Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Forgive me if you've already heard this numerous times, but I think it bears repeating. I don't understand why this even needs to be said.
I don't understand why everyone in this room is not in complete agreement about a few basic things. I would have thought that everyone here would agree that democracy is a bottom-line value. Whether it's our parliamentary democracy or some other form of democratically elected government, at the end of the day, the people have the right, through their elected representatives, to jointly write the rules to which we all submit.
I don't understand why everyone in this room is not upset to think there should be a set of rules that will trump the will of the people, as expressed by their democratically elected representatives. I don't understand how anyone in this room can think it's okay that foreign investors get to be above the law as determined by elected governments, and, worse, that it's okay for these investors to be able to take our government to court for making decisions the investors don't like, even though we elected the government to make those decisions on our behalf—decisions like restrictions on tobacco in Uruguay or on nuclear power plants in Germany, or on fracking here in Canada. I don't understand how anyone in this room can think it's okay that foreign investors aren't bound by the decisions of our courts, that they are able, under the TPP, to seek compensation for those decisions, that they can challenge those decisions in tribunals adjudicated by arbitrators who make their living by ruling on claims that can only be brought forward by those same investors.
I was going to make a comment about how it's evidence of democracy that I'm here speaking, but it was a previous government that negotiated this deal, and 60% of the electorate rejected that government. I implore the current government to respect the mandate it received and reject the parts of this deal that entail that elected governments in Canada must submit to the will of foreign investors.
Thank you.