Re your comment on the Times report that lobbies connected on the internet brought down the MAI, you ask who are these lobbies and where ordinary citizens have been left. Perhaps I can give you a partial answer with a single example. I was concerned with what I had heard about the MAI. So I downloaded the May version of it from the Council of Canadians website, read it (no mean read: it's full of "notwithstandings", which require you to recur to the clauses being "not withstood"), was appalled that everything the C of Cdns flyer said about it was true, thata in fact from a larger historical point of view MAI was a kingpin in a world wide revolution aimed at removing the powers of democratic governments from ordinary citizens and formally transferring them to transnational corporations. As I passed that on to ordinary citizens of my acquaintance, the Niagara Citizens Concerned Abouot MAI emerged, held discussions, wrote lettrs to Mr Marchi and Mr chretien. Of the group, only a couple had access to electronic connections. We fed the others with what we learned. I wonder if that was typical. If it was, do we qualify as "lobbies pretending to speak for the common good"? or as "ordinary citizens"? I guess if you believe that democratic government is a bad thing, we are "lobbies". It's a convenient pejorative label. We happen to think that though government has its faults, governments, philosophically, historically and practically have been instituted to protect the weak from the strong, and are still needed. MAI, of course is totally constructed to protect the TNC's from governments. Regards, Gordon Coggins
