Kill NAFTA or kiss our water, medicare and Canada goodby

From the Canadian Action Party / Parti Action Canadienne (CAP/PAC), 21 August 2000

"The fate of our most precious resource and social program hinges on whether enough Canadians will dare to take up this challenge using a political vehicle available to them." Connie Fogal, President Canadian Action Party, August 20, 2000.

This letter is a plea for support of the Canadian Action Party (CAP/PAC) candidate Jack Peach in the Okanagan-Coquihala byelection Sept 11,2000 and for CAP in the impending general federal election.

The Canadian Action Party (CAP) has developed an excellent policy that separates it from every other party in Canada, maybe any in the world. Our primary two pronged plank (opposing globalization/corporatization, and restoring money to its proper role as servant) is unique. Without success in these two areas, no good cause can be realized.

Our distinguishing feature is that we have specific plans to implement our platform. In particular, on the first prong, we will abrogate NAFTA, and the FTA, stop negotiations on the FTAA refusing to enter same, and return to GATT for trade with the U.S.. On the second prong, we will reclaim the Bank of Canada using the legal power and authority still in existence to assume citizen control through government of our nation's money and debt, to return money to being our servant, not our master. No other party offers both of these solutions to Canada's condition. Both of these solutions are direct violations of the commands of the unelected, unrepresentative, undemocratic International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the WTO.

We dare to be bold. We dare to Stand and Defend relying on our own Canadian constitution. All the others have been and are betraying the citizens in violation of our constitution."The constitution of Canada does not belong either to Parliament, or to the Legislatures; it belongs to the country and it is there that the citizens of the country will find the protection of the rights to which they are entitled" Supreme Court of Canada A.G. of Nova Scotia and A.G. of Canada, S.C.R. 1951 pp 32-33. CAP/PAC is the only political vehicle that recognizes the supreme power of the citizen, and defends the citizens' rights, powers, and entitlements under Canada's constitution.

The Liberals, Conservatives, and Alliance are clear corporatists completely committed to ongoing submission to the power of the banks, financial industries, the Fortune 500 Club, and the agenda of the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank. Hence, they will never abrogate NAFTA.or FTA. Nor will the Green Party or the NDP because they are resigned to living with these agreements while continuing negotiations. They do say they oppose globalization and corporatization, speaking well against the MAI and the WTO and the FTAA. But they cannot reconcile the obvious contradictions to those utterances in the face of their failure to call for the abrogation of NAFTA and the FTA.

The Canadian Action Party is a political vehicle for thinking caring Canadians to use to abrogate NAFTA, to keep our water and have our medicare. Renegotiation of NAFTA is not possible.

Medicare: On March 22, 2000 Paul Hellyer, Leader of the Canadian Action Party said: "Canadians must choose between the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Medicare. Canadians can't have both -- because certain clauses in NAFTA threaten the very existence of our present health-care system. It's time we recognized that the free trade agreement gives the American government and health-care corporations so much power that Medicare simply can't survive under its influence.

After years of relative silence about the connection between NAFTA and Medicare, evidence is mounting that the trade deal is the real reason our health-care system is being dismantled. Until now, those who wished to destroy our public, universally-accessible medical system and bring in a private, American-style system have preferred a kind of rear-guard attack to a frontal assault. They have deprived the system of more than $30 billion -- and now claim it doesn't work and needs to be semi- or fully-privatized. This was a clever tactic because the anti-Medicare lobby didn't have to use free trade directly -- it could hide behind the deficit. But more and more Canadians realize what is going on." Mr. Hellyer pointed out that two studies of the relationship between NAFTA and Medicare reveal that the Chrétien government must know that Medicare is doomed under free trade. According to former GATT negotiator Mel Clark, American trade law "provides a legal basis for the US to countervail any or all Canadian exports of goods on the grounds that government financial assistance for health care is a countervailable subsidy." (Countervail is a retaliatory trade measure which can be very costly.) Mel Clark says Canada cannot legally protect itself from U.S. countervail because Chapter 19 of NAFTA gives American interests the right to countervail on demand. He warns: "... there are no NAFTA rights Canada can invoke to protect Medicare from American countervail." Article 1201 of NAFTA "placed all Canadian health services under the agreement, including the production, distribution, marketing, sale and delivery of a health service .." and Articles 1102 and 1202 "require Canada and the Provinces to accord US health 'service providers' the same treatment they accord Canadian providers without exception." Mr. Hellyer considers that "Mr. Clark has put together a very frightening scenario. It appears that the Chrétien government knows it either has to dismantle Medicare or face a legitimate threat of countervail from the U.S. -- so that explains its destructive actions over the past few years." A second study done by Vancouver lawyer Steven Shrybman for the Canadian Union of Public Employees agrees that Canada did not get an exclusion for health care under NAFTA -- only reservations, which he describes as qualified and ambiguous. Mr. Shrybman's study reveals that the U.S. claims that "... notwithstanding these reservations, 'services supplied by a private firm, on a profit or not-for-profit basis' are entirely subject to NAFTA investment and services discipline."

Water: In"Contrary to Government Assurances- Control of Canada's water yielded to the U.S. by NAFTA", Mel Clark, Canada's senior negotiator on the GATT says that the "national treatment clause of NAFTA permeates every right and obligation that is not specifically excepted from it- and there is no exception for water. This means that Americans are now free to demand that our governments accommodate their water interests, even if this means amending, rescinding or ignoring all existing relevant laws, regulations and policies.": Two NAFTA Chapter 11 cases suggest that bulk water exports to the U.S. could begin soon after the next federal and British Columbia elections. The first case arises from the claim of Sun Belt Water Corporation of Santa Barbara, Calif. for $10.5 billion from the federal government to compensate it for damages caused by B.C.'s embargo on bulk water exports from that province. The embargo was imposed under the B.C. Water Protection Act, which restricts shipments of water to bottled water and water in tanker trucks. Sun Belt contends that the embargo infringes on its rights under Chapter 11 of NAFTA. The Chrétien government has been discussing this claim with Sun Belt for the past two years, and in doing so has implicitly acknowledged that the company has a legitimate case under NAFTA. Sun Belt naturally wants to obtain water--or compensation in lieu of water--as soon as possible, whereas the Chrétien government wants to delay a settlement until after the next federal and B.C. elections. (What is the government offering Sun Belt to persuade it to be patient? Is the B.C. government participating in the discussions? Are the federal Liberals sharing information about the Sun Belt talks with the B.C. Liberals?) In the second Chapter 11 case--and the only one Canada has so far settled--the U.S. Ethyl Corporation effectively demolished Ottawa's attempt to protect our health and the environment from "an insidious neurotoxin" contained in the company's MMT gasoline additive. It forced the government to lift an embargo on MMT imports, to retract statements made by the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Environment, and to pay Ethyl $19.3 million for lost revenue. The power NAFTA gives Americans over Canadians and their governments is further illustrated by the following three facts related to the Ethyl settlement: In 1991, Liberal leader Jean Chrétien urged the Mulroney government to ban the use of MMT on the grounds that "some of our leading neurotoxin scientists...detail the truly horrific effects that allowing continued use [of MMT] could have on the Canadian people." As part of the settlement of its NAFTA complaint, Ethyl forced Chrétien to repudiate this statement. In 1996, the Chrétien government introduced Bill C-29 to place an embargo on imports of MMT. The Bill was passed by both the House of Commons and the Senate and given Royal assent. Ethyl forced the government, in effect, to cancel a law of the land. Ethyl claimed the embargo violated its rights under NAFTA's Chapter 11, and threatened to prosecute the Canadian government in a NAFTA court. The government's response was to capitulate and reimburse Ethyl for the import ban in an out-of-court settlement.

If NAFTA gives Sun Belt similar rights and power--and it very probably does--the result by 2001 or 2002 could be massive water exports to California from B.C. This would open the floodgates to a wave of water exports to other parts of the U.S. from other provinces, including Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. 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....The provincial governments could make a strong case that the enforced export of their water under NAFTA intrudes directly on important areas of provincial jurisdiction and thus contravenes the division of powers under the Canadian Constitution." The CCPA Monitor, July/August 2000. http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/articles/article242.html

And what does the Leader of the Alliance think on these issues? He will not say! Stockwell Day of the Alliance will not give the Okanagan-Coquihalla constituents the time of his Day for their support. Day will be in the riding only six Days of the campaign. He is so confident of his easy win that he will attend only one all candidates meeting Sept 1,2000 in Summerland sponsored by the Summerland Chamber of Commerce. He will not attend other all candidates' meetings being organized including one sponsored by the Voter's Association in Peachland and another by the Council Of Canadians in Penticton. He is keeping himself away from hard challenges on the issues raised in this letter. It is an act of supreme arrogance to catapult yourself into a riding and then refuse to give the constituents the opportunity to hear debate on the most important issues of the millenium.

Publicity on these issues is necessary. That is why we appeal for your help if you share our concern. We need workers and money to profile these issues and to expose the Day by Day betrayals of Day. Remember, the Alliance are the Liberals on fast forward.

Connie Fogal, President of the Canadian Action Party, Director of the Defence of Canadian Liberty Committee, and a Plaintiff in a lawsuit attacking Canada's violation of our Constitution by Canada's role in the MAI says NAFTA needs to be challenged both legally and politically. The NDP governments of Rae in Ontario and Harcourt in BC started lawsuits to strike down NAFTA on constitutional grounds, but quit after backroom political deals. The NAFTA lawsuits never proceeded. The Defence of Canadian Liberty Committee knows this from Freedom of Information requests it received in the process of putting together its lawsuit against the MAI.

No other political party or candidate in Okanagan Coquihalla is saying KILL NAFTA, nor would they kill NAFTA if they had the opportunity. CAP WILL NOT CAPITULATE!! SUPPORT JACK PEACH!!