“We need the CCPA to remind us that our dreams of a decent, egalitarian society are reasonable — indeed that with a little work, they are practical. And I love that practicality, that protection of the dream of the possible.”
— Naomi Klein
Projects & Initiatives: Trade and Investment Research Project
September 19, 2012
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.
“The manufacturing sector would be hard hit,” says the report’s author John Jacobs. “CETA locks trade partners into their current pattern, which is imbalanced.
“It would box Ontario into exporting non-renewable resources such as gold, nickel and uranium – privileging EU’s current dominance of value-added exports to Ontario and leaving the province in a virtual straightjacket while bleeding jobs.”
As well as job loss, CETA would undermine independent government decision-making. CETA blocks options to boost exports of more sophisticated, value-added goods, forcing the province to rely on non-renewable resource exports, which have a finite future. At the current rate of extraction, Ontario could exhaust its gold reserves within a decade.
“The deal that’s being proposed would tie the hands of provincial and municipal governments in unprecedented ways,” says Jacobs.
Among the report’s key findings:
- CETA is weighted in EU investors’ favour and would worsen the trade imbalance that already exists.
- CETA would hasten the demise of Ontario’s industrial economy, costing jobs.
- CETA would prevent provincial and municipal governments from pursuing local economic development initiatives.
- CETA would threaten public services by entrenching investor rights and preventing governments from bringing failed privatization and P3 schemes back under public control.
- CETA would increase the cost of pharmaceutical drugs to the provincial drug plan by an estimated $551 million a year.
- CETA would expose governments to increased risk of litigation from corporations, casting a chill on government initiatives to put environmental sustainability and the public interest ahead of investor profits.
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Download the report at: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/offices/ontario.
For more information, please contact: CCPA Ontario Director Trish Hennessy at 416-551-2059.