What public consultation on the TPP?

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What public consultation on the TPP?

[ http://theindependent.ca/2016/03/21/wha ... n-the-tpp/ ]

By: Marilyn Reid and Erika Steeves | March 21, 2016

We went to a federal government-organized ‘public consultation’ on the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that the general public didn’t seem to know about. Here’s what went down. - Marilyn Reid

A public consultation on the TPP was held at Memorial University on March 16. A study out of Tufts University projects the Trans-Pacific Partnership, if ratified, will lead to 58,000 job losses in Canada by the year 2025. Photo by haven't the slightest.

On March 16 Liberal MP David Lametti, parliamentary secretary to the minister of international trade, flew into St. John’s for a one-hour roundtable consultation on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) co-hosted by Memorial University’s Harris Centre. Those readers who are plugged in to the Harris Centre’s mail list know this already.

It’s likely news to just about everybody else.

Both of us managed to be there because we were fortunate enough to have received two emails alerting us to the event. One was from a friend on the Harris Centre’s email list. The other was from Avalon MP Ken McDonald, with whom we’d had a meeting the previous week to discuss our concerns about the TPP and CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union.

The press conference

Not one representative from the province’s mainstream media showed up to the press conference, which was scheduled one hour before the roundtable discussion itself. The reason? Apparently they didn’t know about it — a fact some of them confirmed on Twitter.

The paucity of publicity leading up to the event is not unusual. There have been complaints from across the country by civil society activists who fail to hear about consultations until the last moment, and who are, thus, unable to make arrangements to leave work to attend.

In our unique position as the only outsiders at the press conference, we were able to ask why the itinerary of the consultations could not be published on the government website.

“We can’t plan that far in advance,” said Lametti. “We’re all members of parliament as well. So because we are sitting, oftentimes the trips are organized, as I said, relatively quickly and it’s hard to plan.”

Lametti pointed out that all groups also have the opportunity to apply to be witnesses in front of the parliamentary committee and to make presentations online through government websites.

This, then, is what the consultation process is to look like: Promotion and publicity are to be minimal and done on short notice, the roundtable discussion is to last one hour, and there is no online audio record of what is said. Government feels this is sufficient.

Government also thinks there is no need to have any consultation process on CETA.

When asked why the decision had been taken to treat CETA as a done deal, waiting for ratification, Lametti stated government felt they had a mandate to move ahead with the treaty.

“It was part of our platform, going into the election, that we supported CETA. It was part of the NDP’s platform going into the election that they supported CETA, and it was obviously part of the outgoing government’s platform that they supported CETA.”

What all this means, of course, is that if CETA is to be defeated, it will be by the Europeans. That could still happen. Almost 3.5 million Europeans have signed a petition opposing the agreement.

If CETA is defeated in Europe, it will be over the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism. Even the new compromise, the Investor Court System proposed by the EU Commission to neuter opposition to ISDS, is meeting with strong opposition there.

When asked whether his concerns about the TPP extended to the possibility of increased lawsuits, Lametti said ISDS lawsuits are “part of the game, in the sense that governments will always have, in enacting policy, people who are in agreement and people who are in disagreement.

[ISDS lawsuits are] part of the game. – David Lametti

“That’s part of the democratic process…and frankly it’s a healthy part of the process, if it forces governments to reflect on what they do and what they think they should do,” he continued. “And if they really think they’re right in doing what they’re doing, then they will enact that policy and take whatever…outcomes are produced by that decision.

“So it’s not something that we need to fear. If it happens it will happen.”

Lametti seems to be suggesting that the Canadian government remains unworried about ISDS, in spite of the many environmental defeats our country has already felt under North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) lawsuits.

“If there’s government will to be leaders on environmental concerns, for example, nothing prevents us from doing it,” he said.

Canada is currently the most-sued country in the developed world.

Perhaps government should be more worried. ISDS lawsuits are now a multi-billion-dollar industry. The largest ISDS lawsuit so far is $50 billion awarded against Russia in its dispute with the oil and gas company Yukos.

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[ http://theindependent.ca/2016/03/21/wha ... n-the-tpp/ ]