Globalization and Democracy

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Some Basics by Michael Parenti

"The goal of the transnational corporation is to become truly transnational, poised above the sovereign power of any particu­lar nation, while being served by the sovereign powers of all nations.

With international “free trade” agreements such as NAFTA, GATT, and FTAA, the giant transnationals have been elevated above the sovereign powers of nation states. These agreements endow anonymous international trade committees with the authority to prevent, over­rule, or dilute any laws of any nation deemed to burden the investment and market prerogatives of transnational corporations. These trade committees–of which the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a prime example—set up panels composed of “trade special­ists” who act as judges over economic issues, placing themselves above the rule and popular control of any nation, thereby insuring the supremacy of international finance capital. This process, called globalization, is treated as an inevitable natural “growth” development beneficial to all. It is in fact a global coup d’état by the giant business interests of the world.

Should a country refuse to change its laws when a WTO panel so dictates, the WTO can impose fines or international trade sanctions, depriving the resistant country of needed markets and materials.[ii]

Acting as the supreme global adjudicator, the WTO has ruled against laws deemed “barriers to free trade.” It has forced Japan to accept greater pesticide residues in imported food. It has kept Guatemala from outlawing deceptive advertising of baby food. It has eliminated the ban in various countries on asbestos, and on fuel-economy and emission stan­dards for motor vehicles. And it has ruled against marine-life protection laws and the ban on endangered-species products. The European Union’s prohibition on the importation of hormone-ridden U.S. beef had overwhelming popular support throughout Europe, but a three-member WTO panel decided the ban was an illegal restraint on trade. The decision on beef put in jeopardy a host of other food import regulations based on health concerns. The WTO overturned a portion of the U.S. Clean Air Act banning certain additives in gasoline because it interfered with imports from foreign refineries. And the WTO overturned that portion of the U.S. Endangered Species Act forbidding the import of shrimp caught with nets that failed to protect sea turtles."

Continue reading ...
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Water truckin'

You may remember Michael Byers as the UBC International Law prof who asked prior to the last election why extraordinary rendition wasn't an election issue and who also red-flagged our Afghan detainee transfer deal in the national press over a whole freakin year ago.

Byers has a book out - "Intent for a Nation : What is Canada for?" - and The Tyee has an excerpt :

"In 2004, the Canadian actor Paul Gross starred in a made-for-TV drama entitled H2O. Gross plays Tom McLaughlin, the charismatic son of a murdered Canadian prime minister, who takes over Canada at the behest of a group of international financiers eager to sell our fresh water to an increasingly thirsty United States."

Did you see this movie? I hadn't so I looked it up at IMDb. Some of the user comments about the unlikelihood of the plot's basic premise were kind of sad. At the time this movie aired, the GATT agricultural provisions regarding water were two decades old, and NAFTA, including the dreaded Annex Tariff Item 22.01: water: all natural water other than sea water, whether or not clarified or purified, had already passed its tenth birthday. Five years before this movie was even a twinkle in CBC's eye, the NDP were standing on the floor of the HoC demanding a clarification on water sovereignty under NAFTA - and it was denied.

While conceding that Canada's legal position on control of her water is at the very least muddy, Byers warns against setting any bulk water trading precedents:

"A single act of trading water on a bulk basis would arguably transform the resource into a tradable good that was legally indistinguishable from softwood lumber, potash or oil, rendering subsequent attempts to prevent or limit further exports illegal. For this reason, it is imperative that Canada takes water off the free trade table, quickly and decisively -- now, before it's too late."

Well another attempt was made two weeks ago, this time in the form of a motion asking the Cons to request a clarification from Mexico and the US on their position on Canada's water, and it was again denied.

Byers' excerpt concludes:

"On water, as on so many other issues, our conciliatory, don't-rock-the-boat approach to Canada-U.S. relations has failed. Unless we stand up for our own interests, Canadian fresh water could soon be irrigating crops, watering golf courses and filling backyard swimming pools in the south western United States.

It's time to dissuade Americans of the notion that we're going to rescue them from the consequences of their short-sighted, profligate ways by allowing them to mess with our environment, too. It's time to make it absolutely clear that bulk water exports are not covered by NAFTA."

In the meantime someone please let me know how that H2O movie turned out.
Tyee link from Jennifer at Runesmith's Canadian Content

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"We're the Indians now." **

"The Plan to Disappear Canada" in yesterday's Tyee outlines ten recent developments in deep integration that have received media coverage.

As author Murray Dobbin points out : it's good that our media is finally giving it some tentative attention but it's bad that it's taken them so long to notice that The Big Idea is already well underway.

Several people have emailed it to me along with their comments, which mostly run to the "those fucking Americans" variety, and it's this idea that deep integration is someone else's fault that I'd like to address here. Specifically I'd like to hear a lot more about complicity from certain "fucking Canadians".

Mulroney gave us the 1989 Free Trade Agreement, Chretien gave us NAFTA, Paul Martin the Security and Prosperity Partnership, and Harper - Harper's knees are covered in callouses and his lower jaw has gone numb.

In their April 2004 position paper "New Frontiers - North American Security and Prosperity Initiative", the Canadian Council of Chief Executives bragged :

"The Council was the private sector leader in the development and promotion of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement during the 1980s and of the subsequent trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement. North American economic integration is now well advanced and irreversible."

Canadians all.
The 2005 Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, also a Canadian initiative, included :

• John Manley, Task Force Canada Chair, former Deputy Prime Minister and ex-Finance Minister
• Tom D'Aquino, Chief Exec of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives
• Tom Axworthy*, former Chief of Staff to Trudeau
• Jim Dinning, former Alberta Finance Minister, lost to Stelmach in leadership bid
• Wendy Dobson, Pres. C.D. Howe Institute, Ass Deputy Minister of Finance of Canada
• Pierre-Marc Johnson, former Quebec Premier
• Michael Wilson, former Canada Finance Minister, ex-Minister of International Trade, and Canadian Ambassador to the U.S.

who, along with their US and Mexican counterparts, variously advocated and signed off on :

• a North American brand name, "portraying NA as a club of privileged members"
• a North American security perimeter - "Security issues trump all other issues."
• an educational project to teach "a shared NA identity in schools"
• a North American passport.
• a feasibility study on North American currency union.
• an integrated NA electrical grid
• a NA "resource pact allowing greater trade and investment in non-renewable resources, such as oil, gas, and fresh water"
• the complaint that "Governance has not kept pace with economic realities and is preventing further integration."

(*Tom Axworthy appended a dissenting view, disagreeing with creating one security perimeter and also with moving bulk water exports and cultural protections from national to NA jurisdiction.)
Plus Smart Borders and the Smart Regulations harmonization with US regs and the Fire Sale of Canadian companies.

So please, let's admit that Canadian corporations and think tanks and politicians have more than met "those effing Americans" half-way here. However horrified we may be at the idea of hitching our wagon to the stars and stripes of the war-mongering imperialistic plutocracy to the south, let's at least admit it's Canadians who are selling off our wagon.

**Kurt Vonnegut

Water wars

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No, not with the US ; apparently we're still duking this one out with the Cons.

You remember those International Trade Committee hearings last month on Canada's water and energy security under NAFTA and the SPP? The one in which chairperson Leon Benoit stomped out with the three other Con members because he didn't like Prof. Gordon Laxer's testimony on just how vulnerable Canada is?
Yes? Then you'll remember how the rest of the committee continued to do their job.
Today the following motion was brought from that Int Trade Committee to the House of Commons for debate :
"Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), and the motion adopted by the Committee on Tuesday, May 15, 2007 your Committee recommends:

Whereas Canada’s water resources must be protected;Whereas NAFTA covers all services and all goods, except those that are expressly excluded and water is not excluded;

Whereas this situation puts the provincial and federal laws concerning the protection of water including the prohibition of bulk water exports at risk;

Whereas a simple agreement by exchange of letters among the governments of Canada, the United States and Mexico specifying that water is not covered by NAFTA must be respected by international tribunals as if it were an integral part of NAFTA;

That the Standing Committee recommend that the government quickly begin talks with its American and Mexican counterparts to exclude water from the scope of NAFTA."


Yes! Thank you Bloc and NDP committee members, and particularly NDP Trade critic Peter Julian who has worked so hard to expose the whole SPP betrayal in parliament.

The Con members on the committee dissented of course.And I'm sure, given their previous behavior on the committee and the outing of the Con's dirty tricks manual on how to shut down committees on subjects they don't like, you're not exactly reeling with surprise about it.

Down at the bottom :
"Dissenting opinion from the Conservative Party
The Government members of the Standing Committee on International Trade, for reasons previously stated by our members which appear in the evidence, [snip], choose to dissent respectfully from the Ninth Report."

Dissent away, ReformACons! Da motherfuckin motion is in da House!

SATURDAY UPDATE: From the Ottawa Citizen :"A motion to open NAFTA talks to make sure bulk-water exports are excluded from the deal sparked an acrimonious three-hour debate in the House yesterday, with all three Opposition parties lined up against the Tories.

The Tories say a 1993 letter signed by the three governments specifically says "water in its natural state" is exempt from the provisions of NAFTA.
But water will not be considered to be "in its natural state" once it has been loaded into a pipeline, or onto a tanker, critics fear.

NDP MP Peter Julian says that in 1998, California-based Sun Belt Water Inc. launched a $10.5-billion lawsuit under NAFTA against British Columbia when a provincial ban scuttled its plans to ship water by tanker to the U.S. (The case is still pending.)

"As a foreign investor, all you need to do is apply for a permit. You'll either get to export water, or you can sue for compensation, which taxpayers will have to pay. Either way, the investor wins, and Canada loses."

Water is protected not only by the 1993 NAFTA letter, but also by a federal-provincial pact and an amendment to the Canada-U.S. Boundary Waters Treaty, which protects the Great Lakes and other shared waters, he [Ted Menzies, Con from the Int Trade committee] argues.

But the Council of Canadians, an Ottawa-based advocacy group, says the U.S. never signed that amendment and notes that it doesn't cover water sources that are not shared with the U.S."


The quisling Cons are terrified to ask the fucking question : Under NAFTA, does Canada control her own water, or, as Peter Julian puts it, is it a choice between 1)exporting water or 2)paying compensation to each and every foreign company who applies for a permit to do so.

May 31 Hansard account of debate between all parties in the House..
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SPP : Securing Prosperity for the Plutocracy

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You just gotta love The Fraser Institute.

In their ironically named new report, "International Leadership by a Canada Strong and Free", The Fraser Institute attempts to do for Canada/US deep integration what Last Tango in Paris did for ass-fucking : make it acceptable.

The main thrust of their argument is that Canada should become the world's leading proponent of free trade by boldly throwing open our economy and resources to the US. They explain that the other countries aren't really worth bothering with.

Some exact quotes from the first 75 pages of this fawning lubricant, written by Fraser Institute Senior Fellows Mike Harris, ex-premier of Ontario, and Preston Manning, formerly of the Alliance/Reform Party :

~ Deepening integration with the US economy must be on the agenda as the best way for Canadians to increase our trade, prosperity, and leadership potential.

~For Canada, Mexico’s presence at the NAFTA table is no reason to avoid action on our urgent national interest in pursuing a formal structure to manage irreversible economic and security integration with the United States.

~The 2005 Security and Prosperity Initiative adopted by Prime Minister Martin and President Bush and confirmed by the Harper government a year later laid a promising foundation. Both governments now receive regular status reports on its implementation. The earlier Smart Border Accord gave security and access to the United States a higher priority than before September 11. Both, however, operate within existing laws and policies and are therefore limited in scope. Extracting the full benefit of deeper integration requires a more ambitious initiative.

~ The federal government should revisit the decision not to participate in the Ballistic Missile Defence program

~The central importance of good US-Canada relations to Canada’s interests across virtually every domestic and international issue requires that the federal government make that relationship its highest international priority.

~ In order to facilitate the integrated coordination of their two economies, the two governments need to create a customs union involving a common external tariff, a joint approach to the treatment of third-country goods, a fully integrated energy market, a common approach to trade remedies, and an integrated government procurement regime.

~Government has no place in the decision-making of Canadian consumers, importers, or exporters.

~The tradition of subordinating bilateral cooperation with the United States to the broader North Atlantic Alliance is no longer sustainable.

~If Canadians wish to contribute to global peace and security they can only do so effectively as partners with the United States.

~There is much to be said for Canada and the United States developing a North American energy security accord that looks at the best way to develop and distribute the continent’s resources to the benefit of people on both sides of the border.


Please feel free to make liberal use of the above exact quotes in your letters and phone calls to CBC the next time they interview anyone from The Fraser Institute as an expert on free trade or Canada/US relations.
Probably best not to mention the ass-fucking though.
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"Canada is not the gas tank of the U.S."

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Hey Canadians - wake up! It's Feb. 23, Condi's here, and it's time for another gnu-gov installment of Security, Prosperity and Peace For Our Time Partnership.
In addition to Condi, attending the meeting today will be Peter MacKay, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, Industry Minister Maxime Bernier, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, and their Mexican counterparts.

The North American Competitiveness Council, these guys, will deliver 50 recommendations to the SPP ministers.
I'll just bet they will.
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From Canadian Press :
"It's not often governments have to put out a press release reassuring their citizens they're not selling out their sovereignty."

"The SPP is legal and in no way violates the Constitution or affects the legal authorities of the participating executive agencies," reads the U.S. Security and Prosperity Partnership website.

MacKay addressed the concerns earlier this week.
"It's ensuring that Canada's sovereignty, Canada's interests and Canada's prosperity and security are going to be advanced through this partnership and through these very open and high-level dialogues," he said.
Still, the Canadian government provided no official briefing on what was expected from the meetings."

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Heh. By "open", Stockboy is presumably referring to his public denial of the existence of the Banff SPP meeting in September, later followed up by his clarification that it wasn't actually "secret".
Typically, the Americans are rather more straight forward about it :
"We're working on a trilateral initiative on energy..." Tom Shannon, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said Thursday.

NDP Energy Critic, Dennis Bevington :
"Canada is not the gas tank of the United States. NAFTA already locks us into supplying energy to the United States even if ordinary Canadians go without; a North American Union would only make this worse."

and NDP Trade Critic Peter Julian :
"The Harper government must pull out of further talks on continental integration with the United States and Mexico or risk our national sovereignty.
Canadians should know that the SPP process supports a North American Union (NAU). The NDP rejects the secretive process surrounding these ongoing discussions. Canadians will never support a political ideology which aims at turning North America into a fortress for corporate interests and neglects the interests of ordinary Canadians. Canadian sovereignty is not for sale to the highest bidder and the federal government has no authority to push for a NAU without a mandate from Canadians,” said Julian
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Julian is calling for a public debate.
You may remember him calling for one on the softwood lumber deal after a US negotiating lawyer informed us we were being sucker-punched. He also called for one on the Banff meeting.

Don't be looking to the Libs for any help on this - they're the ones who started it.
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So, bloggers, start your engines.
Steve reading aloud from a tabloid in the House and bringing a whole gnu nuance to the poo-flinging more commonly known as Question Period is certainly rivetting stuff. But he was a dick the day before and will still be one tomorrow, so let's not be so diverted by that little Punch and Judy Show that we miss what's going on behind the curtain.

Both the links above, CP and NDP, are well worth a read.
With many thanks to Holly Stick for the nudge and the links.

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LATE NIGHT UPDATE : MSM coverage of SPP implications of today's meeting
Nothing on CBC TV News or website, except for a pic of a protester being escorted away with no explanation as to what she was doing.
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Nothing in the major dailies either but for this from the Hamilton Spectator :
"OTTAWA Top North American ministers deflected criticism that they had consulted only big business for their talks on trade and security rules, suggesting there are "different venues" for public interest and labour groups to raise concerns."

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Different venues for public interest than our elected officials?
And what would those be, pray tell?
Legs on this south of the border though : Lou Dobbs on CNN
Anyone hear of any coverage up here?

Emerson : NAFTA is crap

No, he didn't actually use the word "crap".
He did one better : he explained why it *is* crap for Canada.

"I want people to remember that NAFTA is built on domestic laws," Emerson said. "You can win a legal victory today, and think you have established a legal precedent, only to have Congress change the laws affecting the industry and the way disputes are litigated in the future."

In other words - if no US law is broken, the US wins the dispute.
If a US law is broken causing the US to lose the dispute, Congress simply changes that law and mounts an appeal.

We would like to thank David Emerson for being the first member of Harper's cabinet to publicly admit that NAFTA is a crappy deal for Canada.

Of course, Emerson is only knocking NAFTA to sell his and Steve's 'Firesale! softwood diplomacy' as a better alternative. And we already know that Steve intends to blackmail the opposition into accepting it rather than risk having the government go down in a non-confidence vote this fall.
As Toronto Star's David Crane puts it :
"Because U.S. courts were finding for Canada, the Bush administration wanted an immediate settlement.The Harper government caved. Now we will have to see whether the opposition parties will do the same."

Bonus : Dave's Snarky (Northern) Canadian Blog explains Emerson's affinity for Firesale! diplomacy.

Extra soft and super absorbent

David Emerson hailed the new improved softwood lumber agreement as "a nation-to-nation agreement, it's a treaty."

Ha! Why, sure, if by "treaty" you mean another 2-ply extra-soft super-absorbent guarantee that the US will treat like so much used toilet paper whenever it suits them.

And what do we get out of it? In return for $1 billion, the US promises not to bother losing any more NAFTA court battles to us for the next two years.

Harper released a statement hailing the agreement as "a great day for Canada" and CTV further reports:

"the Tory hope is that, with softwood out of the way, Harper and Bush can concentrate on issues like global security, water exports..."

And photo ops. Lots and lots of photo ops.

You're not fooling anyone, you know.

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Update : Ross at The Gazetteer is all over this.

And Canadian Cynic weighs in on water exports.

Anschluss Watch

Michael Wilson, the new Canadian Ambassador to the US, helped bring in NAFTA as Mulroney's Minister of International Trade and has been a tireless advocate of privatizing public corporations. More recently he favoured Canada joining the US in the Iraq adventure.

He was one of a dozen Canadians who brokered The Task Force on the Future of North America into the more watered down Waco Pact signed by Paul Martin, Vicente Fox, and George Bush in March 2005.

The original Task Force of which Michael Wilson was a member made the following recommendations:

• a North American resource pact allowing greater trade and investment in non-renewable resources, such as oil, gas, and water
  
• an integrated N.A. electrical grid
  
• a common N.A. currency
  
• a N.A. passport
  
• a N.A. security perimeter
  
• an educational project to teach the idea of a "shared N.A. identity" in schools
  
• a harmonization of immigration and refugee policies with the US
  
• a trilateral threat intelligence center with the US and Mexico
  

And this is the guy who is going to "Stand Up For Canada" ?