by David McLaren
Think 'property.' Now think 'treaty' ... as in those instruments that transferred land from people who belonged to it, to people to whom it then belonged. Pretty good deal for us, not so much for First Nations. (A stony outcropping of land called the Bruce Peninsula was evaluated not so long ago as being worth some $50 billion – just imagine what the rest of Canada is worth.)
Now you're in the proper frame of mind to consider the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). That's the instrument that the Conservatives negotiated and that Parliament has yet to ratify.
The TPP is a massive trade and investment agreement that dwarfs, but does not replace, NAFTA in its scope. It's the rule book for many things: investment (a troubling chapter that allows foreign companies to sue countries if national laws get in the way of corporate profits), textiles and apparel, customs administration, financial services, entry for business persons, telecommunications, electronic commerce, government procurement, intellectual property and more.
Put aside for the moment that the deal takes another bite out of the Canadian market for our dairy farmers. They'll lose some 3% of market share and we'll lose some tax revenue. That loss doesn't count the $4.3 billion worth of compensation promised to dairy farmers or the $1 billion for innovation in the auto industry– if there's one left after the TPP. The benefit of the TPP to the Canadian economy? According to former Trade Minister Ed Fast: $3.5 billion.
And let's not look at the 58,000 lost jobs some economists are forecasting, partly because Japanese cars and trucks will be allowed for sale in Canada with much higher 'foreign content' (parts made outside the country) than previously.
By the way, before the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect, we had a trade surplus in the auto sector of over $14 billion a year. Now, owing to the loss of jobs to Mexico and of business to the Great Recession, we have a deficit of $10 billion. NAFTA was a pretty good deal for Mexico and a posse of trade lawyers, not so much for US and Canadian auto workers. Under the TPP we'll have to accept cars with even more parts that used to be made here, but are now made in Mexico. How's that for free trade?
Let's look at the section of the TPP that deals directly with property – intellectual property or IP. That's Chapter 18. You can find it and the rest of the text of the TPP on Global Affairs Canada's website www.international.gc.ca.
The TPP doesn't replace any other agreement – it adds its own rules to over a dozen other agreements on intellectual property alone, including one under the WTO which, in 2000, forced Canada to change its Patent law with respect to the manufacture of generic drugs.
Chapter 18 sets the ground rules for the IP industry in any country that signs on. And those rules pretty much dictate how nations are to deal with everything from songs on the Internet to prescription drugs to GMOs. It even includes – and First Nations should be aware of this – a section on traditional knowledge, how to acquire it and how to patent it.
Nothing, it seems, has escaped the attention of whomever it was that drafted Chapter 18. It even lays down the law – literally setting out the sort of punishments that we will have to levy against those who violate its terms. If there's a dispute – if a foreign multi-national doesn't like how its being treated – it will go, not to Canadian courts, but to a secretive trade tribunal for arbitration. All this helps to cement corporate control of our economy.
This is no small matter. The IP industry (which include the Googles, and Facebooks and Apples of the world) is the one that's growing, at least in the US. Manufacturing is accounting for less and less of the GDP there, and here. It's no coincidence that the IP rules in the TPP best serve US-based multi-nationals.
"We're a trading nation" as Mr Trudeau likes to say. Well, we export commodities but we import intellectual property and with commodities tanking in a global slow-down, we have to turn our economy toward IP and innovation.
And there's the rub. As Jim Balsillie, the co-founder of the company that gave the world the Blackberry, points out in a recent article for the Globe and Mail, we are not prepared to compete in the IP game and he quotes the data to back up his claim. In general, Canadian companies are not very good at commercializing innovation. The title of his article asks the right question: "Will TPP mean protection – or colonialism?"
In an earlier piece, Mr Balsillie quotes a lead strategist for one of the world's most valuable technology companies: "We don't sue Canadian companies until they start to matter to us. The money is not worth it when they're small and we don't want to look like a bully. We wait until they get big enough, then we go after them. And we kill them."
We would do well to remember the treaties of two centuries ago and think on what we promised and what we took, and do it before we ratify the TPP.
David McLaren is an award-winning writer living on the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario. References are available on request from david.mclaren@utoronto.ca.
