Common Ground - November 2010 CETA /Agriculture

Common Ground - November 2010
The fourth round of negotiations over a new trade agreement between Canada and Europe – CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) – took place in Ottawa last month and yet few Canadians have even heard of this trade deal. Many Canadians might expect a trade deal with Europe to be a progressive step forward, but, in this case, the opposite is true. The trade deal threatens to give biotech, pharmaceutical, pesticide and seed and grain companies powerful new tools to force farmers to buy gene-patented seeds at high prices. Worse, it will almost entirely eliminate the rights of farmers to save, reuse, exchange and sell seed.

This so-called bilateral agreement between the European Union and Canada is, in reality, a deal between Canada and the 27 member states of the European Union and, as such, it is hardly bilateral. That being said, the European Commission is negotiating this trade deal on behalf of EU member states and aggressively pushing an extreme right-wing agenda. Coupled with strong Canadian leanings in the same direction, the agreement is providing a platform for our government to bring forward legislation that would likely never pass on its own. Essentially, CETA is a “lets get it in the back door” approach from both sides of the Atlantic. This is exacerbated because the negotiation process is semi-secret where the “parties” have agreed not to disclose the content of the text while negotiations are in progress.

The National Farmers Union was able to obtain a leaked draft text