Anti-NAFTA groups prepare wish list for Obama
The Star, Toronto
Anti-NAFTA groups prepare wish list for Obama
20 November 2008
By Tobi Cohen
The Canadian Press
MONTREAL - Not everybody in Canada is terrified by the prospect of U.S president-elect Barack Obama reopening the North American Free Trade Agreement.
In fact, some are enthusiastically applauding the idea.
A large group of non-government organizations and union leaders is gathering in Ottawa on Friday to discuss changes they’d like to see to the landmark trade treaty in areas like the environment, labour, culture, international development and human rights.
About 40 people are expected to attend in the hopes of reaching a consensus on what amendments should be made to the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement once Obama takes office in January.
"He kind of threw out the renegotiation challenge, we’re going to take him up on it," said Bruce Campbell, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. His group is co-hosting the event along with the Council of Canadians.
"Certainly the establishment’s view is that NAFTA is great and shouldn’t be reopened. That’s not our view."
When Obama mused about reopening NAFTA during the presidential primaries, it was immediately cast by some political and business players as a potential crisis. After all, Canada has seen its exports to the U.S. multiply almost seven times since the first free-trade agreement took effect in 1988.
Those fears were eased somewhat by a leaked diplomatic memo, which suggested Obama’s economic team had reassured Canadian officials that they would hold on to the status quo.
But Campbell and his allies hope Obama keeps his initial promise - and they’re hoping to offer him some suggestions.
The groups are expected to discuss incorporating labour standards into NAFTA, scrapping energy provisions like proportional sharing and export taxes, protecting water and natural resources, and how best to protect and create manufacturing jobs.
Campbell hopes there might eventually be a meeting with the Obama administration similar to the one Canadian Council of Chief Executives president Tom d’Aquino has scheduled for next spring.
"Tom d’Aquino plans to take his 100 executives to Washington in March, maybe it’s time for a delegation of NGOs from the three countries to get together," Campbell said.
Some of the participants at Friday’s roundtable want to change NAFTA’s controversial Chapter 11, which is designed to protect investor rights. Left-leaning groups have long argued, however, that it diminishes human rights.
The chapter allows foreign investors to circumvent local courts and sue governments before an international arbitration panel.
The Canadian Environmental Law Association, which will be at the Ottawa gathering, last week issued a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Obama urging them to repeal or amend Chapter 11.
CELA’s concerns arise from a claim by Dow AgroSciences, filed in August, that alleges the province of Quebec had breached NAFTA by banning the weed killer 2,4-D.
While other regulatory agencies have not found reason to declare the product dangerous, it has been linked to neurological impairment, reproductive problems, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer lists it as a cancer-causing carcinogen.
The maker of the herbicide is seeking $2 million in compensation, plus legal fees.
Pointing to a recent Health Canada ruling that found 2,4-D could be used safely according to label directions, the company alleges the ban has no scientific merit.
The company has 90 days to file a notice of arbitration which would continue the legal challenge. Company spokeswoman Brenda Harris said that period expires Monday and that Dow will not comment before then on whether it would pursue its claim.
But CELA executive director Theresa McClenaghan believes Dow will ultimately lose based on what’s happened in similar cases, but she says the company is not motivated merely by the idea of winning a legal fight.
"My sense is that their strategic reason for doing it would be to attempt to influence other provincial jurisdictions which have been considering or have been proceeding with different kinds of regulatory actions around pesticides," she said.
"Having a challenge that’s been filed and not determined allows them to say, ’We have this Chapter 11 NAFTA challenge so you shouldn’t do this or we’ll bring a similar challenge."’
Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia are all considering similar regulations.
McClenaghan says both the U.S. and Canadian governments have acknowledged the need to include language that clarifies that environmental, health and safety regulations are not akin to ``indirect expropriation." In fact the U.S. has already included such language, she says, in more recent trade agreements signed with Chile, Singapore and Australia.
"They simply need to take their own advice," she said. "Such provisions would preclude the type of claim that Dow AgroSciences has now filed against Canada."
There are currently 13 active Chapter 11 cases against Canada listed on the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade website.
Sanjiva Sondagar, a foreign-affairs spokeswoman, said the government maintains the view that NAFTA works well, that it lets governments regulate in the public interest, and that "Canada has no plans to pursue renegotiations."
One prominent expert on Canada-U.S. relations suggests the whole discussion remains hypothetical. James Blanchard, a U.S. ambassador to Canada under Bill Clinton, said he doesn’t see Obama reopening NAFTA anytime soon.
He said that issue is among the many that will be relegated to the back-burner while Obama deals with an economic crisis.
"I don’t think there’s any debate here right now," Blanchard said.
"There’s so many other things - the financial cirsis, the auto crisis, the economy generally."
Besides, he added, the concerns that Obama so famously expressed about NAFTA during the Ohio primary had more to do with Mexico than Canada.
He said Obama was referring more to concerns about poor wages, human rights and labour standards.
"Nobody said Canada is in that category," Blanchard said.
