Canada Signs Free-Trade Agreement with Colombia

Well, this isn't good news. It seems that Stephen Harper craftily, and without any fanfare, signed a free-trade agreement with Colombia today. That's right, the same Colombia that allows right-wing paramilitaries to kidnap and execute union leaders (see, for example, here, here or here) and journalists (see here, here or here). The same Colombia that tramples on the rights of women (e.g. this), the indigenous people (e.g. this) and LGBT folks (see here). This is not a government with which Canada should be consorting.

Free trade is also a deeply problematic notion for the working class on both sides of the equation. In Canada, we lose yet more manufacturing jobs to places where the companies can pay peanuts, and in Colombia they get goods dumped on their markets at very low prices, essentially forcing local competitors out of business. This is especially a problem in the market for food. History shows that free trade in food leads to market gluts and greatly depressed prices. This means that small farmers can no longer make the income they need to stay in business. They are forced off the land and wind up in the barrios of the big cities, living in the attendant squalor, because there are some meagre jobs to be had. This is a recurring problem all over the world, wherever the west gets to dump its surplus grains.

The only people that free trade works for are the capitalists. The Canadian capitalists get to slough of the expense of paying decent union wages in Canada in exchange for the pathetic wages that workers will accept in Colombia, and their profits go up. The Colombian capitalists get to find an increased market for the goods that they make in Colombia now that all the factories are moving down there, plus they get to force more and more small farmers off their land, clearing the way for large plantations growing cash crops for export. For them, it's a win-win.

The deal supposedly has a clause requiring respect for human rights, but the only penalty imposed for breaking the clause is payment into a fund for strengthening human rights. Ooh boy, what a penalty, a fine into a fund that they can probably tap themselves. That's a deterrent. And our hopeless leader, Stevie Harper, seems to think that such a pathetic clause "answers" all the criticisms. Well guess what Stevie. Not even close.

Oh wait, I get it. The Conservatives don't much care for women, aboriginal people or gays and lesbians. That would be why they don't care that Colombia stomps on the rights of all three groups. It's so obvious now.

Stevie, your little deal goes against Canadian values of tolerance and social justice. Shame on you.

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