I am very pleased to be able to participate in this world parliamentary forum and extend my thanks to our Mexican hosts and Senator Leticia Borgesia in particular for organizing this event. As the Parliamentary Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, I am proud of the political fact that our party has always believed and advocated the idea that, as it says in the declaration of the International Parliamentary Network on the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the WTO, “another economic and trade paradigm is possible, which benefits the majorities of the populations all over the world.” I have been an MP for almost 25 years and unfortunately I have spent almost my whole political life contending against the neo-liberal paradigm.

Indeed, especially since the introduction of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement in 1988 and subsequently the NAFTA, Canada has been the object of an experiment in imposing the ideology of the global corporations and their view of the role of government, i.e. a very limited one, on a Canada with a previously strong public sector and mixed economy. The experiment is not over. Much has been done but much remains to be destroyed and handed over to the private sector, and so much depends on what happens at the WTO. This is why, as a Canadian, I stand before you with a warning in one hand, and an offer of solidarity in the other. We offer you solidarity in building up a new vision of a global economy in which democracy is not threatened, public services are valued and strengthened, access to lifesaving medicines comes before profit, life itself does not become a patented commodity, the environment is protected by Multi-lateral Environment Agreements to which trade is subordinated, and workers rights are treated with the same seriousness as investor rights.

We also offer a warning, born of our own experience, about the paradigm that is being pursued at the WTO, for we have first hand experience of some aspects of this through the NAFTA. Other countries have their own experience of this ideology, encountering various other forms of enforced structural adjustment.

I want to speak most particularly in this context of Chapter Eleven of the NAFTA, in which is found the investor-state dispute settlement provisions that permit corporations, independent of their government’s permission or participation, to sue foreign government for actions that impede their profits.

As the WTO debates whether to proceed with negotiations on the four Singapore issues, the most significant of which is investment, it is critical that all be aware of the dangers of such a provision, for such a provision was intended for the MAI in 1998, and it is on the agenda again. The MAI may be dead, but it threatens to rise again through the WTO.

It would be preferable, of course, that there be no beginning of negotiations on investment, and the developing countries are right to insist that other issues be dealt with before any such negotiations are contemplated. But should there ever be such negotiations it is critical for the North American experience to be taken into account, both Canadian and otherwise as I know that Mexico has also had experience with this investor-state provision.

An investor-state provision is the perfect example of how such agreements threaten democracy and sovereignty. A democratically elected government makes a policy decision in the interests of the local environment, in the interest of preserving a particular resource, or in the interests of protecting or creating a public service, and it has to worry about being sued for whatever loss of profit is alleged to have been created as a result of such measures. This creates a “chill effect” which is much larger than the effect of particular suits. We have seen this in action in Canada, and we appear to be stuck with it in the NAFTA, but this is no reason why it should be spread any further.

I will conclude by saying that I am very concerned about the negotiations going on in the context of the GATS. Here, the object and priorities are clear. The agenda is driven by domestic businesses who want market access to service provision in other countries. In the Canadian context, put bluntly, Canadian businesses want to be able to make more money abroad, and if that means access for others in terms of providing services that are now provided in Canada by the public sector, than that may well be the cost. This is not yet the case, and the Canadian government would have believe that it will never be. But it is clear that private interests would love to have a much larger share of the pie when it comes to health, education, and water, and the GATS is a possible vehicle for such an expansion, all in the name of creating opportunities for Canadians in other countries.

A final note on agriculture. There is a need to find the right balance between getting rid of export subsidies and upholding “multi-functionality.” We in Canada are the victims of export subsidies, but we also want to preserve our right to do things differently. The Canadian Wheat Board and orderly marketing should not be construed as subsidies, as they sometimes are by the US, at the same time as they are heavily subsidizing their own producers in ways that are clearly intended to be, and are, real subsidies.

Thank you Mr. Chairman, for the invitation to speak here today. We Parliamentarians have a tremendous challenge in bringing to the trade table all those more important perspectives which so often get lost in a discussion captive to a certain economic language and limited by the current free market fundamentalism that one hopes is soon to wane. There is more than one kind of fundamentalism to be wary of in the world today. The WTO should be a politically ecumenical cathedral in which political diversity, democratically chosen, is respected instead of slated for elimination by negotiation.