NAFTA should protect people, not profits

KINGSTON – Green Party leader Elizabeth May says recent lawsuits filed against Canada under Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) illustrate very clearly that the agreement is detrimental to Canadian interests and must be renegotiated to protect people and the environment – not corporate profits.

Ms. May won a debate before the Queen's University Debating Society today as she and Mark Levinson, trade expert from the U.S., were viewed to have successfully argued for reopening NAFTA.

"Few Canadians are aware that NAFTA rules allow corporations to sue governments for policies that harm their investments," said Ms. May. "U.S.-based Dow Chemicals filed a two million dollar notice of action against the federal government in August over Quebec's lawn pesticide ban. During the election campaign, we learned that a U.S. businessman is suing the government for disrupting his plans to establish for-profit healthcare facilities in Canada.

"That successive governments in this country can sit back and watch while corporations sue us is unimaginable. NAFTA allows foreign corporations to significantly infringe upon Canada's sovereignty and, as these and other lawsuits show, our public healthcare and capacity to protect the environment are under siege as a result of this flawed trade agreement.

"The Green Party believes that allowing foreign investors to sue Canada for protecting the public interest makes no sense. Safeguarding public health by banning lawn pesticides should not open Canada up to lawsuits from companies that seek to poison, pollute and profit while doing so. Neither is it right that our cherished public healthcare system is threatened by the desire for corporate profits.

"The Greens would welcome working with a new U.S. President to reopen NAFTA to fix its flaws and ensure that the environment, public health and workers' right are protected."