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Seven Ways TPP Favours Mega-rich Foreign Investors, Not Canadians
Seven Ways TPP Favours Mega-rich Foreign Investors, Not Canadians
And why there’s still time for Trudeau to reject it.
The Trudeau government still has options to push for renegotiation or to decline either to sign or to ratify the TPP on Canada’s behalf. Protest photo by arindambanerjee via Shutterstock.
Before it can enter into force, the TPP must be signed and then ratified by member countries. Therefore, the Trudeau government has options to push for renegotiation or to decline either to sign or to ratify the deal on Canada’s behalf.
In this article, I offer seven reasons why the TPP’s provisions on foreign investor protection — mostly found in its chapters on investment and financial services — should be rejected. These provisions reveal how the deal carries unacceptable risks for voters and taxpayers in TPP countries, while giving unjustified benefits to big multinationals and the super-wealthy.
1. The TPP would give special protections to foreign investors at significant public cost, without compelling evidence of a public benefit.
Like other trade agreements, the TPP would give foreign investors special rights to protect their assets by suing countries for compensation in the face of laws, regulations and other decisions that the foreign investor thinks are unfair. These potent international rights are not available to domestic investors or anyone else, even in the most extreme situations of mistreatment.
Why should foreign investors have a special global status and, effectively, a generous public subsidy against the economic risks of democracy and regulation that apply to everyone? The onus should be on promoters of the TPP to give compelling evidence of a corresponding benefit of foreign investor protections for the public. To my knowledge, they have not yet done so.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Seven Ways TPP Favours Mega-rich Foreign Investors, Not Canadians
Seven Ways TPP Favours Mega-rich Foreign Investors, Not Canadians
And why there’s still time for Trudeau to reject it.
The Trudeau government still has options to push for renegotiation or to decline either to sign or to ratify the TPP on Canada’s behalf. Protest photo by arindambanerjee via Shutterstock.
Before it can enter into force, the TPP must be signed and then ratified by member countries. Therefore, the Trudeau government has options to push for renegotiation or to decline either to sign or to ratify the deal on Canada’s behalf.
In this article, I offer seven reasons why the TPP’s provisions on foreign investor protection — mostly found in its chapters on investment and financial services — should be rejected. These provisions reveal how the deal carries unacceptable risks for voters and taxpayers in TPP countries, while giving unjustified benefits to big multinationals and the super-wealthy.
1. The TPP would give special protections to foreign investors at significant public cost, without compelling evidence of a public benefit.
Like other trade agreements, the TPP would give foreign investors special rights to protect their assets by suing countries for compensation in the face of laws, regulations and other decisions that the foreign investor thinks are unfair. These potent international rights are not available to domestic investors or anyone else, even in the most extreme situations of mistreatment.
Why should foreign investors have a special global status and, effectively, a generous public subsidy against the economic risks of democracy and regulation that apply to everyone? The onus should be on promoters of the TPP to give compelling evidence of a corresponding benefit of foreign investor protections for the public. To my knowledge, they have not yet done so.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Six Tough Questions about the China Trade Deal
Six Tough Questions about the China Trade Deal
Gus Van Harten, author of ‘Sold Down the Yangtze,’ breaks down the FIPA’s impacts.
In a conversation with Andrew Nikiforuk, Van Harten answered six questions about the trade agreement, which the Harper government finalized last year.
Andrew Nikiforuk: Investor-state arbitration is a new tool in the relentless economic march of globalization. What new threats does this foreign investor protection system pose to a democracy?
Gus Van Harten: In Canada, we can elect a government, and the government is subject to the Constitution and Canadian laws, as interpreted by Canadian courts. That’s our democracy.
But the federal government is signing more and more trade agreements that expand a system of “investor-state arbitration,” or what I describe in the book as a world pseudo court. The purpose of the pseudo court is to protect foreign investors, meaning usually the world’s wealthiest companies and people, from the rest of us. Instead of public courts, you now have private lawyers sitting as “arbitrators” with the power to decide how much Canadians must pay to compensate foreign investors for our country’s decisions.
Basically, the power of Canada’s legislatures and judges is being shifted to large companies and wealthy individuals and to a small group of lawyers. The shift is anti-democratic because it will be very difficult for future governments to reverse. Even so, governments can still do things to limit the damage, as I explain in the book.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
