Canadian Government plotting to revive MAI

A leaked Canadian Cabinet document shows that the Canadian Government is 
looking for a mandate to push for a new Multilateral Agreement on 
Investment (MAI) and to make environment a secondary concern to trade 
imperatives.

The confidential document is the final draft of Canada's WTO negotiating 
strategy.

"This document shows without a doubt that the Liberal Government is 
hypocritical in challenging the European Union and the United States for 
harming the Third World", says Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the 
100,000-member Council of Canadians.

"This government's mandate for the WTO negotiations proves that the 
Chretien Government is no friend of developing countries and the 
environment."

Bruce Campbell, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy 
Alternatives says the memorandum is attempting to sell to Cabinet a 
position that completely ignores the negative aspects of globalisation.

"The document repeats assertions about the miraculous power of trade and 
investment liberalisation a la WTO to bring prosperity and cure poverty, as 
if the raging worldwide debate about the malignancies of the current 
globalisation didn't exist; as if the actual economic record of more than 
two decades of globalisation were irrelevant."

The 5th WTO Ministerial Meeting will take place in Cancun, Mexico this 
month.

"Civil society fought and defeated the MAI in 1998, but we then announced 
it was not fully dead and that there would soon be an attempt to resurrect 
it," said David Robbins, trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians.

"Unfortunately, we were right.

"Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew is seeking a mandate from Cabinet, but we 
will see whether he will obtain a mandate from the Canadian people."

While the document acknowledges that developing countries "continue to be 
concerned about taking additional obligations and expresses concerns that 
they are not benefiting from the international rules framework as much as 
they should", Canada refuses to recognise the needs and inequalities of 
developing countries.

It is looking "to work closely with like-minded countries to build support 
of moderate developing countries and to isolate hard-line opponents who do 
not share these objectives", says the document.