Free Trade Shrinks Possibilities for Youth

“Trade agreements do not create jobs. Never have. Never will.” 
-- Michael Hart, Trade Policy, Carleton University 

Family Well-Being

Job security is a serious concern for everyone but especially weighs heavy in the hearts of parents of millennial children. Worry over shrinking opportunities for quality jobs is high here in Southwestern Ontario and throughout North America, particularly in traditional manufacturing regions. Caterpillar, Kellogg’s, Heinz closures come to mind. Your list may differ from mine but the disappearance of community infrastructure since the NAFTA 90’s is a shared experience. You know the story: parent company makes cuts, workers unite to protect a living wage, factory closes then reopens in a cheaper trade zone. NAFTA inspired the era of offshore and North Americans see its signs in their shrinking bank accounts and higher debt. Under free trade regimes that follow the NAFTA template (like the TPP) multitudes have, and will experience more family duress. 

Corporate Trade Creates Job Insecurity

There is a difference between having a job and job security. This difference has been experienced over and over by Canadian, American, and Mexican families under NAFTA. Over two decades into this next generation trade deal and all three signatory countries have seen rising unemployment and the swapping of full-time jobs for part-time work. It’s cause and effect — free trade’s admitted purpose is to send goods and services around the globe with no interference. This encourages corporations to move to where rent is cheaper. Canada has lost over 500 000 manufacturing jobs since factories left in 1989, the start of the new free trade. The closures haven’t stopped. Public Citizen data shows that over 845, 000 people are registered for compensation for job loss from free trade called Trade Adjustment Assistance in the US. The reality for both countries has likely been more undocumented job losses while large corporations abandon community relationships. The redeeming factor of NAFTA should have been the raising of quality of life in Mexico. But Mexico too has experienced lower wages and worse conditions in competitions for the cheapest costs. The Maquiladora free trade factory zones have become heavily concentrated with health and safety violations. Mexico lost over 2 million agriculture jobs because of the US’ subsidized corn industry. These deals lower standards and destroy community-business relations because of their purpose — to remove barriers to investors profits. We can do better with our trade designs but not until people know about their importance. There is more data but do we need it? We know unemployment has risen through the free trade years: we see community members out of work, we see the continual closure of mom–and–pop shops, and we see people desperate, yet hopeful, for job security. 

The TPP

There are trade and investment deals in negotiation now that are based on the NAFTA model but whose impacts will be broader. The Transpacific Partnership (TPP), a deal between the NAFTA countries and nine other Asia-Pacific nations, if passed, will set NAFTA-style norms for 40% of the world’s economy and include more sectors. That’s a lot of families whose jobs and wealth will be influenced. The TPP will make it easier for companies to offshore in places like Vietnam where minimum wage is approximately 60 cents per hour. We don’t typically think of minimum wage as a trade issue, but in the new deals, labour standards have been framed as an illegal barrier preventing investor profit. Egypt was sued in trade court for raising its minimum wage. Focusing on the cheapest deliverables cheapens society. The problem lies not in particular people or particular corporations but in a system that promotes business at the expense of communities. 

A Caring Economy for Families

There are many opportunities to create diverse trade patterns and raise the quality of society through ethical business. Some of the most popular businesses are becoming those that invest in social relationship and community well-being. Trade structures will need to respond to this change. People are returning to their local roots. We are beginning to emerge from free trade fog and it is every day people beckoning forth the change through what they desire — local food, local history, regional travel, and the emerging consciousness that every community needs to take care of its local fabric and workforce. This keeps us sovereign and fed! Let us continue to incent entrepreneurship in our communities and peel back the aspects of free trade that stifle local infrastructure. We are better than policy that offshores our children’s dreams only to break down communities elsewhere. This is one step forward for a program of trade that is healthy. Our families and children are worth it. Fair trade that nourishes communities could be our legacy.

Jennifer Chesnut

Trade Justice London 
London, Ontario Chapter
Council of Canadians

Originally published here:
http://newgenerationtrade.com/2015/05/24/free-trade-continues-to-shrink-kids-chances/

The Great Turning – Negotiations for Public Power

Who will control our power in this crucial decade? 

With the race for climate security on, energy is risky (and expensive) business to be run by corporations. We know there has been irreversible damage to the atmosphere, land and waters. We feel shame and we want change. More serious than the carbon impact of one company, the risks of regional management by a fossil fuel cartel are many. A sustainable energy future requires public control. What will it take for the government of Canada to follow the people’s will? 

The Great Turning 

We live in a time of contrast that raises hope and fear. We put our heads in the sand or open our minds to the question – how can I serve? For me the pressure brings both responses: hope inspired by creative localization, and fear and grief from the dismantling of the commons by private interests. David Korten, and other progressives, call this time of tumultuous change: the Great Turning. Trade and investment pacts are mechanisms of the power crisis because they are the long-term platform for the extraction-privatization of nations. With the new deals, city assets and municipal energy bodies are being traded on the free market. In Ontario where I live provincial and municipal energy service is in the process of being privatized. Selling this people’s asset without permission, and hiring private corporations to run it into perpetuity, is a deal breaker for me. In these energy shaky times, I want the next generation to inherit a public system. This knowing is resultant from more than my Tar Sands shame. Privatizing the energy of Canada’s most populous province risks essential stuff, like affordable rates and service quality. In this blog I explore why energy sectors should not privatize, and if they do, never through trade. I also ask questions about the plans to deregulate Ontario energy. 

Extreme Risks 

 What does it mean to have corporations be in charge of energy? Very few of us can survive off the grid – the majority rely on public energy. All day long we employ energy sources in service of our eating, bathing, working, learning. Nearly all our activities are beholden to shared power. Just like water, energy is essential and the quality of our lives depends on its availability. Many problems can arise when energy becomes managed by for-profit interests. With privatization (or p3ing) we frequently see: decreased access, service limitations, job cuts, rate increases, and environmental risks. California saw rolling blackouts when they privatized. Ontario has its own privatization stories that have increased stress and expense like the 407 highway and Hamilton city water. Because of repeated problems, many municipalities are bringing energy (and other life-dependent sectors) back to public hands. Hamburg Germany residents won an energy referendum in 2013 and are in the process of bringing their energy service fully public again. The purpose behind the “Our Hamburg, Our Grid” campaign is to reclaim public authority in order to create a system based in renewables. Under a North American style trade treaty, like CETA-TTIP, this change could be difficult. 

Ontario announces privatization 

Ontario’s premier, Kathleen Wynne, recently announced her intention to sell 60% of the public’s energy shares. Last week, at the London town hall for a public Hydro One, Andrea Horwath, MPP for Hamilton and head of the Ontario NDP party, announced that this number could reach 90% or higher. The transfer of power remains regardless of the percentage, however, Horwath shared this — if Ontario ownership reaches below 10%, the legislation implies that the public will be barred from bringing it back to public control. Why privatize a successful crown corporation that has been generating funds and providing stability since 1906? The government says they will privatize Hydro One to build other public infrastructure – transit lines, roads and bridges with an anticipated 4 billion of the sales, and to pay off debt with the other anticipated 5 billion. This asset makes 300 million a year in dividend income for Ontario people. Why sell it off for small short-term gain when the return is long-term losses forever? The danger for our future is not only the loss of reliable consistent funding but also the ability to shape our energy program and monitor its integrity. The auditor general and provincial ombudsperson have warned that they will no longer be able to monitor a private Hydro One. 

Plausible Future Outcomes 

Big business investors cannot focus on equitable rates and environmental impacts at the expense of their bottom-line. Company survival depends on increasing profit. This does not an-evil-corporation-make, but a dangerous mismatch of public need with private goals. How do energy corporations manage their quarterly profit targets? Increases in rates, decreases in service, or cutting of jobs is likely. What else can do they do to make more money in a context that requires profit growth? In a future Hydro One, we would have no shareholder voice to create renewable infrastructure. The premier knows that we must take care of the climate. She announced a commitment to dealing with climate change this spring. However, encouraging corporations to run Ontario’s energy is fundamentally incongruent with sustainability. Ontario public energy was previously funding renewables until local procurement provisions were banned by the World Trade Organization. Trade law gets in the way of environmental change. 

More of the story can be found here: http://newgenerationtrade.com/2015/04/21/earth-day-isnt-just-for-turning-off-lights/ 

Ontario Energy and Trade Pacts 

The government should not make key policy and structural changes without a public mandate. Doing this behind closed doors and legislating far into the future through trade treaties, like the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), encourages skepticism. For the first time Canadian energy entities of provincial jurisdiction, like Hydro One, and municipal jurisdiction, like Toronto Hydro, will be ruled through international treaty law. According to the CETA text, Ontario’s energy, including Hydro One, the Ontario Energy Board, and major municipal entities are not protected by Annex reservations. On the European side of CETA-TTIP, sustainable energy choices are also not protected. Europeans will lose their ability to favour cleaner energy sources or suffer the threats of ISDS lawsuits. 

Taking Back Power from the CETA-TTIP 

There are many things that work in a profit model, and many that don’t! Corporate energy systems, that put us at risk of going even higher in parts per million, is not on my list of what the generation after us should inherit. What I love about this time is the sweet significance it holds. The Great Turning is abundant with ways to make purpose of our quiet lives. It’s a time of opportunity to think about what we stand for and what we can do to make things better for those coming next. How we power this planet should not be decided by a management team of large corporations nor secretly designed in a trade deal. What you will you do with your power in the Great Turning? What part of story do you feel compelled to voice? Canadian economist Marjorie Griffin Cohen, back in the early days of new trade, in a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives study, says this of energy: “It is an industry that provides for human survival in a densely populated and complex world. Electricity is the basic infrastructure for every industry. The significance of who controls its generation and supply cannot be overstated.” After all, energy is an expression of our collective power as a civilization. Right now that power is being taken away. There are so many other possibilities. Let’s shine a light on them. 

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National_Office_Pubs/electricity.pdf

Jennifer Chesnut

Trade Justice London 
London, Ontario Chapter
Council of Canadians

Originally published here:
http://newgenerationtrade.com/2015/06/02/the-great-turning-negotiations-for-public-power/

Corporate Profits Ruled More Valuable Than Dolphin Lives

WTO Rules Against Dolphins – This week’s WTO ruling against a measure to protect dolphins does not reflect the interests of the new generations coming to this beautiful planet. The World Trade Organization (WTO) declared that a labeling program, which allows consumers to identify and choose tuna not implicated in the death of dolphins, is unfair to corporations. The labeling was initiated in the nineties to protect schools of dolphins from being swept into nets during tuna catches. Originally, the program helped decrease their deaths by 97% but was watered down to comply with previous trade rulings. The new labeling program became voluntary for companies and was rejected as illegal in trade law this week.

Protecting Dolphins Called Discriminatory –The WTO, the world’s legal advisory body for free trade, said the dolphin protection measure was discriminatory to business, and a technical trade barrier. If the US keeps the program, the WTO advised Mexico, the complainant country, to impose trade sanctions. This is another example of how the so-called efficiency of the market does not reflect the true value of things, like dolphins, nor synchronize with the values of the public, like honouring the lives of precious species. The dolphin decision follows upon last month’s NAFTA ruling in favour of a corporation over an ecosystem home to endangered whales. The decision to protect this aquatic area was also called discriminatory to business interests.

Trade at All Costs — The market has no capacity to respond to sadness over dolphin slaughter. It only has tools to respond to numbers. Should it be in charge of decisions that are environmental or social? Despite appearances, this is not an Atwood dystopia but simply expected results in the context of present trade rules. As the WTO and ISDS rulings stack up across the globe, there appears to be no area of public interest 100% safe from trade’s imposition on behalf of big business. Whether dolphins, whales, solar panels, or smoking prevention, the free market trade model is unable to respond to social or environmental concern. Modern trade as designed now has one capacity: to protect profit of corporations at all costs.

An economic system distant from public belief but intimate with our lives — This is an economic system that denies basic protections for dolphins in a time when so many care about biodiversity. For dolphins, whales, all endangered species and the inheritance of our children and theirs, let’s shine a light on this type of trade. It is not another symptom, but in fact a foundational structure for exploration if we wish to create the world we want. We can create global treaties that legally protect ecosystems and allow business to prosper, but we need more interests at the trade policy table. As trade has moved into every area of public life, it’s time the dialogue is public. Read about the rising movement for the Rights of Mother Earth, potent medicine for corporate trade. Let the law-makers rise, pressed by you and yours, to protect our most valuable inheritance, the great blue planet and all her creatures!

Further Reading:

http://www.citizen.org/documents/press-release-wto-dolphin-safe-tuna-april-2015.pdf

http://therightsofnature.org/

Jennifer Chesnut

Trade Justice London 
London, Ontario Chapter
Council of Canadians

Originally published in:
http://newgenerationtrade.com/2015/04/16/corporate-profits-ruled-more-valuable-than-dolphin-lives/

Earth day isn’t just for turning off lights.

“The world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place, in the family of things.” Mary Oliver

We are the Earth – Where I live in southwestern Ontario, the daffodils have popped their heads above ground and the rains are starting. It’s a relief to be in the fold of spring, and the perfect setting to experience immediate connection with the planet. Corporate culture distracts us from our fundamental reality – that we are made of the earth. With all the bobbles and trinkets, it’s super easy to get distracted from the natural systems we rely on daily. We ourselves are talking and walking thanks to the hydrologic cycle. Commercial globalization creates pretty shiny packages, leaving little trace of earth. The disconnect is obvious in the kneejerk debates pitting the environment against the economy, our community health against jobs. Its most extreme incarnation is international law to protect corporate profits – free trade pacts. These, and the WTO, provide the only international legal plan we have for our collective futures. Scary how far we have ventured from reality.

The Eco-nomy – A constant hum of goods and services zipping around the planet. That’s the dream of corporate globalization, and every new trade deal makes this more of a reality. But can we afford it? Can the Maldives? Haiti? New Orleans? Trade, the way it’s written now, is a competition to extract and sell as much as possible to increase GDP, and it’s pushing our earth systems to the limit. This global orchestration requires continual increases in production which means deeper extraction of the earth. Trade-ables are shipped at dizzying pace, primarily by burning fossil fuels. The more a country does this, the higher their GDP, and the more trading power they are deemed to have. This is the present trajectory under which we live, regardless of how many lights we turn off in our homes or how many lawns we clean of debris.

Earth as Externality — Earth Day isn’t just for turning off lights, though it’s important to model respectful habits. It’s about redressing the greatest myth of this era – that earth is external to the economy. Our whole lives, from the clothes we wear to cover our bare bottoms (plant derived) to the cell-phones we communicate with (mineral base) to food and drink, everything is constructed, albeit sometimes highly processed, from the body of the earth. Earth is not outside the economy, earth is the mother of economy. Even powering a device to read these words requires earth sources. Because trade is based on an externalized model of how life works, the global economy is exponentially expensive when fully calculated. A whole lot of values are rapidly being spent that are never accounted for. Consider the worth of water now in places like California. And, how many millions of years of decomposition does it take to make a fossil fuel patch?

Trade Law Halts Renewable Energy Programs – Trade embraces the concept of “externality” to deal with any concern, environmental or social, that is outside dollar profit. It does so to our great disadvantage because externalities have no power in trade rulings, and trade law supersedes our laws. Energy programs are no exception. Many cases have been made against countries’ fledgling renewable energy programs from China to India, Italy to Greece, and Canada. In 2012, the WTO ruled against Ontario’s Green Energy Act. The act was set to launch Canada’s most populated province off coal and onto clean energy in five years while creating a lot of new jobs. The plan provided feed-in tariffs so companies could earn money back from the grid at secure rates. Twenty-seven billion dollars was invested by a variety of suitors in exchange for supporting local workers and industry. It earned buy-in from labour, business, and the government of Ontario because it provided local jobs in manufacturing. By 2014, it created 31 000 jobs and employed skilled manufacturers like those who lost their jobs under NAFTA. The WTO ruled against Ontario’s sustainable plans because the Green Energy Act required between 40 and 60% of materials and jobs to be local. The WTO said the problem was with the buy-local requirements, not renewable energy. Ontario was charged with discriminating against the international corporations, and pressured to drop the local economy focus.

Sustainable Means Local — The problem with the WTO’s solution for Ontario is that creating new industry does not work without creating local opportunity. New industries are made possible through business buy-in. The energy plan was intended to be fully sustainable – including using local materials and workers. Due to the ruling,the province dropped the local focus, and some of the solar companies collapsed. Economy and ecology are deeply linked because they happen in tandem. Outside of its political troubles, the Green Energy Act is a remnant of its potential. Ontario has certainly not gone fully green yet. Trade policy is driving sad energy outcomes in Ontario, and across the globe in towns and cities, regions and nations.

Treaties for the Earth – There is a legal platform to heal the derelict notion that the earth is an externality. Granting legal rights to the earth, through public trust doctrine and the sanctioning of earth rights (The Rights of Mother Earth), would save our lives and those of the new generations coming to this beautiful planet. The Rights of Mother Earth does not deny global trade but would tame the pathology of its present form. Trade as it exists in the free market has abstracted itself out of our living reality. If its trajectory is not redirected by the people, it will externalize us right off the planet. Our communities will only be well when we know the environment feeds the economy and the economy cares for the earth.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver, American Poet

Jennifer Chesnut

Trade Justice London 
London, Ontario Chapter
Council of Canadians

Originally published in:

http://newgenerationtrade.com/2015/04/21/earth-day-isnt-just-for-turning-off-lights/

The Battle to Buy Local

Some leaders in government are rejecting a binding treaty that diminishes buy-local and allows corporations to sue us if we don’t comply. Do the rest feel that it’s okay? 

Being able to buy and source locally in goods and services is the heartbeat of a community. People value procurement power — it’s key to community security and happiness. Farmer’s market, post office, city square — local procurement not only secures jobs but it’s the fabric of community relationships. With free trade, local exchange is being shrunk to carve out markets for transnational corporations, and a super-national law system, ISDS, is being erected to enforce this goal. 

Last week, the government of Newfoundland and Labrador took a stand. Premier Paul Davis told the federal Conservatives they would not take part in the CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, without compensation. The province join an ignored group of approximately forty Canadian municipalities who between 2010 and 2014 sent resolutions to upper government requesting exclusion. The concern for the province and the city councils is CETA’s restrictions to buying and processing locally. Newfoundland is refusing to participate because of these impacts on fisheries. Jobs in fish plants are expected to be lost to align with the ban on local standards. The province says that the federal government originally agreed to compensate for the incalculable loss with $280 million in a fisheries fund. The province wanted to use part of the money to help transition lost workers. CETA will nullify sub-national policy. Newfoundland and Labrador’s — Minimal Processing Requirements (MPR) — provincial rules to ensure that a percentage of fish from coastal waters is processed by local workers will be trumped by trade laws. 

Newfoundland is not alone. In 2013 and 2014, Toronto requested the federal and provincial government exclude them because of restrictions imposed on essentials like local food networks. Toronto is unwilling to relinquish job creation initiatives. Some transit vehicles are sourced in the region on purpose. Though more expensive to set up locally, in the end, the jobs created boost Toronto’s economy and community well-being. 

It’s not just the new CETA restrictions, it’s the severity of their enforcement under ISDS. If ignored, the government opens itself to lawsuits from transnational corporations. In this historical moment of developing the long-term rules of relationship between the EU and North America, instead of giving special legal rights to corporations for accessing contracts in our cities, we could rewrite procurement to explicitly protect local decision-making for jobs, environmental protections and social well-being. We could set a precedent for the security of the whole globe by removing ISDS from the CETA; this may be what Germany and France are now pushing for. Forget minimum standards of treatment for a corporation. Appropriate trade would set enforceable standards of treatment for people in Newfoundland and beyond. 

Some sub-national governments are looking at the implications on communities in the future under these multi-decade treaties. It’s time the rest put on their spectacles. We need to source and build locally for jobs, for the climate, for our well-being. A legal system that battles for the rights of corporations to make profit has no business interfering with the ancient exchange of local goods and services. Who next is willing to stand up for local buying, building and being? 

Jennifer Chesnut

Trade Justice London 
London, Ontario Chapter
Council of Canadians

Originally published in:

http://newgenerationtrade.com/2015/01/25/the-call-for-economic-justice-gets-louder-nfld-labrador-joins-canadian-cities-blocking-the-ceta-lawsuit-deal/

Further Reading:
http://www.canadians.org/blog/ceta-appears-wobbly-provincial-dispute-isds-lurks-horizon

The Brave New World of Climate Change and Trade

It’s no secret that the purpose of free trade is to send services and goods around the globe without restriction. What most don’t know is that restrictions are increasingly denied for things we want like environmental, health and job protections. When market access for corporations is restricted for these reasons or to simply carve out a little bit of love for the local economy, it’s deemed a bad thing. The legalese labels this “discriminatory”. Favouring local jobs, goods, and services is in fact illegal in the wild world of trade because local sourcing can cause expropriation of a global corporation’s anticipated profit “assets”. Countries are not just given a verbal reprimand. New generation trade allows profit seekers to wield lawsuits in special courts against protective laws. Corporations can sue nations because they are using laws to protect the public in trade courts. Even more shocking, we cannot sue back. It’s a one way process called Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS). This system transfers the power of law from nation states to investors. It is appropriately called Investor State for short.

On Sunday past, the National TPP Team with MoveOn.org organized a trade webinar featuring Canadian author Naomi Klein about the TPP (the Trans Pacific Partnership ~ see Trade Justice Dictionary), other new generation deals, and climate change. Klein summarized the intimate relationship between climate change and this style of international policy and gave examples of how free trade has supported the traditional energy giants. She shared how Lone Pine corporation is suing Canada for 230 million under NAFTA because of Quebec’s fracking moratorium. Doing what governments are employed to do, Quebec passed a temporary ban on fracking while researching impacts to people and water in the St. Lawrence region. NAFTA, which heavily features free market energy transfers, opened the doors to Investor State trade lawsuits about energy production.

In this time of serious environmental challenges, we need to be able to build our local economies and to source green energies without threat of lawsuit. One direction lawsuits from corporations to countries for loss of profits cannot create the right climate for humanity’s dilemma. On a planet with dangerously high emissions, we need to also invest substantially in the local economy to bring balance back. We need to have law on our side. May we begin to seriously care for our futures and our children’s by enacting policy that promotes climate security.

Jennifer Chesnut

Trade Justice London 
London, Ontario Chapter
Council of Canadians

Originally published in:

http://newgenerationtrade.com/2015/01/14/climate-change-and-trade-deals-with-naomi-klein/

Pulling a Canada

What’s the big idea behind corporations suing Canadians?

In the last couple years I came across a phrase in trade talk being whispered behind our backs. “Pulling a Canada.” Peculiar. Nothing like the Canadian self-image of champion – in hockey, coffee and geographic beauty. Reading the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) January 2015 report, I think I understand what the chiding is about.

The lawsuits. Did you know that through trade agreements countries are being sued for having policies that diminish the profits of corporations? Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) is what this beast is called. In secret trade courts a corporation sues to have a policy removed. Corporations are given special rights beyond citizens to use trade constructs such as Most Favoured Nation or National Treatment (see Trade Justice Dictionary) any time they feel anticipated profits may be shrunk by health, labour, environmental or local laws. There is no mechanism for countries to sue back. Trade-legal outcomes supersede national laws and force changes in policy or risk further payment of hefty fines. Taxpayer money pays them out. ISDS – with its easily forgettable acronym sounds irrelevant. Of course, it isn’t. It’s as intimate a thing as the rules you set in your household and the budget you draft in your bank. Its influence enormous from the wide lens though subtle to see at first. The impact felt not only by your family. Multiply it by the wallets of all the families in your country. That’s the power of a trade deal.

From environmental protections to health care costs, Canadians have been charged with more lawsuits than any other developed nation. The CCPA report summarizes so far under NAFTA, Canada has been the target of 45% of NAFTA’s investor state lawsuits within the three signatory nations. Here is the score: Canada — 35, Mexico — 22, and the US — 20. In terms of payment, the US has not yet lost a case. Canada has lost six paying out 170 million so far. Mexico has paid for five at a cost of 210 million.

Canada has paid Investor State fines to gasoline, paper, and oil companies but we have never had so many transnational companies suing us as we do right now. If all the present cases were to pass in trade courts, Canadian taxpayers would have to pay out over six billion dollars according to the CCPA report.

We could become the biggest loser on the globe.

The rules of the game are clearly wrong. It’s absurd to defend hard-earned laws against the risk they pose to profits of large corporations hosted in the lands of our trading partners. (The people who work diligently day to day in the ground offices of these corporations are neither told nor consulted.) With this emerging international system that behaves like its the law, we are changing the very standards of our lives far into the future.

Is it accurate to frame trade as a game? If we do, it might be more appropriate to call it Russian Roulette with our children’s futures. Those with the biggest guns, tend to win. With serious issues facing Canadians and our brothers and sisters across this globe, it’s time to look deeply at what our country is doing with the collective budgets of all our houses.

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/nafta-investor-state-claims-against-canada-are-out-control-study

Jennifer Chesnut

Trade Justice London 
London, Ontario Chapter
Council of Canadians

Originally published in
http://newgenerationtrade.com/2015/01/22/pulling-a-canada/

Trade Justice Workshop: FIPA and CETA

Workshop on the FIPA and CETA: International laws created for corporations. 

"Trade is the transfer of power from citizens to corporations." Maude Barlow, Chair of the Council of Canadians 

 This workshop, given by our Trade Justice Chair, Jennifer Chesnut, will explore new generation trade pacts, the CETA and the Can-China FIPA, their purposes and consequences. We will map similarities between these deals and what they mean for the new frontier of international laws benefiting corporations. Special emphasis on Investor State Lawsuits and strategies for creating trade justice. 

 What do you think fair trade looks like? 

 Wed. Oct. 29/2014 @ 5pm EVAC, 757 Dundas St.

OCTOBER 2014 NEWSLETTER

The Council of Canadians is the VOICE of progressive Canadians in 52 cities all over Canada. It is grassroots and bottom-up in its organization, with a small paid staff of researchers in Ottawa who provide the data we need to campaign on issues. 95% of all operating money comes from individual donations. The average individual donation is $50. We are non-profit but are not a charity because we educate and lobby for social and environmental justice. Each chapter determines which issues are important to its local supporters and is as active in campaigns as time and energy allow. Our London Chapter has eight committees: 

The Solidarity Film Coalition manages the Cinema Politica film series, which shows documentary films at the Central Library on the second Monday of each month. The motto of Cinema Politica is “Screening Truth to Power”.

The Trade Justice Committee campaigns against corporate-driven international trade agreements that would take away Canadian democracy and basic rights of self- determination. It has been active in educating London City Council about the perils of the Investor-State clause of CETA, and has been instrumental in getting London City Council to vote unanimously to have the option to vote for an ‘opt-out’ of CETA. 

The Health Care Committee works with the London Health Coalition to keep health care public and is currently engaged in planning a campaign and rally for Nov. 21 in Queens Park, to resist the austerity budget and the adoption of two-tier health care in Ontario. 

The Peace and Human Rights Committee has been active in bringing back John Greyson and Tarek Loubani from an Egyptian prison, supports the boat from Gaza, and opposes war as a solution to problems, social, religious, political or otherwise. 

The Energy and Climate Committee opposes expansion of the Alberta Tar Sands and the movement of bitumen by pipeline and rail. Because we have probably gone past the threshold where our climate can right itself, our position is that any further use of fossil fuels is suicidal for humans and life on this planet. It is also our position that pipelines and rail transport of dangerous substances threaten cities, First Nations, and wildlife, and poison watersheds and rivers they pass through. We actively oppose the reversal of flow of Enbridge’s 38- year-old Line 9 pipeline, just north of London, which crosses the Thames River north of Fanshawe Lake.

The Water Committee will be approaching our new City Council next spring to ask that London become a Blue Community. This means enforcing the bottled water ban in municipal venues and committing to keeping London Hydro public. We have been supporting OPAL (Oxford People Against the Landfill) by protesting with them in Ingersoll, Woodstock, Beachville, and other nearby towns most Fridays at 3:00 pm. In 2015 we will be working with First Nations to organize a water walk along the Thames River from Tavistock to Lake St. Clair.

The Democracy Committee works with Leadnow to fight for fair elections and proportional representation, so that our election process is a more just and accurate reflection of the wishes of all Canadians.

The Food Security Committee is working with City Council to make London a pollinator sanctuary for bees and butterflies. It opposes GM foods, and supports urban agriculture and the distribution and marketing of local food.

 

We strongly urge citizens to go beyond emotional or intellectual sympathy with the campaigns of the Council of Canadians and to contact us and get involved. We will put you in touch with whichever committee chair is working on your favourite issue. Help make Canada THE CANADA WE WANT. 

CETA: One-Stop Shopping for Corporations

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is a quintessential “new generation” trade pact. Its purpose is to open trade to areas that are managed by government at the provincial and municipal levels. Large European corporations will be able to use their trade legal “favoured nation status” to have equal access to municipal and provincial contracts on things like city energy management. After many calls to make this deal public, on September 26, 2014, the EU disclosed the massive finished document on their website. Critics are upset about the diminishmed capacity of city councils to control assets and local jobs, purchase locally, and create future policy for sustainability. There are many other questions over eighty municipal councils, associations and school boards have expressed about the CETA in resolutions to provincial and federal government. Over fifty of them have asked to be exempted from the CETA. 

These exemption requests from Victoria to Toronto make up the only movement of one level of government against another in Canada since we started using free trade to change national policy in 1989. Maybe the over fifty councils, school boards and associations do not want to be involved at all because they were not allowed to see the details. Or maybe because Canada is offering the EU a one-stop-shop website where foreign corporations will be able to see what contracts are open for them to bid from coast to coast. For more info on the one-stop-shop site see the EU’s trade portal: 

http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ceta/index_en.htm#outcome 

“With CETA, EU companies will be able to bid for public contracts in Canada…This includes the provincial authorities, (and) in 2011 procurements by Canadian municipalities were estimated at C$ 112 billion (approx. €82 billion)…European businesses will be the first foreign companies to get that level of access to Canadian public procurement markets. No other international agreement concluded by Canada offers similar opportunities…Canada will also create a single electronic procurement website that combines information on all tenders to ensure that the EU companies can effectively take advantage of these new opportunities.“

Jennifer Chesnut
Trade Justice Chair

Originally published on October 20, 2014 at
http://newgenerationtrade.com/2014/10/20/ceta-one-stop-shopping-for-corporations/

I’ve been thinking about how corporations are suing countries.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about transnational corporations suing countries. The fancy name for this is Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) and it happens in free trade. ISDS is on my mind a whole bunch as Germany speaks out about the inclusion of ISDS in the soon to be announced CAN-EU CETA deal.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/campact/sets/72157647398779707/ 

ISDS was first employed in NAFTA , the North American Free Trade Agreement. Some say this deal, circa 1994, was the first New Generation deal partly because of its use of Investor State. ISDS is a trade legal mechanism for how the pacts are enforced. It affords corporations the opportunity to sue nation states if the profits they expected from the opening of specific sectors in a free trade deal are diminished because the country has laws or policies that prevent earnings. Ethyl Corporation was the first to successfully sue Canada in the mid nineties, for approximately 16 million, when Canada attempted to bar its gasoline additives. Researchers in Canada believed their additives could be carcinogenic. Ethyl won on the grounds that profits expected as a result of NAFTA were lost. There have been hundreds of cases administered through trade tribunals since and the number of cases launched is on the incline every year. Through leaked texts in German news and other places, critics of CETA have said that corporations will be able to sue countries when municipalities use public money for various buy-local initiatives, municipal procurement, and protection of local public management, but no ones knows for certain as the text has not been shared publicly. 

Let’s talk trade that works. Opening borders to gastronomic delights! to expertise in regions that most benefit! How about encouraging the growth of sale in specialty items (like fair trade bananas) that could give economic stability to a struggling country? But when you get into lawsuits waged in a one way direction from corporations to countries, it feels like we are no longer talking about trade. The conversations turns a whole lotta dark. People don’t like it. Investor State creates an Investor’s State superimposed on a Nation State. This is the kind of trade that makes people uncomfortable. It’s the kind of design that will sink itself. 

People from Canada, Germany, France, and many other locales in between are bidding Investor State Adieu. Adios. Au Revoir. 

We are entering a new era — one of critical trade justice understanding that will not tolerate excessive corporate rights at the expense of family and community well being — whether or not we call them new generation free trade, CETA, or we@#$@#lkflskdjfls investor state ding-a-ling.

Jennifer Chesnut 
Trade Justice Chair

Originally published on September 21, 2014 at
http://newgenerationtrade.com/2014/09/21/ive-been-thinking-about-corporations-sueing-countries/

A People's Ceremony to Honour the 50+ Municipalities, School Boards and Associations Requested to Be Excluded from the CETA

No to CETA! No to Investor State! 

A Big Yes to Fair Trade!

London marked the CETA completion with their own ceremony. The Council of Canadians London Chapter hosted a rally outside city hall on Thursday, September 25th at 4:30 pm to share the historic resistance of the grassroots to the CETA. With about 50 people overall, the chapter enacted a ceremony to honour municipal councils who for the first time rejected a trade pact.

London Chapter representatives, Jennifer Chesnut and Aldous Smith, gave opening remarks about this municipal trade deal and Investor State. London Chapter justice folk singer, Margo Does debuted "The CETA Song". The chapter chair, Roberta Cory, ran work parties to create the many signs, including a sign for every municipal entity that requested an opt out. Chapter members Julie Picken-Cooper and Jessie Chesnut along with other supporters led the ceremony to recognize the municipalities requesting to be excluded from the CETA.

The National Council of Canadian's CETA google map was used to collect the data. 

Excerpts:

"We come together today on the eve before the official announcement of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement to bear witness. We stand outside city hall in recognition of the municipal movement critiquing CETA that included more than eighty resolutions passed by municipalities, school boards and associations. We gather today to thank the many great city councillors in Thunder Bay, Hamilton, North Vancouver, Essex County, Toronto, and so many others who stood up to this deal to protect local choices, local jobs, and the well-being of families. Of those many, over fifty requested to be excluded from the CETA. None of these requests have been publicly acknowledged and debated. We will acknowledge them together today."

"We stand in solidarity with the Ottawa people’s response tomorrow under the tagline “The text might be finished but the fight is just beginning”. Organized by the Canadian Maritime and Supply Chain Coalition with support from the Trade Justice Network, the Quebec Network on Continental Integration (RQIC), and Campact Germany, we stand in solidarity with you."

The event was reported by local indie media here:

https://www.facebook.com/theindignants

https://www.facebook.com/events/1470686059864734/

Picture Credits: 
1. In blog body photo, Mike Roy of The Indignants; 
2,3,4. Kevin Jones



-- Jennifer Chesnut
          Trade Justice Chair, London CoC

Announcement of the rally:

http://londoncouncilofcanadians.blogspot.ca/2014/09/london-rally-on-eve-of-ceta-ceremony.html

London RALLY on the Eve of the CETA Ceremony!

We Stand on Guard for Canadian Cities!

No to CETA!
No to Investor-State!
And a Big Yes to Fair Trade!

The world famous CETApus of London, Ontario, 2011.

On Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014, at 4:30 pm, outside London City Hall, you are invited to take a stand for Canadian cities. Together we will mark the historic resistance to the CETA trade pact by city councils from Victoria to Thunder Bay to Toronto. These municipal governments, along with dozens of others, including London, represent the first ever cross-country resistance to a corporate trade pact. The CETA gives corporations the right to directly sue governments if new laws or regulations impact their profits. It also removes the right of municipalities to govern local assets publicly, in favour of privatization and foreign corporate management.

Together we will acknowledge London city council, which passed two resolutions to be excluded from the CETA, for which it has received no reply from either the federal or provincial governments. This gathering will also bear witness to the official announcement, on Friday, Sept. 26th in Ottawa, that negotiations for the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement are complete. In reality, while the agreement is nearing completion, the CETA still needs to be ratified, a process which could take up to two years.

Following the announcement, the CETA cannot be changed. But it can be rejected!

Thursday, September 25

4:30 pm – 5:30 pm

Outside City Hall (300 Dufferin Avenue, London ON) 

Hosted by Council of Canadians, London Chapter 

More info: www.canadians.org/trade 

Local contacts:

Aldous Smith         tradejusticelondon@gmail.com 
Jennifer Chesnut   jennifer.reanne@gmail.com 

Come together, connect, and thank Canadian city councillors for standing up to protect families and democratic process.

Bring your voices, ears for listening, and determination for democracy. Stand tall together, knowing we are on the right side of history. No to CETA and Investor State! Yes to Fair Trade!

Trade with the New Generations in Mind

I am fascinated by new generation trade pacts, described as the transfer of power from people to transnational corporations.* I find the topic both compelling and repelling. Despite the discomfort, the study of trade offers essential understanding for those interested in preserving natural life and community infrastructure from nation to nation. 

Years ago, my undergraduate professors startled me with the news that “new generation” trade deals give large corporations the opportunity to manage the public’s assets, and also to sue countries when public laws decrease corporate profits. Should we not ask for more in our global policy? Because if profit of the largest entities is the prime intention, than that is simply what we will get, and all the environmental and geo-political instabilities associated with that. When setting regulations between countries can we ensure resource security, vital public services, and the greater political security that comes with that? 

Trade deals are written in private. What if the best in us was put forward for their composition. What if the wisest elder, with a great sense of humour, soft heart, and economic knowledge sat at the table to negotiate? Why not seek robust economy based in real jobs and environmental security? 

Such global-impact regulations should be approached with loving-kindness. For no child in the so-called Global North will be secure in an insecure world and no child in the Global South, with all its restriction of access to clean water and basic human rights, will be fully nourished. We could take less in the North in exchange for greater security. 

We can do better than an international trade law that allows corporations to sue nations if corporate profits decrease over the use of public laws. 

People are awakening to what is truly valuable. When I think of the people in my city I see so many whose primary desire is security for families, friends and community. This is a reason to learn about trade pacts. 

As a North American, the place of birth of the “New Generation” deal, I feel a responsibility to be part of general dialogue to create fairer trade. I am curious about global law after the new generation pact and what else is possible! 

This blog is a creative space for exploring New Generation trade from a different perspective, one that is truly generational and focussed on what we are offering children and their children to come. In peace and faith! 

Jennifer Chesnut
Trade Justice Chair

*trade pact description from Maude Barlow, Chair of the Council of Canadians

Published originally on  August 30, 2014 in http://newgenerationtrade.com/2014/08/30/trade-with-the-new-generations-in-mind/