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| Trade and the Economy By Louis Erlichman Canadian Research Director |
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| The first major policy statement presented and endorsed by the 2002 CLC Convention analyzes the corporate neo-liberal agenda, which has dominated the world economy for the last couple of decades. While the trade deals and organizations, like the Canada/U.S. Free Trade deal of 1988 (FTA), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1993 and the World Trade Organization (WTO) set up in 1995, have been and continue to be the most visible elements of this movement, the program goes well beyond a simple reduction of international trade barriers. The corporate goal is to continue to weaken governments on all fronts and give more and more power to “market forces”, which means more and more power to the dominating forces in the market – corporations. Corporate-dominated governments and their shills promote this program by claiming that freeing markets stimulates economic growth and makes everyone better off. The CLC policy statement lays out the overwhelming evidence that this has proven to be a false promise. In Canada, our overall economic performance over the last two decades has been weak. Through the 1990s, our economic growth and unemployment levels were at their highest levels since the 1930s, and inequality and poverty have grown. Family incomes have not kept pace with inflation and the attack on the public sector has cut important social benefits like unemployment insurance, welfare and medicare, at particular cost to the poor. Employment has become increasingly insecure – part-time, casual and contingent. Around the world, the “free market” era, enforced by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, has created successive economic crises and sharply increased inequality. After dissecting the trade deals, the CLC policy statement lays down the basic outlines of a program to stop the corporate juggernaut, building on research and education, and working with our partners like the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the NDP and other social allies in Canada and worldwide. A priority will be to stop the expansion of the WTO process through the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which would lead to further destruction of our public services and the erosion of our ability to regulate to protect health, environmental and other public interests. In the longer run, the policy statement says that we need to replace the WTO with a much more democratic, balanced and accountable organization under the auspices of the United Nations. The NAFTA must be renegotiated, to bring it back to its original, and still unmet purpose, of opening trade on a fair basis. We must do away with the other, destructive, elements of the NAFTA – including investor rights provisions that prevent us from protecting our health and environment, and a U.S.-dominated energy policy. The statement also opposes a move to the U.S. dollar, which would be the final death knell of our economic sovereignty. It’s an ambitious program, but, as the statement makes very clear, we have no other option. |
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