VSHA Humanist CafeWednesday, November 4, 7 - 8:30 pm
James Bay New Horizons 
234 Menzies Street, James Bay 

Topic: The TPP Is The End Of National Sovereignty: Will a newly elected Liberal government ratify it?

Presenter:  Alan Danesh, Camosun College professor emeritus
Moderator: John Pope

 

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed trade agreement among twelve Pacific Rim countries concerning a variety of matters of economic policy, about which agreement was reached on 5 October 2015 after 7 years of negotiations.

The leaked texts provide stark warnings about the dangers of
“trade” negotiations which have been conducted without press, public, or policy-maker oversight. They reveal that TPP negotiators have agreed to many radical terms that would give foreign investors vastly expanded substantive and procedural rights and privileges not available to domestic firms under domestic law. TPP subverts the rights of sovereign nations to enact legislation for the protection of the public and the environment; overrides domestic courts; strongly limits the diffusion of knowledge; seriously delays marketing of generic drugs; and subjects the signatory governments to huge financial penalties if their policies are perceived to limit the expectations of future profits for foreign corporations.

For further information see the following sites:

Leaked TPP Transparency Annex and Its Implications for health care: http://www.citizen.org/documents/memo-burning-questions.pdf

Secret negotiated draft text for the entire TPP Intellectual Property Rights Chapter:
https://wikileaks.org/tpp/

Leaked TPP document reveals no regard for environment in trade agreement – interview with Kevin Zeese:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&jumival=11350

The TPP favours big pharma, and profits over the public’s health:
http://investmentwatchblog.com/huge-tpp-key-section-leaked-to-public-leaked-document-shows-us-favoring-big-pharma-profits-over-publics-health/

Leaked TPP intellectual property rights chapter:
https://wikileaks.org/tpp-ip3/

Leaked TPP environment chapter:
https://wikileaks.org/tpp-enviro/pressrelease.html

The final leaked TPP text is all we feared:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/final-leaked-tpp-text-all-we-feared

The TPP – job loss, higher drug prices, and lower wages:
http://www.citizen.org/TPP

The positive view – Why the TPP is such a big—and good—deal for Canada:
http://www.macleans.ca/economy/economicanalysis/why-the-tpp-is-such-a-big-and-good-deal-for-canada/


See you there!  Tell your friends.

www.vsha.ca