---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 13:13:23 -0500
From: Bob Olsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: C4ED-L MAI on CBC-TV Dec 10-11, 10:00 pm
I just heard that the CBC 10:00 pm National News
will be presenting a story on NAFTA: 10 Years After,
on Wednesday Dec 10 and Thursday Dec 11
Please advise everyone you can reach to watch.
Please forward this to other email lists.
Thanks......................................................!!!!
Lloyd Roberts said in a letter to John Duncan, MP for Vancouver
Island North, and posted with The Record (Dec 3) for publication.
...the MAI is not a document to regulate investment but
to regulate governments.
It operates to protect investors by curtailing both sovereign
powers and sovereign immunity. It is a bald exercise in power
and control.
The MAI proposal takes the approach that domestic law applies
only to the extent that it is consistent with the MAI.
Corporate pursuits would then be released from any interferance
by social conditions set by national, provincial or local public
authority.
--------------------------------- end excerpts Roberts letter ..
The Canadian Public Health Association wrote to Prime Minister Jean
Chretien and other members of the government and Parliament on December
4, 1997 in regard to the MAI.
Here are some excerpts from that letter.
....... the draft MAI, and NAFTA, appear to ..... creating conditions
in which investors, based on private economic interests, can override
legislation based on common good concerns.
....specific policy objectives to achieve these (MAI) goals require
participation and careful deliberation. Canada enjoys a long history
of openness and transparency in such deliberations.
... the draft MAI, until very recently, was negotiated without broad
public consultation or input.
...nor have provincial or local governments been engaged in debates or
decision-making about the draft MAI.
... before Canada engages in any further negotiations on the draft MAI,
broad public consultations on the intent and specific mechanisms of the
MAI should be undertaken.
CPHA is suggesting that Canadian negotiators ensure that the draft MAI's
dispute-resolution process,.... is transparent and open to participation
from citizens and civil society groups.
...the draft MAI contains no provisions allowing other multilateral
agreements on environment, health, labour, and human rights to take
precedence when conflict arises.
We do not believe the Government of Canada should sign agreements that
enforce economic practices that benefit the few without also insisting
that reciprocating agreements for the common good become enforceable.
----------------------------------- end CPHA letter ................
Notes for Statement by Ian Waddell, M.L.A. to
House of Commons Sub-Committee on
International Trade, Trade Disputes and Investment
On behalf of the Government of British Columbia
5:00 p.m. 26 November 1997
British Columbia is strongly opposed to the proposed Multilateral
Agreement on Investment.
In our view, the MAI offers no clear benefits to British Columbians and
Canadians, and......
If adopted, the MAI would place unacceptable restrictions on the
ability of democratically-elected governments to act on behalf of
citizens at the federal, provincial and local levels.
It could also have significant negative impact in public policy areas
that are critical to Canadian citizens. It could threaten the
integrity of Canada’s existing health care and social services systems.
... it could undermine the legitimate role of governments to create new
job opportunities, protect the environment, protect consumers’
interests, and manage and conserve natural resources.
... these matters of public policy are simply too important for
governments to pass over to unelected and unaccountable dispute panels.
We believe that only governments have the ability to integrate social
and economic priorities in an appropriate way on behalf of citizens.
International investors can’t do it. Negotiators in narrow field of
trade law can’t do it. And dispute panelists can’t do it.
Only governments that are accountable to the public can provide such a
balanced decision-making approach. Indeed, this is a big part of what
democracy is all about.
The MAI would make such a balanced approach far more difficult. It
would tilt the balance in favour of international investors at the
expense of elected governments’ ability to meet the needs of all
citizens.
...public expenditures now targeted to
small businesses could be challenged as having a discriminatory effect.
In addition, public expenditures for community-based or non-profit
health, social service and education providers might have to be offered
on a ‘non-discriminatory’ basis to large foreign-affiliated investors
and service providers.
For those citizens interested in protecting Canada’s existing health
care system, for example, this MAI provision would be cause for grave
concern, especially given the close proximity of Canada’s predominately
publicly-financed, non-profit Medicare system to the predominantly
privately financed and for-profit U.S. health care system.
If, in the public interest, a government decides to rezone
land, create a park, revoke a natural resource permit, postpone or
cancel a development project, or ban a harmful substance, the owner’s
title to their property is not extinguished. The government action may,
however, affect the owners’ or investors’ ability to profit from their
property interest. But under domestic law, provided the government acted
in good faith and in the public interest, this kind of financial injury
is generally seen as a foreseeable commercial risk and the level of
compensation may be limited.
However, under the MAI, if a government action of this type deprived a
third party investor of property interests covered under the broad MAI
definition, a foreign-affiliated investor could seek financial
compensation under the investor-state provisions of the MAI. (The same
would not be the case for domestic investors.) In our view, this
recklessly exposes the Canadian taxpayer to open-ended financial
liability.
British Columbia is simply not willing to submit highly sensitive and
complex issues -- such as those surrounding aboriginal land claims, the
creation of new parks, or land use and natural resource management -- to
binding MAI dispute settlement panels that are inaccessible to ordinary
Canadian citizens and beyond the reach of domestic law.
...we simply cannot tolerate a system whereby Canadian
taxpayers would be forced to pay fines to corporate polluters when
governments act upon their responsibility to protect the environment.
The federal government is obligated to respect provincial interests in
areas where the provinces are competent. Many of the matters addressed
by the MAI fall squarely within the areas of shared or exclusive
provincial jurisdiction.
Therefore, the application of the MAI to the Province of British
Columbia should not be assumed.
.................. end excerpts BC Govt presentation ..............
For more information visit: http://www.flora.org/mai-not/
and read http://news.flora.org/flora.mai-not/
That web site is a project of OPIRG-Carleton in Ottawa
Or, email me at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
