In his weekly rant on CBC Tuesday night, Mercer cast the deal — signed during a trade mission to Russia, with no parliamentary involvement — as the sort of cloak-and-dagger politics you’d expect to see in a spy thriller or a nefarious dictatorship. “Is this a scene from the latest Bond movie? Sadly no, it is the further adventures of Stephen Harper,” Mercer said. “Who is this guy? Since when do Canadian prime ministers sign secret agreements with the Chinese in Russia? Was Dr. Evil there? Was there a naked lady painted entirely in gold?” The Harper government signed the China-Canada Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement in September. Activist groups and opposition leaders have been arguing against the deal. NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said he would do all he can to withdraw Canada from the deal if it proved not to be a benefit to the country, prompting Prime Minister Stephen Harper to refer to Mulcair as an “extremist.” The Council of Canadians has called the deal a “corporate rights pact” because it would lead to lawsuits that would force Canada to weaken its environmental regulations. It called on Canada to follow Australia’s example and stop negotiating these sorts of clauses into trade agreements. Gus Van Harten, an investment law expert at Osgoode Hall Law School, told the CBC Canadians will assume “more of the risks and more of the constraints” of the trade deal than their Chinese counterparts. He said Canadians gained neither investor protection nor market access through the deal.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 13:25:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015