8/13/00
I have warned people about this for years now. There is a corporate push
on to wrest the control of any country's water resources through legal
mechanism like NAFTA and other corporate concoctions. Corporations have
been selling Great Lakes water to China for over a year now.
I you let businessmen control your water, you are a fool. They will gouge
you when you need it most. Just as they do with gasoline and life sustaining
medicines.
PAY OR DIE! Water is life.
Joshua2
Control of Canada's water yielded to the U.S. by NAFTA
By Mel Clark ...excerpted from July August
2000 issue The CCPA Monitor
[In the April 2000 issue of *The CCPA Monitor*, Jamie Dunn of the Council
of Canadians stated that Canada's water was not protected under either the
GATT or NAFTA, and called for both agreements to be renegotiated to provide
such protection. In this response, Mel Clark, a former senior trade
negotiator for the Canadian government, says that our water was protected
under the GATT and that the only way to restore that safeguard would be to
scrap NAFTA and return to trading with the United States under the GATT.]
"Contrary to the reassurances of federal politicians, Canada's water
resources are not protected under the terms of the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA). They were protected under the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which gave Canada complete control over its
water, but in signing NAFTA the federal government in effect yielded
control of the country's water to the United States.
"In his article on Canada's water policy published earlier in The Monitor,
the Council of Canadians' Jamie Dunn incorrectly cited GATT Article XX to
support his claim that water was "not exempted from the obligations of the
GATT." In fact, Article XX (General Exceptions) merely permitted
contracting parties to waive their obligations for certain purposes,
provided certain conditions were met. But Canada had no obligation to
export its water--only to refrain from imposing duties on imported American
water. Moreover, Canada had the right to levy prohibitive taxes and thus
embargo water exports, precluding any need to invoke Article XX.
"The specific GATT provisions that gave Canada control of its water are
Articles III: 1, 2, 3 and 4 (National Treatment) and Article I:1 (Export
Taxes).
"Now that the GATT has been superseded by NAFTA, however, Americans are
given the same rights as Canadians to our water. NAFTA cancels our right to
tax water exports to the U.S., overrides the constitutional right of the
provinces to control the water within their boundaries, and accords U.S.
corporations the right to sue the federal government if it--or a
province--fails to respect the terms of NAFTA. Nowhere in NAFTA is there
any wording that gives Ottawa or the provinces the right to limit or
embargo water exports to the U.S.".Mr. Clark concludes that: "The
only way to prevent this loss of our water is by terminating NAFTA (and the
FTA) and returning to trade with the Americans under the GATT. The
suggestion by the Council of Canadians and other critics that the terms of
NAFTA and the FTA could simply be renegotiated to restore the protection of
our water simply won't work ..."
[Full article is posted at www.policyalternatives.ca]
Wayne Obie
Media Public Relations
CFMR/TalkInternational.com
http://www.talkinternational.com
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