moved:
That this House calls upon the government to respect the spirit of the evidence given by the Minister of International Trade before the Foreign Affairs Committee, who stated “I can assure you that we are not seeking an investor-state provision in the WTO or anywhere else”, by refusing to sign any trade agreement, such as the FTAA or the GATS, that includes a NAFTA Chapter 11-style investor-state clause.
Madam Speaker, let me indicate at the outset that I will be sharing my time with the member for Burnaby—Douglas.
Two images come to the mind of Canadians on the subject of Quebec City: the wall, this reinforced concrete fence all around the old capital to prevent people from getting in and another wall, a wall of tear gas, or 5,000 tear gas grenades thrown everywhere, blinding everyone, demonstrators and residents.
Who could imagine more potent symbols for the squalid secrecy that surrounded international trade talks than that ugly wall and that haze of gas?
While the Liberal government trumpets its success at advancing the corporate driven globalization agenda, millions of Canadian now get the picture: fortress walls and noxious gases for ordinary citizens, privileged access and security passes for the corporate elite, rights and rewards for the rich, rhetoric for the rest of us. For the Liberals apparently that is what democracy looks like.
Quebec was the high water mark for irony and for hypocrisy. The official line was that the FTAA was about spreading democracy, but the chain link fences, the tear gas, the water cannons, the plastic bullets and mass arrests that prevented citizens from getting anywhere near the summit made the case more effectively than anything else could that democracy is threatened by the corporate model of globalization.
Behind the wall around old Quebec the threat to democracy became more ominous as information leaked out that the NAFTA drafters had every intention of extending the most anti-democratic provision of NAFTA, chapter 11's investor state clause, to the rest of the Americas.
Last year Canadians dared to hope that their objections to corporate globalization were getting through to the government. The Minister for International Trade once called NAFTA “primarily an exercise in the economic disarmament of federal governments”.
At the international affairs committee in April, just a year ago, the minister declared his opposition to any form of investor state mechanism, such as the one enshrined in NAFTA being included in any future trade agreements. He assured parliament that his officials were working with Washington to have NAFTA chapter 11 reconsidered. “Take the good news and run with it”, he told the foreign affairs and international trade committee.
In December the trade minister reiterated his concerns. He stated starkly that he would not sign any deal that contained the offensive clauses, period.
Following the Quebec summit the Prime Minister was calling chapter 11 of NAFTA a good clause. “It is one that works reasonably well”, said the Prime Minister. His trade minister has been faithfully parroting the line ever since.
To concerned people throughout America, however, chapter 11 is not a good thing. It is the Trojan horse of so-called free trade in the style of big business. Chapter 11 is the clause that ends the debate over whether globalization threatens the sovereignty of countries.
Under NAFTA, chapter 11 established a new system which enables foreign investors to bring injury claims against democratically elected governments. It allows multinational corporations to usurp the sovereign powers of government and the democratic rights of citizens and communities. Foreign capital investing in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. may demand compensation if profit making potential of their ventures is injured by government decisions.
Foreign based companies are given rights greater than domestic businesses operating in their home country. Canada's baptism of fire began with the Ethyl Corporation's challenge to Canada's right to control the use of MMT in this country.
MMT is a gasoline additive, a neurotoxin which interferes with automobile exhaust systems banned in several U.S. states, but under NAFTA's investor state provisions Ethyl took the Canadian government to court and sued for lost profits. To avoid an arbitration panel the Canadian government settled out of court, withdrew its legislation and paid $19.6 million in damages to Ethyl. To satisfy Ethyl's commercial interests, Canadian parents today have less control over the quality of air their children breathe.
To date at least 15 chapter 11 suits have been launched. No one really knows for sure. Apparently it is not really the public's business. There is no requirement to inform the public, even though public laws are under attack and taxpayer money will pay the fines.
Unlike other trade agreements, chapter 11 gives global corporations freedom to litigate on their own without having to ask national governments to act on their behalf. With status to challenge other governments as legal equals, this clause allows NAFTA to end run governments and even constitutions.
Chapter 11 of NAFTA has become the defining issue for FTAA negotiations. In Mexico a U.S. waste disposal company, Metalclad, was awarded $16.7 million in damages when a state government took steps to protect its water supply. Metalclad's victory established that NAFTA's dispute mechanism reaches to subnational governments, including municipalities.
Then there is Sun Belt Water of California. Who knows what is next? Who would have guessed that UPS would launch a lawsuit to challenge the operation of Canada Post? Who would have believed that the Canadian government would have left us so vulnerable or that, even in the face of this challenge to Canada's right to deliver its own mail and the right to keep public services in the public domain, the Canadian government would decide chapter 11 is a good clause that is working reasonably well?
As chapter 11 damage awards accumulate, more and more Canadians are starting to press more serious questions about exactly what is at stake under the new world order. Who voted to destroy national sovereignty? Who gave corporations the right to decide public values?
Why elect governments that hand their powers over to big business?
In conclusion, I implore the government once again to find the courage to oppose chapter 11 and refuse to sign any international agreement that contains this pernicious provision. The very foundations of our democracy are at stake.