{"id":3449,"date":"2020-02-18T07:50:36","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T12:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/?p=3449"},"modified":"2020-02-18T07:51:15","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T12:51:15","slug":"communists-demand-parliament-reject-usmca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/communists-demand-parliament-reject-usmca\/","title":{"rendered":"Communists demand Parliament reject USMCA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Central Committee of the Communist Party\nof Canada calls on Parliament to refuse to ratify the USMCA, and we urge the\nlabour and democratic movements to mobilize against this sellout of the\ninterests of working people and farmers across Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The USMCA is fundamentally a continuation of\nNAFTA, and before it the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement. All these agreements\nare examples of continental corporate constitutions that have less to do with\ntrade and more to do with expanding corporate rights and undermining sovereignty,\ndemocracy, and labour rights, wages and\nstandards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nCanadian economy has been shot through with US corporate investment and\nownership through most of the 20th<\/sup> century.  More than 75% of Canada\u2019s trade is with the\nUS, making Canada particularly vulnerable to trade sanctions, tariffs and\nduties from the US. The FTA and NAFTA have underscored the economic role that\nthe US has imposed on Canada, as a supplier of raw materials and a market for\nfinished products.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nUSMCA agreement furthers this role with the escalation of the\nde-industrialization of Canada. The restructuring of the Canadian economy\ntowards these ends has been an ongoing process for more than 30 years which has\nalready seen the loss of well over 500,000 manufacturing jobs. The corporate\narchitects of NAFTA and their governments in North America promised shared\nprosperity and trickle-down economics. Now\nthat their lies have been exposed, workers and their unions should reject NAFTA\n2.0 as a vicious attack on jobs, wages, and unions.  \u201cRight-to-work\u201d laws will surely follow in\nthe wake of the USMCA deal.  Alberta\nPremier Jason Kenney is already drafting legislation that looks remarkably like\nright-to-work.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some in the labour movement, after three\ndecades of massive job losses and declining wages, have lost sight of the big\npicture and think the USMCA is a “mixed bag” with both positives and\nnegatives compared to NAFTA. This appears to be the NDP\u2019s position as well\nwhich shamefully voted for the first step in Parliament\u2019s ratification. In\nfact, the negatives far outweigh the positives in this new deal and the\nfundamental character of this agreement is the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The promoters of the USMCA point to the\nremoval of investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms (ISDS) which allowed\ncorporations to sue governments for lost profits. But, ISDS has been replaced\nwith other provisions that attack Canada\u2019s\nsovereignty and independence and further entrench corporate power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The USMCA is a serious setback for working\npeople in several areas. Dairy and poultry producers will be devastated by this\nversion of NAFTA. The USMCA opens the Canadian domestic market by another 3.59%\nshare for US products and restrictions for Canada\u2019s exports of cheese and milk\nproducts. Combined with concessions made in the CETA agreement, 10% of the\nCanadian market has now been opened up to foreign producers.  This is a massive attack on supply management\ntoward benefiting US-based agribusiness which will decimate small family\nproducers in Canada, especially Quebec. This is about US corporate control of\nour food system which will also have a long-term impact on health and food\nsovereignty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

USMCA was sold as protection for the auto\nindustry. However, within days of the US, Canada and Mexico reaching an initial\ndeal, General Motors announced the closure of its Oshawa plant which will cost\nOshawa the 2,700 jobs in the plant, and 20,000 spin-off jobs elsewhere in\nOshawa and surrounding area. Ford and Fiat Chrysler are laying off workers and\ndownsizing their workforce in Canada. \nThis is the prelude to more plant closures in Canada, and we believe the\neventual departure of the Big Three from Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nautoworkers are likely to be the first victims of the USMCA, but right behind\nthem will be workers in industrial and manufacturing jobs across the country\nwhich are now all on wheels, and which are now all subject to the employer\ndemands for concessions to wages, pensions and benefits that faced autoworkers\nsince 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the most outrageous incursion on the\nsovereignty of Canada\u2019s trade policy is the USMCA\u2019s \u201cnon-market economy\u201d clause\nwhich removes Canada\u2019s right to reach new economic agreements with countries\ndeemed to be non-market. This is a thinly veiled attempt to block Canada from\nforming stronger economic links with China. Canada must now consult the US and\nMexico before any agreement could be reached. This could also stop Canada from\ndeveloping mutually beneficial trade with Cuba, Vietnam, DPRK or any other\ncountry that the US deems \u201cnon-market\u201d. This is part of the USMCA\u2019s attempt to\nlock Canada into an alliance with an increasingly dangerous partner: US\nimperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canada\nmust reject this deal. There is no reforming NAFTA-USMCA, which at its base is\na corporate constitution. We call on all political parties and Members of\nParliament to reject the USMCA\u2019s ratification. Canada must get out of this\nagreement and other neoliberal free trade agreements such as the TPP and CETA.\nThese deals are focused on the \u201cright\u201d of capital to achieve maximum profits by\nremoving restrictions on corporate investments, driving down wages and living\nstandards across the continent, and transforming Canada into a supplier of raw\nmaterials and a market for finished goods made elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workers\u2019 interests in the US, Canada and Mexico are the same. Workers want a trade policy that\u2019s multilateral and mutually beneficial \u2013 not one that drives down wages, and sets worker against worker in the race to the bottom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Central Committee, Communist Party of Canada, Feb 9, 2020<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada calls on Parliament to refuse to ratify the USMCA, and we urge the labour and democratic movements to mobilize against this sellout of the interests of working people and farmers across Canada.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,16,17,167,115,111,166],"tags":[176],"class_list":["post-3449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-farmers","category-international-solidarity","category-labour","category-manufacturing-jobs","category-nafta","category-trade-agreements","category-trade-unions","tag-nafta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3449"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3452,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3449\/revisions\/3452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}