Hillary Clinton is opposed to the deal even though she was previously on the negotiating end.

“The government has announced $4.3 billion to aid dairy farmers and poultry producers and $1 billion in ‘partnership’ money for the auto sector.”

I would not hold my breath waiting for the money to actually come through. It is just plain electioneering. Remember the beetle money of 1 billion over 10 years? After 2 years it was quietly forgotten.

Mulcair knows that he can not just rip up the TPP which was signed as an agreement in principle. Plain electioneering. He hasn’t even seen the text yet. And he is contradicting himself when he promises corporate welfare while at the same time promising he will raise taxes on corporations!

Hillary says that it will take at least 4 months before the TPP will make it to the Congress. Then the endless wrangling will begin. Already lobby groups have voiced their opposition to just about anything in the TPP that could possibly affect the USA’s ability to exert its sovereignty and power over others as usual.

Relax. This TPP guesswork together with the dragged into the debate niqab thing are useful only to the Conservative desire to take the focus of voters away from the dismal last ten years record of their mismanagement.

I’m thinking if the Govt. is already willing to put up a BILLION dollars to aid the auto industry then they know that the deal is a bad one. Soon all Canada will be is a raw goods supplier with no domestic manufacturing at all.

Free trade the theory works like this. Bob is an accountant and can do a tax return in half an hour, but it takes him two hours to do a service on his car. Jane is a mechanic and it takes her two hours to do a tax return and half an hour to service a car. Clearly it makes sense that Bob should do Jane’s taxes, Jane services his car, and both of them now have an extra 1.5 hours for leisure or to generate more revenue.

Theoretically the idea of free trade is countries do what they do best, and what they do not so well, they leave to other countries to do, with the idea everyone wins like Bob and Jane did.

In practice in these trade agreements, there’s all sorts of clauses to try and protect sacred cow industries.

The other problem you can run into, is if you’re good at a luxury item – say tourism, and the other country is good at a necessity – such as food production – should they decide to put the screws to you, and ignore the treaty, you can’t live without them, but they can live without you, giving them a competitive advantage.

So in theory a free trade agreement should provide more overall wealth to all. There is always pain in that an autoworker and farmer loses their job, but a logging truck driver and mill worker end up gaining even more work than the other two lost. But again, this is a theory and like most theories, doesn’t always transfer to practice perfectly.

Trudeau (Pierre) believed Canada should always be self sufficient, so he was willing to sacrifice overall wealth to ensure Canada would never be beholden to anyone. But essentially what it really meant was efficient productive Western industries subsidized inefficient Eastern industries.

Another slanted, left-leaning infomercial from 250’news’. I can guarantee that Bill Phillips hasn’t read the trade agreement but he’s already labelled it a fail for the current (and future) government of Canada. What kind of journalism is that? Maybe Bill should stick to the man bites dog stories that appeal to people that can’t think critically for themselves.

@VOR: Of course Bill Phillips hasn’t read the TPP. NO-ONE has read the TPP except the negotiators and the corporate lobbyists who told them what to put in it. It was negotiated in secret and by the multinationals who will be its beneficiaries. If that’s OK with you so be it, but it’s a strange way to run a democracy.

The TPP has been negotiated behind the backs of the populations affected while implementing extraordinary undemocratic measures to keep them in the dark. Through this process corrupt corporate lobbyists have negotiated the gutting of patent legislation and the forced everyone’s copyright legislation to conform to the appalling US laws. It is NOT a trade deal; it is simply corporate welfare.

Far worse is the sabotage of the abilities of democratic governments to regulate in the public interest. It gives multinational corporations the astounding ability to sue the shit out of governments which try to defend their citizens. A secretive panel of corporate lawyers will be able to overrule the will of parliament, even a Conservative parliament, and destroy Canadian legal protections.

This is called investor-state dispute settlement and it’s already being used by corporations in other parts of the world to extort taxpayers’ money from national governments. For example, The Australian government legislated that cigarettes be sold in plain packaging with health warnings; but then they signed a trade agreement with Hong Kong that includes investor-state dispute settlement and now the Australian taxpayers are being sued for billions of dollars by tobacco giant Philip Morris International Inc. for the loss of what it terms it’s “intellectual property.”

Every arena of Canadian life is vulnerable to investor-state dispute settlement, there is no right to appeal even when the decisions contravene acts of parliament or Supreme Court rulings, citizens affected by the proceedings do not even have standing to appear before the tribunals, there are no provisions for governments to make exceptions.

The TPP puts much of the Canadian social contract at risk: it’s not about the dairy or auto sectors, this undermines our ability to maintain a health care system that isn’t American style, it sabotages our ability to legislate in the areas of environmental protection or worker safety, it is a race to the bottom for the lowest standard of anything except corporate profits.

The TPP is a tragic mistake, not just for Canada, but for all the world.

‘The TPP is a tragic mistake, not just for Canada, but for all the world.’
That’s just plain stupid.
We elect our leaders to (wait for it) lead us. Why in the world would the government of Canada sign on to an agreement that would severely damage any part of our national self-interest?
Your objections are nothing more than leftist fear mongering, citing the usual boogeyman suspects – ‘corporate greed’, ‘multinationals’, ‘secret tribunals’, etc.
That’s complete crap – a trade deal has been negotiated to give us less fettered access to 40% of the world’s economy. There will be winners and there will be losers, of course. It’s called change and you should get used to it. The world, and the world’s economies are moving forward at an unprecedented rate and we (Canada) have to be fast, nimble and smart to keep up.

Hilary Clintin has come out against the TPP because it’s an affront to democracy . Stevie is NO nationalist . He’s a multi nationalist comfortably rubbing up against communists and dictators around the world . All the while crying crocodile tears for the oppressed while selling billions of dollars to the Saudi death machine .

Billions of dollars worth of war materials to the Saudi death machine .

So you like to be led by being kept in the dark? Do you like to be led by having your elected representatives and your judicial system over ruled by corporate lawyers working on behalf of foreign corporations? (Nothing personal against corporate lawyers, my son is one.)

Did you not notice that “trade” is not in the title of the TPP? It isn’t really a trade agreement, but mostly an investment agreement. It will not make Canada fast and nimble and smart; rather it will make the corporate takeover of Canada fast and nimble by undermining the power of democratic institutions to do anything about it.

This isn’t about being politically left or right, it’s about whether Canada should or should not cede sovereignty to the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism.

I’m very used to change, in fact I’d like a lot more of it. I just don’t think that reducing the power of taxpayers is the right kind of change.

Ataloss, I don’t see your name on the ballot for the current federal election. If you’ve got all the answers, and are so full of the tedious rage-at-the-machine mindset, why aren’t you running to be one of our leaders? Oh yeah, because it’s easier to complain than to do something constructive.

Same right back at ya harperette .

Merc:”I’m thinking if the Govt. is already willing to put up a BILLION dollars to aid the auto industry then they know that the deal is a bad one.”

Not only that, who is to stop the auto industry from taking the handouts and then closing up shop in Canada? Answer: Nobody! This kind of thing has happened many times before!

Vor you must be as happy as most Canadians would be when they hear that Bobzie has solve the problem of missing ,murdered FN women . It’s because of lack of jobs ! That was easy ! So he says that no inquiry is nessesary . Think of the money we’ll save. It’s amazing . We need more gym teachers addressing social issues . You can again a great deal of insight from people that play contact sports that don’t require helmets .

Harper is setting himself up for a $$millions-a-year job with a large corporation
when he leaves politics.

All trade agreements have a dispute settling mechanism. NAFTA is one example. There are others. Canada will negotiate the best deal possible for Canadians. To think otherwise is foolish.

The Canadian Government has won a number of cases using the dispute settling tribunals. One big one was UPS suing the Government for hundreds of millions for lost revenue because Canada Post was in the package business. I wont go into all the details, because if you are really interested you can look it up on the internet. Bottom line Canada won. We have in fact won many other cases. So lets quit the BS that these tribunals are somehow influenced by the Corporations.

Canada will negotiate the best deal possible for Canadians, and to imply that our Government would somehow sell us down the river is beyond comprehension. I can see this line of thinking coming from Ataloss and some others, however the majority of Canadians are comfortable with their elected Government.

The reason that these talks are secret is because they would never be able to complete them if all points were debated in public. Perhaps that’s to complicated for some people to understand, however that’s the way its done, and that’s the way it will continue to be done.

If you think that the Canadian Government is going to hold off signing an agreement until they have the consent of P Val, Altaloss, and Digitus Computicus you have another think coming.

Interesting article in today’s paper about the fastest growing auto manufacturing industry in – Mexico. They have been building inexpensive cars there for decades. BMW is building a new plant in San Luis Potosi to manufacture up to 150,000 units per year. Renault Nissan/ Daimler are building a US 1 Billion plant to manufacture Infinity and Mercedes Benz products. Audi Mexico currently produces and exports the Audi Q5 to the US, Canada and other countries. Toyota is present in Mexico, as are Ford, GM and Fiat/Chrysler. VW has been producing cars in Mexico for five decades. Corolla manufacturing is being moved from Canada to Mexico.

Mexico has more than 3 times the population of Canada and it has been investing heavily and continuously in its rail and highway infrastructure. It also has excellent schools and universities and a highly motivated workforce. Like Canada it shares a border with the US, one of its main trading partners. It also controls its oil resources, refining and distribution through the state owned Pemex corporation. Tuition at the universities is free.

If Canada wants to compete in the same ventures we better start rolling up our sleeves in earnest or we are going to be left in the dust!

I’ve never heard of any ‘gringos’ swimming enmasse across the Rio Grande, or tunnelling their way INTO Mexico to take advantage of all the wonderful employment opportunities down there. Have you, Prince George? Maybe I’ve missed something. With all those advantages, free university, state owned oil company, inflow of manufacturing, etc. no wonder Donald Trump wants to build a wall along the Mexican border and make the Mexicans pay for it. How else is he going to keep all those Americans home?

Prince George:-“If Canada wants to compete in the same ventures we better start rolling up our sleeves in earnest or we are going to be left in the dust! ”
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Let us imagine that the concept of the EU, a continental partnership with free trade amongst the member countries, capital and labour mobility, and a common currency was extended world-wide. Instead of the ‘Euro’ we’d have the ‘Worlddough’, and every country would use this as their money. It would be administered by the World Bank, and this policy, incidentally, is in perfect harmony with the long-standing beliefs of the Liberal Party and the NDP. Who are both ‘internationalist’ in philosophy, despite their current pretext of Canadian ‘nationalism’. The United Nations idea has always received the greatest support from Liberal governments here, while the underlying philosophy of the NDP, socialism, has always been internationalist. The old Communist song was the “Internationale”.

So now the whole world is, in fact, one big ‘global village’. And trade between and amongst its countries is along the lines described by Ski51 above, with his analogy of the tax preparer and the auto mechanic. Now here’s a couple of questions for you. There are no more differences between currency exchange rates, everyone uses the ‘Worlddough’. Could the citizens of the world buy and fully pay for ALL the world’s production at its currently accounted for costs over any given fiscal period with ALL the wages, salaries and dividends distributed to them as incomes in that SAME fiscal period? And if they could not, then how could they do so in the next, or any succeeding fiscal periods? Do you see now why we currently seem to need to trade internationally?

The only two people west of Ottawa that have read the TPP agreement are Todd Doherty and Eric Allenopu. Effin amazing.

It is NOT, Prince George, because there is great advantage in the exchange of each country’s ‘relative surpluses’ for the alternate relative surpluses of some other countries, (which there is), where each country is able to maximize its natural advantages in production, and all benefit from a diversification of goods and/or services available for consumption (as sensible as that is). It IS because the current financial system, using the method of accounting every business uses, is NOT fully ‘self-liquidating’. ALL ‘costs’ have to be recovered in ‘prices’, or a business cannot stay in business. But ALL ‘costs’ flowing through into ‘prices’, in total, are NOT distributed as current ‘incomes’, in total. From which those ‘prices’ have to be met. So our ‘trade’ internationally, is not a ‘trade’ as in the sense of barter ~ our stuff for their stuff ~ but a trade for MONEY. Without the ‘import’ of which we would not have sufficient effective demand in our economy to be able to purchase that portion of our own production (and imports actually exchanged in ‘trade’ for it) that we do purchase. It is totally stupid and perverse to have to receive some other country’s ‘money’, that is only effective demand for THEIR goods, not OURS, when we can never spend it on THEIR goods in exchange for our goods, but rather have to use it as an excuse for our central bank, the Bank of Canada, to create enough money for us to live.