[R-G] Canadian Labour Congress: SPP Not About Working Families

[Anthony Fenton]

Copyright 2007 PIMS Canada, Inc., doing business as CCNMatthews
All Rights Reserved
Canadian Corporate Newswire

August 18, 2007 Saturday 9:00 AM EST

LENGTH: 688 words

HEADLINE: REMINDER: SPP Not About Working Families

BODY:


Canadian Labour Congress obtains Access to Information documents

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Aug. 18, 2007) - The Canadian Labour  
Congress wants working people to call their M.P.s and demand they put  
an end to the government's participation in the Security and  
Prosperity Partnership (SPP), a security-centred redrafting of trade  
relations on the continent. Barbara Byers, executive vice-president  
of the Canadian Labour Congress, will make the call while speaking at  
a rally on Parliament Hill on Sunday.

"We have proof to show that the SPP is completely an initiative of  
Canada's top-earning CEOs, and their counterparts in the United  
States and Mexico. This has nothing to do with raising the standard  
of living of working families nor promoting stronger democracies,"  
says Byers showing a stack of documents obtained by the Canadian  
Labour Congress under the federal Access to Information Act.

"If this is really about improving NAFTA for all of us, we would all  
be included in the process. Instead, everything is being done in  
secret, behind closed doors," says Byers.

The Security and Prosperity Partnership, which is often referred to  
as NAFTA on drugs, is at the centre of next week's meeting between  
the leaders of the three countries that belong to the North American  
Free Trade Agreement - Canada, the United States and Mexico.

Included on the agenda of the Montebello meeting between the three  
national leaders is a lobby session with a group of hand-picked CEOs  
from Canada, the United States and Mexico. The ten people chosen to  
speak on Canada's behalf were selected from a list provided by lobby  
groups representing the country' s highest paid businessmen. Making  
the cut for "Team Canada" at the summit: Manulife Financial, Power  
Corporation, Ganong, Suncor Energy, Canadian National Railway,  
Linamar, Bell Canada, Canfor Corporation, Home Depot, and the Bank of  
Nova Scotia.

"They don't speak for Canada. Canadians don't even know who they are.  
Their shareholders did not send them there, so they are there to  
represent nobody but themselves. Private interests holding private  
discussions about their own business with public officials - that's  
lobbying. The Prime Minister might want to give his own  
Accountability Act a read before allowing this meeting to proceed,"  
says Byers, Byers says the federal government has to learn that if it  
wants to pursue new trade deals, it has to do so out in the open,  
where Canadians can see what's going on and have their say. High  
security, top secret, backroom discussions that give access to only a  
few of the wealthiest special interests are doomed to fail.

"Remember the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and the Free  
Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)? They all came flying apart as soon  
as people found out what was really going on. The same thing will  
happen to the SPP unless the process gets opened up," she says.

Byers says that until the big corporate interests and their friends  
in government learn this lesson, summits like the upcoming meeting  
between the Prime Minister and the two Presidents are an insulting  
waste of taxpayers' money.

"Our hard-earned tax dollars are being used to shut us out of a  
public policy decision-making process." Byers adds that Canadians are  
outraged at the double standard being show the small, elite group of  
CEOs who get access to the summit while everyone else is forced to  
stand behind fences and police barricades.

"This is why we are asking people to phone their M.P.s and insist  
they put a stop to the SPP the instant they get back to work in  
Ottawa," concludes Byers . . .

The Canadian Labour Congress, the national voice of the labour  
movement, represents 3.2 million Canadian workers. The CLC brings  
together Canada's national and international unions along with the  
provincial and territorial federations of labour and 136 district  
labour councils. Web site: www.canadianlabour.ca



FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Canadian Labour Congress
Jean Wolff
Director of Communications
613-878-6040
or
Canadian Labour Congress
Jeff Atkinson
Communications
613-863-1413