This month, Wikileaks released a chapter from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, giving us more insight into this secret trade deal.
This deal could limit our ability to protect ourselves against corporations, be detrimental to our health, and limit our Internet freedom.
The TPP is a massive trade agreement between 12 countries, including Canada, that would encompass around 40 per cent of the global economy.
A number of NGOs and advocacy groups have criticised this agreement because 24 of the 29 chapters in the agreement are supposedly not about trade.
The most frightening thing about the TPP is that it is completely stacked in favour of corporations.
This is a deal that has been secretive; only select officials are allowed to attend the talks, meaning that most of our members of Parliament don't know what’s in the deal. Corporations, on the other hand, have front row seats to the negotiating table.
Between 500-700 multinational corporations are estimated to be involved in the trade talks.
One of the most dangerous provisions in the TPP is the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS).
It allows corporations to sue governments for loss of profits, even if the government was acting to protect health or the environment.
The ISDS isn’t anything new, it was written into Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which came back to haunt Canada this September when an American pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly, filed a $500 million lawsuit against the government over drug patents.
Federal courts denied patents on two of the companies drugs because they didn’t meet Canadian standards and didn’t do what they promised they would.
However, Eli Lilly argues this violates its rights as an investor. ISDS is also a part of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive
Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) that was singed last month, giving more companies the opportunity to sue us.
If the government of Canada allows this clause to be included within the TPP, the floodgates will open to many more of these disputes.
Although there are a number of ways the TPP can impact our health, the most worrying are the patent protection clauses.
The United States is trying to push through provisions that would extend patent terms, and weaken patent standards, essentially allowing pharmaceutical companies to hold a monopoly over medicines and restrict access to care for many people around the world.
If the Canadian government agrees to these provisions our medicine prices would go up, and our ability to stop the spread of life-threatening diseases like HIV/AIDS would be made even more difficult.
A lot of these patent provisions apply to biologicals, meaning that a lot of cancer treatments would also be a target.
Considering cancer is the leading cause of death in Canada, affecting about 30 per cent of the population, we should be worried about these provisions.
The good news is that Canada has joined New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore and Chile, in fighting back against the damaging American provisions, with a counter proposal that better reflects public health needs. We just have to make sure our government doesn’t back down on this.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. is another thing to worry about.
It was defeated because of public outcry deeming it a huge infringement on freedom of speech.
Speculation that SOPA has been re-written into the TPP was confirmed with the release of the Intellectual Property Rights chapter by Wikileaks.
The U.S. is looking to push through lengthy copyright terms and laws that could criminalize things such as small scale downloading.
Although Canada’s Copyright Act Bill C-11 has been compared to SOPA, it doesn’t go as far.
If signed, many of these provisions would have to go through the federal and provincial governments before being ratified, presenting the opportunity to stop some of the more controversial aspects of the deal.
But we’ve only been given a glimpse of the TPP, there’s so much more we’re not even aware of.
There are also many things that might not have to go through legislation. They’re hiding something because they know we’re not going to like it.
Canadians need to demand transparency now, so at least we know what we have to fight for.