Secret Deal Breaks Trail for FTAA?
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For two years, Canada has been negotiating a major trade deal; virtually in secret. The lives and livelihoods of millions of people across Central America are at stake in talks this week about the Canada-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CA4FTA). Few Canadians are aware of the existence of this behind-the-scenes bargain.
The CA4FTA sets out terms of liberalized commerce between Canada and Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. Canada's actual trade with these nations is small, but the symbolism of the deal is significant. This deal is a building block for the much disputed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Unlike the CA4FTA negotiations, there has been much public debate around the FTAA. So much so that the negotiations are stalling. Now, the CA4FTA, and other small trade deals, are being used to make a hemispheric agreement by stealth — isolating countries by making trade deals in clusters. After the Quebec City Summit of the Americas in 2001, Canada agreed to release draft texts of the FTAA, seek public consultation and strengthen parliamentary participation in cobbling together an agreement. But our government has not met its own standards for openness in these smaller trade pacts, like the one going on this week. No drafts of the agreement have been made public and no details released to parliamentarians. We do not know what is being done to protect labour, the environment and human rights in the agreement. Those affected by these trade deals have the right to participate in the decisions about their lives. Human rights, food security, worker's rights and women's rights are too important to be kept behind closed doors. Esperanza Moreno Acting President-CEO Canadian Council for International Co-operation Background: Statement on the Proposed Canada-Central America Free Trade Agreement (PDF file, 17pp, 268kb), CCIC, May 2003. |
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