The Election Has Provided an Opportunity to Prevent Harper's Fire Sale of Canada

Canadians are enjoying a temporary reprieve from the EU trade deal that will not only cost thousands of good Canadian jobs, but also trades away everything from our water rights to our public services.

And the man who claims to be 'Here For Canada' has again proven that he's just not that into us. Multinationals will always come first.

"The deal on the table involves a number of controversial social and economic policy changes," says Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians. "It would be a contempt of democracy for provincial and federal governments to let trade negotiators from the EU decide Canadian public policy behind closed doors." There have been six quiet negotiating rounds so far toward a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the EU. The provinces and territories are at the table, and were supposed to exchange initial offers with the EU during a seventh round of talks April 11 to 15 in Ottawa. According to news reports today, the offer exchange has been postponed.

Those offers will eventually include services, including public water, health, transit and energy services, as well as public procurement by provincial and municipal government agencies. The procurement chapter will ban 'Buy Local' and other strategic purchasing strategies by municipal governments in order to open up more public spending to European multinational companies. The provincial offers are not the only controversy in the CETA negotiations. Just last week we learned the deal will add less than $6 billion to Canada's GDP after 2020. The Harper government has been falsely claiming benefits of $12 billion by 2014.

One more reason to vote him out.