Egg and dairy farmers take note…..If you haven’t heard about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (aka TPP) you’re not alone. This major, multinational trade agreement, conducted in private closed-door meetings had already voted on several key issues even before President Obama invited Canada to join this spring.
The TPP now includes the United States, Australia, Brunei, Chili, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore , Vietnam, Mexico and now Canada. Some economists have argued that since Canada already has free trade agreements with 4/10 of the TPP members we are not likely to see much ‘return on our buck’.
So the question then: Why has our Federal government shown so much interest? Is there a chance that by signing on to TPP, Canada could use the agreement conditions to make sweeping regulator changes in our country? And if the media reports circulating are to be believed (enter “Canada joins TPP” into your fave search engine) it seems inevitable that Stephen Harper’s government will soon announce Canada’s membership.
This from an online feature by University of Ottawa researcher Michael Geist :
“With Canada already surrendering negotiation leverage and few important markets at stake, our participation is less about other TPP countries and much more about us. Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce applauded Canada’s entry into the TPP, (http://www.uschamber.com/press/releases/2012/june/us-chamber-applauds-canada%E2%80%99s-entry-trans-pacific-partnership-negotiations) expressing the hope that it would force further changes to Canadian intellectual property laws less than 24 hours after Bill C-11 passed in the House of Commons.
[From 2011, NDP MP Andrew Cash points out concerns regarding Bill C-11 CP]
For the Canadian government, the TPP offers cover for major reforms to supply management, the combination of tariffs, quotas and price supports that increase costs for dairy, eggs, chicken, turkey and broiler hatching eggs. The system has been politically untouchable for decades, but using a backdoor approach of mandating change through trade agreement might provide the mechanism to garner the necessary popular support.
While backers maintain that the TPP will open up new markets to Canadian companies, the reality is that the agreement’s biggest impact is likely to come from major domestic legislative reforms that would otherwise face considerable opposition and serious political risk.”
(http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1216011–what-s-behind-canada-s-entry-to-the-trans-pacific-partnership-talks )
So, is this a move towards governmental controls and legislative reform? Time will tell but will John and Jane Q Public even notice when it does? CP
Supplemental– https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp http://www.michaelgeist.ca/