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.