OTTAWA—A trade deal with the European Union (EU) that’s being negotiated behind closed doors could result in as many as 70,000 job losses in Ontario, says a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ (CCPA) Ontario office.
Straightjacket: CETA’s Constraining Effects on Ontario details the ways in which the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) could accelerate Ontario’s industrial decline and weaken the province’s economic future.
International trade and investment, deep integration
This report details the ways in which the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) could accelerate Ontario’s industrial decline and weaken the province’s economic future. The report finds that the trade deal could result in as many as 70,000 job losses in Ontario and would undermine independent government decision-making— tying the hands of provincial and municipal governments in unprecedented ways.
The proposed Canada-Europe Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is generating serious questions and concerns from local governments across Canada. A sweeping trade and investment deal, CETA is currently in its tenth round of negotiations, and the Canadian government believes it could be concluded by the end of the year.
Since 2010, more than 50 Canadian municipalities, local government associations, and school boards have passed resolutions expressing concern about CETA’s potential impact on local public services and decision-making.
The Harper government's frantic efforts to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations came to fruition last week, with the announcement that Canada will be admitted to the talks.
On December 3-4, 2011, a historic meeting of all 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries took place in Caracas, Venezuela. It was a gathering that significantly advanced the Latin American Revolution.
The Presidents of these nations assembled to inaugurate a new regional organization called The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which includes all these countries but excludes the United States and Canada, who were not invited to join.
As more and more raw, unprocessed logs leave British Columbia’s coast in ocean freighters bound for the far side of the world, a common refrain from some in our forest industry is that we have no choice.
Because workers in mills in China are paid so little, log buyers there can afford to pay more for our logs than domestic buyers pay. The result, we’re told, is that we have no alternative but to sell our logs overseas.
But there’s much to suggest that such a defeatist argument doesn’t hold water, and that the real problem is a lack of investment in mills here at home.
It is hard not to detect a note of desperation in the provincial government’s recently unveiled natural gas strategy.
In announcing it, BC Energy Minister Rich Coleman notes that we are “in a foot race” with Australia, Qatar and the United States to push as much of our natural gas as possible to the Asia Pacific, where, for now, gas prices are far higher than here at home.
But does a foot race to feed more gas into the gaping maw that is China’s over-heated economy make economic sense? What might the costs be to BC’s environment and energy security?
Remarks by Scott Sinclair, to a public meeting on the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) in Charlottetown, PEI
Introduction
No one questions that international trade is vital for the Canadian and PEI economies. But there are legitimate questions that need to be asked about who benefits from trade and about the role of public policies in ensuring that those benefits are shared as widely as possible.
The Canadian Government is well down the road, with the European Union, towards negotiating a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). They tell us that CETA will have everything that NAFTA has, plus more. They say that like it’s a good thing. But the more one looks at this Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, this CETA, the more there is to dislike.
Remarks by Scott Sinclair to the Columbia Institute’s Centre for Civic Governance “dialogue session” held on June 3, 2011 in Halifax in conjunction with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ annual conference.