SINT panel of witnesses on NAFTA Ch. 11
Organization presenting: Common Frontiers
Subject: NAFTA Chapter 11: Introductory remarks by Rick Arnold
Date: February 16, 2005
The Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (SCFAIT) released its report Partners in North America: Advancing Canada’s Relations with the United States and Mexico in December 2002. The federal government responded to this report in 2004, where they devoted less than a page to SCFAIT’s NAFTA Ch. 11 concerns contained in Recommendation # 21.
There are serious problems with NAFTA investor-State procedures that are not being addressed by the Canadian government and that represent a clear and present danger to our sovereignty and democratic vocation as a nation.
Several of the interventions that follow will address many of these Chapter 11 concerns in some detail. Before turning the mike over to them, let me quickly make the following observations:
- The Romanow Commission released its health-care blueprint in November 2002, just as the Partners in North America report was going to press. Had the timing been different SCFAIT members could have considered including in their report some of the threats posed by NAFTA Ch.11 to Canada’s Medicare system as outlined in the Romanow Commission report. Three years later the federal government appears to have ignored the Commission’s Ch. 11 recommendations.
- On November 4, 2003 Common Frontiers tabled in the House of Commons a petition that specifically asked for the removal of Chapter 11 from NAFTA. Through a combined ballot/petition campaign organized by Common Frontiers, the Reseau Quebecois sur l’Integracion Continental and the Council of Canadians, more than 120,000 people endorsed this call for our government to bring an end to the NAFTA investor-State provisions.
- Today (February 16’05) the Kyoto Protocol comes in to force. However, there is no indication that the federal government has prepared itself for the fact that Kyoto and NAFTA are on an ideological and legal collision course. A legal challenge could be launched under NAFTA’s arbitration process that would threaten to undermine the whole purpose of the Kyoto Protocol.
- NAFTA Chapter 11 has handed investors extraordinary rights that have now been invoked by foreign investors and corporations to challenge environmental laws, municipal land-use controls, water protection measures, the activities of Canada Post and even the decisions of juries and appellate courts. Given government inaction in the face of escalating investor-State challenges and threats, two Common Frontiers’ members, the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, recently went before the Superior Court of Ontario to argue, in essence, that Chapter 11 of NAFTA is unconstitutional. The judge’s decision is expected in May. Steven Shrybman the lawyer representing the two organizations will appear before this committee on April 5th.
Common Frontiers hopes that the SINT members will decide to place NAFTA Ch. 11 on the SCFAIT agenda for a full and comprehensive review. We also call on this committee to investigate ‘democratic deficit’ questions associated with parliament having little if any say in international trade negotiations when these accords have a track record of boomeranging back on domestic public policy decision-making.
Mr. Villamar, who is on the line from Mexico, will discuss the threat that investor-state supranational arbitration represents to the ability of the Mexican government to implement domestic policy, which can in turn contribute to social instability.
Ms. Jeremic will follow citing additional NAFTA Ch. 11 examples and raising the issue of Canada’s intention to export Ch. 11 provisions to upcoming bilateral negotiations.
Thank you