International Trade Committee on May 12th, 2016

[Verna Burnet, As an Individual]

The people of Canada elected the Liberal Party to administer our democracy. The TPP destroys our democracy, replacing it with an oligarchy. We the people have never given you authority to do that. The TPP makes the Trudeau Liberals, like the reviled Harper Conservatives before them, a rogue government.

The secret ISDS courts are a swift kick in the face to democracy and a sucker punch to the gut of justice. The only right protected by this sickening trade agreement is the insane, irrational right of millionaires to make a profit.

We elected you to govern in a manner that protects our economic rights. Instead, you have sold our economic rights to the elite “one percent”. You are now a rogue government.

The TPP allows the pathologically greedy millionaires to erase the last shreds of our cherished democratic and environmental protection laws. These are the same environmental laws we elected you to protect and enforce. With these toxic trade agreements, you have become a rogue government like the Harper government before you.

The TPP allows the pathologically greedy millionaires to erase the last frail shreds of our civil rights, the same civil rights we elected you to restore.

You have betrayed us. You campaigned on a theme of change. You have not changed the TPP; you have not changed the ISDS courts. You are now a rogue government.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Okay.

We're going to move on to John S. Toth.

Go ahead, sir, for three minutes.

[John Toth, As an Individual]

Thank you.

For the record, my name is John Toth. I am first vice-president of Unifor local 195, but that in itself does not define me. I am also the vice-chair of Workforce WindsorEssex, the local labour planning council. I'm also on the campaign cabinet of the Windsor-Essex county United Way and I'm also the past chairperson of over a dozen labour adjustment committees that were established to help people who lost their jobs due mostly to workplace closures. I tell you this, not because I'm presenting you my resume, although I may need to do that at some future time, but to give you some context as to my comments and the perspective from which I come.

During the last recession, our area, Windsor-Essex county, lost over 29,000 jobs, it's estimated, in parts, in assembly—I'm sorry, that's in Canada—and only about half of those jobs returned. I am not a radical person, but I am a realist, and the reality of the situation, as I look at the TPP, is that most credible people, most analysis, and most independent analysis as well have come to the conclusion that this trade agreement will have a negative impact on the auto industry regardless of what you think it does to the other industries. I think there's a consensus that the auto industry will be deeply impacted and will suffer loss of jobs as a result of that.

During the last recession, as I said, we lost a number of jobs. Most of those companies were able to rebound, but those jobs were transferred to lower cost jurisdictions. Under the TPP, there are going to be more options for those manufacturers to go to lower cost jurisdictions, and fewer jobs will come back to Canada.

I used to work for a company that employed over 500 people here in Windsor-Essex and I saw that workplace dismantled and shipped to another jurisdiction. I saw thousands of other jobs disappear as well and I saw the impact of those jobs on the people. I saw people lose their jobs. I saw people lose their benefits. I saw people lose their homes, their wives, and their lives in some cases. I see this as a continuation of that phenomenon because, inevitably, there will be a further reduction in jobs in the auto parts sector under the TPP.

The auto parts and auto itself are a major export market for Canada. Canada employs over 500,000 people in the industry. It's Canada's number one export. Locally it's extremely important. Windsor is a microcosm of how important that industry is. Just locally in Windsor, Windsor produced $11 billion worth of products and vehicles last year.

Does that mean I have one minute or does that mean I'm out of time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

You have a half minute, go ahead.

[John Toth]

I'll just wrap up.

My point is, I urge you to consider the impact that this will have on our standard of living, on jobs in the industry, and on the human impact as well when you're continuing your deliberations.

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you, sir.

We're going to move on to Robert Andrew.

[Robert Andrew, As an Individual]

I'm Robert Andrew. I'm a lifetime resident of Windsor and I'm here to share with you a lifetime of experience with free trade agendas

I'm 60 years old and I've spent my working life in manufacturing in the auto-related industries. When I first started working in the auto industry as a summer student in the 1970s, we had the Auto Pact. Summer work was plentiful in the local auto industry. Full-time jobs with good pay and benefits were available when people graduated high school. Then came the FTA, NAFTA, and subsequently the loss of the Auto Pact.

We were promised jobs and prosperity. What working people have seen is the decimation of our manufacturing industry. There are no more summer jobs for students because the laid-off workers filled those jobs. Our children graduate from college and university at great expense and cannot find jobs related to their training. They struggle to find work and, when they do, it is low paying and precarious. For the first time in history, future generations cannot expect to do as well as their parents. This is what I have seen free trade do to our economy.

Now the global corporations have achieved the ability to export any job they want. They are going to use deals like TPP to import workers to do what work is left, reducing our workforce to a third-world status.

Why has the U.S. refused to sign onto this TFW provision?

Free trade is about giving global corporations the ability to exploit all levels of government and workers for the sake of profits. It is not about creating jobs and prosperity for workers. This is the world we are leaving to our children and grandchildren.

I still have time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Sure.

[Robert Andrew]

The other thing I want to add is that our foreign investment review is nothing but a rubber stamp now. I remember when it used to mean something.

With all these free trade deals we're in, where companies can just come in and buy up our Canadian companies, move them out of the country, and then ship the products back here, just exacerbates the whole thing.

They need to address foreign investment review also, throw out the TPP, and negotiate reciprocal trade agreements like the Auto Pact.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you, sir.

We're going to move over to Anna Beaulieu.

[Anna Beaulieu, As an Individual]

Thank you for letting me speak. It's the first time in my life.

I'm an idealist. I represent myself. When I was in the House of Commons as a secretary, I was also an idealist.

As far as the TPP is concerned, it is yet another step backward for humanity. It represents the cult of money and power by individuals with total disregard for their kind. It is the latest and most threatening of all ententes being negotiated in secret in my lifetime. It is monetizing human misery.

I read that Canada would only be admitted in the negotiations under certain conditions. Excuse me. Are we a free democratic country? Material prosperity of the minority is acquired on the backs of the majority at the expense of our only home, planet earth. Have we sunk so low that we now elect governments to represent commerce and to support the banking octopus? Capitalism and liberty have become dangerous.

Unlike previous generations are we now so blasé and sophisticated that we can tell our progeny, “I've had mine. You're on your own.”

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

Did you say that was the first time you spoke in public?

[Anna Beaulieu]

Yes, it is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

You did a wonderful job. Thank you for coming.

We're going to move on to Joan Tinkess.

[Joan Tinkess, As an Individual]

Good afternoon.

First of all, I do want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak today. This isn't the first time I've spoken in public. I taught school for 40 years. I did a lot of speaking in public, but I was not always listened to.

I would like to focus on the ISDS, please, the special protection that's given to foreign investors that receive a generous public subsidy against the economic risks of democracy and regulations that apply to everyone.

It's hard to understand how a government—like our own government that declares itself a government that cares about its citizens and that going to take care of its citizens, and wants to do what's best for its citizens—would give away sovereignty so easily to an unknown group that its citizens certainly don't know. If it weren't for the Council of Canadians, we wouldn't have known anything about this trade deal for the last four years. Thanks to them, little by little, word came out, and some of us have been able to read up on it and wonder. I'm not surprised about the former government, because I don't think that it cared about Canada or Canadians, but this government I still want to believe does care and wants to do what's right first of all for Canada.

I can't see how it could be right for a Canadian citizen that we would be sued, and not only us, but other countries too. Some of it I have here, and the best known cases, such as “Philip Morris challenge to anti-tobacco regulations in Australia and Uruguay.” This is something that's not positive for citizens, that a country can be sued, and a country like Uruguay can be sued, and have to pay Philip Morris. Think about it. “The Lone Pine Resources challenge to fracking restrictions in Canada,” the “Ethyl Corporation claim against a ban on gasoline additives” and the “Vattenfal claim against Germany's nuclear phase-out.” These are examples of things that are not good for Canada and not good for any country.

I do ask that you take this message back. I certainly am not in favour of the TPP.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

Coming up to our mike next is Ralph Benoit.

[Ralph Benoit, As an Individual]

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry I didn't really have time, or make the time, to prepare a statement, but I would like to say that I concur with what the others have said.

You have all made your way into the positions you now hold. I would like to suggest to you that ceding the rights of your own children and destroying their environment will not suit you very well as they look upon you in the future.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

We'll move on to Lisa Gretzky.

[Lisa Gretzky, As an Individual]

Thank you.

As the MPP for the riding you are currently sitting in, I want to welcome you. I didn't prepare remarks, because I was going to come here today with an open mind and listen to what everybody said—not just the members on the panel, but those who were presenting—and highlight some points.

I want to start with some of the disturbing things I've heard. They're a little concerning for me, representing a riding where a large portion of our economy is in manufacturing. It provides a lifestyle for many people in my riding.

From the Conservative side, the ending note was a little concerning. There was some discussion about the fact that manufacturing is leaving: we're losing the Big Three in Windsor, so we should just resign ourselves to letting that happen and looking to bring in other automotive companies.

I don't agree with you. I don't agree with you. I think that's wrong-headed. I think as leaders—you were supposed to be leaders, when you had government—you should be fighting to keep what we have, fighting like hell to keep what we have, and then supplementing it by bringing others in. I don't think we should resign ourselves to letting anything go when it affects people, because it is affecting people. They're not numbers, they're not dollar signs, they're real people, and it affects their lives. It's really unfortunate that you feel we should just stop fighting for them.

There was also, in a roundabout way, an implication that the reason we've lost some of our auto sector here in Ontario, more specifically here in Windsor, is that we don't have a product that people want. Or perhaps it's not specifically the product, but perhaps it's the quality of the product.

I disagree with you. I think if the product weren't good, we wouldn't see investments from Ford and we wouldn't see investments, huge investments, from Chrysler. It's not a matter of the auto sector leaving because we don't have what people want. You have to look at the bigger picture. The economy at the time when we were losing jobs was not a good economy.

Currently the cost of energy is a big issue. I'm going to point that to the Liberal side, because you now have partners at the provincial table. Although the Conservative government wasn't interested in working with the provincial Liberals, you have an opportunity to let them know that the direction they're going in, selling off our hydro, and the rates going up, is not helping manufacturing. It's not helping any business. You have the opportunity to be leaders, working with the provincial government, to let them know they need to change course on that decision.

I also heard from the Liberal side that many people are now choosing to go work overseas, that this is what they want to do. I disagree with that. Some people want to go overseas to work, but the majority of our manufacturing and business sector want to stay in their own communities and work. I would implore you to think twice about that comment and to think about how you can fight to keep manufacturing jobs here in Ontario, and specifically in my riding.

One thing I—

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

That wraps up your time.

[Lisa Gretzky]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

I went through the list and got everybody, but I think Kurt Powell wasn't here.

We still have time, sir, if you want to come up for three minutes and wrap up our day.

[Kurt Powell, As an Individual]

Hi. My name is Kurt Powell.

I apologize for being late earlier on. I was at my unpaid internship. I'm 21. I just came over from the University of Windsor. In my undergrad I studied social movements and geography, specifically through Bill C-51 in the Harper government. In my graduate studies at Ryerson University I'm studying policy and hopefully getting in to law school within the next two years.

There has been a lot of talk of different facts, figures, and so on and so forth, but the thing that resonates most with me, that synthesizes everything, is the sense of hope. Being part of the student government at both the University of Windsor and Ryerson, there is a sense of hopelessness among students, among the younger generation, and everybody here is telling me how I should feel and telling me how this is going to affect me. I'm feeling it, and so is my generation. NAFTA was signed in 1994, and I still feel the post-NAFTA agreement when I can't get anything but an unpaid internship and my annual income is negative $10,000 because all I can get is OSAP, and I'm an A student. I can't get a job, and I'm working on my second degree.

Saying such, the biggest question I believe that any policy analyst should be asking is: does the TPP give hope to Canadians? Does it give hope for a better job? Does it give hope for benefits, for working hours, for women's rights, and for first nations rights? Does it give hope? That is the simplest question to ask, but it is the biggest question to ask. I can tell that the NAFTA agreement—that was the year I was born, and I'm feeling the effects of it—has given me no hope, and TPP looks to be nothing but a part of the geneology of that.

Another thing form my undergrad that I found in social movements is that, when the NAFTA agreement was signed, it sparked a social movement called the Zapatistas. This sparked a larger global movement that translated over into David Suzuki, Maude Barlow, and the Council of Canadians, and it interlinked continentally the social movement that happened and the social justice forums that we now have globally occurring.

When you sign the TPP agreement—I'm assuming it's going to happen because it happened before and it's happened many times prior to that—you're linking all these countries together socially with all their social movements. As political and public leaders, you have to be prepared for that. I know. I've been getting emails from New Zealand and from other locations around the world about how to organize, and I'm going to be around way longer than you, I guarantee it.

If you have any questions for me because I'm the only 20-year old here and the only millennial, I think it's time for you guys to ask me a few questions, if you want.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you for your time.

We're here to listen and not to ask questions, and that's what we're doing. We appreciate somebody of your age and calibre coming up to the mike and telling us your perspective, so that we look to the future and the next generation. My children are your age and pretty well tell me the same things you are, so I'll keep that in mind personally, but we're not here to ask you questions. We're here to listen to you and we thank you for being the last speaker and for coming up and taking your time to come here, sir.

Thank you.

[Some voices]

Hear, hear!