Inkless Wells

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Canada-EU trade: And suddenly it was Christmas for policy geeks

by Paul Wells on Monday, April 19, 2010 11:47am - 67 Comments

A coalition of the usual suspects groups dedicated to defending the rights of workers and the downtrodden have this morning released very nearly the entire draft negotiating text of a proposed Canada-EU trade and investment agreement.

Coool.

They’ve sliced it up into more digestible chunks and posted them here at www.tradejustice.ca, where I’ve just become the first person to download all the documents and start reading them. The groups — Council of Canadians, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, National Farmers Union, Sierra Club Canada, Canadian Conference of the Arts — just held a news conference on the Hill and are promising a sustained campaign against the so-called CETA (Canada-EU Economic and Trade Agreement) in the weeks ahead. In the language of these groups:

The Canada-E.U. Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement negotiations are based on commitments to place corporate profit and power before social and economic justice, democratic control, and ecological sustainability. Negotiations are progressing quickly and with little public scrutiny until now.

The Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement is being negotiated as a “next-generation” free trade deal that goes beyond NAFTA and the WTO in shielding corporate activity from government controls. The draft agreement includes extensive chapters on services and investment, government procurement, intellectual property, and standards and regulations. It will also contain a controversial NAFTA-like investor-state dispute process that allows corporations from Europe to directly challenge and sometimes overturn Canadian laws that interfere with profits – even for public health or environmental reasons.

This campaign was always going to happen. It’s in the nature of the sweeping changes the EU negotiators are seeking (with Canadian negotiators seeking similar enhanced access to European markets, while trying to parry the European advances). For background, here’s a late-2008 post that sums up everything I’d written on Canada-EU trade talks up to that point; and a piece from last summer as the first intensive negotiations approached.

I’m seeking comment from European member states and the European Commission, as well as from Canadian advocates of a CETA (and, just because I enjoy smacking my head against a wall, from the Government of Canada too). I’ll let you know, here or in the magazine, what I find. Advocates of enhanced Canada-EU trade have preferred to low-bridge the whole process since negotiations began. I believe that option just evaporated.

Tags: Canada-EU trade, CCPA, Council of Canadians, trade

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Dot

Easy for the groups to prepare their documents. Just do a word search – replace SPP with CETA.

Is there a secret CETA bridge or superhighway tunnel? "Look, over yawn-der!"
http://intensedebate.com/people/s_c_f s_c_f

This is great news. The usual blowhards can put a sock in it. Increasing trade with Europe is a win-win. Lowering barriers and opening things up will result in good things.

http://intensedebate.com/people/DerekPearce DerekPearce

This is one of those very rare occasions where, SCF, we agree!

Lord Kitchener's Own

I think the groups involved should keep their powder dry and learn to pick their battles. This doesn't even make my top 5 list of "international agreements currently being negotiated by governments in relative secret that could have negative implications for citizens".

Every second people spend fighting CETA is another second they spend ignoring ACTA, and that can't be good.

http://intensedebate.com/people/RunningGag RunningGag

The real problem is that CETA has been used by the EU as a bludgeon against Canada in the ACTA talks.

http://intensedebate.com/people/s_c_f s_c_f

The Association of Canadian Travel Agencies will be just fine.

Lord Kitchener's Own

As long as they're not accused more than three times of some sort of copyright infringement, 'cause if they are, their ISP may be required by international treaty to immediately cut off their access to the internet. No investigation. No trial. No due process. Three accusations of copyright infringement lodged against you and boom – bye-bye internet access.

Of course, I don't suppose the internet is an important tool for travel agents. LOL

http://intensedebate.com/people/s_c_f s_c_f

Yeah, laws like that go too far. I think that trying to go against the flow of technology is a waste of time.

http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

<sarcasm>I believe that fighting a war on all fronts is a sound strategic option.</sarcasm>

In principle, I am inclined to agree. But:
a) to use that over-used axiom, people can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. A few of the organizations listed in Paul's post have enough resources to pay attention to multiple trade negotiations.
b) If the interest groups are able to successfully lobby (or whatever we're calling it now) for the changes that they want on the CETA, they have a potentially better position from which to maneuver on ACTA et al. Or, they could have logrolled themselves into a corner. I'm not sure which is the most likely outcome.

Lord Kitchener's Own

I don't disagree with your logic, I guess I just figure they really shouldn't be fighting CETA at all. I don't doubt that they can walk and chew gum at the same time, I just think they'd make more convincing (and less mumbled!) arguments against ACTA if they weren't busy chewing CETA gum.

(Yay mixed metaphors!!!).

http://intensedebate.com/people/john_g2708 john g

Council of Canadians, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, National Farmers Union, Sierra Club Canada, Canadian Conference of the Arts.

Sigh…you had it right before you crossed out "usual suspects". If CCPA, a union, and the Sierra Club all think it's a bad idea then I don't need to know any more…sign me up.

This campaign was always going to happen. It’s in the nature of <st>the sweeping changes the EU negotiators are seeking</st> the usual suspects
http://intensedebate.com/people/john_g2708 john g

Dammit! Jonathan…how do I make strikethrough text on this thing?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

<strike>Stuff to strike out</strike>

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Testing. ~~Because now I'm not sure.~~

http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

I'm still trying to figure out how to italicize within intense debate. Never seems to work with HTML or other message-board code that I've attempted.

http://intensedebate.com/people/john_g2708 john g

put < i > before what you want in italics, and < / i > after what you want. Remove the spaces.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Oh sure.. go the easy, sensible route..

http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

strange that the HTML instruction (which is what the < / > tags are) didn't work for me.

Let's see if it works now
http://intensedebate.com/people/Halo_Override Halo_Override

john g – Thwim trade: And suddenly it was Christmas for formatting geeks!

Dave

EU or US? EU or US? Who do Canadians REALLY want to cede their copyright and IP sovereignty to?

Lord Kitchener's Own

Actually, if you're referring to ACTA I believe it's neither. We'll be ceding our copyright and IP sovereignty directly to the RIAA and the MPAA.

At least, that's the fear. That, and that ACTA could essentially break the internet.
http://intensedebate.com/people/s_c_f s_c_f

You have it backwards. The US and EU are angry at Canada for having the most lax copyright standards of the group. We've already ceded our sovereignty in their eyes, they want us to take it back, so that Canadians stop ripping off their movies and music.

Dave

Having the most lax copyright standards wouldn't make me angry even if it were true. But it isn't. You could even say it's patently untrue. (Ha, funny!)

http://intensedebate.com/people/s_c_f s_c_f

Canada is where all the pirated movies on the net come from.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

No, it isn't. I have no idea where you got that impression.
http://intensedebate.com/people/s_c_f s_c_f

I got the impression from our media, which took the data from an investigation by 20th century fox.
http://www.canada.com/globaltv/national/story.htm…
http://intensedebate.com/people/Fred_Moro Fred_Moro

We are the country that download the most yes but we are not the country that upload all the movies on the internet.

Lord Kitchener's Own

You say "we've already ceded our sovereignty in their eyes". Now, I realize you're speaking for "them", and perhaps you can't answer this but, from the point of view of the EU and U.S., to whom would you suggest they believe we've ceded our sovereignty?

http://intensedebate.com/people/s_c_f s_c_f

Them.

The US has been pushing Canada for years to upgrade our copyright laws. I think the Conservatives did pass a bill last year.

Canada is one of the movie pirating centers of the world.

Now, I don't think they care if we've ceded anything. They care about their music and their films, and they want to see an end to the pirating. So they just want us to apply new laws that are more serious about preventing copyright abuse, and that would of course protect their material as well as ours.

Personally, I'm not sure what my own position is on this.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

Seriously… Canada is NOT one of the movie pirating centres of the world. Canada probably accounts for 1 or 2% of Hollywood movies that get pirated. Most pirated movies come from Europe and Asia.
http://intensedebate.com/people/s_c_f s_c_f

You're wrong. The piracy that occurs in Asia does not leave the local markets. The piracy in Canada goes everywhere.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Fred_Moro Fred_Moro

The future UK way looks scary. [youtube gwoPTYTLcRghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwoPTYTLcRg youtube]
http://intensedebate.com/people/Fred_Moro Fred_Moro

The UK seems to be tacking tough measures, here's a report about it from the BBC Panorama for the pros and the cons, I didn't know my pasword protected wi-fi can still be hacked by my neighbours. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwoPTYTLcRg

http://intensedebate.com/people/s_c_f s_c_f

Yeah. The EU went after the pirate bay, a popular torrent site, not long ago.
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86007/could-pirate-b…

http://intensedebate.com/people/Fred_Moro Fred_Moro

It was mostly how easy it is to get access to the router's control panel from an unregistered computer has shown in the report that surprised me. I took care of it after I saw the report on BBC world news.

I liked the perspective of the artists against the new law in this report. If it wasn't for file sharing, Kate Nash would not be a star in the UK at the moment and would not have made the NME magazine cool list a few years back. The current music model does not work. A few weeks ago on the Bob Harris show on Radio 2 during the in session segment of the show, the musician performing was explaining why she decided to continue her career without a contract from any record company. One of the reason was that if you have around a 1 000 fans who buy your music you can make money, not at the same level as a superstar but money to pay your bills, make music and have some left in the bank account.

http://intensedebate.com/people/s_c_f s_c_f

True, there are some real benefits to the new technology. It's very easy to get your stuff out there, and it's very easy to find stuff you like. You don't need to beg a large record company for a chance to be heard or seen. I think Apple has made the first attempts to embrace the new technology with itunes, but it's hard to tell where it will go from here.

http://intensedebate.com/people/john_g2708 john g

Huh? How that happen?

(Bangs head against cymbal)…I appear to have my avatar's understanding of HTML tags.
http://intensedebate.com/people/john_g2708 john g

Hmm…if you just put the open strike tag without the closing tag, ID will fill it in for you. Then you can edit the post and fix it.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Really Lynn? I've always found the i tag works just fine.
Mike T.

The NFU? does it even deal with agriculture?

wellwell

I'm not philosophically opposed to marketing boards, but I do think it's a shame that we can't have European quality cheeses at affordable prices here in Ontario. It's time to break the milk monopoly enjoyed disproportionately by Quebec producers.

Of course, there may be a downside – the stability of milk prices over the past several decades might be based on some tacit deal that milk prices remain flat while cheese prices soar.

non-partisan

"Negotiations are progressing quickly and with little public scrutiny until now."

I think that's a veiled dig at your coverage of this, Wells.
John W.

Calling the groups the "usual suspects" doesn't deal with the actual points they've made in the quote you've posted.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Inkless Inkless

That's true. I'm horrible. I'm also the quite literally the only coverage these groups have received today. CBC, CTV Radio-Canada, La Presse, Globe, Star: nada. Me: Cheap larfs — and I've linked to their website, thus giving them infinite opportunity to make their own case. Because that's the kind of meanie I am.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Fred_Moro Fred_Moro

How do you sleep at night?

Orson Bean

I agree with the "pick your battles" point, and partly because this seems to be shaping up as a classic case of strange bedfellows. For starters, the EU has often been held up by the Canadian centre/left as a sort of model we should follow (e.g., in having extra-national labour standards). And then there's the fact that in Britain, the EU is the bane of hard-core Tories and the xenophobic far-right. Those who slag the EU, e.g., British and American right-wing critics, usually tee off on its intrusive, Frenchified nanny-state tendencies. Given that, what is there in crawling into bed with the EU for the Canadian left not to like? Another related point is that Europe is hardly some low-wage mecca to which Canadian companies are likely to outsource jobs en masse. Strange days indeed.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Maybe it's because these groups aren't simply judging based on the partisan stance of the groups involved, but actually examining the policies and making judgments based on those.

Perhaps this seems like a foreign stance to you, but I guess that would explain why you see them as all the same.. it's kind of an "it's all greek" thing, isn't it?

Orson Bean

"Maybe it's because these groups aren't simply judging based on the partisan stance of the groups involved, but actually examining the policies and making judgments based on those. "

Yeah right. Name me a trade agreement that any of these usual suspects has ever supported. Fact of the matter is, their position is entirely doctrinaire, and entirely predictable. These groups are doctrinally wedded to the position that free or freer trade is evil. Period.

Yes, they blather on about fair trade and all that, but when the rubber hits the road, they are opposed to any trade liberalization whatsoever.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

One could easily argue that their position is doctrinaire because the agreements are doctrinaire. Or were you expecting that we could do the same thing and expect a different reaction? I believe that's call insanity.

Here's an interesting thought, instead of an agreement that allows a company in one country to challenge and strike-down a law that's in another, how about an agreement that allows a company in one country to demand the enactment of a law similar to what's already enacted in their country? Then we'd have a race to the top for environmental and quality standards, rather than a race to the bottom.

Of course, really, the ideal free trade agreement is simply, "Any product you make and sell in your country can have no duties or additional legislation placed on similar products imported from our country."

Orson Bean

But this goes precisely to the schizoid position of the Canadian left when it comes to trade agreements like this. Their standard bleat is that they are the champions of inviolate national sovereignty, and that trade agreements are an assault on Canada's sovereignty. Then, they turn around and suggest that something such as you describe in your second paragraph above would be just hunky-dory. Like, huh? "An agreement that allows a company in one country to demand the enactment of a law similar to what's already enacted in their country"? So you'd be fine with Exxon or Monsanto or whomoever, effectively being able to stroll into the Canadian Parliament and demand that we enact a law that's on the books somewhere in the US? Whatever happened to national sovereignty being inviolate?

Personally, I think sovereignty is often oversold and overplayed, but I can't help but notice that the left's position is a tad, umm, inconsistent on this.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

And this is the problem with trying to lump everybody who doesn't agree with you into a single group. Despite how you may choose to operate, not everybody's into groupthink. Stop trying to lump everybody into an ideological "side" and actually engage with the ideas.

I know, I know.. thinking is so much harder than labelling. Sometimes it's what you have to do though.
Orson Bean

That's pretty rich, given that you just laid down a post (immediately above) which doesn't engage with the actual ideas that we've been discussing one bit. And my last post did.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

I engaged with the idea of the "left's position" being a tad inconsistent.. because that's what we were originally talking about.

If you've chosen to give up that line of argument, fine, but don't expect me to switch to talking about the price of tea in china or the mating habits of unicorns just because you feel you can't make a proper rebuttal to the first point.

Orson Bean

I still think it could be great entertainment to see a debate between Maude Barlow and a high-ranking representative of the British Labour Party/Government on the merits of crawling into bed with the EU.

sbt

They're not strange bedfellows. All of these groups will see Canada potentially cede sovereignty in areas they need Canada to have sovereignty in to advance their agenda or maintain the status quo.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Moe_Mentum Moe_Mentum

I'm not a doctrinaire free-trader, but if we are going sign a free-trade agreement with someone, I'd rather it be with a country or group of countries with actual labour standards, environmental laws and wages in line with what we pay here. Seems to me that we're better able to compete against the EU than say, third-world countries like Mexico or Columbia on those fronts. I say bring on the negotiations. Anything to diversify our trade and remove our reliance on the US.

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

And thus, yet again, do we decide to maintain developing countries in perpetual poverty by keeping them out of our exclusive trading club because they can make and grow stuff cheaper than we can.

Environmental and labour standards come along when a prosperous society can democratically insist on it.

Orson Bean

One of the most egregious examples of what you talk about is in agriculture. It just slays me that dairy farmers in Canada paint themselves as some supposedly oppressed, vulnerable group (akin to Mumbai street kids) in need of massive protection and subsidization in the face of predatory evil foreign competition. Thus we pay inflated prices for milk in order to keep these vulnerable dairy farmers safe.

Meanwhile, one of the main effects of this first-world agricultural subsidy racket is to further impoverish third world farmers. Yet the self-styled "progressives" who automatically oppose any move towards trade liberalization don't seem to grasp this.

Richard

Yeah right. This trade agreement will never pass, cuz the government's too busy bending over and squeezing the teets of Supply Management. That's -two- trade agreements that we've lost out on cuz of cows.
Wascally Wabbit

I'm waiting to see Maude Barlow provide us with the passages that give our rights to fresh water away (the oil and gas of the 21st century) – then we'll really know we've been screwed!
Wascally Wabbit

Mr. W – credit where due – back in October 2008 – where Harper kicked this off a mere three days after he got re-elected (having arrogantly set up a meeting with the President of the EU and the French President on Canadian soil in anticipation of being re-elected) – you and David Olive of the Toronto Star were the only two columnists that gave this any air whatsoever!
http://intensedebate.com/people/bergkamp bergkamp

"Advocates of enhanced Canada-EU trade have preferred to low-bridge the whole process since negotiations began. I believe that option just evaporated."

It is about time. There are reasons why some prefer to 'low-bridge the whole process' and it's not because this is a wonderful trade deal that everyone is going to love. I would like to know how much more of my liberty and money Harper et al are bargaining away.

"The Canada-E.U. Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement negotiations are based on commitments to place corporate profit and power before social and economic justice, democratic control, and ecological sustainability."

What is happening here is fascism – big government and big business are working quietly in the corners unexamined by public or msm. The EU is not some neo-liberal market economy paradise – it is command/control from Brussels. And all our main political parties in Canada have also shown themselves to be quite content for big government to take away our liberties and for big business to make it extremely difficult for smaller businesses to compete.

The usual suspects have nothing to complain about – there will be plenty of government control – it is those of us who support proper market/trade economies who should be worried.
peter

EU rules are not even working for EU members. I pray every morning that the corrupt and rotten carcass (beloved of the Circle de Penay plutocrats and proto-facists), that is the EU will disintegrate under the corruption of Brussels and the ECB (which makes the Fed look honest by contrast). Anyone who favors the destruction of small business and the entrenching of multiple layers of hopelessly Byzantine buraucracy should root for this deal. The fact that the usual clutch of dingbats and deluded dreamers oppose the deal will only give lift to the insiders pushing for it . Any with an interest and concern for sovereignty should look at the language in multiple current and past Bills about the adoption of non-Canadian standard setting agencies as de-facto lawmakers here. Anyone who thinks the EU is working for its citizens isn't talking to them. In fact, when they put the EU treaties to vote they are always defeated by the people who are ignored and the insiders bribe governments to pass them anyway.
ex canuck

Perhaps this announcement explains why Maude Barlow was interviewed at length and at least thrice repeated yesterday on a CBC TV talk show. If it was not a co-incidence, then surely we should be told. And where was Elizabeth May, (speaking of angry Canadian women of a certain age). demanding equal air time?.
http://intensedebate.com/people/john_g2708 john g

Hah! Not so easy eh?

~~was supposed to be replaced by <del>, but I can't make either of them work.~~

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Actually, it wasn't easy making it so that you could see the less-than and greater-than signs.. looks like the system is less "helpful" when you're in editing mode, meaning you can take more manual control over it.

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Wouldn't it be neat if our elected leaders could trust us with the details of an upcoming significant free trade package with a major economic bloc of countries, because we the people could actually be trusted with an adult discussion on its merits? Wouldn't it be neat to discuss the pros (play along with me) and the cons of agricultural supply management, and consider its removal?

There was a time when we could be trusted: Mulroney – Turner had a (pretty much) single-issue election over it, and the people went with free trade. Wouldn't it be neat if our elected leadership could bring this new issue up on the national agenda? Why, then, the national media could follow Paul Wells and practice responsible journalism to bring this debate out into the open and…

What's that? Did someone say busty hookers and cellphone photos? Never mind, the national media is too busy googling away with safe search disabled…