In practical terms, it means things like Canada being forced to pay damages to Ethyl Corp for banning a gasoline additive already outlawed in the United States, or $1 billion being demanded from Costa Rica because their citizens rejected a Canadian mining project.The Trans Pacific Partnership has an added insult to democracy. Multinational corporations promote these deals because there are always clauses inserted to protect them from democracy (or as they would say, "from arbitrary government action"). Our chief concern should be loss of sovereignty. Why? Because a number of countries including Canada opposed strong language to protect the environment.But this is just one reason we should be concerned with 'free trade' agreements. The contents have fired up our US cousins because the language appears to violate a US law requiring all trade deals signed by the US to apply the same terms and conditions to environmental issues as it has for commercial issues.The leaked environment chapter has intentionally weak, unenforceable language on the environment, yet strong rules for protecting commercial interests. Governments feed us a lot of malarkey about why secrecy is essential, but 9 times out of 10 there’s no justifiable reason.Here are some government plans developing in secret that everyone should know about.SECRET #1At an undisclosed location in Ottawa this week, 400 delegates from Pacific Rim countries are negotiating the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) – the latest ‘free trade’ deal our government says we just have to have.Last January, some of the sections of the draft agreement showed up on Wiki Leaks including a chapter on dealing with the environment. Anyone who knows me knows I’m not good at keeping secrets, and I particularly don’t like when governments work in secret.
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