Time to Talk About NAFTA

With Barack Obama and the Democrats looking more and more likely to sweep the U.S. election on Tuesday (knock on wood), we are faced with the real possibility that they will follow through on their promise to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. They will, of course, be looking to gain further advantage for the U.S., and particularly for U.S. workers.

But what about Canada?

The fatal flaw in NAFTA, as in most other free trade agreements, is that it tends to favour corporate interests above all other considerations. One result of this has been the string of lawsuits filed under NAFTA's Chapter 11 over the past 15 years by transnational corporations against governments who presume to implement policies or pass regulations that interfere with their 'investors rights' (i.e. profits). While many of these suits have been brought against the U.S. and Mexican governments (with several aimed specifically at California), Canada has always been a favourite target because of our more stringent regulatory regime and our fondness for keeping things like health care out of private hands.

Two cases which have made the news recently illustrate the danger:

NAFTA-based suit threatens Canada's medicare
Suit seeks to open Canadian health care to privatizers

... a group of 200 private investors led by Arizona businessman Melvin J. Howard is planning to use the NAFTA national treatment mechanism to pry open Canadian medicare — often described by neoconservatives as “the last great uncracked oyster in the North American marketplace.”

Howard and his partners want to open a private surgical centre in B.C. similar to the Cambie Clinic owned by Dr. Brian Day, past-president of the Canadian Medical Association, but are facing what they call anti-American roadblocks in several municipalities.

And even more recently:

Quebec herbicide ban violates NAFTA, pesticide maker alleges

A company that makes the commonly used herbicide ingredient 2,4-D is challenging the Quebec government under the North American Free Trade Agreement for banning its product.

The Canadian unit of Dow AgroSciences alleges the prohibition of the weed killer is without any scientific basis and in violation of the trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico.

Other NAFTA-based corporate lawsuits and trade actions against Canada have involved the Wheat Board, Canada Post, a ban on a toxic gasoline additive, (we lost that one), and perhaps most disturbing - repeated demands for commercial bulk water exports.

If Obama really is serious about re-negotiating NAFTA, we must demand that our government use the opportunity to protect the public interest and remove Chapter 11.

It won't fix everything that is wrong with NAFTA, but it's a start.

(cross-posted from Canada's World)

Sunday Sundries

BREAKING NEWS: CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN FINDS BLASPHEMY ON THE INTERNET!

A B.C. man has filed a human rights complaint alleging religious discrimination after a TV comedian flew a plane pulling a "Jesus sucks" banner over Toronto. Dean Skoreyko of the northern B.C. town of Coldstream filed the complaint against Kenneth Hotz and Showcase TV. Mr. Skoreyko, who viewed the stunt online, said in a form filed with the B.C. human rights tribunal "my Christian beliefs and upbringing were publicly ridiculed."

Mr. Hotz is half of the Kenny vs. Spenny show, which turns on two rivals' attempts to compete with one another. The offending stunt was part of a contest between Mr. Hotz and co-host Spencer Rice to see who could offend the greatest number of people. Mr. Skoreyko, who once sought the federal Conservative nomination in Okanagan-Shuswap, told the National Post he filed the complaint on behalf of the silent majority that would object to such antics. He said he wanted to make the point that the human rights system applies double standards, favouring only minority interests.

When I first read about this stunt, I suppose I expected indignation from those sensitive types who had somehow managed to read the banner from the ground while on their way to church with their binoculars. And I suppose there's a point in there somewhere about minority vs. majority rights, although it has always been my understanding that the rights of the majority are automatically protected by the fact that they are... well, the majority (i.e. would this guy have been offended if they had flown a banner saying, "White Guys Suck"?)

But to claim that you were shocked and offended by a video on the internet that you would have had to have gone out of your way to find and download? Pulease. But hey, good on him for defending the sensibilities of those who would have objected. If they had seen it. Which they didn't.

Seriously, if this is the most offensive thing this guy can find on the internet, or for that matter on Kenny vs. Spenny, then he obviously isn't trying hard enough.

(and anyone care to bet on how long it takes for Charles McVety or his pals to point out that KvS gets Canadian tax credits?)

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HARPER'S "WAR ON COLLECTIVISM" FRUSTRATED BY ANNOYING FACTS

While Gerry Ritz and the entire Conservative free-market propaganda machine continue to try to convince western farmers that "marketing choice" will make them far more money for their crops, this rather inconvenient bit of news makes it into the media:

Canadians got more per bushel than U.S. farmers, wheat board says

Prairie farmers earned a record $7 billion from grain sold through the Canadian Wheat Board in 2007-08 — a 57 per cent increase over the previous year, the agency said Thursday in its annual report. [...] Western Canadian farmers got better prices than many U.S. farmers who sold their grain before prices spiked earlier this year.

Stupid facts.

(h/t to Buckdog)

Conservatives Hate Rural Voters

I don't usually do this, but April Reign has a brilliant post about rural politics that you really must read, especially given the noise coming out of the more right-wing denizens of Alberta these days.

Rural areas of Canada and the U.S. are strongholds for Conservative/Reform/Republican politics. Words like liberal, welfare, rights, environmentalism are bandied about like slurs, while abstract concepts like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, making your own work, and loyalty to your country and used almost as religious mantras and identifiers of the true believers. Spin doctors are quick to latch on to this blind faith and give impassioned speeches about the farmer, the way things were, the heartland. But do they really have their best interests at heart? Time and again it seems the answer is no.

She goes on to draw a straight line between meat packers receiving a chunk of Alberta's mad cow aid money, potential plans to privatize Canada Post, and the relentless and ongoing dismantling of the Wheat Board as evidence of the myriad ways in which Conservative/Reform policies screw over farmers and other rural Canadians, all in the service of corporate profits.

I would love to see this one published in the Calgary Herald. After all, nothing is more convincing to a westerner than enlightened self interest.

First They Came for the Wheat Board...

Unbelievable. The Conservatives aren't even bothering to hide their 'hidden agenda' any more:

"To say that I'm extremely disappointed to hear that the Canadian Wheat Board is unwilling to discuss change for western Canadian producers would be an understatement," Gerry Ritz, the agriculture minister, said in a conference call with reporters Wednesday afternoon.

Earlier in the day, the wheat board's chairman, Ken Ritter, said the marketing agency had decided against holding further talks with Ritz on barley because of a lack of "common ground" between the two sides.

...

Asked about the prospect of a spring election derailing the government's plans, Ritz was blunt.

"It means that the board has sufficiently stalled things long enough that they'll survive until after the election," he said. "When we come back with a majority, then all bets are off."

Indeed. I think we've just found a replacement for "When I get through with Canada you won't recognize it" as the Truly Terrifying Conservative Quote for the upcoming campaign.

H/T to Buckdog, POGGE, and Chet Scoville of Vanity Press who wins the booby prize for the best post title: "Nice Wheat Board; Be a Shame If Something Happened to It."

The Purge Continues

Add another name to the list of "Liberal hacks" removed from office:

Wheat Board fires official who criticized government

WINNIPEG — A Canadian Wheat Board vice-president who was an outspoken critic of the Harper government's tactics in its dealings with the marketing agency was sacked yesterday.

Deanna Allen, the board's vice-president of farmer relations and public affairs, had been a thorn in the side of the government as it attempted to end the Wheat Board's barley-marketing monopoly.

Ms. Allen said in an interview late yesterday that she was “dismissed without cause” by Wheat Board interim president Greg Arason.

“I was told that Greg had just come in from an in camera session with the board and that he was to inform me that I was dismissed effective immediately,” she said.

The news “came as a bit of a shock,” she said, adding she had no idea that her dismissal was imminent.

Interestingly, the federal government cannot directly hire or fire members or staff of the wheat board - only the appointed members of its board and it's President, which they did a year ago when they replaced the uncooperative Adrian Measner with interim president Greg Arason. Happily for them, Mr. Arason is considerably more cooperative with the government's agenda of eliminating the Wheat Board, as he has just demonstrated by firing Allen.

Even more cooperation is expected from the government's newly announced permanent replacement for Measner - Australian agri-business executive Ian White.

Buckdog knows a lot more about all this than I, so I recommend that you wander over to his joint and continue reading there.

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And on a somewhat unrelated topic, please read this editorial by Dan Gardner on the increasingly Orwellian atmosphere in Ottawa. ADD: And this one by Randall Denley. Brrrr!