Canada's New Investment Agreement With China Will Take Precedence Over Canadian Constitution for 31 Years
from the above-the-law dept
Here on Techdirt we've been covering the secrecy surrounding CETA, the trade agreement between the EU and Canada, and its problematic inclusion of a corporate sovereignty chapter. But while attention has been focused here, the Canadian government is sneaking through a bilateral investment treaty with China that is arguably worse in every respect -- at least for Canadians. Here's how the Council of Canadians described the move:In the world of official government announcements, a two-paragraph media release sent out in the late afternoon on the Friday before Parliament resumes sitting is the best way for a government to admit, "We know this is really, really unpopular, but we're doing it anyway."The key problem, as is increasingly the case with international agreements, is the inclusion of far-reaching investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) measures that would allow China to sue the Canadian people. Here's what the treaty law expert Gus Van Harten told the Vancouver Observer:
That's the way the Harper government, by way of a release quoting Trade Minister Ed Fast, announced that it had decided to ignore widespread public opposition, parliamentary opposition from the NDP, Greens and even lukewarm Liberal criticism, an ongoing First Nations legal challenge, and even division at its own cabinet table and grassroots membership and proceed with the ratification of the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA).
"It is true that Chinese investors can sue Canada for any actions by the federal government or the [British Colombia] government (or legislature or courts) relating to Chinese assets connected to the [Enbridge] Northern Gateway pipeline," Van Harten said.China's investment in Canada is huge: Chinese companies have invested over $30 billion in Canada's energy industry alone. That means there is plenty of scope for new regulations or laws to affect those investments, and to give rise to claims -- or for those regulations and laws to be dropped because of such a threat. The deep secrecy surrounding FIPA even extends to ISDS actions:
"there is no requirement in the treaty for the federal government to make public the fact of a Chinese investor's lawsuit against Canada until an award has been issued by a tribunal. This means that the federal government could settle the lawsuit, including by varying its conduct in a way that many Canadians would oppose, or by paying out public money before an award is issued, and we would never know."As the Council of Canadians post mentioned, the Canadian government has ratified this agreement even though a major legal challenge against it is still pending -- effectively making the decision irrelevant. That's because of another astonishing aspect of the deal, explained by Van Harten as follows:
"Even if found unconstitutional by a court down the road...once the treaty has been ratified, none of the obligations assumed by Canada can be modified unless China agrees," he said.In other words, the agreement, which runs until 2045, has given itself priority over Canada's constitution for the next 31 years. That abrogation of government power and the erosion of democracy it entails both emphasize how completely corporate sovereignty now trumps the old-fashioned, national kind.
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Filed Under: canada, ceta, china, corporate sovereignty, fipa, isds, sovereignty
Reader Comments
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In Sino-Canada, sparky flint-lock slows revolutionary down. Break out the brass primers.
Need to get rifled up. I'm talkin' 'bout a revolution, oh yeah... Time to take back the world. Ya know, the Beetle song? It's about refreshing the tree of liberty with the blood of papers'-'n'-treaties' authors.
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http://news.firedoglake.com/2014/09/19/1-in-4-americans-open-to-secession/
But, once again, they ask the wrong question. Separate states make no sense to me, there is strength in the union. The question should have been about replacing the corpratocracy with a democracy, even if it is actually a democratic republic, that respects the rules (constitution) that they are required to play by instead of re-parsing everything in terms of what is good for their contributors (aka lobbyists...er...bribers).
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I've been saying this for years: "welcome to the Corporate States of AmurrriKKKa"; now y'all can say it as well: "Corporate Nation of Canada, eh?"
Ugh, this makes me sick...
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For Sake of "Harmony"...
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Well I suggest they charge them with treason.
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Once the treaty has been ratified, it can still be broken. That just means that the Chinese don't have to hold up their side of the treaty either.
The worst part about this treaty is that it is basically stating "If the Enbridge deal doesn't go through, we owe the Chinese investors the money anyway."
And the Enbridge deal ISN'T going through. The Federal government KNOWS this. This is no more than the Feds using what they've got to try and force a lucrative (federally) short term deal at the long-term expense of the province most deeply involved in the deal.
The sad part is that even if the Enbridge deal went through (Northern Gateway oil pipeline), the costs associated with proper running of the pipeline would ensure that all profits would be consumed by the investors, and the only profit the government would really see out of it is the short term job boom in building the thing. The government would also be saddled with all sorts of costly provisions and would be on the hook for monitoring, so the project would come out as pretty much a net loss for Canadians while being profitable for investors.
This has already all been analyzed and explained, and pretty much everyone in British Columbia has figured this out... and yet Ottowa is still trying every dirty trick in the book to get this deal done, upping the ante with agreements like this which amount to "If you don't hit yourself in the head, I'm shooting us ALL in the foot! So there!"
I think we really need to reform our approach to extrajudicial treaties -- a small group of people has no right to do this to a country.
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MORE IMPORTANT THINGS
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Does the Canadian constitution provide for such language?
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Re: Does the Canadian constitution provide for such language?
Who says? Might makes right and the government has firepower far superior to the citizenry.
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Re: Does the Canadian constitution provide for such language?
"Article 18: The law of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea reflects the wishes and interests of the working people and is a basic instrument for State administration.
Respect for the law and strict adherence to and execution of it is the duty of all institutions, enterprises, organizations and citizens."
Does that happen? Nope.
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Re: Does the Canadian constitution provide for such language?
According to who? The constitution of a government is typically the ultimate law, but there's nothing that requires this to be true. It entirely depends on the legal structure of the nation in question.
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There will definitely be a crisis of proportions. In the 90's europe and USA had a trade crisis. In the end international politics is about signals and empty words or actions. In case of actions when a trade dispute is started, there are ways to get revenge before hitting sanctions and ultimately war.
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Is that even possible?
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I for one am against my government intentionally using a loophole to put the entire Canadian people into a lose/lose situation unless they do exactly what a few corporate interests want.
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Treason
Once the bloated globalist system collapses under its own weight, no historian should ever say any kind words about people like Harper and omit any details over what little good they have done. They tried to destroy our future, so it's fitting that what's left of our future shall destroy their past.
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Which absolutely proves that ISDS is necessary. Oh, wait...
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There is one born every minute, and two in Canada.
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