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Labour and civil society groups issue warning on Canada-EU trade deal

(Ottawa, February 5, 2013) CAUT has joined more than 70 labour, environmental, Indigenous, women’s, academic, health and fair trade organizations from across Canada and Europe in raising concerns about the proposed Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

The groups issued a joint statement today ahead of a two-day meeting in Ottawa between European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht and Canadian International Trade Minister Ed Fast, where the two hope to conclude the CETA negotiations shortly.

“We will vigorously oppose any transatlantic agreement that compromises our democracies, human and Indigenous rights, and our right to protect our health and the planet,” says the statement. “We urge the EU and Canadian governments to follow the lead of the Australian government by stopping the practice of including investor-state dispute settlement in their trade and investment agreements, and to open the door to a broad re-writing of trade and investment policy to balance out corporate interests against the greater public interest.”

Investor-state dispute settlement is a process found in many Canadian and European trade and investment agreements, including NAFTA, that allows a company in one country to sue the government of the other country if it feels its investor rights have been violated.

Recent high-profile cases include the $250-million NAFTA lawsuit threatened by Lone Pine Resources against Quebec’s ban on hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), a €3.7-billion claim by Swedish Energy firm Vattenfall against Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear power, ExxonMobil and Murphy Oil’s successful case against provincial profit-sharing rules on offshore oil development, and U.S.-based Renco Group’s $800-million claim against a Peruvian requirement to clean up the extreme pollution caused by its smelter in La Oroya.

“Based on a lack of economic benefits, and evidence that investment treaties do pose risks to environmental measures, a Sustainability Impact Assessment of CETA urged the European Union not to include [investor-state dispute settlement] in the agreement. Like the European Parliament, this independent report for the European Commission suggested a state-to-state dispute process is more appropriate in the EU-Canada context,” the statement notes.

To read the full statement: http://tradejustice.ca

[Download the full statement in .pdf format]