Over the past week the Trudeau government has been rushing through Bill C-30, legislation to implement a controversial trade deal: the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the 28 countries of the European Union (EU).
Why should people in a small city such as Powell River care? First, it means corporations from 28 more countries will be able to sue Canada if a federal, provincial or municipal government passes laws or regulations that negatively affect their future profits. We are already one of the most-sued countries under existing agreements, especially NAFTA, and we have paid out billions just because we passed laws in the public interest.
But CETA has some particularly nasty provisions that could affect all of us. One is drug costs. CETA is a gift to the major pharmaceutical companies, extending the time when they do not have to face competition from generic drugs. That means we could be paying us much as 13 per cent more for drugs when we already have the second highest drug costs in the world, after the United States.
CETA would also apply restrictive rules on municipal and provincial government purchasing, prohibiting governments from preferring local suppliers or imposing local content or job creation requirements on purchasing contracts. We would have to allow companies from 28 EU nations to have an equal chance to bid on projects over a certain value.
The federal government cannot deny these facts but they claim that the economic benefits, like jobs and growth, will far outweigh the costs. The study commissioned by the Harper government that made these claims used outrageous assumptions, such as Canada having constant full employment, no trade deficits and no shifting of investment abroad.
In fact, none of these assumptions are true. Canada has not had full employment for decades and since NAFTA we have seen billions of investment dollars head to Mexico and Asia. Since 2014, we have been running deficits with the US and the world, in spite of signing additional “free trade” deals with 11 individual nations.
And the promise of jobs? Since 2000 and all those trade deals, Canada has lost 540,000 industrial jobs.
An objective study by researchers at Tufts University in Massachusetts shows things will get even worse with CETA. The share of national income going to workers will decrease (wages have already been flat since the early 1980s). The average worker will have forgone annual pay increases of more than $2,500 by 2023 and governments will experience revenue decreases.
According to the study, instead of gaining jobs Canada will lose 23,000 jobs in the first seven years while Gross Domestic Product will actually decrease by over $20 billion.
The Trudeau government ran on a promise of more transparency and public consultations on key policies. But it is short-circuiting the democratic process by denying input from the public at hearings on CETA at the Standing Committee on International Trade.
Bill C-30 is expected to be passed by Christmas. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Murray Dobbin is a Powell River freelance writer and social commentator.
