Members of the Standing Committee on International Trade, thank you for your invitation.
The Association québécoise pour la taxation des transactions financières et pour l'action citoyenne (ATTAC), is advocating for the control of the financial sector and for social justice. Our association operates in about 20 countries.
Today, I would like to mention three reasons for abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Other aspects could be criticized, but the time I have forces me to make a choice.
The first reason is the lack of transparency throughout the process.
This agreement was negotiated in the greatest secrecy. Only business lobbies have been consulted and no real consultation was held with the other groups of civil society. The agreement is several thousand pages long in particularly arcane, very ambiguous, legal language. Furthermore, the economist Joseph Stiglitz, when visiting Ottawa, said that the only thing that was not ambiguous in the agreement was the fact that it was completely ambiguous. So we may wonder whether we are not signing a blank cheque. Conducting independent studies to assess the real impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership is essential.
The second reason is the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism.
We are talking about a private justice system for businesses. They are the only ones that can sue the government. They have no legal obligation or responsibility. Judges are automatically biased because, given that the lawsuits can only come from one party, that is businesses, the arbitrators have a vested interest in ruling in their favour in order to receive other cases.
Companies can also choose one of their arbitrators, which is quite unusual in a justice system. This dispute settlement mechanism is an important lobbying tool that allows lobbyists to threaten governments with lawsuits, which has turned out well in the past. Even the Canadian government recognized the impact of self-censorship triggered by this mechanism. Let me quote a passage from a report on NAFTA: “On the other hand, it could be that regulations are simply not being brought forward for fear of a Chapter 11 suit.”
In addition, the Trans-Pacific Partnership allows for harmonization, which could actually weaken the sanitary and phytosanitary measures that are in place to protect the people, but that are seen as non-tariff barriers. So the power of governments to regulate, one of the key aspects of democracy, is being directly attacked.
The third aspect is the incompatibility between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris agreement to fight climate change.
Businesses can sue governments because of environmental legislation that can be considered as a barrier to trade.
Furthermore, by multiplying exports in a way that does not always make sense, this encourages fossil fuel waste on a large scale. It promotes long routes and unlimited transport of goods, when the focus should be on short routes and on stimulating the local economy. However, in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the stimulation of the social economy is a form of discrimination.
This agreement also promotes an export-oriented agri-food industry that is already responsible for 25% of the greenhouse gas emissions, when it should actually promote local agriculture and greater food sovereignty.
Canadians must really gain a solid understanding of this agreement that will radically change our economy, that will be applied over years and that will affect every economic sector. We should either abandon the agreement because of it is exceptionally broad—and I point out that the four candidates in the U.S. primaries are opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership—or we should hold a national referendum. In no case should we avoid a broad and in-depth public debate.