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Renotiate NAFTA? Sounds like a good idea

Maude Barlow, Special to the Sun
Published: Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Two Democratic contenders for the U.S. presidency suggest they'd like to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and it's as if the sky were falling in Canada.

Conservatives and Liberals joined frightened CEOs across the country last week to describe a potential U.S. abrogation of NAFTA under a Democratic presidency as "disastrous." It is as if they all believe that trade between Canada, the United States and Mexico would simply dry up without an official treaty binding it together.

Either that or we would stop "building things together," as other commentators have suggested as more true to the North American relationship.

Nothing could be further from the truth. And if the Democrats are honest enough to recognize NAFTA's numerous failings, then our politicians owe Canada more than useless doomsday rhetoric.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have declared that --failing a complete renegotiation of the trade deal to include better, enforceable protections for the environment and labour -- they would withdraw from NAFTA within six months of taking office.

These issues were dealt with in toothless side agreements at the time of signing the treaty in 1994 while corporate trade and investment remains protected by NAFTA's Chapter 11, which allows companies to sue governments for lost profits due to local, provincial or federal regulations and policies.

As of Jan. 1, 2008, there had been 49 investor-state claims under Chapter 11 (14 of them in Canada), nearly half of which have involved challenges to government efforts to protect the environment or manage resources. Wealthy oil giant Exxon Mobil is suing the federal government for Newfoundland's requirement that some of the company's revenues from offshore development be reinvested locally.

This discrepancy between citizens, or democratic rights, under NAFTA on the one hand, and corporate rights on the other has not gone unnoticed in North America. It has accompanied a widening gap between corporate profits and real wages in both Canada and the United States; real wages have been stagnant for 30 years while corporate profits have never been higher.

If the issue of inequity is finally taking centre stage in the run-up to the 2008 U.S. election, it is an indication of just how many Americans want a new trading relationship with their neighbours -- one that protects their jobs and the environment from the often socially and physically destructive whims of large corporations.

So why is the Canadian government stuck in reverse, clinging to wishful thinking about NAFTA and rushing into new, unsustainable and anti-democratic continental agreements like the NAFTA-plus Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) which just offers more of the same?

The SPP was created in March 2005 to deepen the NAFTA relationship based entirely on corporate lobbying from groups like the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) and the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations. The CCCE boasts that its companies collectively administer $3.5 trillion in assets and have annual revenues in excess of $800 billion.

These companies have been granted a disproportionate amount of influence when it comes to economic, and now even security policy under the SPP. Actually, they are the only non-governmental group allowed to attend secretive annual SPP leaders summits, the fourth of which will take place in New Orleans this April.

Before this week's comments on NAFTA, Obama had also come out strongly against these executive meetings, writing in the Dallas Morning News that as president he would still like to meet with the Canadian prime minister and Mexican president once a year. "Unlike similar summits under President Bush, these will be conducted with a level of transparency that represents the close ties among our three countries." Obama also said that he will "seek the active and open involvement of citizens, labour, the private sector and non-governmental organizations in setting the agenda and making progress."

The fact that Harper and his ministers have purposely kept these groups as far away from the SPP as possible and are reluctant to even consider opening up NAFTA is proof of how beholden our government is to corporate interests. If our politicians would just open their eyes they would see a Canadian electorate that is just as impatient for a fairer trading model as its American friends.

Maude Barlow is the chairperson of the Council of Canadians.