Correction Andrew: It is not

Correction Andrew: It is not "cheap stuff" that comes from China that floods our markets.

It is not cheap, but more expensive on the long run.

There's no such thing as "cheap". The only thing that our fraudulent economic system does is to transfer the real costs on others and the environment by fraudulent, imaginary monetary figures.

When businesses are ruined and workers displaced here on account of the "cheap" products imported from China, or India with its 15 million slave labour kids, it is the displaced workers, the slave labourers and the destruction caused by the tar sands bitumen that pay the real costs.

Costs can not be cut, only transferred. The lowest real cost will always be enforced physical efficiency and not imaginary monetary figures taken from the air to enslave humanity.

Ed Deak.

The scariest thing

about this deal is it will then apply to the US as well. NAFTA has a favoured nation clause that means all the goodies for Chinese corporations will also flow to the Wall Street cabal that controls most of our resources.

The real problem is foreign control not whether it is a state run enterprise or a Wall Street hedge fund. The idea that some predatory capitalists are evil but not the biggest capitalist predators to the south of us would be funny if it was not so dangerous.

When will Canadians get a party to vote for that says it is going to try to disentangle our economy from these corporate rights agreements and begin making decisions in Canada for the benefit of Canadians.

What Canada needs is to take control of our own destiny not allow foreigners to make all the important decisions.

The rug is being pulled out from under Canadians,

while the wool is pulled over their eyes!

How long will this last before Canadians step up and say no to Herr Harper?

Harper is only a low brow

Harper is only a low brow result of university miseducation, enslaving and destroying the world with imaginary beliefs, called monetary economics.

Not much point in complaining about the results and products without questioning the origins of the fraudulent "faiths".

Ed Deak.

It's a free country,

Now I know what this really means as the world's corporations and state controlled oil companies line up to get our natural resources. We've been giving them away for next to nothing for years now ( you know what I'm talking about Alberta ) and this FIPA agreement with China will lock us in for a minimum of 16 years before any possibility of cancellation. Thanks a lot Chairman Harper for selling Canadians out and making us energy slaves. With ratification, this agreement guarantees that the pipeline to Kitimat will be built with the resultant oil tankers. All this and more with no debate in parliament, no consultations with the provinces and territories and barely a peep in the MSM. So long democracy in Canada it's been nice knowing you.

Who Cares

As far as i'm concerned this is a irrelevant and non-binding as it contravenes our charter of rights and is signed by a traitor. If I was in government I just wouldn't recognize this trade deal as legitimate. But then again I would nationalize the whole of extraction resources and give them to the communities and workers in which they operate while creating a nationalized hub for sale much like the Saskatchewan wheat board that was dismantled. And then I would probably be shot by the corporate fascists.

Harper could learn....

Harper could learn a lot from China, like having state owned companies that go after Canadian resources then sell the finished products to the highest bidder like maybe China.
Seems China has lots of cash to buy oil and coal etc.
Harper hire a few good managers and start mining.
Hire my brother, he left for Texas to design oil refineries some 30 years ago. We need guys like my brother to come back to Canada a run owr own state owned companies...

NDP is against Canada -China Treaty until all facts are known

Here is an excerpt from an email I received from MP Thomas Mulcair-
" That is why the NDP is putting forward another motion at the House of Commons International Trade Committee to conduct a full study on this deal and, importantly, to call on the government to postpone ratification of this agreement until we have heard from a broad cross-section of witnesses."

" We are asking for your help in making this happen. Please write the Conservative members of the International Trade committee and ask them to join the call for postponing ratification and support the motion to study the treaty."

" NDP International Trade Critic Don Davies' motion will be debated on Thursday, October 25. To read his motion in full and to see other actions the NDP has taken on the FIPA issue, click here: http://www.dondavies.ca/canada-china-fipa/ "

" WHAT CAN YOU DO? "

" Write to the Conservative MP's who are members of The Standing Committee on International Trade and urge them to support the motion:"

Rob Merrifield

Ron Cannan

Russ Hiebert

Ed Holder

Gerald Keddy

Bev Shipley

Devinder Shory

"Again, I appreciate this opportunity to update you on our efforts to ensure that all trade deals are done in the best interests of Canadians."

Sincerely,

Thomas Mulcair, M.P. (Outremont)
Leader of the Official Opposition
New Democratic Party of Canada

great post, EcoCollectivist

We need a national non-recognition policy when it comes to The Chairman.

There is absolutely no evidence that he is representing us.

There is much evidence he is representing others.

would we

Be so upset if the deal was with the Excited States instead of with China?
Not long ago there was great excitement and glee at the announcement Target was coming to Vancouver. Canadian publishers are withering because of "deals" made by US companies...the list goes on and on and on and on and every weekend long lines of fools and idiots head over the 49th for "cross border shopping", thus depriving their own country of the taxes and their own local stores of the income...taxes go to support health care and the fools and idiots really want that but still they give their munny to a country not their own...strange...very strange...

We didn't seem to see much wrong when US forest companies came up here to over-cut their quota and denude this Island...we sat passive while Royal City foods was crippled...I couldn't find any grown in BC potatoes in the SuperStore but plenty from Idaho and Oregon...examine the labels on the food in your cupboards, how much is produced here and how much is from USA?

There is no substantive difference between "communism" and "capitalism", folks. There is no such thing as "free enterprise",the game is rigged from the get-go.

But ohmigawd, it's China and they don't look like us! And so, suddenly, we're noticing that we cannot call our resources our own!!

Ed isn't talking through his hat. He's been there, survived that and is the first person who ever managed to explain "economics" to me.

We've been had! We're being had! We will be had in future! ALL political parties are complicit.

Now watch the trolls jump up and say I'm anti-american and overstating and cynical and bitter and...

just because I'm paranoid it doesn't mean I'm wrong!

Has everyone sent their letters?

The Standing Committee on International Trade
needs to hear from you.
See Arabrab and do it. It's better than hand-wringing.

Done!

Done!

This article and previous

This article and previous ones like this, is why I keep harping (yes, pun intended) on why Chairman Steve and the whole Conservative caucus should be charged with treason.

Letters sent,

Thanks for reminding us arabrab. I don't believe this is a discussion about race if that's what you meant anne cameron, I am against all of these so called free trade agreements that amount to a transfer of wealth to the 0.01%. Ed Deak says it so well when he points out that it is all about efficiency and using the least amount of energy. Van Isle has it right when he says that Chairman Harper is a traitor to this country. Where are all the libertarian/ free marketers voices in this thread, I take it that you are as appalled as the rest of us over this deal.
.

Human Beings are profoundly stupid

Human Beings are perhaps the most stupid organism on the planet. While we are smart enough to understand that we are propelling ourselves toward global extinction, for some bizarre reason we are not smart enough to put a halt to it. Argue about your tar and who owns it, the more important and logical issue is why destroy the entire planet so folks can drive around in a Ram 450000000 MEGA HEMI MAXI CAB.

Harper is no libertarian

He's a corporatist. He is Statist. These so called Free Trade Agreements are managed trade and are anything but "free". They are corporate bills of rights.

A libertarian would get us out of all trade agreements starting with the WTO.

This one is being managed in secret and will have secret arbitration to settle disagreements because the Communist Party oligarchs don't want the public to have access to the information of who owns what.

BC rejected a FIPA-esque deal in '98

According to a BC legislative study conducted in 1998, deals like FIPA threaten provincial governance in issues of environment, First Nations rights, natural resources and human and labour rights.

Gus Van Harten unearthed the old study this week: http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/10/25/rush-ratify-bc-rejected-international-investment-deal-98-and-should-do-so-again

Wake up! Capitalism / free markets vs communism is a dead issue

I wish contributors would stop looking at the world through spectacles that only allow one to see things as they were in the early 20th c. Self-regulating or real free market capitalism existed in a close to pure form in mid 19th c. Britain and nowhere else ever. Even in that form market capitalism necessarily reproduced class inequality and thus inequality of opportunity and was also inclined to grow infinitely inside an ecosystem with finite limits. State economic policies designed to support substantial capitalist market regulation kept capitalism alive despite the increasing presence of oligopolistic corporations which were increasingly required to produce heavy and complex producer and consumer durables until the 1920s. However, no policies designed to support market regulation proved capable of reviving capitalism after the stock market crash. Thus, The Great Depression. Whatever economy you see today anywhere it ain't capitalism. As for communism, it means different things to different people even to different anarchists. Ed Deak may be anti-communist ; many anarchists are anarcho-communists.Unlike self-regulating and self-defining capitalism, communism is controlled democratically or otherwise by humans not by a self-regulating market so it can be many, many things, both good and bad. Did communism fail in the USSR? Depends on how you define communism. Suggest you all raise your economic and political literacy. Find new terminology to describe economic systems today which are obviously not capitalist and in my view not communist either.

Hey John, the economic system

Hey John, the economic system we have is 'Corporatism' but it's disguised as capitalism.

The only thing in China that

The only thing in China that is communist is the name of their Government but they're not even close in Communist ideology. Their Government is ruthless bunch of dictators who don't give a rats-ass about their people. I still believe that there is going to be a bloody revolution in the not too distant future cuz their whole economic system is imploding too. The peasants are are getting fed-up.

John....I grew up and was

John....I grew up and was brainwashed from childhood as an ultra conservative fascist, with the God given rights of ruling classes.

My family hated Hitler in neighbouring Germany, not for his theories and actions, but because he wasn't and aristocrat, therefore had no right to rule, because he wasn't blessed by God.

I woke up at 18 in a primitive field hospital, holding the legs of about 100 victims as they were being amputated and reamputated. The vast majority not on account of any heroic actions in battle, but because of frostbites, accidents, landmines.

My mother was arrested on four occasions by the secret police and tortured, trying to find out how I got to England and what was I doing there? Luckily, she didn't know. Ultimately she ended up in England too, tortured by the worst case of homesickness for the remaining 37 years of her life.

My uncle was jailed for 15 years for having been involved in the fighting of communist takeover in 1919. Many of my friends have disappeared in the nights, without any trace. The real side of communism.

Its brother twin, capitalism, hasn't reached the same intellectual, democratic level yet.

My second waking up happened when I was recruited by the British govt. and spent some years at Cambridge, officially as a farmworker. Received Brit. citizenship and a new legal name.

That was my first contact with democracy and individual freedom, at the age of 21. Got hooked for life, because I have seen the other side, regardless what flag they were and are waving.

Definitely not an anarchist, the only "isms" I spent my life supporting are "humanism", "environmentalism" and "sustainbility".

Even at my age I'm still and incurable optimist and expect to see a worldwide awakening before I croak.

As a lifelong student of history and the causes of its idiocies, I know that human awakening has happened many times before and will happen again.

Nothing is lost until we give up. I can show you 2 bent cartridges, where a Russian sniper shot me in the stomach, bu it ricocheted off my own cartridge belt. I'm still here, but he hasn't been for 67 years.

Dum spiro spero.

Cheers Ed.

ruthschris

The link to the Report of the Select Standing Committee on the MAI is here: http://www.llbc.leg.bc.ca/public/pubdocs/bcdocs/326953/firstreport.pdf

important document and tool to fight FIPA with

ruthchris, thanks for that link. For those who haven't seen it - it includes a video of Elizabeth May's speech in Parliament....a historic one. She was given all of ONE minute to educate the House on FIPA. She did it well. But we now know how far this country has fallen - only one bloody minute afforded to democracy!

Skywalker, that link to that report is invaluable.

(It should be known that that multi-party Committee to investigate the ramifications of MAI ( a FIPA-like agreement) was formed under the premiership of Glen Clark...he gets so little credit for standing up for the people of this province...but he surely did there... as well as in Nanoose etc.)

(That kind of oversight must have been viewed as a threat by the globalists...and reveals, to me at least, how one little insignificant deck mushroomed into titanic proportions.)

The Committee recommended against acceptance of the agreement (MAI) and provided 22 recommendations.

Anyway, these are my questions:

If Christie is not going to stand up for us - Why can't we as citizens challenge the constitutionality of FIPA?

Quote:

"It must be emphasized that provincial
governments are not simply another set of
~stakeholders” to be consulted by the federal
government en route to treaty signature and
implementation. Under the Canadian constitution, the federal government is incapable of unilaterally implementing international treaty obligations in areas that fall within provincial jurisdiction. Nor is it acceptable for the federal government to use its treaty-making power to do an end run around the federal-provincial division of powers or in a way that diminishes Canadian federalism and democracy."

One more question: Someone on one of these threads (sorry, I can't remember exactly who) mentioned the possibility that our provincial rights in regard to this agreement may have already been signed away without our knowledge. I think Ms. Clark should be asked that question....It's a simple answer. Yes...or No?

way more serious problems

CKNW a show I usually listen to for right wing lolz had on an international relations lawyer who examined this deal and said no country in their right mind should sign it.

Due to new international law Chinese companies would be able to sue our government for not enabling their pipelines, and there's nothing we can do about it. There's a dozen or so other legal reasons on how we will be utterly screwed for the next 30 years, prevented by international law from even protesting anything they are doing. This is a lot more serious than 'they are communists, we shouldn't support them' this is a direct challenge to our sovereignty by the legal nightmare we allowed copyright lawyers and diplomats to create. Does Harper not realize this? Is he insane?

Treaty Making vs. Treaty Implementation

Indeed, the Federal Crown can enter into treaties - even by Cabinet decree/order in council - even without approval of Parliament.

But implementation of said Treaty is another story - and it requires a formal legal process, namely, the formulation and passage of legislation to implement the Treaty.

If the Treaty strays into areas that are clearly and solely provincial constitutional jurisdiction then the Provinces must pass provincial legislation to implement the treaty and if they don't then the federal treaty cannot be implemented in areas that are clearly a Province's constitutional jurisdiction.

However if the Treaty concerns constitutional subject matters that fall within the constitutional competency of BOTH the Province(s) and the federal Crown to pass implementing legislation - then the constitutional doctrine of paramountcy is applied -- and essentially the Federal legislation prevails over any Provincial legislation.

The big problem these days, is that Harper is seeking to expand Federal executive power, relying more on convention and political practice than on law; and secondly, I am certain he is trying to enhance federal constitutional powers (especially in regards to the environment) by enhancing the meaning and jurisdictional power of the POGG (Peace Order Good Government) powers of the constitution.

At this point, I see no Province standing up to Harper's re-making of Canada - and imo CClark is a MOST unlikely to do so.

So, unless there is a successful injunction, the Canada-China treaty will come into effect- but to what extent it will be implemented against the Provinces remains to be seen.

He realizes it. He is not insane.

He is a ruthless ideologue. He will destroy this country (what's left of it) IF we continue to let him.

STOP HARPER.

Harper realizes it alright.

It's their path to profit.

This trade deal is totally

This trade deal is totally bogus.

It is a challenge, not only to our LEGISLATIVE system, as there is no parliamentary debate on the deal before it is officially ratified, but...

At least Brian Mulroney made the FTA (child's play compared to this trade deal) PUBLIC and a centrepiece of his election platform (he split the opposition NDP and Libs to win on that one.)

Not the Harper boys. Released the document, with about a month to respond and accept, annexes missing and other chunks so obnoxious, worst of invisibility, "Smoke and Mirrors" theme.

Nov. 1, (All Saints Day) 2012, for a duration of 15 or possibly, 30 years.

We just never got the dates, correct. The Mayan "Great Change", anticipated this winter solstice

But it's not just the legislative branch ignored, the JUDICIAL system is much threatened all the way up.

Given the power of secret, mostly non-Canadian tribunals, to impose heavy penalties regarding a wide variety of national, regional and other governance activities, what will our courts be able to do.

Even the Supreme Court of Canada, in the best interests of Canadians as a whole, may be handcuffed by the legal text of this trade deal.

That leaves the EXECUTIVE branch, essentially the PMO and departmental communications to other branches. "Hi mista H and the boys"

Not good, lends itself to dominating procedures by one branch. Montesque, way back when, insisted on all 3 branches' having relatively equal governing powers.

We won't get into mainstream info here.

Sideline omissions

Oh yeah, Any of you folks attend/enjoy the various Wed. pipe and tanker, lunch time protests.

Groups dissipated as people returned to work or school, but many others, demonstraters or not, also contributed.

How much media was there?

Was great, but we need more, much more, and very quickly, (near impossible, but...), nation wide.

Such a "deal" absolutely requires more public and legal debate and consensus before committing to such long term .

Perhaps this ongoing, ramrodding of omnibus legislation is numbing, but oppositional pressure must not slow.

Drones will dominate befoe $28B. F35s get on the tarmack, war ships twice the expenditure of coast guard vessels. And no money for what?

Truly odd. "Arctic sovereingnhty" while one sells fuel and its long term rights to a nation that will use about 50% of that same fuel for its' own military and other "Arctic influence". Forget Romney's Russians, this one's big,

China

Canadians may be justified in rejecting Harper's China purchases of Canadian resources. However, the China bashing that's going on is unnecessary and destructive. ("Cheap" Chinese products, "slave labour," and so on.) Having just returned from a 4th visit to China, this time having visited Urumqi and Korla in Xinjiang and other places in Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, as well as Beijing, I find this sort of comment about China, however well-intentioned from a Canadian national pov, both incorrect as a characterization of China and offensive from the point of view of global understanding. What looks to us like slave labour and cheap products coming into Canada are, from a different perspective, the results of a fairly progressive and forward-looking Chinese government (yes, authoritarian but possibly with good reason given the size and pace of change) trying to cope with challenges to social stability, including food production and distribution, cultural diversity and industrial growth, for an enormous population. For a better understanding of what's happening on the ground in China, your readers might look to Peter Hessler's books Oracle Bones and Country Driving: A Journey.

Harper may not be insane, but

Harper may not be insane, but he is a psychotic mental case, with mental illness written all over his face and actions. Any independent psychiatrist could write a book on him.
\
His handlers must have put glasses on him to cover his eyes, the way they've changed Manning's glasses and wardrobe. .

As I wrote many times in the past 20 years, since I first saw his picture as one of Manning's right hand men, I have seen those eyes under Totenkopf and Red Star caps and they've been giving me the creeps ever since.

When he got his majority, I expected him to go crazy with power and gave him 2 years before he is forced out. Hopefully without any violence, just into a string of directorships with his beloved corporate mafia.

From the psychological angle, people have been brainwashed for generations to accept the word "conservative" as beneficial, individualistic, freedom loving, etc. and this is why they're voting for any party using it, regardless of what they stand for.

The way the nazis fought for " Freedom, Christianity and Western civilization", or the still going "Democratic Peoples Republics", where the people have nothing to say.

The problem is that our opposition parties don't have the guts, or imagination, to fight the crooks by pointing out who or what they really are.

Ed Deak.

We are being set up for the ultimate betrayal

Canada is in a position of massive vulnerability. The all consuming US machine to the south, Vlad the Putinator to the north, China poised to penetrate our rear guard via the world courts and the wizard of oz behind the curtain of majority sporting a huge little boner.

Our population is concentrated in the south along the present border while the interior and north of the country is being prepped for massively invasive surgery via fracking, above & underground mining, re-routing, damming & pollution of our rivers, etc etc. We all have some idea of the abuses that are being perpetrated on our mother while we stand by waiting for the next episode of whatever it is that people watch these days.

Who then do we expect to come to our rescue when the "market" gives it's blessing to the appropriation of the treasures that lie under the crust?

I was dreaming of chin straps the other night - straps holding helmets filled with expressionless faces behind plastic shields. They may be private security apes or they might just have a maple leaf sewn on their uniforms, but any way you dress 'em up, they will be coming before too long. We are so ripe for the plucking!

OwlRoll makes an important observation about the symbolic date for the agreements implementation "All Saints Day." The wizard fancies himself in that league.

We need to be in the streets, publicly voicing our strong disapproval and outrage! If we don't scream about it now, the screaming will take on a more haunting tone before we know what hit us.. then hits us again and again.

David
Victoria VI

I forgot to mention the Europeans

No CETA, No FIPPA, No Harper!

Compliciity

It's important to not overlook the significance of Gus Van Harten's letter to Christy Clark - she can now never say that she wasn't warned.

And what she does or doesn't do will come with great consequence to this country... and also, yes, to herself, as premier of this province.

I am not foolish enough to believe she will act in the interests of this province, or this country - her government's record speaks for itself.

But, if she now doesn't act to stop the ratification of this bill - then as a leader forewarned she implicates herself in the facilitation of the subterfuge.....

As do all the members of The Standing Committee on International Trade. Our letters to them clearly forewarn of our concern as to the dire consequences of this agreement. I am also not foolish enough to believe that they will act to stop the ratification either.

But none of them can now say they were not warned of the dire consequences of ratification.

And that is important.

What they all did or did not do in regard to that warning is important.

And one victorious day that fact will be important when it comes to accountability.

A dictator doesn't just happen, he... or she is facilitated by the willing.

Lynn....With my experience

Lynn....With my experience under and my lifelong fight against dictatorships, I can cover the reasons why people are willing to submit themselves and their families to the worst kind with one word:

"FAITH"

The 3 governing and ruling sectors in history have always been the same:

1. The MERCHANTS. Now called multinational corporations, who invent the demands for wealth taking. Not "creation", but taking, because wealth can not be created.

2. The PRIESTHOODS who invent the theories to force and cajole people to submit to the demands of the rulers. Now called "economists", who are always using imaginary theories and values to justify the demands of the rulers, like today's imaginary money and monetary values, used as forms of sacraments.

3. The MILITARY, who will serve any ruler, as long as they can justify their actions, based on the demands of the merchants and the theories of the priests, and are promised absolution for their crimes.

That's it. The history of the world in a few words.

Ed Deak.

Northern Gateway Drug

Is Northern Gateway the acid-test for this dangerous China-Canada trade and investment deal? One more reason to stop it if it is.

It seems plain that this trade deal will run smack into the Canadian Constitution so the question really is: what happens if China tries to sue because development of their investment is impeded or halted under the Constitution? The situation seems imminent because BC First Nations have promised to halt the pipeline under authority of their Supreme Court-affirmed Constitutional right to negotiated treaties. Can China trump the Constitution? It seems crazy to have to debate such a notion. Most people would recognize that national sovereignty is paramount and sacrosanct. Yet when privateering interests try to do an end run around Canadian national sovereignty, with the Harper government quarterbacking the drive, the strategic urgency seems drowned out by the other complexities, environmental, economic, social, political, etc.

It would seem the issue is clear cut: if this trade deal even attempts to trump the Canadian Constitution, it is an attack on Canadian sovereignty. How come nobody's seeking a court injunction? Should be a slam dunk, No?

Maybe Stephen Harper and the privateers he represents only appear too seriously baked on budumen to comprehend their own subversion but the high functionality they display by their evasiveness and secrecy suggests more purposeful tripping, the kind of clever realism of a drug addicted pimp hooked on his own shit, ever too small to dance with the strategic heavyweights around the Golden Triangle of tar, resigned to the level of street pusher, psychopathically self-interested, empathetically estranged but rewarded with a steady supply. Sweet stuff makes you think being handed around the clubhouse is dope, I guess. Theses guys need an intervention.

Responses

Below is a link to a recent G & M opinion piece trying to sell the Canada China deal. Check out the comments. People are waking up to this issue and now that it's in the public domain they are crying foul.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/canada-china-investment-treaty-evidence-doesnt-support-doomsayers/article4665002/