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<div class="moz-forward-container">So sorry I missed getting
together with all of you last week at the lake. I will get back to
GREN in Sept... but this is NB for now.. The federal govt has been
spreading CETA propaganda since April when Harper sent 18
ministers across the country to sell his EU trade deal to the
masses. "Sell " being the operative word. This new report cuts
through <br>
the myths. Good to use with politicians... as another round of
CETA negotiations gets underway in Brussels. Norah <br>
<br>
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<h2><strong>New Report Fights Harper’s CETA Deception<br>
</strong><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://canadians.org/blog/?p=16152">http://canadians.org/blog/?p=16152</a>
<o:p></o:p></h2>
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<p class="MsoNormal">By <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://canadians.org/blog/?author=3"
title="Posts by Stuart Trew"> Stuart Trew</a>,
Tuesday, July 17th, 2012<span
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<p>In April 2012, the Harper government launched a
propaganda campaign in response to <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.windsorstar.com/business/Tories+launched+cross+country+push+support+trade+deal/6907282/story.html"
target="_blank"> growing criticism</a> of the Canada-EU
Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). The
campaign material, housed on a new <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/eu-ue/can-eu.aspx?view=d"
target="_blank"> DFAIT webpage</a>, attempts to respond
to several claims about CETA which the government believes
to be myths. Unfortunately, in answering these claims, the
Harper government introduces even more misleading and even
false information about the impacts that “next generation”
trade agreements like CETA will have in a number of social
and public policy areas.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Today, the Council of Canadians responded to Harper’s
propaganda campaign with a new report called <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.windsorstar.com/business/Tories+launched+cross+country+push+support+trade+deal/6907282/story.html"
target="_blank"> The CETA Deception.</a> In it, we
challenge the government’s reassurances that its EU trade
deal will not affect public health or environmental
regulations, will not allow foreign corporations to
challenge public policy, will not undermine public
services or municipal democracy, will not increase drug
prices or hurt Canada’s supports for arts and culture. In
each case, the government’s position is either misleading
or demonstrably false. <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.canadians.org/trade/documents/FightingtheCETAmyths-July2012.pdf"
target="_blank"> Click here</a> to read the report, or
click Read more… for our Coles Notes version.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>HARPER SAYS</strong>: CETA will create $12
billion in new wealth and put $1,000 into the pockets of
every working family, which is equivalent to creating
80,000 new jobs.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>WE SAY</strong>: The magic $12 billion figure has
been <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://canada-europe.org/en/pdf/Canada%20in%20for%2012B%20windfall%20with%20EU%20deal.pdf"
target="_blank"> seriously discredited</a> since it made
a first appearance in 2008. An <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.eucanada-sia.org/docs/EU-Canada_SIA_Final_Report.pdf"
target="_blank"> independent assessment</a> of CETA done
for the European Commission estimates a GDP boost of
between ¼ and ½ that amount, or between $3 and $6 billion.
But even the lower estimate needs to be taken with a grain
of salt since the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2010/10/Out_of_Equilibrium.pdf"
target="_blank"> economic modelling</a> used to
calculate all these numbers assumes full employment, total
reinvestment of trade gains into new production, and other
conditions that don’t exist in the real world. In fact, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2010/10/Out_of_Equilibrium.pdf"
target="_blank"> studies have shown</a> that CETA will
lead to job losses by increasing Canada’s existing trade
deficit with EU countries and reinforcing an imbalanced
trade relationship where we export raw resources to the EU
and import high-value manufactured goods.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>HARPER SAYS</strong>: Canada’s free trade
agreements exclude health care, public education and other
social services maintained for a public purpose.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>WE SAY</strong>: Public pressure forced the
Canadian government to seek better protections for health
care in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
but CETA could undermine those protections. As private,
for-profit activity increases in health care, education
and other social services, it’s not clear a trade or
investment panel would agree that these are services
“maintained for a public purpose.” As <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/ceta-and-health-care-reservations"
target="_blank"> proposed by Scott Sinclair</a>, senior
trade expert with the Canadian Centre for Policy
Alternatives, Canada should negotiate a new exemption,
modeled on the cultural exemption in Canadian trade deals,
which assures that nothing in CETA “shall be construed to
apply to measures adopted or maintained by a party with
respect to health care, public health insurance, public
education and other social services.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>HARPER SAYS:</strong> Free trade deals like CETA
do not prevent governments from regulating standards that
protect the public, including in the areas of the
environment, labour, health care and safety.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>WE SAY:</strong> CETA and free trade deals like
it are designed specifically to limit opportunities for
governments to introduce new rules and regulations that
have an impact on trade and investment flows, even if the
intention of the rules was to protect the environment or
public health. The United States has just lost three World
Trade Organization disputes involving meat labelling, a
ban on flavoured cigarettes to discourage smoking among
children, and voluntary measures designed to protect
dolphins from tuna fishing. CETA and other trade deals
include language on avoiding new regulation as the best
and least trade-distorting option. CETA will provide
Canada and the EU with tools to frustrate or delay the
introduction of new standards. It will give corporations
the right to sue governments in the event that regulations
interfere with their profits.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>HARPER SAYS:</strong> Canada’s FTAs do not force
governments to privatize, contract out or deregulate
water-related services.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>WE SAY:</strong> European member states are so
concerned about how CETA might affect their ability to
deliver public water services that they have proposed to
exclude drinking water from their side of the bargain.
With only one exception in Yukon, federal government,
provinces and territories <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://cupe.ca/ceta/concerns-ceta-talks-resume-brussels"
target="_blank"> have not asked for the same protection</a>
for water services, which leaves Canada’s public water
systems vulnerable to claims by the EU or its large
private water companies that their investment
opportunities are being undermined either by local water
monopolies, or, where there is already some level of
privatization, by new water use or other standards.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>HARPER SAYS:</strong> CETA and free trade deals
do not allow foreign investors and foreign companies to
challenge Canadian laws and regulations.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>WE SAY</strong>: NAFTA’s chapter 11 protections
for foreign investors have allowed corporations to
challenge dozens of Canadian laws and regulations simply
because they interfere with profits. Canada is the sixth
most sued country under the investor-state dispute
settlement regime, which exists in around 3,000 bilateral
investment treaties globally. Those corporate lawsuits
have attacked environmental assessments, the failure to
get approval for unpopular or environmentally dangerous
quarries and dumpsites, measures to reduce the use of
pesticides, research and development payments from
offshore oil and gas production, the way hunting and
fishing licences are distributed, and local content quotas
in Ontario’s Green Energy Act. Canada has had to pay out
or is on the hook for over $200 million in settlements or
losses to investors under these extreme investor rights
which countries such as Australia are now avoiding in
their trade deals.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>HARPER SAYS:</strong> It is a myth that a
Canada-EU free trade agreement would increase drug and
health care costs.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>WE SAY</strong>: It is a certainty that extended
patent and other monopoly protections for brand name drug
companies will increase the price of drugs. These
controversial changes in CETA’s intellectual property
rights chapter are estimated to add almost 3.5 years to
the time it takes to put cheaper generic drugs onto the
Canadian market. That means public and private drug plans
will be paying higher prices for longer, adding nearly $3
billion annually to the already inflated price of drugs in
Canada. Provincial governments are so concerned that they
have asked the federal government to compensate them in
the event that CETA results in higher drug prices.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>HARPER SAYS:</strong> It’s a myth that CETA would
prevent Canada’s municipal governments from sourcing goods
and services locally.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>WE SAY:</strong> The procurement rules in CETA
will prohibit any covered government or public agency from
preferring one bidding firm over another based on the
amount of Canadian or local content in the goods or
services that firm is offering. Already procurement, or
public spending, is open and transparent in Canada.
Already European firms bid on and win major construction
and other projects. The only thing CETA does is lock
municipalities into one way of spending, where the lowest
bid wins every time. It means giving up the right to use
procurement as a sustainable development or job creation
tool.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>HARPER SAYS:</strong> CETA has been the most open
and transparent trade negotiation in Canadian history.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong>WE SAY: </strong>So why did it take the
government three years to try to explain the agreement to
the public? The fact that the provinces are negotiating a
trade deal for the first time says nothing about
transparency since the provinces are being even more
tight-lipped than the Harper government. There have been
and will not be any opportunities to see or modify CETA
before it is signed, perhaps as early as this winter. Once
it is signed, the Harper government will block attempts to
modify it in parliament. This is the antithesis of
transparency. If CETA and agreements like it are supposed
to be 21st century or “next-generation” free trade deals,
they should be negotiated in 21st century ways — openly,
transparently, and with broad public input.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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