Further proof that Stephen Harper is not taking this seriously, and would prefer that our soldiers face criminal charges at the Hague, was in the pure nonsense he spouted today.
In pure George Bush fashion he is a accusing the Opposition of attacking our men and women in uniform, when not one of them did any such thing.
Since he and his party care nothing for us or our soldiers, it's time to bring them home. They are now in more danger than ever because the Afghan people know what has been going on, and we can no longer claim to be there for humanitarian reasons. We have lost our moral authority, so the war is officially over for us.
If the Reformers had nothing to hide they would DEMAND an inquiry. Instead they're trying a cover up and smear campaign. Our troops deserve a leader who stands with them. Stephen Harper proved today that he is not a leader. He is a spineless coward.
PORT OF SPAIN–Prime Minister Stephen Harper took a partisan shot at his opposition critics while touring the HMCS Quebec in Trinidad-Tobago Sunday.
The Canadian ship and navy officers are helping with security for the Commonwealth summit. Harper, in brief comments to the Canadians, was addressing allegations that Canadian civilian and military leaders ignored warnings of a risk of torture in Afghan prisons. "Let me just say this: living as we do, in a time when some in the political arena do not hesitate before throwing the most serious of allegations at our men and women in uniform, based on the most flimsy of evidence, remember that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are proud of you and stand behind you, and I am proud of you, and I stand beside you." (If he was standing beside them he would allow an inquiry so they don't have to face a war crimes tribunal)
Liberals, the Bloc Québécois and the New Democrats are calling for an inquiry into allegations by Richard Colvin, a former Afghanistan-based diplomat and senior intelligence officer at Canada's embassy in Washington, that his superiors in Canada ignored his repeated warnings from May 2006 to spring 2007 that the detainees handed over by Canadian soldiers to Afghan authorities faced a substantial risk of torture at the hands of Afghans, not Canadians. The NDP announced Sunday it will use its "opposition day" in the Commons on Tuesday to hold a vote on the need for an inquiry.
The Canadian military denies any knowledge of "credible" warnings of torture before May 2007, while top civilian bureaucrat David Mulroney admitted that there many kinds of warnings, but a lack of "hard facts" to act on prior to May 2007 when a new prisoner transfer deal was inked.
In recent days, Harper and his ministers have framed the controversy as an attack on the military by the opposition, as today's comments from the Prime Minister appeared to indicate.
Opposition politicians say that they are in fact standing up for Canadian soldiers in the face of incompetent or unclear handling of torture allegations by the Conservative government
My Joe Canadian award today goes to Liberal MP Kirsty Duncan for winning the prestigious Knowledge Millennium Award. We've had four years where our government refers to academics as 'University types', and has a science minister who doesn't believe in science.
OTTAWA – Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff made the following statement today regarding the Knowledge Millennium Award:
“Congratulations to my colleague, Dr. Kirsty Duncan, on winning the prestigious Knowledge Millennium Award.
“This award is presented annually to an individual who has made a significant mark on theme of the Global Knowledge Millennium summit. This year’s theme is emerging health threats – and Dr. Duncan has been recognized for her contribution to research on flu pandemics. A Nobel laureate herself, she will stand amongst six other Nobel laureates who previously won the award.
“As Liberal Public Health Critic and Member of Parliament for Etobicoke North, Kirsty’s knowledge of influenza pandemics has helped educate the Canadian public on the risks associated with this year’s H1N1 flu virus. As we have all seen in her tireless work, she is more than deserving of this award.
“Dr. Duncan has made Canada proud as she travels to India to receive the award, where she will also address conference attendees at the 7th Global Knowledge Millennium Conference.
“On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada and our Parliamentary caucus, I congratulate Dr. Kirsty Duncan on her distinguished work to protect the health of Canadians and people around the world.”
With many Canadians struggling and all businesses in need of a boost, why did the contract to build Canada's pavilion for the Olympics, go to a Chicago firm.
I assume the Reformers do know that Chicago is not in Canada, right?
Of course, Dean Del Mastro, whose not the brightest bulb on the tree anyway, justified using an American firm by saying "It will celebrate everything that Canada has to offer. everything from our heritage and our culture, from First Nations to settlers, everything that this country is all about." And a Canadian company couldn't handle this?
VANCOUVER -- Canada's $9.2-million, Olympic pavilion is being built by a U.S. firm from Chicago. And Joyce Murray, Liberal MP for Vancouver Quadra, is accusing the federal government of badly botching the contracting process by waiting too long to issue it. "Think about it: these are Canada's Games, taking place in Canada, and the project is for Canada's pavilion and it's being built by an American firm," she said. "The timeline excluded a lot of Canadian firms that would have otherwise been eminently capable of doing this work. This is something that they've known they would be doing for four years."
The contract was awarded to Giltspur Exhibits, a Chicago-based company, for more than $9.2 million after a two-week request for proposals process on MERX, the federal government's tendering website ....
There is a great op-ed piece in the Ottawa Citizen co-written by Amir Attaran, a professor in the faculties of law and medicine at the University of Ottawa and Gar Pardy, a retired Canadian diplomat. These two men come to the aid of Richard Colvin as he is being smeared by our government.
Colvin is just doing his job Contrary to the whistle-blower hype, the embattled diplomat is merely carrying out -- with honour -- his duty to the Crown and people of Canada By Amir Attaran and Gar Pardy, Citizen Special November 28, 2009
Poor Richard Colvin. Swiftboated by Defence Minister Peter MacKay as "not credible" and a mouthpiece of the Taliban, now the Attorney General of Canada is on his back, threatening prosecution if he dares to answer a parliamentary committee's request to see documents he wrote about detainee abuse and torture in Afghanistan.
The character assassination and bullying are nonsense of course -- the same government that slandered Colvin also promoted him to an intelligence job with top-secret clearance in Canada's Washington embassy -- but if one can set aside the revulsion, what does the Colvin affair teach about the duties of public servants to tell the truth? As a law professor and retired diplomat (who once held Colvin's job in Washington), there are four lessons we think every civil servant in Ottawa should know.
One lesson is that the conventional wisdom -- that Colvin is a whistleblower, who is now being punished -- is an attractive Hollywood story, but a distant relative of the truth. Colvin was sent to Afghanistan with a job to do, which was to gather observations on political issues related to Canada's mission. His notes are the focus of everyone's interest not because he did his job poorly, but because he did it well. He also did well when, sensing imminent government interference because he was summoned as a witness before the Military Police Complaints Commission, he invoked a Treasury Board policy that entitles civil servants to an independent lawyer on request.
Nor did he transgress his job by accepting Parliament's invitation to testify last week, even if it infuriated the Harper government and sycophantic civil servants above him. For like all civil servants, Colvin owes a duty of loyalty to the Government of Canada -- including Parliament. That explains why, for all their loathing of Colvin, Peter MacKay and other cabinet ministers mutter he won't be fired -- because he can't be. Since they can't fire, they bully; it's all they have.
The second lesson is that many, perhaps most, civil servants do not truly understand the duty of loyalty upon them. Ignorance suits the Harper government; it relishes control, and the uninformed err safely on the side of excess loyalty. Too much loyalty, however, means too little innovation or constructive criticism at best, or exploitation and job dissatisfaction at worst. It is better, for Canada and for civil servants themselves, to know truly where the limits of loyalty lie.
The Supreme Court of Canada wrote the final word on the duty of loyalty in 1985:
"The loyalty owed is to the Government of Canada, not the political party in power at any one time. A public servant need not vote for the governing party. Nor need he or she publicly espouse its policies. And indeed, in some circumstances a public servant may actively and publicly express opposition to the policies of a government. This would be appropriate if, for example, the Government were engaged in illegal acts, or if its policies jeopardized the life, health or safety of the public servant or others, or if the public servant's criticism had no impact on his or her ability to perform effectively the duties of a public servant or on the public perception of that ability."
Note what the Supreme Court's analysis does not require. Civil servants owe loyalty to the government of Canada -- the Crown, if you will -- but not the governing party. In public, no civil servant need agree with party policy. Civil servants can dissent from Government of Canada policy in public, within limits, such as when the government is "engaged in illegal acts, or if its policies jeopardized the life, health or safety of ... others."
Seen that way -- the legally correct way, because the Supreme Court says so -- Colvin did not violate his duty of loyalty to the government of Canada. Complicity in torture is highly illegal -- a war crime. Government policies or mistakes that lead to torture are ruinous to life, health or safety. Colvin was not just legally correct, but supremely ethical, to disclose about torture and the detainee transfer policy, no matter what political aftershocks. That he did so with dignity in Parliament, after notifying his superiors, gives him additional protections under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act.
The third lesson is that dissent has to be done carefully. Going directly to the media with a counterpunch or leaked document is not as safe as it should be. That is not because journalists are dishonourable -- only the rarest scoundrels don't protect sources -- but because the lower courts seem resistant to the Supreme Court's direction when disclosures are journalistic. The lower courts are probably wrong, but their error is reality.
The best way for would-be disclosers is to see a lawyer. This is because confidential information and instructions given to a lawyer are protected by the iron rule of solicitor-client privilege. The information normally cannot be forcibly discovered, not even by police, and is inadmissible in court. Whether the information is unprotected or top secret is immaterial, and the privilege exists to foster free, frank discussion with the lawyer.
Thus Colvin disclosed to his lawyer, and his lawyer cleverly arranged disclosing to the world. The lawyer proved her worth by picking a path through hazards both real and imagined -- for a favourite government tactic is to intimidate civil servants into secrecy without actually having a legal basis. Section 38 of the Canada Evidence Act, which the Attorney General overuses to gag persons who possess national security or international relations information, is one such questionable threat, because the law does not provide any criminal penalty for ignoring section 38 secrecy per se. The government also exaggerates the Security of Information Act: much of that law was struck down as unconstitutional by the courts three years ago.
In short, the tigers the government uses to enforce secrecy often are toothless, or can be safely defanged by a lawyer, particularly if he or she is an expert in public law.
Technology also makes safe disclosure possible without a lawyer. Wikileaks (wikileaks.org) is an ultra-secure, totally anonymous website that accepts documents from around the world. No source has ever been exposed through Wikileaks, though it has been used over a million times. Think of it as the web's brown envelope, which not even China's notorious Internet spies have cracked.
The final lesson is of course one of ethics. When Peter MacKay taunted and laughed at reporters questioning how retired general Rick Hillier saw secret documents ahead of testifying in Parliament -- the very same secret documents that the government has threatened Colvin not to let Parliament see -- he demonstrated reprehensible ethics (search for it at cbc.ca/video).
Making ethical disclosure means never personally sinking to his level; it means lifting the full weight of Canada's democracy above it. The Canadians who lost their lives in Afghanistan, and the many more maimed, sacrificed in defence of ideals -- including transparency and parliamentary democracy. Civil servants let them down when assisting a government that, confronted with its responsibilities under Canadian and international law such as to avoid torture, ducks, bobs, weaves and shoots messengers in its tortuous path.
They even let down their fellow civil servants, like Colvin. Of the many bureaucrats he copied on his reports, not one has disclosed those documents, so Canadians might independently decide whether Colvin or the government is the more truthful. They have left him undefended -- even when as just explained, disclosure can be lawful, safe and ethical. It is a course, frankly, chosen of fear and ignorance.
We recommend this course: Civil servants and diplomats are privileged to be some of the best educated Canadians, and have an ethical responsibility to help other Canadians understand government's complexity. Techniques exist to disclose safely, without becoming an unemployed martyr. Our government's involvement in Afghanistan is tremendously complex, and the civic interest depends on Canadians understanding it, even -- perhaps especially -- when the truth is hard, such as torture. The same is true for other complex subjects ringed in secrecy when the Supreme Court's criteria come into play: the H1N1 flu, for example.
If civil servants comport themselves with such honour in Canada, as is more often done in America (think Daniel Ellsberg) or Britain (think Katharine Gun), Canada will be a stronger country. Never doubt it.
(Amir Attaran is professor in the faculties of law and medicine at the University of Ottawa. Gar Pardy is a retired Canadian diplomat.)
But then former Reform MP Monte Solberg, who now fancies himself a journalist, had to weigh in on the subject. He used to be the (un) employment minister and believes himself to be an expert.
However, all he managed to do was remind us of the ideology of the Reformers, who believe that if you are down on your luck, it's your own fault. And he even insulted the people of Prince Edward Island in the process: “When I was minister of immigration I was stunned by the fact that even though the unemployment rate was over 10 per cent in Prince Edward Island, fish plants there had to bring in Russian workers because they couldn't find local workers,” he writes. “It seems EI paid enough that, in a very narrow sense, it was completely rational that unemployed Islanders would refuse to do those very tough and dirty jobs.”
But as one reader noted: "It's not that EI pays too much. It's that the work pays bad, is of short duration, and not where most of the unemployed are. Would you move your family from their home of xxx years just to work a job hours away for crap pay for three months? And, um, RECESSION! This just shows why people like Solberg can't handle these portfolios. Too wrapped up in ideology and ignorance."
It's often not that they won't do the job, but can't afford to do the job. Maybe that's what the government should be looking at. If there are positions a distance from where unemployment has hit the hardest, then subsidize the workers. Issue funds to pay for their gas and top up the salary to a livable wage. It's not feasible for people with families to travel a great distance for minimum wage.
Solberg only managed to make a bad situation worse.
Two years ago, Monte Solberg was the Conservative minister in charge of Canada’s unemployment programs. Now, he’s an occasional columnist for the Sun Media newspaper chain.
Today he comes to the defense of his former colleague, Gerald Keddy, who apologized this week for referring to people in Halifax who choose the streets over available jobs as “no-good bastards.”
The Halifax Chronicle Herald’s Ottawa-based reporter, Stephen Maher, who wrote the original story, now reports that NDP leader Jack Layton is visiting Halifax homeless shelters today in a bid to capitalize on the controversy.
But Mr. Solberg said Mr. Keddy is being treated unfairly. He said the media interviewed disabled street people for their reaction, when Mr. Keddy’s comments were directed at people who are able to work.
“When I was minister of immigration I was stunned by the fact that even though the unemployment rate was over 10 per cent in Prince Edward Island, fish plants there had to bring in Russian workers because they couldn't find local workers,” he writes. “It seems EI paid enough that, in a very narrow sense, it was completely rational that unemployed Islanders would refuse to do those very tough and dirty jobs.”
Mr. Solberg writes that the EI program is so poorly designed that it discourages people from working. (what a horrible thing to say)
“Keddy may have rudely misrepresented the parentage of those who refuse to take jobs on Christmas tree farms, but if you believe it is wrong to cause unemployment and to take money you're not entitled to then Gerald Keddy is absolutely justified in his anger.”
The longer this government tries to cover up and control the media concerning the torture of Afghan Detainees, the harder it will be for us to selvage our reputation. There are just so many elements to this story, and it just keeps getting uglier.
We learned just recently that the Globe and Mail were apparently given all the emails sent by Richard Colvin and columnist Christie Blatchford wrote a horrible column, suggesting that Mr. Colvin has some explaining to do.
Well first off she doesn't have them all, and why in the hell is the Globe getting them when our own Parliamentarians are being left out of the loop? And why did the generals get to see all documentation before they testified?
The Canadian Press tries to make sense of Peter MacKay’s admission that the government had concerns about the treatment of Afghan detainees in early 2006. The Star tries to figure out why retired generals would have access to secret documents and learns that all three generals who testified were briefed by government lawyers beforehand. And the National Post profiles Richard Colvin.
The Globe’s Christie Blatchford reports on what she says is a complete, if heavily redacted, set of Richard Colvin’s memos. One potential problem: Blatchford says Colvin sent three memos in 2006. His affidavit describes six.
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Afghan scandal sullies Canada Our leaders were warned that not jailing prisoners ourselves would lead to torture By ERIC MARGOLIS November 29, 2009
Canada has long been admired around the globe as a nation of high ethics, human rights and respect for law.
But Canada's sterling reputation is being seriously degraded by the spreading scandal over involvement in torture in the increasingly sordid Afghan conflict.
Emulating the Bush administration, senior government officials and military officers in Ottawa closed ranks, stoutly denying any Afghan scumbags were tortured. They are either amazingly ignorant or deceiving the nation.
To understand the roots of this ugly business, we must go back to the 1980s.
The Soviet intelligence service, KGB, created the Afghan Communist secret police agency, known as KhAD. Its mission was to liquidate or terrorize all suspected or real anti-Communists and opponents of Soviet occupation.
Most prisoners arrested by KhAD were subjected to frightful, sadistic torture, particularly at Kabul's dreaded Pul-e-Charkhi Prison. Prisoners were buried alive by bulldozers. Others were electrocuted, beaten to death, castrated and blinded.
Some 27,000-30,000 political prisoners were killed at Pul-e-Charkhi by KhAD. Torture centres also existed in all other major cities.
The Soviets (who withdrew in 1989) and Afghan Communists killed more than one million Afghans.
By 1995, the anti-Communist Pashtun religious movement, the Taliban, backed by Pakistan and the Gulf Arabs, had driven the Communists from most of Afghanistan. The Afghan Communists retreated to the far north, and became part of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. Ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks, many of whom collaborated with the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, dominated the Alliance.
The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, using Russian-armed Northern Alliance soldiers to overthrow the Taliban, and install Hamid Karzai as figurehead president. Real power in Kabul was held by the Northern Alliance.
Two of its strongest figures were pro-Soviet Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum, and Tajik general Mohammed Fahim -- KhAD's former chief. Both have close links to Russian intelligence.
After 30 years of civil war, the minority Tajiks and Uzbeks had become blood enemies of the Pashtuns, Afghanistan's majority. Most Taliban are Pashtun.
Fahim and the Tajik-Uzbek-Communist Northern Alliance took over the revived secret police, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) and the prison system. In short order, the KhAD's old torturers were back in business.
Pashtun prisoners captured by Canadian forces were routinely handed to the NDS-KhAD. There were many reports of brutal torture and executions.
Today, Fahim is officially Karzai's No. 2. But as commander of the Tajik-Uzbek militia and secret police, Fahim is the Afghan regime's most powerful figure and strongman.
Every child in Afghanistan knows this. But somehow, Canada's see-no-evil/hear-no-evil generals and civilian officials claim they were sweetly unaware Afghan prisons were being run as torture centres by the revitalized Communists.
Amnesty International and the Red Cross warned Ottawa that prisoners Canada was handing to the Afghan government faced torture -- and worse. The U.S. State Department repeatedly warned of widespread torture in Afghan prisons, including "pulling out fingernails, burnings ... beatings ... sexual humiliations, sodomy" and rape of children. So did the UN.
Canada should have run its own prisoner camps under the proper rules of war. Yet Canada kept handing prisoners to the Afghan NDS.
Ottawa's disgraceful fig leaf: A memo from Afghan officials promising not to torture captives. Now we see military men and high government officials trying to bluff away what seem to be some serious misdeeds. A disgusting spectacle that deeply shames and sullies this good nation.
As Shakespeare wrote: "Who steals my purse steals trash ... But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed."
The above is Part V of Mel Hurtig's documentary on YouTube; Who Killed Canada.
In part one he gives an introduction to the infrastructure of the extreme right-wing movement; beginning with the hi-jacking of our media, to the many so-called think-tanks, that provide the 'facts' to that hi-jacked media.
In part two he discusses the reduction in federal revenue that weakened spending in important areas. We learned that we are 25th of the 30 OECD countries, in terms of spending on social programs.
Part three deals with our increasing poverty, that coincides with the increase in corporate profits. And though these 'free market' gurus try to convince us that we should throw in our lot with corporate Canada, they have done nothing to advance Canadian interests or protect this country's citizens.
Part four discussed the fact that although neo-cons would like us to believe that we are overtaxed, Canada is actually 21st of 30 nations in terms of the amount of taxes we pay. It also discusses the fact that our history has been rewritten to erase the important role the First Nations played.
Part five deals with NAFTA and what a horrible thing this was and is for Canada. We are basically under the control of the United States. We got very little from the deal, and in fact 11,043 Canadian companies have now become foreign controlled.
The SPP made matters worse, since it has called for even deeper integration with the US. We can no longer refuse to join the Americans in combat, as we did with Iraq, but must now go where they tell us to go; and don't think our soldiers won't be given the most dangerous assignments.
Mr. Hurtig discusses how hard Liberal leader John Turner fought against NAFTA, calling the deal the 'Sale of Canada'. We now see he was right. From the New York Times:
CANADA'S opposition Liberal Party announced last month that its majority in the upper house of Parliament would block the legislation necessary to implement a free-trade agreement that Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, a Progressive Conservative, had negotiated with the United States.
In a countermove to try to salvage his treaty, Mr. Mulroney is considered virtually certain to call an early election, possibly for October, and the treaty is likely to be the dominant issue in the campaign.
The trade bill would eliminate all tariffs over a 10-year period and lower barriers to investment and other curbs on trade in agriculture, energy and services. Legislation is moving through the United States Congress, which is expected to pass it before it adjourns for the November elections.
One of the loudest critics of the free-trade agreement is John N. Turner, the Liberal Party leader who served as Prime Minister in 1984 when he succeeded Pierre Elliott Trudeau as head of the party and then lost an election to Mr. Mulroney's Conservatives less than three months later. Mr. Turner explained why he is against the agreement in an interview last week with John F. Burns, The New York Times's correspondent in Toronto. Here are excerpts.
Question. You have said that if your party is elected and you once again become Prime Minister, you will ''rip up'' the trade agreement with the United States. Why?
Answer. I've said to the Prime Minister that unless there is a general election there will be no trade bill. In other words, we will not allow it to be finalized and implemented until the Canadian people have had an opportunity to decide. On an issue of this importance and magnitude it's important to be up front with the Americans, saying, ''You understand democracy, this is a fundamental change of direction politically and economically for Canada . . . and we believe the Canadian people ought to have an opportunity to review it.'' Concessions and Controls
Q. What is there about this agreement that you find so threatening to Canada's sovereignty?
A. Well, it's more than a trade agreement, it's the Sale of Canada Act. . . . We have lowered barriers on the Canadian-American border so that 80 percent of the dollar value of the goods moving across that border go free of duty, free of tariff. So what we were really talking about was the remaining 20 percent. And for that remaining 20 percent, Mr. Mulroney gave away the store. Had this been just a question of lowering tariff barriers, trade barriers, we would have little quarrel.
But we conceded our energy, and have become part of a continental energy reservoir with the United States. We have conceded our ability to control investment in Canadian business. We have conceded control over our capital markets. We have weakened our ability to market in an orderly fashion our agriculture.
By allowing ourselves to be caught in a five- to seven-year negotiation for a definition of subsidies, under the thrust of what the agreement calls ''market forces'' or ''harmonization,'' we have put in potential jeopardy our cultural programs and our social programs and our ability to assist our less developed regions.
And the sole purpose of a bilateral, as opposed to a multilateral or international trade negotiation, was to somehow gain secure access to the American market, as opposed to access that could be unilaterally impeded by trade remedy laws and countervailing and anti-dumping actions. To get secure access would mean a specific exemption from those laws, and we did not get it.
Q. By 1986, 77.8 percent of Canada's exports went to the United States, with a total value of $93.8 billion. With this kind of dependence on the American market, does Canada have a viable alternative to the economic integration with the United States that the free-trade agreement seems to foreshadow?
A. I believe we do. And I believe that when we form a government we will continue to attempt to enhance our possibilities in the American market. . . . But the word integration is one that implies to me the gradual surrendering of sovereignty.
Canada has never needed that type of integration. Integration implies coordination of fiscal and monetary policy, and increasing constraints on our ability to take decisions that might affect what the Americans call the ''level playing field.'' Blacks, Whites and Grays
Q. Proponents of the trade agreement tend to stress all the things that Canada and the United States have in common. Among opponents, it is the differences that are emphasized. How do you see these differences?
A. Historically, we were not born of revolution, we didn't have that spectacular beginning. . . . And I think that was reflected in the Declaration of Independence, which speaks of ''life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'' In the Canadian Constitution, the phrase is ''peace, order and good government.'' It reflects quite a difference psychologically and historically.
And let's go on. America is a black and white country. And I don't mean racially, but in attitudes. You know the sort of thing: ''My country right or wrong,'' ''You're either with us or against us,'' ''I want to know where you stand.''
We are a grayer country. We are instinctively a consensus people. And we have a less highly centralized government. . . . We have appreciated the virtues of a mixed economy - crown corporations, a national railway, a national airline. Put all these factors into the mix and we are different. . . .
Q. You've said that anti-Americanism won't sell in Canada. But isn't there a danger, when you speak of the ''Sale of Canada Act'' and of Canada's becoming the ''51st state,'' that the Liberal Party will become identified with anti-American attitudes?
A. I would hope that the rhetoric of an election campaign will not be interpreted on our side as being anti-American. There will obviously be a strong pro-Canadian flavor, there may be even what might be interpreted as a Canada-first flavor, but it will not be hostile to the United States. And there may be words said in the course of an election campaign that are open to misinterpretation. I hope not. But the United States is now entering an election campaign, and I imagine that the vocabulary and rhetoric used there will be very tough, too. But that's the democratic system. . . .
Q. If you succeed in killing the agreement, how would you manage the fallout in Washington?
A. If I am successful in persuading Canadians that it's not just a matter of a trade agreement, it's a matter of political and economic and cultural independence, of our uniqueness as a nation, and of our way of life, I feel that that will be accepted by Americans. If there's an election first, and the agreement is rejected, it will have been by the democratic process. In American corporate terms, we're taking this one to the shareholders. Americans understand that.
The Council of Canadians would like us to tear up NAFTA and seek a new deal for the betterment of Canadians. We won't see that under Harper. In fact he is hoping to give them anything we may have left.
Governments and big business have spent the last 15 years telling us that free trade is good for us. But Canadians know better. Despite promises that free trade deals would make Canadian companies more competitive, Canada has consistently lagged behind the United States in both productivity and competitiveness since the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in 1989 and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1995. The new jobs created in the free trade era have been largely part-time and poorly paid. Social inequality in our country has grown as a direct result of workers’ inability to earn a decent wage to support their families.
In the aftermath of the softwood lumber decision, even former supporters of free trade are arguing that NAFTA isn’t working for Canada. Some have called for forceful retaliation against the U.S., while others have suggested that we should get out of NAFTA – before it’s too late. The Council of Canadians believes that Canada needs a new trade policy – one that favours democracy, public services and the environment, over the “rights” of corporations to make a profit.
FOUR REASONS WHY NAFTA IS A BAD DEAL FOR CANADA:
NAFTA undermines democracy. Foreign corporations use Chapter 11 to challenge environmental laws, municipal land-use controls, water protection measures, the activities of Canada Post, and even the decisions of judges and juries. While no Canadian citizen or corporation could bring forward these challenges, NAFTA grants corporations of member countries the right to challenge any federal rule or law that they perceive as a barrier to their ability to make a profit. The result is millions of tax dollars being spent to either fight or settle with these corporations.
NAFTA threatens health care and other public services. The exemption for health care under NAFTA, which has largely kept U.S. for-profit health corporations out of Canada, applies only to a fully publicly funded system. Once privatized, the system must give “national treatment” rights to American private hospital chains. The NAFTA exemption only applies to medicare as it stood in 1989, and doesn’t provide protection for a possible expansion of medicare into new areas like homecare and pharmacare.
NAFTA strips Canada of control over our energy resources. Canada now produces about 40 per cent more oil than it consumes, but has to rely heavily on imported oil from offshore. Thanks to NAFTA, Canada now exports 70 percent of the oil and 61 per cent of the natural gas we produce each year to the United States. NAFTA prevents us from selling our energy resources to Canadians at rates lower than we sell them in the U.S. And because of NAFTA’s proportional sharing clause, we can’t ever cut back on the amount of energy we produce and sell to the United States, even in times when our country runs short.
NAFTA could put our water up for sale. Canadian water is defined as a “service” and an “investment” under NAFTA. The agreement’s so-called water exemption is inadequate. After British Columbia banned bulk exports of lake and river water, the California-based Sun Belt Corporation launched a Chapter 11 challenge, seeking $10 billion in damages. The case is still outstanding, and has profound implications for the future of Canada’s water.
Current trade policies serve as a platform for deeper integration with the U.S. Our business and political elites are pushing for deeper ties with the U.S., and would see Canada privatize health care, join common security projects, give up sovereignty over our natural resources and harmonize our food and health policies with lower U.S. standards.
NAFTA is a bad deal for Canada, working families, our environment and our sovereignty. We want a trade policy that protects our democracy, social services, natural resources and way of life.
Further proof that Stephen Harper is not taking this seriously, and would prefer that our soldiers face criminal charges at the Hague, was in the pure nonsense he spouted today.
