All Islanders should be consulted

Drug costs, environmental protection, public services, food safety, and use of chemicals affect us all

It is alarming that our provincial government considers consultation on the NAFTA renegotiation complete once it has talked to the business community. (“Representing P.E.I. at NAFTA negotiations,” Oct. 6, 2017, CBC). Everyone living in P.E.I. is affected by NAFTA – particularly as it forms the basis of the other agreements, which followed such as those with South Korea and Europe.

Increased drug costs, the chill on environmental protection laws, the reduced ability of the P.E.I. government to regulate or create public services such as inter-city transit and the downward pressure on regulation in areas such as rail safety, food safety and the use of chemicals, affect us all.

And Trump’s threats to Canada’s supply management system - which plays an important role both economically and ecologically in the P.E.I. countryside - is worrying.

There is increasing evidence, now recognized by economists worldwide and the World Bank that these agreements contribute to greater inequality. And just this week an article was released by Ronald Labonté, the Canada Research Chair in Globalization & Health Equity, at the University of Ottawa, about the hidden connection between obesity, heart disease and NAFTA-style trade agreements.

So, there are lots of reasons to consult with the public on NAFTA, especially given the particular principle it is based on - that free access to markets with no strings attached and amplified investors’ rights are the pinnacle achievement of trade rules.

The problems with the template of the NAFTA run deep. Rather than helping humanity address the most urgent issues of our time such as climate change and increasing inequality, its rules hinder and obstruct us in our quest to create a fairer and sustainable world.

The P.E.I. trade negotiator and our federal government talk about adding side agreements on issues such as the environment or gender equity to “modernize” the agreement. And curiously they hold up CETA (the trade agreement with Europe) as the model.

The environmental chapter in the CETA is widely held by environmental experts, including the Canadian Environmental Law Association, to be largely ineffective and unenforceable. Over 250 European and Canadian environmental groups signed a statement against the CETA last November.

An environmental side agreement will not protect our environment because it is the provisions at the core of the agreement, which get in the way of good environmental regulation and bold climate policies.

These include the controversial investor-state dispute system, which gives corporations the right to sue governments when policies created in the public interest get in the way of their profit making.

Of course P.E.I. must trade. We have always traded. But we need a thoughtful conversation about alternative approaches to how we trade and a different set of trade rules. Trade rules must play a more helpful role in ensuring that benefits of trade are shared fairly and that our governments have free rein to protect our environment, expand public services and design climate policies, which have economic benefits for local communities without fear of corporations or other nations suing us.