CETA will Benefit B.C. Says Minister
Prince George, B.C- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has signed the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with the European Union, and B.C.’s Minister of International Trade Teresa Wat says it is good news for B.C..
“Specifically, B.C. exporters will benefit from increased access to this enormous market, including duty-free access for forestry and wood products as well as new markets for metals and mineral products, agricultural and agrifoods products, fish and seafood” said Minister Wat in a statement issued moments after CETA was signed.
Wat says once CETA is implemented, Canada will be “strategically positioned” to become one of the few developed countries with preferential access to the European market.
The agreement will have to be ratified by Parliament, a move the Prime Minister says could happen within months. It is expected to get an easy ride through Parliament as this path to this agreement was one the previous Harper Government had taken and supported.
The agreement is expected to be ratified by the European Parliament sometime in 2017.
Comments
Trade deals like this with multiple nations are a treasonous sell out to our national democratic society. Sure there are some winners and some losers, but some many laws are overturned and amended to ‘synergize’ our laws with theirs… Laws formed in completely different societies with completely different democratic outlooks and priorities that essentially we forsake the society our forefathers created for the globalised Frankenstein of monopolistic corpocracy.
It’s a sell out on many levels, but first and foremost is the investor state resolution process. Germany refuses to sign on to this process as do many other European nations, but Canada insists on this national sovereignty surrender. The agreement as is say this will be ironed out by possibly making a per intent court of generalistic judges… But this too is even worse at undermining national sovereignty. Germany argues this is the template for free trade with the US and have no plans to surrender their sovereignty to American run tribunals. Germany argues national courts in developed first world countries are where questions of corporate rights should be argued and not in secret industry led tribunals.
Canada needs to smarten up and get the globalist NWO types that only work for banksters out of the negotiations. They are selling us out and are doing an end run around not only our democratic process but our Supreme Courts as well.
A good article on the investor state dispute resolution process…..
htt p://www.cogitatiopress.com/ojs/index.php/politicsandgovernance/article/download/639/639
In the name of ‘free trade’ our public health care system is forced to swallow another poison pill
htt p://canadians.org/blog/name-free-trade-our-public-health-care-system-forced-swallow-another-poison-pill
When you start responding to your own posts it’s time to step away from the computer .
or make your own blog .
Why because you have nothing useful to add to the conversation? This is huge for Canada as a country. Our forefathers fought horrendous world wars for our sovereignty… And this generation will just give it up on a political promise from those that would never even think of fighting for their nation themselves. The least I can do is share some perspective on the issue.
Under this agreement it will cost Canada over $2 billion in additional pharmaceutical costs under the new tougher patent laws and extended exlusivity rights that all but push generic drugs off the market.
This agreement will allow for the closure of all sea food processing in Canada to off shore processes using slave labor rates. Ottawa will compensate Newfoundland and Labrador, but what about BC communities.
This agreement will allow for EU rules to apply to our domestic forestry practices. It removes the wall the sees exclusive rights to resources as a provincial domain and opens the door for resource regulation from a foreign body.
This agreement removes all restrictions for bulk water exports.
This is an agreement with an unelected EU commission that operates along the same lines of the Soviet sphere under communism. This is not a bilateral agreement between nations, but a multilateral one between many many very different nations… For example visa restrictions will be dropped for countries like Romania that will be able export their migrant crisis to Canada under the guise of labor mobility, which under this agreement EU companies operating in Canada will be allowed to bring their own employees from anywhere in Europe. There is no protections for Canadian works or Camada first hiring practices. So be prepared to compete for jobs with Eastern European slave rate labor.
It’s a sell out on so many levels. Why even have a country? Why even have national laws anymore?
I will be very surprised if this passes a vote in Parliament once the Canadian public becomes aware of what a sell out it represents. I think Trump will kill it anyways. If we are going to trade with the Americans than this could very well complicate things, especially while NAFTA is being renegotiated.
“Trump will kill it”
Run up to the election has been hilarious, as will the final result, and also painful… Interesting that the Liberals agree with the Conservatives and have kept the ball rolling to signing this deal, and really hoping this is a good thing for our country.
IMHO, the minister that walked away with her head down should be backbenched.
Last week Eagle was telling us the Bush family was going to kill Trump.
I never said that. I said the two assassination attempts on Trump so far have had Bush family connections. Billy Bush assassinated his character, and the other guy was caught using a dead Bush family members Identification while trying to infiltrate Trump Tower through the service elevator with a glock that was equipped with a silencer.
Those were attempts on Trumps life. Unlike Kennedy I don’t think the Bush family will get Trump before the election.
I call BS on that. I know people named Bush. Doesn’t mean they are related. And I also called you on the phony story about the guy in the service elevator. More BS from some basement blogger with a web-site.
Eagle….check it out. North Korea to send missiles at Japan today. Hey, I read it on the internet. It has to be true. ;-)
You are assuming that the Donald will win the election when you are saying that he will kill CETA. This is an agreement between Canada and the European Union. Seven years of effort went into it – you have no faith in the sovereignty of our country and the skills of our negotiators?
Obviously the pact works both ways, giving us access to a greater market (500 million) than the skewed socalled NAFTA pact. I don’t think the US can kill the CETA agreement unless we believe we are a banana Republic and cave in!
Well Trump has said the free trade deal with Europe is dead, TPP is dead, and NAFTA will be renegotiated when he is elected. Trump is no supporter of sovereignty robbing ISDR clauses in trade agreements and globalist so doing end runs around national responsibilities.
If American corporations start using CETA as a back door with their branch plants in Canada, then I have no doubt Trump will come down hard on Canada. We do ten times the trade with America than we will ever do with Europe. Sure we are sovereign to sign our own negotiated trade deal, but if we do it not respecting the American administration then the risk is very high for our own economy.
For example if CETA is used to bring in Muslim foreign workers visa free into Canada. Then expect Canadians to have to apply for a visitors visa to enter the US. How long will Canadians tolerate that before wanting to change CETA or get out of it entirely. For the Europeans open borders for labor is key to any deal as it is the central core of their being.
The idea was that Canada and America were to sign nearly identical deals. With the Americans out under Trump were does that leave Canada… Especially when we are faced with renegotiating NFTA?
Trump has no respect for the EU. He sees it as a threat to nationalism. Trump favours free trade deals being negotiated bilaterally. He favours free trade with Canada, but not Mexico because the two countries are not the same… Whether it be labor laws, environmental laws, currency manipulation, each country is unique and should have its own unique trade agreements in Trumps view.
Also what happens when the EU goes all evil with intent on Britain over Brexit as Britain moves back to the idea of bilateral trade agreements rather than EU supranational type agreements? It could put Canada in an awkward situation.
Also under new regulations for build Canada brought in by the Harper government made to coincide with CETA requires municipal infrastructure projects with federal funding to go through P3 funding means tests… With projects over $100 million all going P3. So under CETA the European companies have procurement rights to municipal contracts and if they have to go through a mandatory P3 test then this sets the value on the contracts if they feel their procurement rights are violated and opens the door to lawsuits for lost profits that can intimidate municipal governments under the investor state resolution process where municipalities are not privy to the tribunals that they themselves are to be sued in.
It’s a way through threat of legal action and the federal funding process to privatize municipal services for profit of foreign multinationals. Say good by to local control over things like drinking water and costly infrastructure improvements.
I would assume the rules go both ways. So you think our Canadian companies can’t compete with the world?
No, you miss the point completely. It’s about corporations framing the procurement process to privatize our strategic assets as a country like municipal water supplies.
As for competing… No most Canadian companies have already been bought out and now operate as foreign owned branch plants anyways. Those that haven’t yet been bought out face stiff competition from state owned enterprises that operate on subsidized capital so as to take away our ownership of strategic industries that other countries target using free trade type deals. Canadian companies compete on market forces alone and this leaves them with their hands tied behind their back when competing with foreign multinational conglomerates.
Teresa Wat states that CETA will be good for BC because of an increased access to an enormous market. Yet at the same time UBC Prof. Kurt Huebner (European Studies Director) says BC consumers may not notice CETA benefits, because there is not enough competition for the European products consumed in BC, which is mainly investment goods, such as equipment. There is no reason for these companies to lower prices.
I doubt if BC will see any benefits from this agreement. Perhaps we will sell some lumber to Europe that used to go to China, or some surplus lumber after the US puts up an embargo on Canadian Lumber. Shipping lumber to Europe increases the cost dramatically because of the transportation costs.
Insofar as Trump goes I stick with my original statement that he will get less votes than any President that ran before him. The sooner he loses, and goes back to where ever he came from, the better.
I don’t think so. He already got more votes to become the nominee than any other presidential candidate ever. In early voting in Florida its up 80% and Trump has nearly 3/4 of the vote so far. I highly doubt he gets the least votes of any president ever.
Wow, ten out of eighteen entries on this subject alone. You should be running for some kind of political office!
Eagleone. If Trump was running to be the Number 1 idiot in a room full of idiots, then he would have a good chance of winning. Other than that he is nothing more than a bozoo, and after the election (hopefully) we will not hear from him again.
I think the main point that’s being missed whether one supports Donald Trump’s vision of how international trade should be, or that of those who’d have us sign-on to every ‘free trade’ deal that can be negotiated, ala Harper, and now Trudeau, is that there isn’t ANY modern, industrialised country in all the world that can fully buy and pay for ALL its own production from ALL the incomes it’s just paid out in the course of making it. So if you can’t buy all your own stuff at the cost of its making, how then are you going to buy its exchange through international trade? Because that little word ‘trade’ implies just that. Trade. Our stuff for their stuff. Barter. That’s really the ONLY way international trade makes any sense at all. An exchange of each country’s relative surpluses for the alternate relative surpluses of another. It’s only sane purpose is to diversify consumption in each country. But that’s NOT what we’re trying to achieve as our PRIMARY objective. It’s to get some other country’s ‘money’, to provide an excuse that it’s buying our money. Which is spent HERE. NOT in some other country. Does it make any sense at all to import some other country’s money that can NEVER be spent buying ITS goods and services in exchange for real goods and services shipped to them from here? In what way, tell me?
Comments for this article are closed.