Children of the WTO
Montreal Mirror, Montreal
Vol 22, No. 15, 28 September - 4 October 2006
Children of the WTO
By Stefan Christoff
World Trade Organization talks collapsed in July 2006 over strong internal disagreements on agricultural policy. While social activists throughout the world cheered, policy-makers in the U.S. and Canada started aggressively pursuing bilateral trade accords or Free Trade Agreements [FTAs].
“FTA agreements go beyond the WTO,” says local activist Aziz Choudry of www.bilaterals.org, a project aiming to boost awareness on bilateral trade. Choudry recently travelled to Bangkok, Thailand for an international meeting to plot opposition to the emergence of FTA agreements and will be speaking at Concordia on Monday, Oct. 2, at the School of Community and Public Affairs (2149 MacKay, 7 p.m.). “Global corporations view them as the tool of choice to target specific laws in specific countries that they have not been able to erode through multinational negotiations.”
Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has stated its intention to pursue bilateral trade negotiations with countries throughout the global south and is currently in negotiations with South Korea. Canada’s auto industry has rejected the bilateral Korean trade accord, the Canadian Auto Workers Union arguing that the deal would cost an estimated 15,000 manufacturing jobs in Canada.
