by Sheila Harrington Why should Canada discriminate against its own businesses and communities in favour of a free trade agreement with China? Why should Canadian taxpayers have to pay foreign companies if the companies claim their “economic expectations” were thwarted by our health, safety and environmental laws? Who does the Harper government really represent in Ottawa? The answer becomes clearer every day Prime Minister Stephen Harper pushes for the China-Canada Free Trade Agreement: multinational corporations.
Multinational corporations pretend to care about our local communities, but in fact they only care about their bottom line profit and loss. The simple truth is that those corporations that don’t provide their investors with more profits than some other investment opportunity will simply be purchased by a bigger company and cease to exist. In today’s competitive markets, corporations simply do not have much of a choice other than to maximize their profits. Sadly for democracy, multinational corporations, like big oil, big timber and big salmon farms, are the actual constituents of Harper and his supportive MPs not the citizens of Canada.
So what, you may ask? Consider these actual events: Under NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] Canadian taxpayers (you and I) paid millions of dollars in damages to a US PCB disposal firm that claimed a loss of profit when Canada banned the export of PCB-contaminated waste. In 2011 Harper paid $130 million to the US-based Abitibi Bowater Corporation as compensation when Abitibi closed its sawmill in Newfoundland, but demanded the continued ownership of water and timber rights over the legal objections of the province. Next time you pay your taxes you might want to think about how much of your money will be sent overseas to “compensate” foreign corporations for their claims.
The issue of free trade and corporate compensation for local laws that may affect foreign companies is a big concern right now in BC with disease-infected salmon farms. Apparently, Fisheries and Oceans Canada could not test or prohibit the importation of salmon eggs to salmon farms that may have been infected with a salmon-killing virus due to provisions of a free trade agreement. This fact is startling, but if the China-Canada Free Trade Agreement is signed into law by the Harper government the issue gets magnified a thousand fold for Canadians.
Consider the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, with China and possibly several of China’s state-owned oil companies becoming the eventual owners of the whole project. If the pipeline is built it is expected that China’s oil companies will purchase the entire operation and manage it for both domestic Chinese and foreign profit. With the passage of the China-Canada Free Trade Agreement it is entirely possible, in fact likely, that local, provincial and what’s left of federal environmental laws would just be swept aside in favour of “economic expectations.” Whoa, there go the rivers, watersheds and wildlife of the BC coast. Forget the impacts of any oil spill, for the construction, operation and maintenance of the pipeline itself will be an environmental and financial catastrophe for Canadians, and especially British Columbians. I hope John Weston, MP for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country riding, understands this and will reconsider then oppose the China-Canada Free Trade Agreement.
Sheila Harrington is a writer, teacher and artist who lives on Lasqueti Island.
