The Dominion - trade

The "Trade" Agreement Ottawa and Nova Scotia Want Kept Secret

Martin Lukacs — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 09:06:28 +0000

Packed room hears Canada-Europe trade negotiations denounced

HALIFAX—A standing-room-only crowd packed a Halifax meeting room on a summer night to hear about a secret.

Two national speakers, Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians and Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) President Paul Moist, provided a harrowing account of the Harper government's "trade" negotiations with Europe that they said will transfer decision-making power from local governments to multinational corporations.

The vehicle for this wholesale corporate power grab is the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), said the speakers.

Unlike the earlier Free Trade Agreement and North American Free Trade Agreement, CETA would reach into provincial and municipal policy-making and purchasing, Moist said. It would seriously threaten local job creation and "Buy-Local" policies; it would encourage privatization of Canada's drinking water and waste-water services (no matter what local citizens wanted); and it would cause prescription drug costs to skyrocket by at least $2.8 billion per year.

CETA is essentially a corporate bill of rights which puts companies and their profits first and the wishes of local citizens last, said Barlow. For example, European corporations could seek compensation for business lost as a result of any government regulation or policy. This includes banning a carcinogenic additive to gasoline (this has already happened under existing "trade" deals) or paying millions to a pulp and paper company that abandoned Newfoundland and Labrador.

"We have nothing against trading with Europe and much of our trade is now free or becoming free of tariffs," said Moist. "But this deal goes well beyond trade issues into interfering with how local people can make decisions about how to run their communities."

A Nova Scotia speaker, Mark Austin, Executive Director of the Rural and Coast Communities Network, added a number of concerns. "This deal has huge implications for Nova Scotia, particularly rural areas, yet we have heard nothing about it," Austin said. It would likely result in overfishing, and would threaten food sovereignty through attacks on agricultural policies such as farm marketing boards, he added.

And buy-local initiatives, like one Austin is involved with in Truro, could become impossible.

"While there might be small short-term gains in trade with Europe, you have to give up control of your long-term local economic prospects. It's like the Canucks playing in Boston—you can score one goal, but you have to give up five."

CUPE Nova Scotia President Danny Cavanagh, who chaired Tuesday's event, said CETA negotiations would resume in Brussels on July 10. Prime Minister Harper hopes to sign a completed deal by the end of the year. Premier Darrell Dexter and other provincial premiers, who also need to sign off on the deal, are part of Canada's little-publicized discussions.

Barlow said that while it may be unrealistic to expect a provincial government not to sign the agreement, she hopes that public pressure motivates premiers to drive a harder bargain and seek exemptions from the most damaging aspects of the currently proposed deal.

Despite the devastating potential impact, the speakers noted that the Nova Scotia government has done nothing to alert citizens of what is at stake. Moist said that the Nova Scotia and Manitoba governments have agreed to talk in private with CUPE and the Council of Canadians research staff about the negotiations, but no consultations with the general public are planned.

The European Parliament receives regular status reports in public on the CETA negotiations, Moist said. "Why can't Canadians get such reports?"

Dartmouth MP Robert Chisholm, the federal NDP trade critic, was at the meeting, as was Halifax NDP MP Megan Leslie. No provincial politicians attended.

"It's not too late to stop the deal," Barlow said.

The speaking event was part of a national campaign entitled, "Canadian communities are not for sale.” More information is available as part of a “CETA toolkit” at http://cupe.ca/ceta, or at www.canadians.org.

This article was originally published with the Halifax Media Co-op.

Jim Guild, of Halifax, recently retired from a staff rep. position with the NS Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU) and has been active of late with the Halifax Media Co-op.

Barlow CETA2

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

Emissions Thicken the Air in Alberta

dawn — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:38:39 +0000

The tar sands' biggest customer has second thoughts

FT. MCMURRAY -- As Canada's tar sands extraction expands full steam ahead, a perfect storm of internal and external opposition could derail some of the voracious growth at the world's largest energy project.

Together, skyrocketing construction costs, falling crude prices, increasingly vocal opposition from some native groups, and a little known section of the 2007 U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act all threaten growth projections in northern Alberta.

"If I was an investor, I wouldn't want to take the risk of putting money into the tar sands right now," said Liz Barratt-Brown, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defence Council, an NGO leading U.S. lobbying efforts against Canada's heavy oil industry.

Canada is the largest foreign exporter of oil to the United States, with Alberta's tar sands sending roughly 500,000 barrels to the U.S. every day. Losing access to the U.S. market would significantly affect expansion plans.

And Canadian oil industry lobbyists are concerned about section 526 of the U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 which bars U.S. federal agencies such as the military and the postal service from buying synthetic or unconventional fuels if they create more greenhouse gases emissions than conventional fuels.

"It was just one of those funny stories in Washington where this section [526] was overlooked," said Greg Stringham from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. "I don't think Canadians or oil companies knew about this section."

Between January and September of this year, Canadian oil lobbyists pushed hard to have section 526 amended or repealed, said Barratt-Brown. Unlike other provinces, Alberta maintains its own special interests office in Canada's embassy in Washington.

In February 2008, Canada's ambassador to the United States, Michael Wilson, wrote to the U.S. defence secretary arguing that Canadian tar sands oil should not be included in the interpretation of this section.

Then on Mar. 17, Democratic Senator Henry Waxman, chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and author of the legislation, wrote a letter to Chairman Jeff Bingaman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee clarifying the legal meaning of section 526.

Waxman said section 526 of the Act prohibits U.S. government agencies, including the military, from purchasing "fuels derived from tar sands".

Lobbying continued throughout the spring. Two Republicans from Texas, Reps. Jeb Hensarling and Mike Conaway, sent a letter in late March to other members of the House of Representatives stating: "Section 526 would be problematic enough if it were clear and straightforward, however, the language contains several ambiguities, causing a flurry of attempts at legislative interpretation by the Air Force, the Canadian government, [and] the Centre for Unconventional Fuels [an industry lobby group]."

To counter anti-tar sands campaigners, the Alberta government launched a 21-million-dollar advertising campaign in April aimed at improving the province's brand.

Environmentalists claimed victory in late September, when the Defence Authorisation Bill passed without weakening or amending section 526. Oil industry lobbyists say environmentalists haven't won any victory and U.S. institutions will continue purchasing tar sands oil.

"This will be the first time government agencies have to look at greenhouse gas emissions for purchasing policies and that's positive," said Barratt-Brown.

Oil from Canada's tar sands creates roughly three times the GHG emissions as conventional crude, according to environmentalists.

While environmentalists are claiming victory, plans in the U.S. are going ahead to retrofit old refineries to process tar sands synthetic crude, a sign that some industry players are not concerned about new legislation. U.S. drivers in Colorado, Ohio, and Indiana are already burning gasoline derived from tar sands oil.

"I was in Whiting, Indiana recently, where they are retrofitting one of the oldest refineries in the U.S. to process tar sands crude," said Thomas Clayton-Muller, with the Indigenous Environmental Network.

In January 2007, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that California would require a 10-percent reduction in carbon content from all fuels sold in the state by 2020, which would effectively ban imports from the tar sands.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution in June calling for an end to unconventional oil imports. "Our cities are asking for environmentally sustainable energy and not fuels from dirty sources such as tar sands," said Eugene, Oregon Mayor Kitty Piercy, who submitted the resolution.

Despite the actions of individual cities and the California's state government, the military is the largest consumer of transportation fuel in the U.S., so its interpretation of Section 526 and future purchasing habits are crucial.

From the office tower of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers in downtown Calgary, Greg Stringham is within a 15-minute walk from 150 oil companies and "rumours spread fast."

Stringham doesn't seem overly concerned about anti-tar sands legislation in Washington. He wouldn't comment directly on what a Barack Obama-Joe Biden Democratic administration and increased concerns about global warming could mean for the industry except to say: "I'm not confident of anything."

*A version of this story previously appeared on IPS. A portion of Chris Arsenault's visit to Alberta was minded and financed by Shell Canada. This article is the third in a three part series on the tar sands.

A truck at the tar sands

$490 Billion defense road map rollout, blacked out by media

Amy Miller — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:59:52 +0000

CDMA_logo_final copy.gif

You would think something like a detailed road map of ‘the modernization of the Canadian forces’, at the big fancy 8th Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas (CDMA) would elicit some sort discussion or analysis from the Canadian media/ chattering class. At the conference, Peter Mackay began to spin links between the need to respond to ‘natural disasters’ and ‘security of the Olympics’ with armed security. The highlight of the conference was the release of Canada's 20-year, $490 billion “Canada First Defense Strategy,” a detailed plan to modernize its armed forces and its military industry. McKay also signed a Memoranda of Understanding with his counterparts in Honduras, Guatemala and Bolivia, which falls under the Military Training Assistance Programme (MTAP). Yet hardly a boo, has been published about this week long conference, as the Republican convention in St Paul and the buzz around the soon to be announced election provided a nice blackout about things that were going on, that the media and lobbyist just aren't so interested in regular folks to know about.

So what do we know happened this week in the luxury resort of Banff where the delegates from 34 countries met under the theme of ‘Co-operation and Collaboration”?
According to CP Canadian Defense Minister and host of the conference, Peter MacKay addressed the crowd by stirring their shared belief that "Now more than ever, we are all connected and need to cooperate to achieve the security, democratic development, and prosperity we all desire”.

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

Bringing the SPP Out of the Shadows

hillarybain — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 15:47:36 +0000

Protesters mobilize against new trade and security talks

This article originally appeared in Siafu.

Pesticide limits are barriers to trade that must be eliminated. Integrated, high-tech border and secretive security measures are needed to ensure our safety against terrorists. Closed-door meetings between the leaders of Canada, Mexico and the US are advised only by a panel of 30 top CEOs from each country.

At first glance, many may dismiss this list as the fears of the isolationist far-Left, what New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman derided as the new Flat-Earthers who would deny the supremacy of globalization. But for those who are following the movements of the Security and Prosperity Partnership(SPP), these fears are slowly becoming a reality –- one that takes its next form at the so-called “Three Amigos” summit in Montebello, Quebec.

On August 20 and 21, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, US President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon will meet in this small resort town to discuss the next steps of the SPP. And while many Canadians have never heard of the partnership, activists from across North America are planning to make their presence felt at the "3 Bandidos" summit and hope to shed some light on what many are describing as 'NAFTA Plus'. On August 19, a march will proceed from Ottawa City Hall to the Parliament buildings, starting at 1pm. On Aug 20, the first day of the meetings, a broad-based protest in Montebello begins at noon.

The SPP was founded in 2005 at a meeting in Waco, Texas, between Bush, then-Prime Minister Paul Martin and then-Mexican President Vincente Fox. Proponents of the partnership hail it as a simpler way of ensuring that Canada, Mexico and the United States can gradually move beyond barriers on trade and safety issues. The partnership, reads the Canadian government’s website on the SPP, “is a dialogue […] by which the three countries can resolve unnecessary barriers to trade and a means to improve our response to emergencies and increase security.”

But for critics of both the North American Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas(FTAA), the SPP is the next step in submerging the rights of citizens to the rights of big business and –- more recently –- the ability for the US to carry out its War on Terror. “It is quite literally about eliminating Canada’s ability to determine independent regulatory standards, environmental protections, energy security, foreign, military, immigration and other policies,” Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadians, stated in testimony to the parliamentary Committee on International Trade last May.

Because the SPP is not a formal treaty, but rather an ongoing round of discussions between various government officials on everything from border security to the further elimination of perceived barriers to trade, the partnership does not need to be approved or discussed in parliament or go before public hearings. Its meetings, like the one being held in Montebello, are held behind closed doors. The only official consultative body was formed in 2006. The North American Competitiveness Council(NACC) consists of 30 top businesspeople, 10 from each country, who serve as advisors on the policy being developed and discussed at the various SPP meetings (other encounters under the auspices of the SPP are held regularly by lower-level members of cabinet on issues of trade and security). The Canadian SPP website heralds this body for ensuring the private sector’s voice is heard in these ongoing discussions, but remains silent on what role the public’s voice should play in these discussions.

Over past months, more information has been emerging about what the SPP engenders. A 2006 report from SPP trade talks, revealed in the media in early May, calls pesticide-residue limits in Canada a “trade irritant.” In response, Canada announced it would be lowering its restrictions on pesticide residue on fruits and vegetables in order to better “harmonise” with US regulations –- already found to be some of the lowest in the world.

Organisers for the days of protest are hoping to highlight these types of questions and force debate about the SPP onto the public agenda. "If we can get it out from the cover it's under now, then it's a big success," Rick Arnold, a co-ordinator with Common Frontiers, a group opposed to free trade in the Americas, recently told the Ottawa Citizen. But even holding a public discussion on the SPP has proven difficult. Plans by the Council of Canadians to hold a forum on the SPP on August 19 in Papineauville, a 15-minute drive from Montebello, were put on hold when the Surete du Quebec, the US Army and local police informed the community centre where the event was to be held that they could require use of the centre for security reasons and asked them to cancel the event -- which they did. Instead, the debate will now take place on the same day in Ottawa, featuring representatives from nearly all major political parties (including the Green Party) –- the exception being the Conservative party.

While recent so-called anti-globablization demonstrations have often been portrayed by corporate media outlets as violent actions dominated by black-clad hooligans, that kind of description is hard to apply to the groups organising for Montebello. Ranging from political parties like the New Democratic Party and networks like the Council of Canadians, to anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist groups like People's Global Action, the groups represent the gamut of issues that many feel are at stake: environmental standards, immigrant rights, labour standards and minimum-wage, freedom of speech and transparent democracy, to name a few. The groups hope to ensure that local residents know what is happening in their backyard by organising a series of workshops and events, both leading up to the summit and across the country on the day of. These will include public meetings in communities around Montebello to discuss the demonstration with local residents, a national day of protest on August 16 against the summit's planned security measures (including a Summit of the Americas-type fence around the Chateau Montebello) and solidarity rallies in Vancouver and other Canadian cities on August 20.

While the talks may be held securely in the aptly named ‘castle,’ it's clear that the issues being discussed may not be hidden away for much longer.

SPP Poster