It's about corporate wealth, stupid

[Guest guest]

It's about corporate wealth, stupid

by Dalton Camp

 

These days we are being bombarded by essays,

editorials, columns and voicespeak assuring us

that free trade is the miracle analgesic of our

time, promising prosperity for all, inviting us to

take a number and be patient. There is hardly a

retired foreign service boffin who has not been

heard to offer calming reassurance and to scold

the deranged protesters.

 

The Prime Minister, speaking of the protesters,

has characterized their contrary views as "blah,

blah, blah." My morning paper, the national

edition, is making a heroic effort to explain the

economic wonders of globalization, the road to

which is being paved by FTA, NAFTA, FTAA and the

eager multinationals. In its latest peroration, my

morning paper declared: "Mexico has toughened its

environmental regulations since Canada and the

United States and Mexico formed the free-trade

zone in 1994." Well, I'm far from expert in these

matters. But I did once travel through Texas on a

train, and I have a little "blah, blah, blah" to

add to the blessings free trade is trying to bring

to the Mexican environment.

 

South of the border, down Mexico way, in a small

town in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi, a

California firm - Metalclad - a commercial

purveyor of hazardous wastes, bought an abandoned

dump site nearby. It proposed to expand on the

dumpsite and to haul toxic waste material and

other hazardous stuff and dump it in San Luis

Potosi. The people in the neighbourhood of the

dump site protested. The municipality, using

powers delegated to it by the state, rezoned the

site and forbid Metalclad to extend its land holdi

ngs.

 

Concerned about the potential hazards of the

reopened dump to the local water supply, the state

conducted an environmental impact study. As a

result, it rezoned the property and forbid any

extension of Metalclad's land holdings.

 

Metalclad, under Chapter 11 of the NAFTA, then

sued the Mexican government for damage to its

profit margins and balance sheet as a result of

being treated unequally by the people of San Luis

Potosi. A trade panel, convened in Washington,

agreed with the company. The Mexican government

has since appealed, and, if I may add a little

more "blah, blah, blah," good luck to them.

 

There is no better example for the rising public

anger, concern and unease over globalization, free

trade, and over the NAFTA, than the illustration

provided in the matter of Metalclad vs. the people

of Mexico, and beyond. Nothing has done greater

damage to the environment, potable water and to

public health than the devastating combination of

new industrial border towns and dirt cheap Mexican

labour. Globalization's apologists say this is

about "development." There is overwhelming

evidence it is really about exploitation of the

poor and the powerless.

 

In the small town in San Luis Potosi, there was

once a dump. Then there was no dump. NAFTA (which

includes us) says there has to be a dump, whether

the people in the community want a dump, whether

the municipality wants a dump or the state wants a

dump; NAFTA says you gotta have a dump. Is the

Prime Minister really puzzled about the fact that

a lot of people who haven't read the treaty, and

had never heard of Chapter 11 until yesterday, are

saying that if this is what free trade is about,

then it's nothing they want to root for, believe

in, or, for that matter, vote for. In fact, to

answer our own question: In truth, the government

of Canada is madly lukewarm about Chapter 11.

 

The Americans are devoted to the doctrine of equal

treatment; it's an NRA, John Wayne, James Madison,

General Dynamics, Bill Gates, Knute Rockne,

General Motors kind of thing: If it's not part of

the constitution, it should be (as it applies to

business and good corporate health).

 

The political establishment knows Canada's

society, its health- care system, even its

parliamentary democracy, are endangered by Chapter

11. (After Ethyl corporation sued when the

government banned its gasoline additive as a

health hazard, the government settled "out of

court" to prevent a public spectacle of a

corporation overruling the nation's Parliament.)

The hard truth is this: Chapter 11 was not

enshrined in the NAFTA in order to make a better

world for the people of Canada, any more than for

the people of San Luis Potosi but, instead, for

the corporate folk who own the newspapers,

magazines and the electronic media, as well as

many of the politicans, along with a few

economists. All are now on parade in full marching

regalia, and in full voice, singing for their

supper and for a Chapter 11 for all people of all

nations.

 

Dalton Camp is a political commentator.