investor-state dispute settlement<\/a> (ISDS) from Canadian trade and investment deals. Both parties would cease negotiating any new agreements that included these increasingly controversial corporate rights provisions. Just this month, an ISDS tribunal ruled in favor of a Canadian firm operating in Colombia under a Canadian free trade deal with strong investment protections. The tribunal determined that, although the Colombian government\u2019s efforts to protect a sensitive wetland area from mining were legitimate, the government nonetheless violated the firm\u2019s rights to \u201cfair and equitable treatment.\u201d<\/p>\nUnlike the Greens and the NDP, the Liberals are proposing to expand Canada\u2019s network of investment treaties containing investor-state dispute mechanisms. Deviating from the party line, foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland has expressed concern that ISDS treaties violate nations\u2019 sovereign rights to set strong human rights and environmental standards.<\/p>\n\n \n \n
\n The Trade Reform Debate We Almost Had<\/h2>\n \n
Polls are signaling that the election will produce more of the same \u2014 a relatively strong Liberal minority government with the NDP holding a balance of power. But there is a chance that the Conservative Party, currently in opposition, will be asked to form a minority government of its own.<\/p>\n
It was hard to get any policies aired above the fray of a violent, if small, anti-vaccine campaign that dogged federal leaders, Trudeau in particular. The prime minister\u2019s decision to call an election in the middle of a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections upset many voters and made trust in government the hot button topic of the election.<\/p>\n
The issues of leadership and trust therefore have overshadowed other critical issues such as adequate and affordable housing, climate change, indigenous reconciliation, and yes, international trade. Canada\u2019s two left-of-center parties have put forward some good ideas for progressive trade policies. But in the absence of a more robust debate on trade and international issues, this election cycle has simply punted the problems they pose further into the future.<\/p>\n
Without changes to the way trade is governed, we will be forever hampered in our ability to decarbonize, meet our climate responsibilities, and adopt a more rigorous industrial strategy without fear of carbon leakage or offshoring. Canada must adopt a progressive trade policy so it can aid its own sustainable development needs and those of other countries.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n\n \n
\n \n\n\nThis post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s short, largely unwanted, fourth-wave federal election campaign will come to a head on Monday, September 20. Over the past five weeks, the Justin Trudeau government\u2019s pandemic response, job and housing precarity, and climate change vied with trust in government as top issues for voters. Opposition parties are making connections between these challenges and our [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2063,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317591"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2063"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317591"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317675,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317591\/revisions\/317675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}