a senior economics adviser to Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Others, including unions and community groups in Eastern Canada and Northeastern United States, have an interest in stopping Atlantica. The economic and political project has identified several “public policy distress factors”, including “minimum wage legislation (a measure of labour market flexibility)” and “union density.”

Maude Barlow, author of more than a dozen books on politics and economics and chairperson of the Council of Canadians, has been following Atlantica and other neo-liberal initiatives closely.

She most recently won Sweden’s Right Livelihood Award -- similar to the Nobel Prize-- for her “exemplary and long-standing worldwide work for trade justice.” Her latest book is Too Close for Comfort, Canada’s Future Within Fortress North America.

She spoke with Chris Arsenault from her home in Ottawa.

In your recent book, you talk a lot about ‘Fortress North America’ and ‘Deep Integration.’

Can you describe those concepts a little bit? How do they relate to the Atlantica initiative?

Maude Barlow: One should look at the Atlantica project within the larger move towards creating one North American security block. It started post-9/11 with the creation of a task force on recommendations from the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), the country’s largest corporate lobby group…who saw, frankly, an opportunity with 9/11 to push their agenda of deregulation of the border and deregulation of trade. That moved very quickly through senior political levels to the Prime Minister at the time, Paul Martin. He signed the Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America in Waco, Texas, in March, 2005 with George Bush and Vicente Fox. This commitment to building a kind of European Union in North America, but without the environmental, social and human rights safeguards that were in the original European Union, dramatically increased under Harper.

There would be one trade block, harmonizing: immigration, visas at entry level -- you name it. Some of them [CCCE leaders] are talking about a customs union; certainly a common market. Some are even talking about a common dollar and existing as one trade block in the WTO (World Trade Organization). So Canada would be negotiating as one with the United States, as opposed to being concerned about what the Americans are demanding from us and trying to protect ourselves.

It would require more integrated foreign policy, security policy, military policy and so on. We call it ‘Fortress North America’ basically because it’s based on the viewpoint and ideology of big business, big security, and big defence.

When you move into what’s happening with Atlantica, it’s important to have that as a backdrop; to realize what they are talking about with Atlantica is kind of an Atlantic version of this larger ‘Fortress North America,’ based on what’s good for big business, the big defence industry, the big security industry and so on.

As with Atlantica, ordinary Canadians, people with different kinds of concerns, were entirely left out of the negotiation and the debate about the Security Partnership for North America. So here we see the same thing happening: the corporate, trade and defence industries getting together and promoting an agenda that’s good for them but not for the majority of Atlantic Canadians.

In a Moncton Times & Transcript article, one columnist scoffed at critics, stating that “the Atlantica agenda is preoccupied with the hard, mundane work of facilitating trade and cross-border business relationships.” What do you think about this assessment?

This is always what they fall back on, like we’re just too silly to understand such important issues as cross-border trade. We’re not at all opposed to trade or rules to promote trade or even trade agreements.

We are opposed to agreements like NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] that expose Canada to the whims of US bureaucracy and corporate interests.

With NAFTA and Atlantica, you’re getting into an agreement with a much larger partner and it’s going to be the interests of the larger partner that will prevail.

When the US wants to abide by NAFTA, it does; when it doesn’t, it just doesn’t. If nobody but the corporate sector is welcome in these talks, then what does that say about democracy?

What does that say about the environment? Human rights concerns? The concerns of working people? Women’s groups? Faith based groups? There are many groups who would have some things to say about how we might have closer co-operation.

Nobody is against better communication and even better transportation. But if you want to see what it’s like when that gets out of hand, go to Windsor, Ontario, and take a look at the eight-lane so-called NAFTA Highway that goes 24-7, all through the day and night It’s just this horrible strip of highway that takes the trade back and forth across that border. It’s polluting. It’s horribly noisy. There are downsides to constant growth.

Yes, prosperity is important, but so are social rights, maintaining environmental, health and safety standards and quality of life. All these elements need to be taken into account.

In your travels and meetings with social movements around the world, can you talk about some alternatives, some independent economic policies that really work?

I think you can look right here in Canada, with some flaws of course. We tried in the past to mix public and private in a really innovative way.

That’s because there were so few people living in this great big, cold, harsh, beautiful country, this huge geographic space. Our ancestors decided they needed to share with each other. I call it our Canadian founding narrative: Sharing for survival. It’s different from the American founding narrative: Survival of the fittest.

We said yes to the private sector; yes, people can make money, yes to entrepreneurship and all that stuff, but there also has to be a strong public sector. The private sector won’t deliver mail to small communities; it won’t take the railroad to the north. The private sector has to make money and it won’t provide the services and the connections to poorer communities.

In Atlantic Canada, for people who wanted to make those East-West links, ribbons of interdependence as I call them, this equalization concept is enormously important.

At the same time, the problem is that Atlantic Canada really was invaded by other parts of the country and its bounty was taken and that part of the model was not good. So the question is: how can we re-balance confederation so more of the resources of Atlantic Canada benefit the people there, while still benefiting from this great partnership called Canada?

So, I think in many respects, we can look favourably on the model we have created ourselves. The whole world, however, not just Atlantic Canada, is going to have to reconfigure our relationship with nature.

The notion behind Atlantica is unlimited growth which one American environmentalist compared to the logic of a cancer cell; it eventually turns on its host in order to survive. We are killing the Earth. The Earth cannot sustain more growth, more destruction of meadows and wetlands, cutting down more forests, damming more rivers or burning more fossil fuels.

The earth is saying, ‘I’ve reached my limit.’ We’re running out of fresh water, energy and minerals. We’re releasing too much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We’ve got to stop.

One of the major answers is something called ‘subsidiarity,’ where you can grow or produce something closer to home. You have economic policy that promotes that practice: food grown locally, not shipped in from across the world, where farmers are working for next to no wages. You stop this horrible head-to-head competition; you support locally produced goods. You cut down on trade, I don’t mean no trade, but the average North American dinner plate has travelled 1,900kms to get to you. That’s insane.

In Atlantic Canada, before life gets out of hand and everything becomes like it is in Toronto, people need to slow down and think about whether that is what they want.

There is a beautiful way of life in Atlantic Canada. I know; I come from there. This notion of supporting local communities, building something together, and being careful about our ecological footprint is what the whole world has to turn to. It would be really wrong for Atlantic Canada to give up what it has right now; that beauty, that way of life. It can still be prosperous, but not the model they are looking at with Atlantica. [Following that model],I see a zone where it will be US money and US corporations. It will be a free trade zone on the Canadian side with much lower wages -- a Canadian sweatshop.

They’ll deny this and say I am being alarmist, but there is a Third World in this country now.

We’ve created a poverty class that didn’t exist 15 years ago through these neo-liberal policies and free trade agreements. Atlantica wants to take this a whole step further.

Highway

Invest in Serbia!

dru — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 01:55:31 +0000

Some government-funded folks at U of T are organizing a conference about investing in the new, "western friendly" Serbia.

The region has already seen some high-profile investment from Canadian companies. Organizers say that participants can expect a frank assessment of the potential for the region as whole as it moves towards political and economic stability along with membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the European Union.

Genetically Modified Diplomacy

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 16:12:52 +0000

Canada's International Biotech Agenda

Critics argue that government is being influenced by large biotech corporations and regulatory norms in the US. photo: Jessica Bray

According to several observers, Canada's diplomatic maneuvers at the UN and WTO could weaken international environmental law and accelerate the spread of unpopular genetically-modified organisms around the world.

In 2003, Canada, along with the US and Argentina, initiated proceedings at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to challenge the European Community's (EC) ban on Genetically-Modified Organisms (GMOs). On September 29 of this year, the WTO declared the EC's GMO regulations illegal and instructed it to modify its laws accordingly.

"Although politicians claim that environmental law and trade law support each other, this ruling demonstrates that in the hands of the WTO, environmental law is in fact made subservient to trade laws," said Duncan Currie, international law expert and author of a Greenpeace assessment of the WTO case. Canada was the first industrialized country to ratify the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity, which was first agreed to at the UN Earth Summit in 1992 and reaffirmed in 2002. The Convention includes the Biosafety Protocol, which regulates the movement of GMOs across borders.

"The ruling contradicts what heads of state agreed at the UN World Summit," said Currie.

The WTO ruled that the precautionary principle, a mainstay of international environmental law, was too controversial and unsettled a concept to be a general principle of law. The precautionary principle states that if the potential consequences of an action are severe or irreversible, in the absence of full scientific certainty, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action.

"If taken as precedent," writes Canadian law firm McCarthy Tétrault, "this position could affect the regulation of many other industries." McCarthy Tétrault gives the example of the EC's draft rules for testing the effects of certain industrial chemicals for public health consequences. "If those rules incorporate the precautionary principle, any resulting restrictions could be challenged for not being based on hard scientific evidence."

"This ruling is important," says Howard Minigh, former vice-president of DuPont and [current?] president of Brussels-based CropLife International, which represents biotech companies. "Regulations based on political expediency and excessive precaution encouraged by propaganda from anti-biotech groups" put producers of farm goods at a disadvantage, he says.

The Canadian government claims that its domestic GMO testing system is foolproof and that Canadian-approved GMO products are safe. A review of decisions by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency shows that all 61 applications for GMO animal-feed products were approved. Agriculture Canada has also approved 89 GMO food products for human consumption.

Are Canada's regulations for GMOs safe? GMOs are not labeled, and thus difficult to test, but according to Dr. Joe Cummins, "there has been a large increase in food allergy and food-related illness after the GM foods were spread around North American markets."

"In Canada," said Cummins, who is a member of the UK-based Independent Science Panel and an emeritus professor of genetics at the University of Western Ontario, "most processed foods contain GM corn, soy or canola products."

"Even though it is not possible to do good science of the unlabelled foods, laboratory animal studies showed a range of adverse effects from allergy, inflammation or pre-cancerous lesion of the digestive system. Such studies are ignored by the Canadian government but they are well documented."

A 2004 report by the Polaris Institute looked at the 58 recommendations to protect public health by the Royal Society's 2001 Expert Panel on the Future of Food Biotechnology. The report found that while some progress has been made, there is still a great deal that needs to be done before Canadians have a precautionary regulatory system to protect their families and the environment from the risks of GMOs.

"It appears to me that the government has been unduly influenced by large biotech corporations and the regulatory norms in place south of the border," said Dr. Peter Andree, author of the Polaris report. "As a result, in general I think it is fair to say that Canadian regulators do not recognize the potential severity of the risks of products of biotechnology, or the value of a more precautionary response to those risks."

In the meantime, the Canadian government is campaigning to open the world market to GMOs, including the 'Terminator' gene. Terminator seeds are genetically engineered to result in crops that don't grow viable seeds. Farmers who use the Terminator seeds cannot save seeds from their crops and are forced to buy new seeds. There is a currently an international moratorium on the use and marketing of Terminator seeds.

"Terminator seeds are a weapon of mass destruction and an assault on our food sovereignty," said Viviana Figueroa of the Ocumazo indigenous community in Argentina on behalf of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity.

"Terminator [technology] directly threatens our life, our culture and our identity as indigenous peoples."

In 2005, a leaked report obtained by the ETC Group indicated that Canadian diplomats were heading to a Convention on Biodiversity meeting with instruction to "block consensus" in order to help lift the moratorium.

The Canadian government was swamped with letters of protest from around the world and references to the Terminator were deleted in the official text after strong objections from other countries.

"This is a momentous day for the 1.4 billion poor people worldwide, who depend on farmer-saved seeds," Francisca Rodriguez of La Via Campesina, a global network of peasant farmers, said of the decision.

In spite of the international outcry, Pat Mooney of ETC Group noted that Canada continued to support Terminator technology at the last Biodiversity Convention meeting in Curitiba, Brazil, in 2006, but in a "low-key way."

"In the end," continues Mooney, "efforts by Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA were blocked by the EU and developing countries and the Convention on Biodiversity ultimately strengthened its moratorium against Terminator."

"We nevertheless have the impression that Canada will continue to push for Terminator both in trees and crops."

Canada is also using its international aid program to spread biotech.

Through the Canadian International Development Agency, Canada is developing a biosciences centre for East and Central Africa, as one of four "agricultural centres of excellence" being developed around Africa, with an estimated cost of over $30 million. The United States is expected to build a centre in North Africa; the UK will build one in South Africa, and France; one in West Africa.

"It is clear from the information we have gathered," said Mooney, "that BECA is being built to promote agricultural biotechnology."

The WTO decision will open up new markets for Canadian biotech, an industry with annual revenues of $5 billion and an annual research expenditure of $3 billion.

Yuill Herbert examines Canada's international biotech agenda and the government's most recent GM 'victory.'

Will Eliminating Subsidies Help Poor Farmers?

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 12:53:16 +0000

The NFU's Darrin Qualman discusses how corporate control of markets goes missing in discussions of "free trade"

Cargill-owned grain elevators on Lake Erie. photo: Maureen Jameson

When discussion turns to the plight of the farmers of the world, especially in the Third World, the narrative is remarkably consistent. The story is one of rich countries--in Europe and north of the Rio Grande--that subsidize their farmers. These farmers are able to produce foodstuffs for artificially low prices, with prices driven lower still by their established scale and ability to invest in advanced technology. Poor countries, notably those in Africa and the Caribbean, are devastated when their markets are flooded with cheap rice, corn and other food products from rich countries.

WTO critic Joseph Stiglitz, CBC journalist Michael Enright, former Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew and the Third World Network agree on the best course of action. So do the editorial boards of the Guardian, the Globe and Mail, much of the progressive press and the financial press. There is a near-consensus about the solution. To help Third World farmers, Europe, the US and Canada fulfill their part of the bargain at the WTO and remove subsidies for their farmers and reduce tariffs that deny Third World farmers access to their markets.

The only things standing in the way of prosperity for a billion poor farmers, this diverse chorus tells us, are the entrenched interests of farmers in rich countries and their hold on governments that refuse to open up their markets to foreign competition.

According to Darrin Qualman, director of research at Canada's National Farmer's Union (NFU), there's a problem: the narrative is a distraction and removing subsidies will do very little to help poor farmers.

"It's all just wrong. It's the wrong talk about the wrong topics," says Qualman. "The one thing they're not discussing at the WTO is what's causing the farm income crisis--corporate power taking out profits and impoverishing farmers."

Qualman says that one of the basic problems with the narrative is the central "mantra" that "market access" will help farmers in the majority world. A picture-perfect case study for why this is not the case can be found close by.

"Canada is probably one of the most successful countries in the world in terms of gaining market access--I can't imagine that there are many countries in the world that have been as successful at getting access."

"The net result has been the worst farm-income crisis in Canadian history."

Instead, Qualman says that all available data point to trade liberalization as being wildly enriching for those who have consolidated control over markets, but devastating to small-scale farmers. Farms are told to become more "efficient" in order to compete, while transnational agribusiness takes in huge profits by squeezing farmers and controlling distribution and retail channels.

As a general trend, Qualman says that "farm income around the world is inversely proportional to trade volumes and the number of trade agreements we sign."

"The WTO guys would say that it's directly proportional... They're just lying. All the data from the last 20 years says they're wrong."

It's not that poor farmers aren't being put out of business by subsidized crops. This, Qualman explains, is a natural side effect of putting a billion farmers into competition with each other by removing the ability of governments to regulate what enters their borders.

"Dumping shouldn't happen, but the problem isn't subsidies. You have to give poor countries the power to say no to these products." This means addressing the source of those policies: often the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which use their leverage over poor countries to impose "free trade" policies.

Agribusiness has "merged and merged" at the transnational level, consolidating power and resulting in massive profits, while "the system has been altered such that all the farmers have been brought into competition with each other." Qualman says that the results are entirely predictable: "We have been put in a race to the bottom triggered by the dissolution of barriers."

Grain and oil seed farming provide the quintessential example. "Cargill [a US-based crop nutrient producer and distributor] will play canola farmers in Canada against soy farmers in Brazil, against palm oil producers in Indonesia." Because each region's farmers can be threatened with the threat of lower-priced product from their counterparts, the result is a massive power imbalance between farmers and distributors, with a predictable effect on profits: farmers are struggling to get by, while the consolidated agribusiness multinationals are showing record profits year after year.

In the abstract, Qualman agrees with the premise of the "free trade" crowd.

"Farmers would love to see the market distortions taken out, but we need to start with the highest-profit links in the chain"--the corporations deriving record profits from consolidating power over markets, not farmers in the First World, the majority world, who are losing money every year. "The WTO wants to just focus on one link."

"If they want to help farmers, we need to talk about breaking up cartels and breaking up the power of these near-monopoly agribusiness corporations."

In the end, the problem for farmers isn't about having better data or a more convincing argument to petition the government. Currently, "the government is largely hostile to the family farm and the needs of rural communities," so the problem is one of political clout. To oppose a global system that is stacked against them, farmers must organize globally.

"Farmers used to organize provincially, then they saw that the policy was made at the national level," says Qualman. "Now if you look at where policy is happening, you would say that farmers need to organize planet-wide."
This is a task of mammoth proportions, but the process has already begun, albeit slowly. The NFU is a member of Via Campesina, an international network dedicated to "uniting farmers toward common goals." Many Via Campesina members are currently dedicating their energy to fighting policies imposed by the World Bank and IMF on farmers, particularly in Asia and Latin America.

Dru Oja Jay investigates how corporate control of markets goes missing in discussions about "free trade."

Canada's Quiet Free Trade Agreement

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 17:43:34 +0000

Few people have heard of CA4TA

Guatemala City graffiti: We don't want free trade agreement, we want revolution, education, media. photo: Detritus

In June, Canada's international trade minister, David L. Emerson, gave a speech in Ottawa to Canada's business, government, and academic elite to celebrate International Trade Day. "I have no reservations about saying that we have not been aggressive enough and focused enough on ensuring that Canada keeps up with the rapid, almost competitive, expansion of bilateral free trade agreements," said Emerson. "Canada is the only major trading nation that has not negotiated a single free trade agreement in the past five years." One of the agreements the Canadian government is trying to finalize is the Central America Four Free Trade Agreement (CA4TA) with Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Talks were suspended in February 2004 over a failure to resolve a few issues of contention, though one Canadian Trade official said the talks were "very well advanced." Canada is now informally talking with these Central American countries to resolve a few remaining issues, he said, one of them concerning market access for exports. "My assumption is that it is an opportunity for governments to work out differences so that in official meetings they can just rubber stamp the deal and send it through," said Nadja Drost, co-ordinator of the Americas Policy Group.

A point of contention with Drost and about 150 civil society groups throughout the hemisphere is the refusal to release a draft of the agreement.

The Canadian Trade official, who wished to withhold his name, said that the Canadian government wanted to release the draft but that it would be inappropriate to do so unilaterally since consensus on the issue couldn't be released. Drost countered by pointing out that it was the Canadian government who convinced the countries of the hemisphere to release a draft of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in 2001.

"Now they are saying that they can't get four small Central American countries to do it," she added.

As it stands, the text won't be released until the deal is signed and submitted to parliament for ratification. Although the economic impacts of the deal may not be profound, there are concerns about sovereignty, human rights and democracy based on experiences from past deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

"I think transparency is a major, major issue," said Drost. "I think the public would feel a lot more assured if they knew their concerns about democracy and human rights were being addressed."

Because of the secrecy behind the details of the deal, critics are using NAFTA and the United States' narrowly passed Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) as references for their concerns. Both trade agreements were attacked for failing to promote and enforce human rights, as well as for undermining democracy with unbalanced investor rights provisions.

The investor rights provisions of free trade were first introduced in Chapter 11 of NAFTA. It essentially allows corporations to sue local, state or federal governments for labour, environmental or other public interest laws which they deem unfairly impeding their ability to maximize profits.

For example, the Canadian government was fined for entering an international agreement that prompted it to close its borders to toxic substances. Under Chapter 11, Canada was ordered to pay US company S.D. Meyers $4.8 million for "lost business opportunities." Thus far, tens of millions of dollars have been awarded to corporations, while billions of dollars worth of claims are still pending.

The Canadian government, in 2004, responded to some of civil society's concerns about NAFTA's Ch. 11 by revising its negotiation template for Foreign Investment Protection Agreements (FIPA). Although some issues are addressed, according to a policy review commissioned by the Canadian Council for International Co-operation and written by the editor of Investment Treaty News, the reforms fall short.

For example, the template restricts host countries from requiring foreign companies to purchase some supplies locally. These requirements would bolster local economic development, but might ultimately inhibit companies from maximizing profits.

Free trade critics are also concerned with the lack of provisions to address and redress weak labour and human rights laws in the Central American countries.

The Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers (CALL), an association of over 350 progressive lawyers that has worked to promote legally enforceable rights for workers in the Americas, has "serious reservations that the proposed CA4FTA will benefit workers in Central America or Canada." It uses past trade agreements, such as NAFTA and CAFTA, to point out historical deficiencies in the area of workers' rights when it comes to international trade.

Under CAFTA, Central American countries are only obligated to enforce domestic labour laws. This is problematic, considering various reports by the US State Department, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), and other human rights organizations point out not only inadequacies with current laws but also institutional failures in enforcing these laws. In the Central American countries included in CA4TA, child labour is pervasive, worker blacklists are made, foreign companies have closed their doors after being informed that workers wanted to form a union, and worker wages are a fraction of what Canadian workers make. According to the ICFTU, in Honduras, Francisco Cruz Galeano, the regional co-ordinator of the General Confederation of Workers (CGT), was shot over 20 times and killed.

As of now, Canadian citizens will not learn how CA4TA affects human rights issues until the deal is finalized and submitted to Parliament for approval. The text will then be available for public, media and government scrutiny. But any amendments proposed to address potential shortcomings would have to be reviewed by the Central American partner governments.

Pressure will undoubtedly be put on members of Parliament to pass the agreement as is so that Canada doesn't fall further behind in the race to secure new free trade agreements—something Canada's trade minister has already said needs to be remedied. The same approach was used in the United States to push through CAFTA, which was ratified by a mere two votes, despite widespread opposition by civil society in the United States, as well as Central America.

Cyril Mychalejko is assistant editor of UpsideDownWorld, an online magazine uncovering politics and activism in Latin America.

Cyril Mychalejko investigates the CA4TA, a free trade agreement few Canadians have heard of.

Public kept in dark about talks on North American integration

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 18:54:41 +0000

From September 12-14, leaders from all three North American Conservative governments met in Banff, British Columbia for the second annual conference on North American integration, entitled "The 2006 North American Forum." According to internal documents "not for public release" obtained by the Banff Crag and Canyon, politicians including the Minister of Public Safety, Stockwell Day, and the Minister of Defence, Gordon O'Conner, met with government and business leaders from the US, Canada and Mexico, including US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the president and CEO of Canada West Foundation (an Alberta think-tank), a subdirector of PEMEX (a Mexican oil company) and the president of the Lockheed Martin Corp. (the world's largest military contractor).

Although the conference, organized by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, examines issues of interest to the public, like North American integration of energy and security, it has been held in secret for the second year in a row, without advance warning and without a press release.

According to the Crag, the spokesperson for the forum, John Larsen, refused to reveal who had paid for the forum or whether or not Rumsfeld was attending. Larsen did talk about the secret nature of the event: "You can imagine that if this was all televised or open to public scrutiny, the nature of the conversations and ultimately what you would be able to do with those conversations and how far you might be able to advance the solutions around it would be different."

Maude Barlow, writing in the Toronto Star, pointed out that, "since Paul Martin, Vicente Fox and George W. Bush signed the Security and Prosperity Partnership in March 2005, discussions on continental integration have gone underground. The media have paid little attention to this far-reaching agreement, thus Canadians are unaware that a dozen working groups are currently 'harmonizing' Canadian and US regulations on everything from food to drugs to the environment and even more contentious issues like foreign policy."

As of Sept. 25, only the Banff Crag and Canyon and the Toronto Star had reported that the conference had occurred at all.

Business Without Boundaries

Sun, 18 Jun 2006 02:18:06 +0000

New initiative hopes to make Atlantic Canada an 'epi-centre' of international trade

Hundreds demonstrated against the Atlantica Initiative in Saint John, New Brunswick. photo: Chris Erb

Sean Cooper replies without hesitation when asked if there will be negative social or environmental consequences to Atlantica: "No," he says bluntly. "There are none that I'm aware of." Executive Director of the Atlantic Provinces Chamber of Commerce (APCC), Cooper has only good things to say about Atlantica - a region encompassing the northeastern US and Atlantic Canada that business leaders are proposing as the new 'epi-centre' of international trade.

The APCC and Saint John Board of Trade recently hosted hundreds of delegates in Saint John, New Brunswick for "Reaching Atlantica: Business Without Boundaries," a conference intended to raise the profile of the Atlantica Initiative and assist in its development.

Proponents of Atlantica believe that Atlantic Canada--largely considered a 'have-not' region--has the potential to become an economic powerhouse; with Halifax acting as an international port, Atlantica is perfectly situated to funnel goods into huge American markets. The purpose of Atlantica, says Cooper, is to allow goods, people and services to move more easily between huge economic zones. Essentially, Atlantica will "move wealth," he says. "And it will create wealth."

Create wealth for whom? asks Matt Schlobohm, co-ordinator for the Maine Fair Trade Campaign. Schlobohm spoke at "Resisting Atlantica: Reclaiming Democracy," a counter-conference that drew a crowd of 300 people--people that do believe Atlantica will have negative social and environmental consequences. Schlobohm is one of those people. He notes that, on the surface, the Atlantica Initiative appears harmless: "Who could be opposed to trade between Atlantic Canada and northern New England? - that sounds great." But in order to understand the values behind the Initiative, one must look at who is behind it, says Schlobohm.

Sponsors of 'Reaching Atlantica' included large corporations like Irving Oil, BMO Financial Group and Aliant. Speakers at the conference included representatives from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS). Registration for members of the public was $595, a fee that demonstrators noted was more than most people could afford. It is the business elite pushing for the Atlantica Initiative, argues Schlobohm, and it will be the business elite who will benefit.

Schlobohm points to AIMS, a think tank he says is "pushing aggressively for Atlantica." AIMS details the "poor public policy holding Atlantica back" on its website. Included in the list are minimum wage legislation and union density, both considered measures of "labour market flexibility." Schlobohm is alarmed that minimum wage legislation and unions, which he considers the "most effective anti-poverty program the world has seen," are being labeled "economic distress factors." He argues that Atlantica, like its predecessor NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), is not fundamentally about trade--which can have many benefits--but about increasing profits for corporations, often at the expense of workers' rights, social programs, and environmental protection.

Police block the entrance to the convention centre where business delegates met to discuss the Atlantica Initiative. photo: Chris Erb

Garry Leech, a member of the Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network, has seen this happen in his own province. Nova Scotia Power used to buy Nova Scotia coal. The company has since found cheaper coal in Colombia. Not only have jobs been lost in Atlantic Canada, notes Leech, but the cheap coal is linked to human rights abuses in Colombia. There are other ways of doing business, he insists.

"Nova Scotia power should not be investing in the refurbishment of coal powered plants--which are huge emitters of green house gases--but in wind energy," says Leech. "That would improve the environment and provide jobs in the wind energy sector. And it would de-link Canada from human rights abuses in Colombia." Leech's vision of supporting local economies is far different from the Atlantica model.

"We are about to become a doorway to the industrial might of China and India," Brian Lee Crowley, president of AIMS, told the Chronicle Herald. Crowley envisions a transportation corridor moving goods from the Halifax port to markets in the US. Large numbers of trucks will be needed, notes Crowley, and large numbers of truck drivers. "The answer isn't going into high schools and [talking] about great opportunities in the trucking industry," says Crowley. "Mexico is one of the three NAFTA partners. The answer is to set up a guest worker program."

Mexican guest workers are not granted the same rights as Canadians and are often willing to work for less. Atlantica may encourage cheap labour and goods to move easily across the border, but Leech wonders if immigrants and refugees would be given the same rights. AIMS' recommendations to Ottawa include working with the US on "integrated perimeter security, harmonization of external tariffs and mutually agreeable standards of entry for persons from third countries."

The "Reaching Atlantica" conference concluded with the announcement that an 'Atlantica council' would be created to bring key government leaders on board. Leech is disappointed that, despite protests, representatives from unions, community groups and environmental organizations have not been invited to the table. This isn't just about economics, he says, but also about social, environmental, political and military policies; it's therefore critical that voices other than those of big businesses are heard.

Business leaders in Atlantic Canada say they've found an answer to the region's economic woes. Atlantic Canadians wish somebody would ask them. Hillary Bain Lindsay investigates.