Theresa May is in Canada to cook up more toxic trade deals
Date: 18 September 2017
Responding to the news that Theresa May was in Canada to discuss post-Brexit trade with the Candian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Jean Blaylock, a trade campaigner with Global Justice Now said:
“The current trade deal between the EU and Canada is a good example of how secretive toxic trade deals are stacked in favour of corporations at the expense of consumer standards, the environment and labour rights. But a post-Brexit trade deal with Canada could end up even worse if Theresa May and the government continue their approach to making such deals with the same degree of secrecy and lack of parliamentary oversight.
“CETA, the trade deal between the EU and Canada, was cooked up behind closed doors and then pushed through the EU with extremely limited input or oversight from our elected representatives. And as a result, this trade deal contains all sorts of benefits and new legal powers for corporations, but has all sorts of threats to labour laws, consumer standards and the environment.
“However flawed and problematic the political process was in the EU for negotiating such trade deals, the current process that we are seeing in the UK is even more secretive and is set to almost entirely bypass any parliamentary scrutiny. When the Trade Bill is eventually on the table, we need to make sure that there is proper democratic oversight and accountability of these trade deals so that the UK isn’t being aggressively pushed down the path of free-market fundamentalism by the likes of May and international trade secretary Liam Fox.”
Sixty eight MPs have currently signed EDM 128 calling for parliamentary scrutiny of trade deals.
TAKE ACTION >> Call on your MP to sign the EDM calling for trade democracy
More info:
How Brexit will make UK trade deals less democratic and what to do about it
CETA: TTIP’s ugly brother
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