Harper sneaking out the sellout of Canada

Another in a list of predatory trade deals the Harper government is trying to ram through to protect tar sands development and safeguard corporate profits at the expense of the rest of us

By Emma Pullman –

In just four days the Government of Canada will close its environmental assessment into the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.  Surprised you haven’t heard about it? Harper knows that if the assessment doesn’t find significant environmental impacts, they can just skip producing a draft report altogether and move to the final report, so he’s done everything he can to keep this bad deal out of the press.

This deal is just another in a list of predatory trade deals the Harper government is trying to ram through to protect tar sands development and safeguard corporate profits at the expense of the rest of us. Harper thinks he can sneak this deal past us, but if we flood the process with comments, we can show we’re paying attention.

We’ve made it fast and easy to submit your comment through our form, and there are even talking points on the page to get you started. We need as many of us as possible to write in now, before the comment period closes on Wednesday.

Click here to submit an email to the Canada Trade Agreements Secretariat, and then make sure all your friends and family do too.

Right now corporate lawyers are busy drafting a treaty that Canadians and our own MPs can’t even read! The Harper government is hoping to be able to point to this public consultation as proof the process has been transparent — he will argue that no one is worried about environmental impacts of the TPP and just move forward with no more opportunities for public comment.

The TPP trade deal contains at least 26 chapters that would have a fundamental impact on the environment, the economy, jobs, access to affordable medicines, and much more. The deal will give corporations the right to acquire land, natural resources, and factories without government review, and will allow corporations to be compensated for environmental laws that damage profits.

With just four days to go before the environmental assessment ends, we have a key moment to show the Harper government we’re paying attention.

Can you add your comment now to the Canadian government’s environmental assessment on TPP? We’ve got everything you need to get started.

Look, no one thought we could keep Harper from ratifying the secretive and extreme Canada-China FIPA deal. But so far we have, because nearly 20,000 people from the SumOfUs.org community submitted comments to the environmental assessment. Now the TPP is coming, and in many respects, it could be even worse than FIPA. So let’s use our power to raise the profile of the TPP, like we did FIPA, and stop it in its tracks by flooding the environmental assessment with our comments.