Yes, I'm also known as Josephine Grey, and in that name I was appointed by the Liberal government in 1995 as Canada's observer on domestic issues to the World Summit for Social Development.
I'm doing my job by coming to the microphone, although it's for such a brief time.
What I want to put on the record is that not only does the TPP and its provisions threaten all of the various agreements in which Canada has been engaged in terms of the millennium development goals, sustainable development goals, world summits for social development, and the like, it also violates previous international law treaties that involve human rights.
For example, if we look at the treaty on the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which was signed in 1976, we can see how TPP violates that treaty by just going through the first couple of articles of that treaty, the first being that we must have the right to self-determination on how we dispose of our resources. This puts the predatory investor class ahead of our right to democracy.
Under article 2 you are supposed to invest a maximum of available resources, which includes our tax dollars, in reinforcing, supporting, and upholding our human rights. If you allow for corporations to sue, and our tax dollars are spent defending our country in court, then you have violated that article as well.
Under article 3 we have to have non-discrimination. That means for those who are poor in this country—like the people I represent: new Canadians, children, youth, and low income people—you are discriminating against all of those who are vulnerable in this country by allowing investor-state corporation class people to overrule and override our sovereign right to make our own rules.
Lastly, if you look at the agreements Canada has signed, we have also committed to the notion that all elected officials' first duty is to uphold, support, and promote our international human rights. That is your first duty as an elected official.
You have this as a way in which you could counter this kind of agreement, and you have every right and a duty to do so.
Lastly, I would say—