October, 16 2017, 11:30am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Dylan Penner, Media Officer,E-mail:,dpenner@canadians.org
From NAFTA 1.0 to NAFTA 2.0, Council of Canadians' Maude Barlow Outlines a NAFTA Renegotiation Agenda For The Rest Of Us
OTTAWA
NAFTA renegotiations continue today in Arlington, Virginia. To shed light on the issues, the Council of Canadians today released Getting It Right: A People's Guide to NAFTA, by Maude Barlow, its honorary chairperson and veteran NAFTA critic. It explains in plain language what's at stake in the deal for our jobs, our environment, and our democracies.
"The Council of Canadians vigorously opposed NAFTA and its predecessor, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, when they were being negotiated, and we have monitored these agreements and their fallout closely since. Our opinion of NAFTA has not changed, quite the opposite, and we document why here," she writes.
In her report, Barlow evaluates the agreement signed 23 years ago, assesses the proposals on the table from Canada and the U.S., and recommends a path forward for those who want to protect water, jobs, the environment and democracy. In particular, she lays out Canadian progressive trade proposals.
"Progressive voices in Canada that have been highly critical of NAFTA as a tool for corporate interests find ourselves somewhat caught. Labour, environmental, indigenous and social justice groups obviously do not side with the 'Make America Great Again' nationalism of the Trump administration," she says, "At the same time, we are deeply critical of the pro-free trade policies of the Trudeau government and are highly doubtful that it is going to achieve any meaningful results from the renegotiation process unless NAFTA is profoundly changed."
Barlow says the fundamental NAFTA issues that affect us all have been sorely lacking in public debate.
"There is an overload of information circulating on NAFTA renegotiation--on the moods and whims of Trump, the various negotiating strategies, to the different needs of corporate industries in the deal. Very little of it, though, focuses on how the rest of us are impacted. This is a major oversight that I have attempted to correct," explained Barlow.
The report is available on line at: https://canadians.org/publications/getting-it-right-people%E2%80%99s-guide-renegotiating-nafta
For more information on the NAFTA campaign: www.canadians.org/nafta
Founded in 1985, the Council of Canadians is Canada's leading social action organization, mobilizing a network of 60 chapters across the country.
Office: (613) 233-4487, ext. 249LATEST NEWS
Despite 100% Pentagon Audit Failure Rate, House Passes $883.7 Billion NDAA
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Despite the Pentagon's repeated failures to pass audits and various alarming policies, 81 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives voted with 200 Republicans on Wednesday to advance a $883.7 billion annual defense package.
The Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025, unveiled by congressional negotiators this past Saturday, still needs approval from the Senate, which is expected to vote next week. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday that he plans to vote no and spoke out against the military-industrial complex.
The push to pass the NDAA comes as this congressional session winds down and after the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) announced last month that it had failed yet another audit—which several lawmakers highlighted after the Wednesday vote.
Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), co-chairs and co-founders of the Defense Spending Reduction Caucus, said in a joint statement, "Time and time again, Congress seems to be able to find the funds necessary to line the pockets of defense contractors while neglecting the problems everyday Americans face here at home."
"Instead of fighting the rising cost of healthcare, gas, or groceries, this Congress prioritized rewarding the wealthy and well-connected military-industrial complex with even more unaccountable funds," they continued. "After a seventh failed audit in a row, it's disappointing that our amendment to hold the Pentagon accountable by penalizing the DOD's budget by 0.5% for each failed audit was stripped out of the final bill. It's time Congress demanded accountability from the Pentagon."
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Several of the 124 House Democrats who voted against the NDAA cited those "culture war" policies, in addition to concerns about how the Pentagon spends massive amounts of money that could go toward improving lives across the country.
"Once again, Congress has passed a massive military authorization bill that prioritizes endless military spending over the critical needs of American families. This year's NDAA designates $900 billion for military spending," said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), noting the audit failures. "While I recognize the long-overdue 14.5% raise for our lowest-ranking enlisted personnel is important, this bill remains flawed. The bloated military budget continues to take away crucial funding from programs that could help millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet."
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As Omar, a leading critic of the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, also pointed out: "The NDAA includes a provision that blocks the Pentagon from using data on casualties and deaths from the Gaza Ministry of Health or any sources relying on those statistics. This is an alarming erasure of the suffering of the Palestinian people, ignoring the human toll of ongoing violence."
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Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), who voted against the NDAA, directed attention to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), set to be run by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
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Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who also opposed the NDAA, wrote in a Tuesday opinion piece for MSNBC that he looks forward to working with DOGE "to reduce waste and fraud at the Pentagon, while strongly opposing any cuts to programs likeSocial Security, Medicare, the Department of Veterans Affairs, or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau."
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In the 1980s, said Warren corporations began placing the latter group above all, adopting "the belief that their only legitimate and legal purpose was 'maximizing shareholder value.'"
That view was further cemented in 1997 when the Business Roundtable, a lobbying group that represents chief executives across the country, declared that the "principal objective of a business enterprise is to generate economic returns to its owners."
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