Upcoming Events

It is going to be busy season for events and meetings, both for Council events and events that many of our members that are active in. I will provide you with only of the many events that I know of that are coming. I will be quite willing to create many more updates for our members if anyone has an event they would like promoted. The first one starts later today:

September 24th @ 1:00PM Victoria Park Bandshell: London Rally for support of Tarek Loubani and John Greyson. There is a concurring rally happening in Montreal as well. There are also transportation provided for people providing they can get to University Hospital on Perth Drive and or Victoria Hospital, in front of the B Tower on Base Line Rd. E. by 12:30PM. For more details, check on Facebook or do a web search.

September 25th @ 7:00PM Vitali Student Lounge, Kings University College 266 Epworth Ave: A video and a discussion with its director on Why Professors Can't Tell You The Truth About 9/11. Should make for thought provoking insights into the world. Free admission and free parking. For more information contact Ed Corrigan 519 439-4015 

September 27th @ 11:00 AM 148 Fullarton Street: Tell Fortune Minerals: Get Out of the Sacred Headwaters. Fortune Minerals is a London based resource company that is planning to remove a mountain top in B.C. to exploit the coal reserves there. The B.C. Government did not work with the Tahltan Nation, where this mountain resides. Any mining there has the potential of destroying three rivers and the way of life of the Tahltan Nation. This is not how we want London Companies to do business. 148 Fullarton St. is the head office of Fortune Minerals. 

September 28th @ 10:00 AM Queens Park ( Western Fair Grounds behind the Western Fair Market ): The Local Organized Organic Knowledge or L.O.O.K. Fest. An all day event providing you with new knowledge and just plain good feelings. For details, check Facebook or contact Jennifer Chestnut. 

After the L.O.O.K. Fest, a nice drive might be in order for : September 28th @7:00PM Bayfield Town Hall: Our own Maude Barlow will be speaking. The topic will be The Great Lakes will need Great Friends. This is the same topic that Maude spoke about last year in London but I am sure that there will be new material covered including some discussion of her new book Blue Future and she will be signing copies of her other books Blue Covenant and Blue Gold. Admission $25.00. If there is enough interest we might be able to arrange some car pooling. Contact me at 519 872-0008 or rmorley1@sympatico.ca to see what we can do. 

October 8th @ 7:00PM General Room Tolpuddle CO-OP 380 Adelaide St. N. ( across from the London Police Station ): The London Chapter of the Council of Canadian's first monthly meeting. This is still very much an open meeting with discussions of past and future events. If any member would like to discuss a certain issue or promote an event from one of their other groups, contact me at 519 872-0008 or rmorley1@sympatico.ca to have your information added to the agenda. More information about our AGM in November will be discussed as well. 

November 5th @ 5:00PM Victoria Park: Million Mask March. People from around the world are gathering that day ( Guy Fawkes Day) to remind the world what it has forgotten. That fairness, justice and freedom are more than just words. People are gathering at 5:00PM and a march is happening at 6:00PM. Anonymous masks will be provided for those who attend. This is not a protest because you are not allowed to cover your face anymore in Canada if you are protesting. Search for Million Mask March- London Ontario on Facebook for more information. 

November 15th @ 9:00AM More information to follow. The CoC has been asked to take part in the OPSEU youth day discussing Water is a Human Right. We will be talking for 45mins to a an hour about water issues. I will add more details about this event shortly but I would welcome assistance from some of our more passionate members about water to assist me in preparing our discussion and in having a table for information about water and our initiatives contact me at 519 872-0008 or rmorley1@sympatico.ca 

November 25th @ 7:00PM ( Tentative date): The London Chapter's Annual General Meeting. More details to come very soon about this night. Elections for the Chapter's executives will occur that night. Please see our bylaws (next blog post) for more information and duties of each position. 

That is all for now but more information will be coming soon about the future dates. If you have an event that you would like to promote to the Chapter's members, please feel free to contact me. I still want top hear from members on ways that we can improve the Chapter. This is your Chapter. Help me to help all of us in making this a more relevant force across the region. 

Sincerely 

Rod Morley, Facilitator

Proposed Amended By-laws for London Chapter to be Voted on at November AGM

Proposed amended bylaws for the London Chapter of the Council of Canadians are now available online. Those who attend our AGM here in London in November will have a chance to vote on them. Amendments are shown in red.

http://londoncouncilofcanadians.ca/ProposedAmendedBylaws2013.pdf

The current bylaws can be found here:

http://londoncouncilofcanadians.ca/Bylaws.pdf

CYPRUS-TYPE “BAIL-INS” PLANNED FOR CANADA

CYPRUS-TYPE “BAIL-INS” PLANNED FOR CANADA

by Jerry Ackerman and George Crowell

(Published in the July/August 2013 issue of the CCPA Monitor)

​One of our most solidly entrenched assumptions, going back even to childhood, is that when we deposit our money in a bank, it is safe and available for our use at any time.  So back in March when we learned that the European financial powers-that-be were arranging to rescue the troubled banks of Cyprus by appropriating the money entrusted to them by depositors, we were shocked.  We might have been less disturbed if a portion only of large uninsured deposits were to be taken.  But when we learned that 6.75%  even of small, insured deposits under 100,000 euros were targeted, we fully understood why Cypriots were angrily protesting in the streets.  These protests led the Cypriot Parliament courageously to take small depositors off the hook—except for any hardships which result from having their withdrawals limited to 300 euros per day.  But 60% of deposits over 100,000 euros were seized to rescue the banks and, allegedly, the economy of Cyprus.

​This procedure—this theft—is now known as a “bail-in” as distinguished from a “bail-out” such as that engineered massively in the U.S. in 2008 in order to rescue the “too-big-to-fail” banks, whose speculative and fraudulent practices brought on the devastating, ongoing Great Recession.  A bail-out steals from taxpayers, whereas a bail-in steals from depositors.  Pretty much the same people.

​But we in Canada can take comfort, can we not, from the oft-repeated assurance of the Harper government that our exceptionally sound Canadian banking system is immune from such abuses.  How, then, are we to account for the fact that the 2013 omnibus Federal Budget, passed June 10th courtesy of Harper's majority Conservatives, included a barely noticed provision announcing that any major Canadian bank which may get into deep trouble will be rescued through a bail-in?  Here is the wording of that provision:

​“The Government proposes to implement a 'bail-in' regime for systemically important banks.  This regime will be designed to insure that, in the unlikely event that a systemically important bank depletes its capital, the bank can be recapitalized and returned to viability through the very rapid conversion of certain bank liabilities into regulatory capital.  This will reduce risks for taxpayers.  The Government will consult stakeholders on how best to implement a bail-in regime for Canada....”

​Included among “bank liabilities” are our deposits; “regulatory capital” consists of shares of the bank's stock.  With bank insolvency imminent, “certain bank liabilities” (how vague can you get?)—including insured and uninsured deposits, mutual funds, “guaranteed” investment certificates, retirement savings plans, etc.—would be subject to conversion into bank shares.  The funds realized would be used in attempts to bring the troubled bank back to solvency.  Depositors would no longer have immediate access to their money, but as shareholders, would be free to sell their stock, perhaps at a considerable loss.

​Responding to expressions of alarm about this Budget provision, the Harper government issued a “clarification”:  “The bail-in scenario described in the Budget has nothing to do with depositors' accounts and they will in no way be used here [in Canada].  Those accounts will continue to remain insured [up to $100,000] through the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, as always.”  Can we trust this assurance?  The legislation says nothing about guaranteeing protection for depositors.  And even if insured deposits are  intended for favoured treatment, we have no way of knowing whether the CDIC would have sufficient resources to cope with a financial meltdown.  And we are expected to be comforted by the fact that taxpayers would be spared!

​How did the bail-in procedure get imposed on us?  It was embraced as an alternative to using bail-outs which might provoke resistance from taxpayers and governments as occurred in Iceland.  The Bank of International Settlements, which dominates the central banks of capitalist nations in the interests of private banking, pushed the bail-in alternative.  This procedure was approved by G20 nations at their 2011 meeting.  With passage of our 2013 Budget, we can now be told that bail-ins have been “democratically” approved for Canada.

​And the story gets even worse.  As we know, the world's largest banks have been gambling with high-risk derivatives on an immense scale—in the U.S. some $230trillion!  Banks on the losing side of derivative bets can quickly be driven to insolvency.  With the recently accepted bail-in strategy, we can expect that the winning derivative  operator, the “counter-party,” will now be given priority over all other creditors, including depositors!  We do not know the extent to which our Canadian banks are involved in risky derivatives.  But so intertwined are global banking operations that our banks might suffer from collapse initiated elsewhere.  We are being set up for sudden, larger than ever shifts of wealth from the middle class to the already obscenely rich.  For further information, see articles by Ellen Brown at www.webofdebt.com .

(Jerry Ackerman, Ph.D., is a financial analyst and advocate of public banking; George Crowell, retired University of Windsor professor, has been working on monetary issues since 1994.)

Roberta Cory's letter to the editor of the London Free Press re CETA

Editor:

On June 27, 2013 the London Free Press published the results of a poll (Canadians unaware of trade talks: Poll) about citizens' perceptions of the Canadian/ European Union trade deal Harper is trying to complete. The Harper government has been secretive about the contents of this "deal" and has avoided any public discussion of possible negatives to local communities if it is signed. Our own elected representatives, when asked about the details, have admitted that they are as much in the dark as we are. The Harper government is clearly trying to circumvent the democratic process and to muddy the waters to prevent any transparency in this negotiation. 

What we do know is this:  it is the first time that a Canadian Trade Agreement will operate at a local level. It means the unprecedented opening up to foreign investors of our essential public services such as water.  It includes the controversial investor-state dispute settlement clause, which, in everyday language, means that a foreign corporation has the right to make a profit and the right to sue a municipality if any local by-laws designed to protect our quality of life cut into their anticipated profit.  This would weaken or over ride any environmental laws now in place and allow foreign owned corporations to underbid local businesses for food contracts, labour, equipment, and services. 

Do Canadians know that in Europe the media carry up to date information about the progress of the trade negotiations?  Europeans know what the EU is demanding and what Canada is giving up. Much of the information that we citizens get in Canada came from European sources and not from our own government. If we do get a bit of information it is likely to be about cheese or beef. We are not told that Harper is willing to extend patents on pharmaceuticals which will mean fewer generic drugs and escalating drug costs to consumers. 

Trade Agreements seem remote to most citizens. The language of such agreements is off putting. Many Canadians trust their MPs and MPPs to handle this sort of thing for them. They trust that their government has their best interests in mind. The Canada/EU Trade Agreement has only the interests of international corporations in mind. It is not something remote, it is very personal. It is about our neighbourhood and our town. We need to wake up and act now. 

Roberta Cory

Love that Purple Potato! CETA and other "free trade" agreements threaten family farms in favour of factory farming by global mega-corporations.

Love that Purple Potato! 

by Jennifer Chesnut

One of the joys of the farmer's market is experiencing the ancestry of forgotten vegetables and fruits -- those purple potatoes, paddy pan squashes, and crimson carrots. Fields in Southwestern Ontario and across the planet are capable of exquisite magic. With a little sunshine and rain, they turn up a fascination of shapes, sizes and flavours. Because of the people’s movement to get back to eating within the nearest hundred miles, we are experiencing more local variety than the last twenty-five years of free trade food even though globalization is supposed to create more options. Why have most of us not met the purple potato until recently? The answer is simple. Farmers in our region, like everywhere else, have been experiencing numerous pressures to stay afloat since the late eighties in free trade economies that focus on distant export pathways not regional networks. During Canada’s first two decades of free trade from 1988 to 2010, approximately seventy-five thousand family farms were lost and farm debt tripled. One of the side effects of competing in free trade agriculture is that farmers are pressured to grow mono-crops. These are common crops that can travel the globe far distances and make the most bulk profit.
CETA, the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement, a huge deal with Europe, the United States and Mexico, is the most radical free trade policy Canada has ever considered. One of the dangers is CETA will encourage more long distance travel of food and in the process diminish our farmers’ options. Ontario farms will be competing with corporate farms from over twenty countries to serve you dinner. Though the deal is supposed to be signed with only the European Union, because of NAFTA, whatever sectors are opened to European corporations, will also be opened to American and Mexican big business. In CETA, specific unnecessary restrictions will punish our farmers. The National Farmers Union is alarmed that because of the way CETA’s intellectual property laws are written, farmers will likely no longer be able to save seed year to year but be forced to purchase them every year anew.
Looking down the road, citizens will be subject to the cultural impacts at the Saturday morning market by what federal Conservative Trade Minister Ed Fast calls the most ambitious deal ever negotiated. If the small and medium sized family farms survive the post-CETA era, they will be pressured to use the seeds that Monsanto and other agricorps sell. This means more genetic modification, less variety and less indigenous heirloom plants.
CETA isn’t an issue for bureaucrats. It’s about your family’s life. It’s going to impact the food you eat, the water you drink, the hydro you use and more. And don’t expect that when the municipal public Commons are opened for permanent foreign corporate bidding that costs are going to decrease or stable job opportunities will grow. If this did occur in the last twenty-five years of a Free Trade Canada, all the mamas and the papas would be singing its praises.
Besides our memories of life before free trade, an eyes open attitude and a good look at Statistics Canada can help us remember. For example, the first NAFTA decade of the nineties saw the highest rates of unemployment in Canada since the Great Depression. Necessary global trade is valuable. But free trade deals like the CETA don’t bring you soy sauce from Japan but they do diminish your local food options. Don’t take my word for it, look around and remember all the family farms that have disappeared since the seventies and eighties. Remember those rolling fields of corn that were not genetically modified. Remember how much closer you were to nature’s pastures.
CETA puts serious pressure on family farms to survive and ensures that corporate mega farms thrive. Join the wave of Canadian city councillors and citizens that are saying no to this vision. Toronto, Stratford and London are just three out of forty municipalities across the country that have asked their Premier for official exemption from CETA to protect their families and regional food networks. In this last month before its signing, citizens are contacting their city council, MPPs and MPs to ask that their municipality be opted out permanently. If we allow CETA to become trade law, we may just lose those purple potatoes, but we are also going to lose a whole lot more.
*Previously published at www.ecolivinglondon.org

World Water Day Forum

Saturday March 23rd World Water Day event-
9:00AM to 3:00PM in the Stevenson and Hunt Room of the Central Library
Speakers include:
The CoC's own Louise Hollingsworth
Barry Orr - City of London
Maryanne MacDonald - Waste Free World
City of London spokesperson for the Urban Watershed
Steve Sauder of the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority
Dr Slobodan Simonovic - Chair of Engineering Institute of Catastrophic Loss Reduction

FREE OF CHARGE (donations welcome)


World Water Day Event Media Release 

The London Chapter of the Council of Canadians welcomes all to our World Water Day event, held on Saturday March 23rd – In the Stevenson and Hunt Room of the Central London Public Library from 9:00AM to 3:00PM.
Speakers Include:
The Council’s own Louise Hollingsworth – Speaking about The Water Cycle and how it affects vegetation. She will also be providing information on ReForest London.
The City of London’s Planning, Environmental and Engineering Services for Wastewater Treatment Operations ‘ Barry Orr – Providing a great audio/visual display about what Londoners are putting down their drains.
Maryanne MacDonald from Waste Free World – Discussing why we need to turn away from bottled water.
From the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority, Steve Sauder – Talking about the health of the Thames River Watershed and about the Authority’s efforts to maintain the health of the Watershed.
Ending the day with Dr. Slobodan Simonovic, the Chair of Engineering for the Institute of Catastrophic Loss Prevention - From Water Conflict to Water Cooperation - A Systems Approach. How to solve conflicts resulting from the sharing of water between different stakeholders.
His talk will be a very topical discussion considering the current condition of our Great Lakes.

****
For more information please contact:
Rod Morley
rmorley1@sympatico.ca
519 872-0008

Mining Justice Speaking Tour

“Water is more precious than Gold”

Photos from the event: click here!

Backgrounder

From the organizer:

"With the support from organizations like the Council of Canadians, Mining Watch Canada, KAIROS, The United Church of Canada, The Natural Resources [Council] of Maine, B.T.S., and SALVaide among others, Salvadoran Activists will be speaking on the Negative Impact the Canadian Mining Industry has in El Salvador and other Latin American nations.

Moreover, the activists who are representative of the El Salvadoran National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining (La Mesa) an organization that is seeking, with the support from other organizations, a ban on Metallic Mining in El Salvador.

The leading effort for this event is carried out by Council of Canadians, London Chapter.

In Solidarity
Selvin Mejia"

Media and Community members Advisory

For Immediate Release

 March 6th, 2013

Speaking tour “Challenging Canada’s international mining practices” arrives next in London, ON

WHAT: Salvadoran activists will be in London, ON to garner support from the Canadian, Latin-American and other conscientious community members for a campaign to make El Salvador the first country to ban metal mining. The event is part of a continent-wide Water Is More Precious than Gold speaking tour that is raising awareness about the negative impact of Canadian mining operations on El Salvador.

WHO: The event features (Vidalina Morales and Sandra Carolina Ascencio), representative(s) from the El Salvadoran National Roundtable against Metallic Mining (the Mesa). Since 2006, the Mesa has brought together hundreds of communities and thousands of people from across El Salvador, including environmental, community-based, research, legal and religious organizations, to successfully halt mining operations in the country and to call for a ban on metal mining.

 WHEN & WHERE: The Water Is More Precious than Gold public forum in London, Ontario will be held at East London Public Library (2016 Dundas Street East - near Clarke Side Road and Dundas St. East) *** CHANGED TO ROOM 103 LABATT HALL (LH103), KINGS UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, 266 EPWORTH AVE., LONDON, ONTARIO *** on Saturday, March 16^th, 2013 at 3:00pm. The tour is holding events in 20 cities across Canada and the US (full list of cities and dates below), including Vancouver, London, Guelph, Toronto, Ottawa, Peterborough, Halifax, Moncton, and Fredericton. Following the events in Canada, the speaking tour will head south to the US, with talks in Bangor, Portland, New York, Boston, New Jersey, and Washington DC.  

WHY: The speaking tour aims to build greater awareness about the issues facing El Salvador and other Latin American countries, challenge the unjust practices of Canadian, US and other mining companies, including Pacific Rim and Goldcorp, and build relationships with groups in North America, including those confronting their own local mining issues. The speaking tour will be followed by an international Fact-Finding Mission to El Salvador on May 9-13, aiming to build awareness around the dangers of mining in El Salvador.

The Mesa is also worried about possible contamination from upstream mining projects just over the border in Guatemala and Honduras. Goldcorp’s Cerro Blanco mine, for example, is located only 18 km from El Salvador in the headwaters of the Lempa River, the main source of water for over 60% of the population of El Salvador.

 The event in London, ON is led by the Council of Canadians, London Chapter - El evento en London, ON esta encabezado por el Consejo de Canadienses, sucursal London.

‘Water is More Precious than Gold’ speaking tour events

March 9                           Vancouver

March 10                         Kamloops, BC

March 11 & 12                Vancouver, BC

March 13                         Victoria, BC

March 14                         Parksville, BC

March 16                         London, ON

March 17                         Guelph, ON

March 18 & 19                Toronto, ON

March 20                         Peterborough, ON

March 21 & 22                Ottawa, ON       

March 21 & 22                Montreal, QC

March 23 & 24                 Kingston, ON

March 24 & 25                Halifax, NS/March 25 evening Mahone Bay

March 26                         Tatamagouche, NS

March 27                         Sackville/Moncton, NB

March 28                         Fredericton, NB                            

March 29                         Bangor, ME

April 1                              Augusta, ME / Portland, ME

April 2 & 3                       Boston, MA

April 3                              New Jersey, NY

April 4                              New York, NY

April 5-10                         Washington, DC

ESPAÑOL 

Aviso para los medios de comunicación y miembros de la comunidad

Comunicado Urgente

6 de Marzo de 2013

Gira de Conferencias “Desafiando las Practicas Canadienses en la Minería Internacional” llega a próximamente a London, ON

QUE: Activistas Salvadoreñas estarán en London, Ontario para adquirir apoyo e informar a la comunidad Canadiense, Latinoamericana y demás miembros de la comunidad de la campana para hacer El Salvador, el primer país en prohibir la minería metálica. El evento es parte de una gira continental nominada “El Agua es Mas Valiosa que el Oro” que esta dando a conocer el impacto negativo de las operaciones mineras Canadienses en El Salvador

QUIEN: el evento figura a Vidalina Morales y Sandra Carolina Ascencio, representantes de la Mesa Nacional contra la Minería Metálica (La Mesa). Desde el ano 2006 La Mesa ha logrado unir cientos de comunidades de base, entidades legales, organizaciones religiosas,  ambientales y de investigación , en la exitoso paro de operaciones mineras  en el país y quien llaman a una prohibición total de la minería metálica

CUANDO y DONDE: La presentación de el foro publico  “El Agua es Mas Valiosa que el Oro” en London, Ontario será llevada acabo en la Biblioteca Publica del Este de London (2016 Calle Dundas Este – cerca de la intersección Clarke Side Road y Calle Dundas Este) el Sábado 16 de Marzo de 2013 a las 3:00pm. La gira tendrá eventos en 20 ciudades a través de Canadá y los Estados Unidos (vea la lista mas abajo), que incluyen Vancouver, London, Guelph, Toronto, Ottawa, Peterborough, Halifax, Moncton, and Fredericton. Al finalizar sus presentaciones en Canadá la gira viajara hacia el sur en los Estados Unidos, con presentaciones en Bangor, Portland, New York, Boston, New Jersey y Washington D.F.

PORQUE: la gira intenta crear mas conciencia acerca de la problemática que El Salvador y otros países Latino Americanos encaran, sobre el desafío de la practicas injustas de compañías mineras canadienses y americanas entre otras que incluyen Pacific Rim y Goldcorp y la construcción de relaciones con grupos en Norte America, incluyendo esos que actualmente enfrentan problemas con su propia minería local. La gira será seguida por una misión investigativa en El Salvador durante el 9-13 de Mayo, diseñada a crear conciencia de los peligros de la minería en El Salvador.

La Mesa también esta preocupada con la posible contaminación de proyectos mineros cual están rio arriba y justo al frontera en Guatemala y Honduras. Por ejemplo, la mina “Cerro Blanco” de Goldcorp, cual esta a 18 kilómetros de El Salvador en la fuente de el Rio Lempa, la fuente principal de agua para mas del 60% de la población de El Salvador.

“El Agua es Mas Valiosa que el Oro” – Fechas y Ciudades 

Marzo 9                           Vancouver 

Marzo 10                         Kamloops, BC

Marzo 11 & 12                Vancouver, BC

Marzo 13                         Victoria, BC

Marzo 14                         Parksville, BC

Marzo 16                         London, ON

Marzo 17                         Guelph, ON

Marzo 18 & 19                Toronto, ON

Marzo 20                         Peterborough, ON

Marzo 21 & 22                Ottawa, ON       

Marzo 21 & 22                Montreal, QC

Marzo 23 & 24                Kingston, ON

Marzo 24 & 25                Halifax, NS/Marzo 25 evening Mahone Bay

Marzo 26                         Tatamagouche, NS

Marzo 27                         Sackville/Moncton, NB

Marzo 28                         Fredericton, NB                            

Marzo 29                         Bangor, ME

Abril 1                              Augusta, ME / Portland, ME

Abril 2 & 3                       Boston, MA

Abril 3                              New Jersey, NY

Abril 4                              New York, NY

Abril 5-10                         Washington, DC

Save Our Services Health Care Rally!

40 million in cuts coming to hospitals in London Ontario and 3 billion coming province wide. Join us at the health minister's office at 242 Piccadilly st. Monday Mar 4 at 4pm for some street theatre (musical beds and chairs) and help us Save our Services. All welcome!



Photos click here

For the Love of Canada, Stop CETA Actions in February 2013

Our "For the Love of Canada, Stop CETA" ad was published on Saturday, February 16, 2013, on page A11 in the London Free Press. Thanks to all of you who worked on making the ad happen, in your many capacities and talents. You can find a copy of it here.

"For the Love of Canada….." was the Valentine's Day theme for a Stop CETA action by the Trade Justice group starting on February 6 at the downtown library. Four hand made valentines were mailed to each and every premier as well as to MPs Susan Truppe, Ed Holder, Bev Shipley, and Ed Fast.

Continuing with the "For the Love of Canada…." theme, and in support of the Stop CETA ad in the paper that same day, members of the Trade Justice group and some of their supporters wore sandwich board signs in the shape of giant Valentines, while more volunteers handed out handbill "Valentines" with the theme "take our cities out of CETA"  and "keep it local: jobs, services, food." Copies of the handbill suitable for reproduction can be found here.

Photos of the Valentines and the handbill action can be seen by clicking on the image below.

Stop CETA Valentines Actions, London, Ontario, February 2013

Is Canada losing its marbles? by Jennifer Chesnut

Growing up in Canada in the eighties, I got a bit dusty around the marble pits. There was the ceremonial reveal of the marble bag from pocket. Mine was a velvet purple with gold stitching. It suited my little girl need for beauty and soft perfectly. I thought the label Crown Royal referred to Queen Elizabeth so it felt a rather stately carriage for my little shinies. But it wasn’t the bag I loved. It was the spherical sculptures inside gently clinking their light translucent bodies. My collection expressed the wink of a cat’s eye, the wisp of the wind and the shimmer of silver minerals from somewhere deep in the earth. These my seven year old gems.

Out on the edge where tarmac meets playground, I remember digging many holes with tan corduroys rolled at the ankles and rayon chemise sleeves pulled above knobby elbows. I, like my fellow competitors, meant business from beginning to end. Us marble enthusiasts were bent on protecting our shiny assets. With front teeth missing, one of the only things we owned was these beautific rolling spheres. Value and rule were continually reinvented by our big imaginations. Is that very different from the global system of economics today? The marble game was serious business.

I wish our federal government took what Canadians owned more seriously. I wish they remembered the shiny-eyed value of the little people’s assets over policy table, especially free trade, foreign investment negotiations. The CETA, or Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, is the largest rolling of assets Canada has ever sat down for. Much wider in scope than CAN-CHINA Foreign Investment treaty, more impactful on Canadian urban life than the TPP, this comprehensive plan is the most high stakes game Canadians like you and me have ever played. Do you know that we have been playing since 2009?

Called the most important under-reported story facing Canadians (NewsWatch Canada), the CETA is a new generation trade deal negotiated behind closed doors. It is not so much concerned with tariffs and trade of goods but intimate items never before offered to non-Canadian entities. Ready to roll with the signing of CETA in early 2013, our prized possessions such as city services: water, transit, energy, aspects of hospital and education are being pulled from the public purse. The content of this policy shift is the traditional Commons, nature-made and human-sustained for generations, including modern cultural offerings like the internet. The water that we drink, the land on which we walk, the systems we have created for health and education are all in our care for the people that are coming. Does the Canadian federal trade committee, so focused on competition, remember that?

In an unprecedented decision, municipal assets under the jurisdiction of city councils coast to coast will be given equal opportunity for foreign management by companies that could include Veolia water corporation, BP Shell and others. The corporation who can parcel together the cheapest bid will set the rates, decide the environmental and health standards and ultimately, oversee the particulars of the jobs in the sector they manage. The CETA will permanently open contract bidding of Canadian city assets to corporations across the European Union (EU), the United States (US) and Mexico. Though crafted to encourage competition with European corporations, the US and Mexico will be invited into the bidding process because of NAFTA rules that mandate all new trades must include NAFTA partners. 

As a Canadian who is first a global citizen of the earth, it’s not that I don’t value many influences from European thought. Development in the arts, sciences, philosophy, have been encouraged by centuries of accumulated wisdom. Some solid environmental protections have come from Europe, for example, bans of genetically modified (GMO) agriculture. It was France that through committed research showed that we can restore at-risk bee populations by no longer using GMO seed. I think we are all are thankful for these many blessings that have propogated culture and made the planet a little more stable. I'm glad they also shared the latte with us. However, CETA will get us no closer to the European ethos of slow and style or increase our environmental protections. What it will do is allow their largest corporations, which are actually rootless transnational entities, to make important decisions involving our environment and city infrastructure to suit their needs. It would be wise to never forget in these fragile times that transnational corporations are not evil but their shareholder-at-the-top structure requires them to base every decision on their mandate -- which is to make ever higher returns. Do we want this impulse to be the source that shapes Canadian cities and landscapes now and far into the future?

Ultimately, the CETA game is not an equal competition. The EU, many times larger than us, has a 50% trade surplus over us. That means that for every one item we export to them, we import two. Trade deals don't change these relationships, they only increase the amount of items being moved around the globe. This scenario is much like what we had with the US when we negotiated NAFTA, an un-savvy bargain with all sort of giveaways like the Canadian magazine industry. It is unsurprising that among global trade enthusiasts, countries are sometimes disparaged with the saying “pulling a Canada”. Another reason why CETA is not a fair deal is that the EU is pulling out its smallest marbles while Canada is offering the big crocks -- raw resource management, crown corporations and city assets, especially public services.

Canadians have the right to decide together whether they want to play this high risk game wagering many of our precious shinies. Over our first free trade agreement with the US and Mexico, though much smaller than CETA, we had an election. Sitting with a London city councillor, he said CETA requires a referendum. No doubt, many other councillors feel the same. There is the city council of Victoria, Thunder Bay, Mississauga, Toronto, Niagara Falls, London and many more who don't agree with the CETA negotiations so much that they have asked their premiers to fully exclude them. These sub-national elected representatives understand that like in marble matches, whoever plays must play for keeps. Now in the Canadian version of marbles, if players call the game not for keeps at the beginning, then the trade is not permanent. What if we did the same with the CETA? In a way this is already happening. Through thirty-nine full exemption requests, and forty other partial requests, future-invested, local-savvy city councils and school boards are asking that their premiers walk away from a game with too much at stake.

Wanna play? Only you can decide.

One website with more information on trade and the CETA is www.canadians.org.

Crocks:  a term for the large marble; also part of a colloquial expression meaning nonsense.

Originally published in London Fuse:
 http://londonfuse.ca/blog/canada-losing-its-marbles

Localites, we are about to get grinched! by Jennifer Chesnut

The generous season is upon us. Though there is rising hardship across the globe, compared to our sisters and brothers in the Global South, many Canadians have a cup that still overfloweth. We Canucks are busy filling stockings for our little people and dashing down line-ups at the grocery store. For me, what is truly valuable at this dark time of year is a meta moment that rises a little more often. Flashes about what we truly desire from life slip in between the candle gazing, sipping of eggnog, lighting of the hearth. These new-year reflections are a fertile opportunity. One might say a real necessity.

With all the merry-making, we might miss the biggest scrooge sneak since the Grinch flew down to Whoville on his one-dog sleigh. Called the most important under-reported story facing Canadians (NewsWatch Canada), the CETA, or Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, is a plan to set up foreign management of our city assets like hospitals, transit, and energy. By Christmas 2014, Canada Post could become America Post and city water from Halifax to Victoria could be run by Veolia from France. And we thought the ghost of Christmas past was bad.

How does this transfer of power from city councils to foreign corporations work? Canada and other democracies use tax dollars to keep city infrastructure publically run and locally controlled. We employ city councils to make these decisions on our behalf so that we have a voice in the Commons. Enter globalization and a federal government that prefers global over local. Eager to participate in the world trade free market model, our federal government is handing over the keys to our cities not to a quirky little green dude with retro style but to multinational corporations from the EU, the US and Mexico. Because CETA has been written behind closed doors, we don’t know its timeline. However, if it’s similar to the length of the CAN-CHINA FIPA deal, we may get a chance to discuss changes in fifteen years, 2028. City transit, postal service, education, pharmaceuticals, and more will be pushed towards private management outside of Canada. These changes will be enforced by trade tribunals that could fine Canadian cities in the same manner the federal and provincial government have been charged under NAFTA. The province of Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, suffered a multi-million dollar attack for asking Exxon Mobil and Murphy Oil to follow provincial legislation that requires a small percentage of company profits to be invested in local research and development. Under CETA, Canadian cities will be facing this same struggle. It’s like somebody going into our house and stealing what we own while we sleep. Not under the guise of red suit and sleigh but through the signing of what Minister Fast calls the boldest economic plan Canada has ever attempted.

The globalization of national economies through trade law has been gaining ground for thirty years but recently, many are questioning its intelligence and impact on our cultural and ecological survival. In the late nineties, the MAI, much like CETA in its scope, came close to passing before it was exposed and rejected by the OECD community. If CETA passes the way it is, this will be the first time that local government will lose its power to make decisions as a result of a trade deal. It’s important to note that not all city governments will have their power signed away under CETA. Canada is the only country in the negotiations that has offered city assets for permanent bidding by foreign corporations. The idea is that in offering this cash cow, the Europeans will swallow more North American agricultural products like beef. Vandana Shiva, a leader of the International Forum on Globalization, calls the cow a sacred symbol of living economies. In a country that is beginning to ride the wave of localization, remembering its roots at the local farmers market, and spending more and more of its money at local cultural events, this metaphor transfers well to our cities. Our cities are where our money is and where our power lies to create community and politics we love.

What if our cities don’t oblige? Toronto City Council, as part of its request for total exemption from CETA, asked “the Federal Government to protect the powers of the City to create local jobs, protect the environment, and provide services and programs as it sees fit - from any restrictions to those powers in the CETA.” Thirty-nine other city councils and school boards have asked their Premiers for the same thing – to be taken out of the plan. Though CETA is intended to be signed early in the new year, not one Premier has responded yet.

This season is a time to take pause. What is it that we truly desire? What about security on a vulnerable planet. We want our little people and next generation to have stable jobs. We want them to grow up well and see beyond the consumer facade. Free trade for its first twenty-five years has not destroyed Canada, but since the nineties we have endured increasing cultural erosion and economic instability while the power of transnational corporations grows. Compared to CETA, NAFTA was small, and it took away five hundred thousand manufacturing jobs from Canadian families. This holiday, in preparation for the signing of CETA, let’s ask our premiers for the gift that will help the little people, the elders, the middle class and all, to build stability and stronger local communities. Tap into your New Year reflection prowess. When harnessed collectively, our visions for culture and community are the essence of our power. Join the thousands of people in Toronto, Hamilton, London, Victoria and across the country demanding Canadian cities be taken out of CETA by contacting your city councillor and MPP. Vision can only be potentiated by action. Protect your community’s power to make sustainable and creative decisions far into the future. This holiday season -- an exemption for all Canadian cities from CETA -- is the ultimate gift.

*localization: to make local

*localite: a lover of local

Originally published in London Fuse:
 http://londonfuse.ca/blog/localites-we-are-about-get-grinched

Further details: There is something very unsettling about a state corporation gaining momentous global scope. However, in terms of trade courts over-ruling national legislature if health and social policy challenges corporate profits, only a private corporation can sue a country and not vice versa. Under CETA’s predecessor, NAFTA, Canada has been successfully sued by Ethyl Corp and SD Myers when Canadian policy was used to curb the negative impacts from their products – a carcinogenic gasoline additive and PCBs. As far as I understand, it is not yet possible for a state corporation to sue another country using global (trade) law. These Investor State lawsuits allow a one-way legal process -- foreign corporations suing governments. But with this transmutation of nation power to state-owned companies, you are right, there are many unknowns. Maybe state-owned companies will begin to sue other nations by using global trade law.

The CETA allows for equal exchange with the EU in theory, and there will be some increased profits for specific sectors especially in raw resources like oil and agriculture. Canada’s pork and beef industry and genetically-modified agriculture will likely be a winner from relaxed rules in the EU as a result of CETA. This increase in earnings may not be a positive thing for a citizen of any nationality whose highest values are placed in sustainability not tiny increases in the GDP. Overall, trade deals exemplify trade relationships as they exist already. Canada has a fifty percent trade deficit with the EU. On average, for every 1 unit Canada sells to the EU, we purchase 2 units from the EU.

Canadian companies will have no chance to bid for municipal contracts in European public services. Unknown to many Canadians, over the last five years, the EU has heavily privatized its services. Many Europeans are unhappy with the outcome of this on the public's standard of living and there are hard battles being fought to re-stabilize public assets. Some are being won in places like Paris, France where they have regained public control of water. This, oddly, in the country with the two most powerful water corporations in the world, Veolia and Suez. The EU is not eager to solidify long-term plans for privatization with foreign companies through new generation trade deals. It is only Canada that is offering up this sector, about 70% of our economy. The EU has protected all EU city assets from foreign management under CETA and used the Annexes in the agreement to keep its municipal services out. This is why there has been less alarm about CETA in the EU. The only time that folks in the EU have gotten upset about CETA is when the intellectual property rights chapter of CETA went public and it was disclosed that CETA would restrict internet freedom using copyright law.

Here is one Youtube video that may be helpful: The Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement - A Primer

"The Secret Vampire: Sucking the Lifeblood out of Canadian Cities" by Jennifer Chesnut

Why have forty city councils and school boards asked to be excluded from CETA? Isn’t it just a trade deal?

In the context of corporate global austerity, city politics may be the best hope we have for creating sustainable, kind communities and reversing the shaky trajectory we run on this earth. In the city we have close access to the leaders who write the policy that impacts our day to day lives. We are able to talk face to face from our hearts with our city councillors who decide how much we pay for our housing, how clean our local water is, and how many jobs will be secured for our youth, family and friends eager to work. When urban democracy is thriving, the citizens drive the city hall agenda. But a great threat lurks quietly in the wings. Given the dubious title of the most under-reported story facing Canadians (NewsWatch Canada 2011), it isn’t the boogeyman or the devil. It’s something much more tangible if you are willing to read between the lines. Brace yourself: it’s the new generation trade agreement, the most radical form of free market capitalism.  Think the ugly Canada-China FIPA by Prime Minister Harper. Now, widen your lens. The CETA is trade’s worst incarnation, and it is going to suck the lifeblood out of your city.

Writers of horror prose watch out. These free trade political dystopian policies may compete for reader interest if the masses get trade savvy. Imagine a wide force with gaping maw swooping the European Union over the great Pacific to take up residence in a Canadian city near you. Its goal: to siphon off any city assets it can get a hold of. Your water, your energy services like hydro, your hospitals, your transit, your local food, and more are slated to be opened for purchase and control by European, American and Mexican mega corporations. This means the quality and cost of these essential day to day needs and all the jobs associated with them will be decided by a huge corporation with a CEO who doesn’t live in your country let alone your city. Note: none of the other countries are giving up their city assets to foreign corporations. This is highly uncommon for a country to willingly offer. Sounds like the Canada-China deal isn’t the only thing odd about Canada’s long-term trade plans.

This could be another moment to ridicule Canadian trade policy except we don’t have a second to waste. CETA aptly stands for the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement.  And it is the most comprehensive bill of sale you can imagine. CETA the secret vampire will be nibbling at our local food movements and indeed, there are also surely going to be many more gushing bites. Many cities are resisting CETA because its laws will restrict municipalities for making sovereign economic choices. Some of the worries of city council: the city of Stratford’s public investment in its regional food network is at risk. Toronto’s local job creation plans such as its highly successful, local transit construction is at risk. Hamilton fought to bring the care of its water back in house after a messy experiment with privatized water. Under CETA’s grasp, as soon as water is open for bidding to private foreign corps, Hamilton won’t be able to get it back. 

Unlike national budgets, free trade deals last decades. New generation deals restructure the way government operates and downloads the responsibility of healthcare, education, natural resources and more to foreign corporations to turn a profit in the hope that the wealth will trickle down to the people. Though it’s not easy to get out of a trade deal, especially a country like Canada with such a wimpy trade record, some countries learn from their mistakes.  Australia decided after being sued by Du Maurier that they would never sign up for another agreement that is enforced by investor state lawsuits. In a nutshell, these trade tribunals allow corporations to sue countries for their regulations that keep local jobs, rivers clean, and bad chemicals out.  Australia was successfully sued for 55 million when Du Maurier’s profits were threatened by a government plan to ban cigarette ads aimed at youth. Australia had to keep the ads and its citizens forked over the money with their taxes. The people got nothing in return but a loss of their rights to make good choices for their kids. And by the time they run out, all the changes have been made and you are either dead or too old to remember what it was like back then. CETA may haunt your community for eternity.  

Bloody powerful, suavely deceptive, seemingly benign but hungry.  And just like the after-effects from being bitten, the CETAs impacts will be slow but certain. First a dullness of municipal economies, then the paling of the palour of local culture, slowly our cities from Halifax to Nunavut to Victoria will lose the ability to make their own decisions. CETA will have an exasperating long shelf-life.  Like a vampire, the CETA and other trade deals are very hard to kill once created.

If you like local good paying jobs, properly funded hospitals, schools and other public institutions, farmers markets, water bottle bans, a creative new vision for your city, then CETA is the one lurking in the dark. You are not going to like its style one bit. And the forty councils and school boards including the city of Toronto, Thunder Bay, North Vancouver and more have asked to not be included in this long term plan. But why have none of their city council voter certified requests been granted by the provinces? Ontario has forty cities and a school board who have asked to be written out of it in part or full. CETA is a reason to talk to your city councillor and member of provincial parliament about the quality of life for your family. Friends – enough with the CETA nightmare. The province of Ontario, it’s time to get back to work

Hang the garlic from the rooftops. Get calling your elected member of parliament – city, province and national.  The secret vampire is near completion and it can be beaten. Not with a magic bullet but with the sure-fire way of people engaging in the community where they live. Speak up. Read. Breathe. Imagine a fate better than CETA.