Yes, that’s what I was suggesting.
Agreeing and signing off on it may not be enough to make it legal, or persuade the many hundreds of millions (billions?) of other people to go along with it. It might not be safe to act against it, but it might not be safe to allow your country to make illegal deals in your name, either.
I wrote to my MP and to the PM. Please do the same. Let’s get some outrage going.
Personally I think the public outcry over US milk may well kill the thing in Canada (if you are from the US and this sounds bizarre, you’ll just have to take my word that it’s a really big thing). Fingers crossed anyway.
I’ve heard my Conservative MP’s stance, he’s fully supportive of the TPP as it was negotiated, which is how it stands today.
Trudeau has made it clear to the JPN PM & Obama that he supports it, the new Minister of Trade is playing the flute Trudeau provided, she will consult with Canadians but will not renegotiate the deal. So the promise is technically fulfilled, Canadians will be allowed to complain directly to the government, with the stipulation that the govt will not act on those complaints already decided because elected majority.
Everyone is pleased that the new govt will put the long form back in place (easy) might legalize dope (easy now that US leads in that regard) , will talk about election reform (more consultation! YaY!), and allow more venting than the last govt, but it really is business as usual despite the rhetoric. Complaints to govt will invoke responses of "But Trudeau! 
" and that’s that.
I’m not trying to be less cynical than you, I would never do that. But I do think there is a big difference between how conservative and liberal governments govern. I think enough public outrage would sink this thing. That doesn’t mean I believe they will hold some sort of meaningful consultation, it means I think they are very susceptible to opinion polls and fads. We’ll see. I think we all need to start calling it “Harper’s trade deal” every time we talk about it.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to have millions of people file these before it’s signed?
I wonder what it costs to buy a planet in back handers to law makers. The corporations are probably getting a good deal from the legislature.
I guess that filing bogus copyright claims against corporations will be my new Tetris…
Edit – didn’t refresh the page to see new comments… I’m way late to the game.
Only the apocalypse can fix this now.
Oh I’m still doing all those things, I just suggest it’s really, really long odds that anything beyond cosmetic changes could occur & that the govt is totally cool with that. Given that Freeland won’t even broach the subject of calling for a renegotiation I think it’s clear she’s only authorized to promise hollow debate and an ear for grief. The LPC queued up many candidates during debating season with boilerplate lines blaming the CPC for locking us into it (knowing full well it wasn’t a done deal), and even before the election none would discuss renegotiation, even while loudly proclaiming the TPP negotiations a betrayal.
It’s a betrayal they’re cool with. And with the ability to blame a previous govt as is called for by Canadian tradition coupled with a majority that they interpret as being given carte blanche, it’s done.
I know I’m awfully cynical, but according to our history and the current circumstances, I’m unfortunately on the money (ha) on this.
But we must still complain, no doubt about it, and I’ll not let up. The dairy issue is a thorn in their side, but I’ve already heard “oh well it’s only 3.25% of their trade so…” from strong LPC insiders, which is the same line the CPC candidates brought out at debates in the election.
TL;DR - we are all fucked.
at this stage i’m left wondering if there are any details that aren’t horrors in it…
I don’t want renegotiation, I want them to just say “fuck it”. This kind of thing has happened before. There have been big secret trade deals like this that got scrapped because of public outcry.
If they start talking about milk being only x% of their trade they are going to sound very tone deaf. It’s not about percentages, it’s about people not thinking milk from America is healthy and safe.
I’ll hardly be surprised if you are right. I do think there is a chance things will go differently, but probably the best chance of that is some other country backing out of it first.
Signatories are fucked. So you can either use persuasion or force to keep your country from doing so, or else leave a big bloody exit wound in it when you leave. Most people aren’t pushing for this, it is really a small minority.
So my big concern was always about food safety. I love how they covered it in non-plain language.
They also try and make it all “scientific” but as I know from reading about how they try and lower the standards they really are all about not forcing countries to come up to high quality standards just saying, 'Hey if they say it’s good, we have to take them at their word."
I created a funny video about a year ago to describe this but didn’t launch it because I didn’t have the document to prove what I thought was in it actually was.
Oh they won’t limit themselves to the tone-deaf replies.
The main thrust will be attempts to spin it positive in response to critique http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/tpp-ptp/benefits-avantages/index.aspx?lang=eng
That comprehensive pitch is hardly something the LPC came up with, they just adopted the CPC pre-prepared promo in full and are promoting it as their own stance without reserve.
It’s also worth noting that the Trade Minister is describing the TPP as a 6000 page document not a 2000 page document. This puts some people of the mind that it’s so complex they couldn’t possibly bother to learn more, and for those who do go read it 4000 of those pages are dedicated to selling the TPP & are not the agreement itself but are a (very) subjective analysis of possible outcomes prepared by/for the CPC.
As for their claims on dairy, they’re not just disrupting our supply management system, they’re going to end our much-loved ban on hormones in milk, apparently by 2018.
http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/tpp-ptp/text-texte/02-L-09.aspx?lang=eng
Because there is precisely no chance whatsoever that these equivalency assessments will result in the US and Canada calling each others milk equivalent in regards to safety without opening the door to demands that the ban be lifted based on acceptance of these assessments. When the hormone-laden milk we aren’t forced to use now is declared safe to sell to us, proponents of our own dairy industry will capitulate to market pressures and demand that the hormone ban represents a trade barrier that the assessment proves is without merit.
Who needs US/other corporations to utilize the TPP to erode our sovereign protections? Not us. We can use the TPP to do that to ourselves and we will. Stab an industry in the back it will do what it needs to do & it’s hard to blame them.
Not that we’ll wait for 2018 to undermine ourselves. The moment the foreign dairy hits our market, the plan is to direct it into processing facilities, make it into cheese & such, and the myriad other places modern food processing puts milk proteins & other dairy derived products. I offer favourable odds that these products will remain sold as “Made in Canada” without amendment to any label.
When we complain now, we’ll be met with “Oh, it doesn’t say we -will- do that, it only says we can” and when it’s done they’ll say, “Look, it said we could do that”
Sigh.
More than Interesting that this text was released days after a Canadian election. Had that text been released during the Canadian election, the Canadian Conservative party (the party responsible for Canada’s negotiation of the TPP) would have been wiped off the face of the earth, instead of having been merely crushingly defeated.
Heh, BoingBoing, I demand you take down this and similar comments so I can place my own similar one!
The fact that Canada and Australia does not charge a tariff on monkey meat
That quote says “knowingly” bogus.
It makes scattershot infringement notices perfectly valid and free of consequence.
The Liberals have for decades been pure corporate in their legislative behaviour, so I can’t expect better from the new guy
