Stephen and the Beanstalk - a parable

[Oscar]

Stephen and the Beanstalk - a parable

by Penny Hacking March 28, 2015

Curiosity and embarrassment about my own ignorance prompted me to attend an elder college lecture on Canadian Trade Agreements. This led me to read more about the topic and the economic philosophy and leadership that justified these agreements.

Up to then, I had been happy in my delusions about living in a fiscally secure, democratic, affluent and just Canada. I had been put off by so many confusing abbreviations. Honestly, CETA, TPP, TIPP, FIPA AND TISA soon became tangled and then ignored. After all economics isn’t my thing.

For those of you out there that shared my blissful ignorance and wonder why you should take the time to sort some of it out I would like to offer this contemporary parable.

ONCE UPON A TIME a contented working family sent their Golden Haired son to sell the milk, cheese and butter from the family cow. Heads down, hard at work, they did not see him leave home taking the whole cow with him.

Now the lad was a greedy fellow who believed the family story that he was a smart. Having heard of great wealth to be had at the Big market he went there only to be met by some Big League, smooth talking really smart fellows who wheeled and dealed in livestock and fools full time.

You guessed it. Our Golden Haired lad didn’t sell anything but traded the whole cow, it and the farm’s axe and came home with a written contract and a hand full of magic beans. Each bean came from a different country and promised to produce great wealth.

The family were dumb-founded. They didn’t believe in the beans as a promise of riches beyond measure but they didn’t have the cow or a lawyer smart enough to reverse the deal either. So the beans were planted and they took root in the fertile soil and grew quickly, reaching for the gold in the heavens.

Now all that was left for the family to do was to watch their Golden Haired son and a few of his friends climb that bean stalk to fill their pockets while they waited in the ground watching the bean drain their water and soil and waiting for something to descend. The waiting became ominous and being careful folks, they searched for the axe to cut the stalks down in case, but found that it too had been sold.

I feel as if we in Canada today are living out this allegory. The general public did not know our government had processes in place that gave them the power to negotiate and accept, on our nation’s behalf, huge international deals without public discourse or democratic process. These economic contracts sell our natural and human resources without public knowledge. They offer no protection for the erosion of core Canadian social programs, collective values or environmental protection.

Most galling to me is that we had no way of knowing about the dispute settlement chapters in those trade agreements which protect the rights of big business to trade freely. This language puts profits ahead of the rights of our sovereign government to pass laws to protect the well being of citizens or the environment. This is the greatest betrayal of all. In agreeing to Investor State Dispute Settlements the Free Trade Agreements ratified by our government has sold, not just the cow but also the axe.