“A trade agreement by a NAFTA member state, namely Canada with the European Union (EU) would inevitably lead to de facto integration of the EU into the trading structures of NAFTA which are controlled by Washington and Wall Street.” – Michel Chossudovsky [1]
“What this treaty does and any treaty of this magnitude does, is literally revert us back to …. the divine rule of kings. The only exception is they’re not on thrones now, they’re in a numbered company that floats around the planet.” – Rocco Galati
“L’état, c’est moi “(The State. It is I) -Louis XIV [2]
It’s been called the most significant trade deal Canada has negotiated since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which was enacted 22 years ago. [3]
The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) was the culmination of seven years of negotiations between Canada and the European Union. [4]
The agreement was to have been signed by the two political entities on October 27th. [5] The proposed deal has sparked opposition, however, from farmers, anti-globalization activists, environmentalists and other members of civil society, particularly in European countries. Throughout September and October, thousands took to the streets to make their opposition known. [6]
In the last week of October, there was some well publicized doubt about whether the agreement would be signed at all. [7] It was the Belgian regional district of Wallonia that proved to be the toughest obstacle. By Thursday however, Wallonia dropped its objections following the inclusion of an addendum to the agreement conceived to safeguard farmers and address concerns about investor protections which would have strengthened multi-national corporations. [8]
Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, was in Brussels for a signing ceremony on Sunday October 30. [9]
Canada’s International Trade Minister and the European Commissioner for Trade have highlighted Canada’s ‘shared values’ with Europe. “If the EU can’t get a trade agreement with liberal, like-minded Canada, who can it get agreements with?” or so the thinking goes.[10][11]
The bi-lateral veneer of the CETA negotiations ignores a very important third agency, namely the United States, who have been pursuing their own trade deal with the EU, namely the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP.)
Professor Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization has revealed through his research that there is more to CETA than meets the eye. He believes that once implemented, CETA will intersect with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to create an integration of the two economic trade zones and provide the core for an Atlantic trading block, with dire consequences for the public in both Europe and North America.
Professor Chossudovsky presents his analysis in the first half hour.
As the high stakes brokering among Canadian and European Trade representatives was taking place, a constitutional challenge of the trade accord was quietly filed at the Federal Court of Canada on Friday, October 21. Two of the plaintiffs, the Honourable Paul Hellyer and Ann Emmett of the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER) spoke at a press conference in Toronto on Tuesday October 25th along with their lawyer Rocco Galati to explain the substance of the legal case against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Her Majesty the Queen of England and other government representatives. We will air audio from that press conference in our second half hour.
VIDEO: Legal Challenge to CETA. The CETA Agreement is Unconstitutional
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Address to the Parliament of Paris; Attr. by weatard-Antoine G, Histoire de Paris (1834), vol.6, p. 298; probably apocryphal; https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Louis_XIV_of_France
ALICJA SIEKIERSKA (July 6, 2016), Globe and Mail, “EXPLAINER: What you need to know about CETA”; http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/what-you-need-to-know-about-ceta/article30764897/
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article.
