News Release: North Bay — Donald Champagne, President of North Bay Plastic Molders, has denounced the Trans-Pacific Partnership and announced his endorsement of the New Democratic Party as the only choice to oppose the newly concluded trade pact.
“There’s nothing wrong with trade. Our company sells in Australia, Africa, all over the world - without trade agreements, I have to point out. But agreements like the TPP are about engineering access for certain players at the expense of others and eliminating risk for multi-national businesses at the expense of smaller local businesses and of national sovereignty,” Mr. Champagne commented. “They claim that this deal will raise standards for working conditions, environmental rules and all that. Unless the fine print on this deal is very different than anything else these people have negotiated, this deal will open the door for businesses based in slave-wage economies run by governments who have no track record of respecting even their own rules, with no enforceable requirements to meet our labour, environmental or other regulatory standards in their operations. It will tie our government’s hands when it comes to regulating them.”
Kathleen Jodouin, the NDP candidate for Nipissing-Timiskaming, welcomed Mr. Champagne’s endorsement. “Our party has been very clear that free trade only works if it is fair trade,” Jodouin observed. “Fair means that Canadian businesses are not penalised for operating in a country with workplace health and safety laws, environmental standards and the rest of the regulatory systems that ensure quality of life in Canada. Fair means that our national law-making does not become subordinate to the rulings of an unelected, unaccountable international tribunal operating in secrecy, for interests other than those of the Canadian people.”
Jodouin criticized the lack of transparency of negotiations for the agreement, pointing out that it extends far beyond questions of how much trade will pass between nations. “The agreement’s not just about how much yogurt New Zealand gets to sell in Canada, it’s also about patent periods on pharmaceuticals and a long list of other things that affect consumer prices, consumer safety and the ability of governments to govern.”
Donald Champagne, whose company makes products for a number of industries, including mining and geothermal energy, is not concerned that his own business will fail. “We’re a niche outfit with a business model that’s probably going to keep us going,” he says. “But some of the companies we deal with will be badly hurt by this. They don’t have that option and there is no way at all for them to compete with the cost structure and lack of regulation of some Asian economies. Since we signed NAFTA, the biggest increase in exports from Canada has been auto sector jobs going to Mexico, with the other manufacturing sectors not far behind. The TPP is going to make things much worse.”
He added, “I’ve generally voted Conservative. But this government is destroying the country. The only leader who seems to understand what’s going on is Thomas Mulcair, and the only party that cares about jobs is the NDP. I never thought I’d be saying this, but I’ll be voting for the Kathleen Jodouin and the NDP and encouraging everybody I know to do the same.”
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