Socialist Progressives
Related: About this forumAlarming TPP.. Confidential Letter titled “State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Issues
Please keep this kicked
even though its Canadian in its composure it has world wide implications with this treaty. And that means the US
Here goes:
A secret letter leaked by WikiLeaks on Wednesday reveals that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and Canada Post could be sold under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, being negotiated by Canada and 11 other countries this week in Maui, Hawaii.
The confidential letter, titled, State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Issues for Ministerial Guidance (PDF), reveals the perils Canadas key Crown Corporations now face under the Harper governments burgeoning privatization and trade agenda.
The leaked document was prepared for a TPP Ministerial Meeting held in Singapore in December, 2013. According to the whistle-blowing website, the document indicates a wide-ranging privatisation and globalisation strategy whose main aim is to undermine state-owned enterprises (SOEs) publicly owned corporations whose mandate is to deliver the public good with no or minimal commercial considerations. That will change under the TPP.
Even an SOE that exists to fulfil a public function neglected by the market or which is a natural monopoly would nevertheless be forced to act on the basis of commercial considerations, said WikiLeaks in a press release introducing the leak. Foreign companies would be given standing to sue SOEs in domestic courts for perceived departures from the strictures of the TPP, and countries could even be sued by other TPP countries, or by private companies from those countries.
The Council of Canadians, which leads the Canadian campaign against the TPP and other reckless trade agreements, is concerned that the essence and mandate of both the CBC and Canada Post are being traded away in favour of private corporate profit under the TPP.
The very mission of the CBC telling the bilingual and multicultural story of Canada will be reduced to simple profit making, said Sujata Dey, the Councils trade campaigner. Likewise, Canada Post will no longer function as a nation builder, but as a private company.
Friends of Canadian Broadcasting says Harpers hidden agenda to damage public broadcasting started in November, 2007, when he appointed Hubert Lacroix, a Montreal lawyer and Conservative Party supporter, as the President and CEO of the CBC. In 2014, Lacroix announced that the CBC would lay off between 1,000 and 1,500 employees by 2020. He also announced plans to shut down key in-house production of popular feature documentaries.
Meanwhile, since 2012, the Harper government has slashed the CBCs budget by a quarter of a billion dollars. Garry Neil, the Councils executive director, noted that, due to these cuts, the CBC is already acting too commercially and straying from its essential public service mandate.
Professor Jane Kelsey of the University of Auckland, who analyzed the leaked TPP document, found that the rules being pursued under the TPP go beyond anything in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). She suggested that the document set out a number of obligations, including the requirement by state-owned enterprises to act on the basis of commercial considerations, while abandoning their role of providing the public good.
It looks like SOEs are not allowed to get government support or noncommercial assistance, said Kelsey. That kind of support is often essential for SOEs that provide public functions that are not profitable or are even loss-making.
Kelsey may as well have been referring to Canada in general and Canada Post in particular. The Crown Corporation is on the fast-track to privatization through its ongoing five-year restructuring plan, which has already resulted in job cuts, higher mail prices, and the phasing out of home delivery in numerous communities around the country. The draconian restructuring exercise will rob 1.17 million Canadian households of door-to-door delivery in 2015, according to the CBC News.
A memo obtained by Blackblocks Reporter through an access to information request last year reveals that Harper commissioned a confidential study into the privatization of Canada Post.
There have been other successful privatizations of national post services, the memo said, according to Blackblocks Reporter. To privatize something, one has to show investors they will actually get a return.
Then there is the Canadian Wheat Board, privatized by the government in 2012. The CWB is now owned by G3 Global Grain Group, a Winnipeg-based partnership between U.S. agribusiness giant Bunge Ltd and Saudi Arabias SALIC Canada Limited. According to the CBC News, SALIC Canada Limited is a subsidiary of Riyadh-based Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company, Saudi Arabias main agriculture investment vehicle.
The TPP erects a one size fits all economic system designed to advantage the largest transnational corporations. In this leak we see the radical effects the TPP will have, not only on developing countries, but on states very close to the centre of the Western system, said WikiLeaks founder and editor, Julian Assange. If we are to restructure our societies into an ultra-neoliberal legal and economic bloc that will last for the next 50 years then this should be said openly and debated.
If its signed, the TPP will become the worlds largest economic trade agreement, encompassing more than 40 per cent of the worlds GDP. The 12 parties to the TPP are: United States, Canada, Chile, Australia, Peru, Mexico, Vietnam, Malaysia, New Zealand, Japan, and Singapore. The WikiLeaks document indicates that developing countries such as Vietnam, which employs a large number of SOEs as part of its economic infrastructure, would be affected most.
With the 2015 federal election around the corner, Canadians may as well consider voting to save the CBC and Canada Post.
https://anonyyc.wordpress.com/2015/09/27/55-wikileaks-reveals-cbc-and-canada-post-may-be-sold-under-tpp-agreement/#comments
reprinted with permission
TubbersUK
(1,441 posts)Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)And I use that word in a literal sense, to describe a group of powerful people, plotting, swathed in secrecy, working together to undermine the public good to benefit the wealthy and corporations. Privatizing anything and everything, to enfeeble governments and empower the private sector.
appal_jack
(3,813 posts)K&R.
I expect Hoyt along shortly to assure us that all of this is unfounded hyperbolic paranoia though.
-app
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)We aren't even allowed to discuss the TPP in the national mainstream media. Not one peep allowed.
If the TPP is so valuable and wonderful why is it such a secret?
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)The more supporters of the former, the more harsh the attacks on the latter.
To some, democracy is a gift, to others, an obstacle.
cprise
(8,445 posts)GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)BlueStateLib
(937 posts)While Crown corporations like Canada Post engage in both public and commercial activities, they are distinct from commercial enterprises in that they are designed to serve the public interest, not maximize profit.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)That explains why the republicans and DINO are for it. I wish that the fan clubs could stop swooning long enough to grasp what an abomination this is.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)Ayn Rand lives.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)cpompilo
(323 posts)MynameisBlarney
(2,979 posts)JackInGreen
(2,975 posts)This must NOT pass.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)bunnies
(15,859 posts)Omaha Steve
(103,330 posts)gregcrawford
(2,382 posts)... is a corporate coup d'etat masquerading as a "Trade Deal." It skirts the Constitution's antiquated definition of treason, but it is, nonetheless, treason on the grandest scale ever conceived by the minds of evil men.
It is NAFTA on steroids, and I, for one, will never forgive Obama for supporting it.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Dustlawyer
(10,518 posts)That's where this heads and most are too stupid or greedy to see it! We have already let Democracy slip through our fingers due to ignorance and apathy. Must we cede control of EVERYTHING to the almighty corporation?
PatSeg
(49,694 posts)AzDar
(14,023 posts)99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Wake up, people!
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)Uncle Joe
(60,074 posts)Thanks for the thread, Ichingcarpenter.
historylovr
(1,557 posts)d_legendary1
(2,586 posts)Have countries lose their sovereignty by agreeing to it and simply sue them out of existence! And somehow this is a good thing for a few world leaders including our current leader and a Democratic Candidate.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Food schemes, etc against local, state and national governments without the economic resources they have in the court systems.
Monsanto?............ditto
coal companies......ditto
bbgrunt
(5,281 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)The concept of totalitarianism was first developed in the 1920s by the Weimar German jurist, and later Nazi academic, Carl Schmitt and Italian fascists. Schmitt used the term, Totalstaat in his influential work on the legal basis of an all-powerful state, The Concept of the Political (1927)
But now by the Corporate elite, run by psychopaths have said they don't need the state to run things.in fact the more unstable the state is .. they make more money............they are now beyond the state... Their system is unstable now and they know it which why you see this power grab in this treaty......... written by the elite and hidden to the public. The biggest dynamic of this equation is us...........Power is never given freely it is usually to be taken and when people decide to take power that's when change will happen.
Be sure as hell they are taking power away from your human existence and even deciding the future of this planet without regard to humanity but for greed. And the way things are going.... and you know the way things are going..if we are paying attention... We are in the fight for our posterity, our past, our future and our responsibility as sentient beings, who live a short time on this glorious planet to pay attention and act for the benefit of all humanity and biosphere
I find the US presidential election almost part of side show to what is really going on.....Yes, its important, but not as important of what's going on behind you. ...........And this is going on ahead of you.
You know the media won't discuss this and by ignoring it say its not relevant to your existence......and then its on the fringe, in the back of your minds As If maybe just like a dark night, walking patrol in the 80s in Rendlesham forest.
There is a break away civilization ..... and you are not part of it unless we wake up.
The international banking cartel .......... finances the whole thing.... and then control it...
Prove me wrong.
lostnfound
(16,601 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Don't vote for anyone who supports it even in the most indirect or mealy-mouthed fashion.
In other words, if you don't want the TPP, if you don't want a corporate coup, don't support Hillary. She was in charge at the State Department when this monstrous thing was being written.
We need to renegotiate the agreements we have, not enter into any new ones.
The choice is not between global trade or no global trade.
We don't need these agreements to trade with other countries.
The choice is between self-government or accepting government by the rules set up by the TPP and the corporations that negotiated it.
No to the TPP.
Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)The news still doesn't really talk about TPP at all. Ed Schultz was like the one guy. Crazy. Thanks for the post.
glinda
(14,807 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Like running street lights all night long.
Can you believe people aren't PAYING for that?
Well,....they ARE but nobody's getting rich so that's a problem.