CETA is much more than a trade deal. It is therefore not enough to just to assess which export sectors stand to gain and lose from EU-Canada tariff elimination. This submission flags some of CETA's more problematic chapters and provisions—on investment protection, the liberalization of public services, threats to environmental protection rules, limits to local government procurement, etc.—in order to help the parliamentary trade committee and Canadians in their deliberations on the agreement.
International trade and investment, deep integration
Photo credit: Communications Workers of America
Tsleil-Waututh leaders sign the Treaty Alliance Against the Tar Sands in Vancouver on September 22, 2016. Photo by Elizabeth McSheffrey/National Observer.
Illustration by Remie Geoffroi
The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is an overtly U.S.- driven and dominated trade agreement designed to bolster America’s corporate and geopolitical ambitions. The U.S. Trade Representative even calls it a “made in America” deal.
Prime Minister Trudeau signs the Canada–European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement in Brussels on October 30. (Photo from the European External Action Service)
This issue of the Monitor explains why public concerns about the TPP are fully justified. Experts in a number of areas unpack the many ways this “21st century agreement” would undermine global food security and the climate, weaken government regulations, increase the cost of medicines in Canada and across the TPP region, and further empower corporations to challenge public policies simply for harming profits.
Photo credit: Olaf Brostowski, Flickr Creative Commons
Seven years after negotiations began on the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), the Trudeau government is poised to sign the deal at a ceremony in Brussels in October. Whether Europeans are ready to actually ratify it is still an open question.
This follow-up to the 2014 report, Making Sense of CETA, assesses the final text of the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement as released in February 2016. The dozen or so European and Canadian contributors herein look at how CETA would, if ratified, have far-reaching and problematic impacts on public services, domestic regulation, intellectual property rights, and government measures implemented to address climate change or improve food security.
Earlier this year, International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that Canada and the European Union had finished the “legal scrub” of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). Now, she said, the path is clear for speedy ratification of the deal in the Canadian and European parliaments.
This study assesses the provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) related to mail delivery and courier services.