With text published, Freeland promises serious TPP consultat

[Oscar]

With text published, Freeland promises serious TPP consultation

[ http://ipolitics.ca/2015/11/05/with-tex ... sultation/ ]

By BJ Siekierski | Nov 5, 2015 4:18 pm |

With the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership published Thursday, Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland — on her first full day on the job — promised a serious consultation period with Canadians and thorough parliamentary debate.

Early Thursday, the New Zealand government published the full text online, to which the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development subsequently published a link on their website.

The Canadian government, Freeland told reporters on her way into a Liberal caucus meeting Thursday, won’t publish the text itself until it’s been translated into French.

It did, however, publish 10 side letters with TPP negotiating partners — bilateral agreements with Australia and New Zealand on wine, with Australia on dairy, with Japan on forest products, and Malaysia on motor vehicles, among others.

“Canadians and I have had less than 12 hours to start familiarizing ourselves with this agreement. I actually have it printed out on my desk, it’s more than 6,000 pages. We believe in trade. We understand that Canada is a trading nation. We are the eleventh sized economy in the world. The prosperity of the middle class, which is a central part of our agenda, depends very much on Canada being fully plugged in to the global economy,” Freeland said.

“Having said that, a real leitmotif of the Trudeau government is going to be openness and consultation. That hasn’t happened yet with this agreement. We weren’t the ones negotiating it. What we really want to have happen now is a period for Canadians to become familiar with this agreement…giving people a place where they can send in their comments about the TPP. I’m going to take it seriously – we’re going to review it.”

She also promised thorough Parliamentary scrutiny of the agreement.

“The other commitment that I would really like to reinforce right now, is we are committed to having a fully parliamentary debate about the TPP,” she said.

Citing reports that Prime Minister Trudeau assured the Americans and Japanese he would “get the deal done in Canada”, the NDP cast doubts on the sincerity of that consultation promise in a Thursday afternoon press release.

“Prime Minister Trudeau can’t promise open consultations here and then tell others behind closed doors that he’ll be able to push the deal through,” NDP trade critic Don Davies was quoted as saying.

“As the progressive opposition, New Democrats will push for a better deal to ensure Canadian interests and values are protected.”

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Trudeau must demand changes to ‘damaging’ TPP: Trade Justice Groups

[ http://rqic.alternatives.ca/spip.php?article185 ] FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OTTAWA (Nov. 5, 2015) – Today’s release of the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership confirms that it is a damaging corporate-rights deal that will kill Canadian jobs and override our sovereignty, and it is vital that the new Liberal government negotiate changes.

Canada’s two biggest trade justice networks are calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to live up to his campaign promise on TPP to “hold a full and open public debate in Parliament to ensure Canadians are consulted.”

The Trade Justice Network (TJN) and Réseau québécois sur l'intégration continentale (RQIC) say the government must conduct a thorough impact assessment to ensure the deal serves the public interest.

“We all support trade; the livelihood of millions of Canadians depends on it. But it must be fair trade – and it must be good for Canada,” said Martin O’Hanlon, President of CWA Canada and a TJN spokesman.

“It is vital to our economy and to our democracy that there be a real debate about the TPP and that the government be open to revisions.”

TJN co-chair Larry Brown said the government must make decisions based on evidence.

“We should have an independent, unbiased review,” he said. “We know there will be job losses. So what are the benefits? We are asked to accept an economy-altering free-trade deal with no information, just cheerleading rhetoric.”

The text has just been released but it is already clear that the TPP would be damaging for many working families and for the democratic process.

The deal would cost thousands of Canadian jobs and force our workers to compete with 65-cent-an-hour wages in Vietnam and slave labour in Malaysia.

It would also allow multinational corporations (through an “ISDS” provision) to override Canadian sovereignty by suing governments under secretive trade tribunals - rather than through the domestic courts - if they feel our labour, environmental, health or other standards contravene the TPP and could lead to a loss of profits.

“Canada is currently being sued for more than $6 billion under NAFTA ISDS provisions,” said RQIC spokesman Pierre-Yves Serinet.
“The TPP deepens the restrictions on the right to regulate for public interest. ISDS limits the ability of governments to deal with climate change, for instance. It must be taken out of trade agreements in order to keep the policy space we need to enact strong measures to confront environmental challenges,” he said, noting this is the eve of COP21 on climate change in Paris where Trudeau said he wants to bring Canada back as a committed player.

It is telling, and deeply troubling, that the TPP was negotiated in secret with plenty of input from 600 corporate lobbyists, but nothing from labour leaders, environmentalists and other experts. Even our MPs had no input.

Among the other serious problems with the deal:

The government could be forced to sell off Crown corporations such as Canada Post.

Federal, provincial and municipal governments would not be allowed to ensure that government contracts go to Canadian or local businesses, which could be a devastating blow to some communities.

New protections for big pharma that would cost Canadians billions of dollars per year.

New limits on our ability to decide our own rules for Internet use and privacy.

No truly enforceable standards for labour rights or environmental protection, including climate change.

The agreement may have been signed, but it’s by no means a done deal. It faces a huge hurdle in the U.S Congress and reinvigorated anti-TPP campaigns in many countries.

“It is now up to Canadians to tell their politicians that they don't like the TPP and that Parliament must not ratify it without fundamental changes,” Brown said.

“We must protect Canadian jobs and sovereignty, and we must ensure that all member countries meet basic democratic, labour, health and environmental standards.”

About the networks: The TJN represents over two dozen environmental, labour, cultural, farm, indigenous, student and social justice organizations. The RQIC ( http://rqic.alternatives.ca) is a coalition of more than 20 social organizations from Québec, representing over a million people. Together, the networks represent over four million Canadians.

You can find both networks on Twitter ( @TradeJusticeNet and @RQICcoalition ) and on Facebook.

For more information contact: Martin O’Hanlon, Trade Justice Network, (613) 867-5090
Bill Gillespie, Trade Justice Network (647) 786-4332
Pierre-Yves Serinet, RQIC, (438) 396-6284

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TPP Text Analysis: The TPP Would Increase Risks to Our Air, Water, and Climate - Nov. 6/15

[ https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.si ... %20TPP.pdf ]

Based on our initial analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) text, the Sierra Club confirms that the TPP would not only fail to protect our environment, but would threaten our air, water and climate.

The Environment Chapter

• Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) Rollback: The TPP actually takes a step back from the environmental protections of all U.S. free trade agreements (FTAs) since 2007 with respect to MEAs. Past deals have required each of our FTA partners to “adopt, maintain, and implement laws, regulations, and all other measures to fulfill its obligations under” seven core MEAs.

The TPP, however, only requires countries in the pact to “adopt, maintain, and implement” domestic policies to fulfill one of the seven core MEAs–the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

This regression violates:

•The bipartisan “May 2007” agreement between then-President George W. Bush and congressional Democrats;
•The minimum degree of environmental protection required under the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015, also known as “fast track;” and
•The minimum obligation needed to deter countries from violating their critical commitments in environmental treaties in order to boost trade or investment.

• Weak Conservation Rules:

While the range of conservation issues mentioned in the TPP may be wide, the obligations – what countries are actually required to do – are generally very shallow. Vague obligations combined with weak enforcement, as described below, may allow countries to continue with business-as-usual practices that threaten our environment.

•Illegal Trade in Flora and Fauna: Rather than prohibiting trade in illegally taken timber and wildlife–major issues in TPP countries like Peru and Vietnam –the TPP only asks countries “to combat” such trade. To comply, the text requires only weak measures, such as “exchanging information and experiences, ”while stronger measures like sanctions are merely listed as options.

•Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing: Rather than obligating countries to abide by trade-related provisions of regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) that could help prevent illegally caught fish from entering international trade, the TPP merely calls on countries to “endeavor not to undermine ” RFMO trade documentation–a non-binding provision that could allow the TPP to facilitate increased trade in IUU fish.

• Shark Finning and Commercial Whaling: Rather than banning commercial whaling and shark fin trade –major issues in TPP countries like Japan and Singapore –the TPP includes a toothless aspiration to “promote the long -term conservation of sharks...and marine mammals” via a non-binding list of suggested measures that countries “should” take.

• Climate Change Omission: Despite the fact that trade can significantly increase climate-disrupting emissions by spurring increased shipping, consumption, and fossil fuel exports, the TPP text fails to even mention the words “climate change” or the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change–the international climate treaty that all TPP countries are party to.

Lack of Enforcement

Even if the TPP’s conservation terms included more specific obligations and fewer vague exhortations, there is little evidence to suggest that they would be enforced, given the historical lack of enforcement of environmental obligations in U.S. trade pacts. The United States has never once brought a trade case against another country for failing to live up to its environmental commitments in trade agreements –even amid documented evidence of countries violating those commitments.

For example, the U.S.-Peru FTA, passed in 2007, included a Forestry Annex that not only required Peru “to combat trade associated with illegal logging,” but included eight pages of specific reforms that Peru had to take to fulfill this requirement. The obligations were far more detailed than any found in the TPP environment chapter, and were subject to the same enforcement mechanism.

But after more than six years of the U.S. –Peru trade deal, widespread illegal logging remains unchecked in Peru's Amazon rain forest. In a 2014 investigation, Peru’s own government found that 78 percent of wood slated for export was harvested illegally. For years, U.S. environmental groups have asked the U.S. government to use the FTA to counter Peru’s extensive illegal logging. Yet to date, Peru has faced no formal challenges, much less penalties, for violating its trade pact obligations. It is hard to imagine that the TPP's weaker provisions would be more successful in combatting conservation challenges.

New Rights for Fossil Fuel Corporations to Challenge Climate Protections

The TPP would undermine efforts to combat the climate crisis, empowering foreign fossil fuel corporations to challenge our environmental and climate safeguards in unaccountable trade tribunals via the controversial investor -state dispute settlement system.

• The TPP’s extraordinary rights for foreign corporations virtually replicate those in past pacts that have enabled more than 600 foreign investor challenges to the policies of more than 100 governments, including a moratorium on fracking in Quebec, a nuclear energy phase-out in Germany, and an environmental panel’s decision to reject a mining project in Nova Scotia.

• In one fell swoop, the TPP would roughly double the number of firms that could use this system to challenge U.S. policies.

Foreign investor privileges would be newly extended to more than 9,000 firms in the United States. That includes, for example, the U.S. subsidiaries of BHP Billiton, one of the world's largest mining companies, whose U.S. investments range from coal mines in New Mexico to offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to fracking operations in Texas.

Locking in Natural Gas Exports and Fracking

The TPP’s provisions regarding natural gas would require the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to automatically approve all exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to all TPP countries–including Japan, the world’s largest LNG importer.

This would:

• Facilitate Increased Fracking : Increased natural gas production would mean more fracking, which causes air and water pollution, health risks, and earthquakes, according to a litany of studies.

• Exacerbate Climate Change: LNG is a carbon-intensive fuel with significantly higher life -cycle greenhouse gas emissions than natural gas. LNG dependency spells more climate disruption.

• Increased Dependence on Fossil Fuel Infrastructure: LNG export requires a large new fossil fuel infrastructure, including a network of natural gas wells, terminals, liquefaction plants, pipelines, and compressors that help lock in climate-disrupting fossil fuel production.

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New cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland sees free trade as key to middle-class prosperity

[ http://business.financialpost.com/legal ... prosperity ]

Drew Hasselback | November 4, 2015 5:36 PM ET

New trade minister Chrystia Freeland brings some deep views to her new job that might transcend the usual partisanship that comes with taking on one of the federal government’s highest profile economic cabinet positions.

In 2012, just one year before she entered politics, Freeland published a book that looked at the gap between the world’s richest and poorest people, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else. When she was first elected as an MP in a 2013 by-election in a Toronto riding, she made the battle against income equality and the hollowing out of the middle-class her cause célèbre.

Those positions may underpin her tenure in the trade portfolio. She has argued that free trade is a necessary step to improving middle class prosperity in Canada.

“Canada is a small country. The world economy is huge. And if we want our middle class to be prosperous — which is the core of our agenda — having trade deals with the world is absolutely essential,” she said in August 2014.

And earlier this year, writing in this newspaper, she warned that “anti-globalization and opposition to trade” are the wrong policy responses to helping the middle class.

There will be some big issues on her plate when she gets down to work. Canada has a trade deal with the EU called CETA that Parliament will need to ratify soon, perhaps in early 2016. Canada’s 2006 Softwood Lumber Agreement with the U.S. expired on Oct. 15, so that will need a look.

Then there’s the big Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which Freeland will eventually need to present to Parliament for ratification.
Freeland served as the Liberal Party’s trade critic in the last Parliament. She supported efforts to negotiate the TPP at the time, but also argued that the federal government should preserve supply management. “It is the responsibility of the government of Canada to be an actively engaged negotiating partner to get Canada into the first round (of TPP), while defending Canadian interests, including supply management,” she said in April 2015.

This can be a tricky position to maintain. Supply management controls prices through the use of marketing boards and the not so free-trade friendly practice of protecting domestic markets through the use of high import tariffs.

It’s a fine balance. When Stephen Harper’s Conservative government announced the TPP deal on Oct. 5, it said that supply management had largely been preserved and offered billions in compensation to industries where protections had been softened.
For example, some 10 per cent of Canada’s dairy market is open to foreign suppliers. The deal would open another 3.25 per cent of the market to over five years — a lot less than some feared. And whatever the pain, the Conservative government offered the dairy industry $4.3 billion in compensation over 15 years to deal with it.

The question is whether the deal text and the compensation grants Freeland enough political cover to embrace the deal she inherited. It’s always a challenge for incoming governments to embrace the successes of their predecessors. The TPP may be one of Harper’s most important legacies as prime minister.

When Harper’s government announced the TPP deal, the Liberal Party put out a statement saying it supports free trade in principle, but criticizing the Harper government for its secrecy during the negotiations. It was a classic move: If you can’t attack the policy, you attack the process.

The Liberals have promised “a full and open public debate in Parliament” on TPP. Launching that debate falls to Freeland.
Once the “full and open public debate” on TPP is over, the Liberals will likely use their commanding Parliamentary majority to approve the deal. “The Trans-Pacific Partnership stands to remove trade barriers, widely expand free trade for Canada, and increase opportunities for our middle class and those working hard to join it. Liberals will take a responsible approach to thoroughly examining the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” the party said in October.

Freeland brings a lot of international experience to the trade job. She has a degree in Russian history and literature from Harvard and obtained a masters in Slavonic studies at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. She worked as a journalist in London, Moscow and New York before settling in Toronto.

She knows Russian, French and Italian. Her mother taught her Ukrainian, which she now speaks at home with her three kids. She’s been very active in supporting Ukraine — so much so that Russian President Vladimir Putin has apparently banned her from visiting his country.

dhasselback@nationalpost.com twitter.com/vonhasselbach