CETA is a toxic trade deal. It's bad for the environment, workers, farming, food standards and sovereignty & must not be ratified

My article in todays Indo👇

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/eu-canada-trade-deal-plays-into-the-hands-of-big-business-it-must-not-be-ratified-39864514.html 

Some highlights:

....."The move to deregulate financial markets was one of the main causal factors of the global financial crash. Regulation, however inconvenient to big businesses, has a crucial role in democracy and economic stability. It provides safeguards against exploitation and protects hard earned rights of the most vulnerable in society....."

Here’s why TDs should vote against CETA on Tuesday.

Climate Change:  The most dangerous aspect of CETA is the Investment Court System (ICS) which allows foreign investors to sue governments for enacting policies that interfere with their profits. For example, signatories to the Paris Climate Agreement in Europe are required to change laws in favour of renewable energy. However, under ICS foreign investors could legally challenge that legislation. Unlike CETA, the Paris Agreement is not legally binding. Efforts to reduce fossil fuel extraction and use could be undermined by industry investors being afforded protections not extended to the environment and public health.  

​Farming: Canada has lower production standards and allows carcasses to be cleaned using chemicals such as chlorine. As a result, Canada produces meat 60% cheaper than the EU. Increasing Canadian imports could therefore significantly impact European farmers, particularly already beleaguered Irish Beef farmers, who would struggle to compete on price and scale with Canadian counterparts. Which is probably why The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association rejected CETA in 2017.

Sovereignty and democracy: Article 30.9 of CETA states. “In the event that this Agreement is terminated, the provisions of Chapter Eight (Investment) shall continue to be effective for a period of 20 years after the date of termination of this Agreement in respect of investments made before that date”. Our planet can’t wait 20 years and our children won’t forgive us for locking them into this disastrous deal.

It’s no wonder former UN expert on human rights, Alfred-Maurice de Zayas referred to “corporate courts” as “an attack on the very essence of sovereignty and self-determination”. He warned that some 608 arbitration awards overrode national law and hindered States in the sovereign determination of fiscal and budgetary policy, labour, health and environmental regulation, and have had adverse human rights impacts..."

"Food safety: The EU’s “precautionary principle”, whereby the onus is on food producers to prove that chemicals used are safe, will be deemed a “barrier to trade”, permitting a common regulatory mechanism, where any substance can be used until it is proven unsafe. Canada has weaker food safety and labelling standards than the EU, and industrial agriculture more heavily dependent on pesticides and GM crops. CETA also allows Canadian and US multinationals to undermine rules concerning cloning, GM crops and growth hormones.

 The government has no mandate to ratify this disastrous deal. In July 2017, Over 80 Irish civil society groups, including unions, farmers, environmentalists and business owners, called for the rejection of the deal by the Irish Government. The coalition united in opposition to CETA as a “bad trade deal” that will compromise laws to protect health, food standards, farmers’ interests, the environment, worker’s rights, and the rule of law.

 Rushing through ratification now, under the cover of coronavirus chaos, without proper debate and public engagement debases democracy.

 In 2017, Green Party leader, Eamon Ryan warned that the ICS would give big business power over governments and courts and that the deal offered no environmental protections. He said, “The way it was centred around lobbying by big corporate interests rather than the public interest is wrong”.

Thus far, the Green Party has done the bidding of its neo-liberal coalition partners on matters of social justice, ostensibly keeping its powder dry for climate justice. Notwithstanding the fact that the two are inextricably linked, if the Greens vote to ratify CETA, it begs the question: what is the point of the Green Party if it’s just propping up a government that continuously puts multinational interests before those of our planet and country?"

Pitting "lives vs livelihoods" is a false dichotomy & will cost us far more than Christmas

My article in today's Indo👇

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/we-could-be-having-a-holly-jolly-christmas-if-we-had-only-closed-the-borders-39824390.html

Extract:

"It’s a damning indictment that, in the midst of a public health crisis, there are more spin doctors in Leinster House (64) than there are public health doctors in the country (60). With the former briefing against the latter in the media, our jaded public health heroes have been forced into taking strike action.

Thanks to Leo Varadkar’s Trumpian style trashing of NPHET, the country went into lockdown 2 too late, allowing infections to spread exponentially resulting in a longer lockdown. And, even though cases are still too high to safely re-open restaurants and gastro-pubs, we’re opening them anyway.

For the avoidance of doubt, our government is not only going against NPHET’s advice but that of the EY auditors they employed to undermine NPHET. A University of Warwick study found that the “Eat out to help out” policy accelerated the UK’s resurgence and was lambasted as “a policy failure based on short-termism”.

So, in whose interest is the government acting? Not the SMEs stuck in a purgatorial cycle of lockdowns, not our beleaguered health professionals, not the workers coerced by unscrupulous employers to return to the office, not essential low paid workers exposed to greater risk, not the 82% of people who, according to last week’s CSO poll, said Level 5 restrictions are “appropriate or should be stronger”.

That just leaves the lobbyists, who have been allowed to frame the government’s narrative. Such as, pitting lives vs livelihoods, which is a false dichotomy. It’s a manipulation tactic invoked by lobbyists and politicians in order to achieve their vested interests. The pandemic is both a public health and economic crisis so public health strategies that reduce the spread of coronavirus also safeguard livelihoods. The economy cannot function if a substantial proportion of infected workers are off sick, sometimes indefinitely with long-Covid (self-isolating nurses are being asked to return to work due to staffing shortages).

The OECD’s Secretary General said, “The first thing we’ve got to do is beat the enemy: the virus. It’s a false dilemma to say you have to choose between lives and livelihoods because the sooner you deal with the question of lives the better you will do on livelihoods”

Our World in Data have Compared the COVID-19 death rate with the latest GDP data indicating that countries that have managed to protect their population’s health in the pandemic have also protected their economy.

SMEs have been poorly served by ISME. In March, their Australian counterpart lobbied their government to follow scientific advice and pursue a zero-Covid approach in order to safeguard lives and livelihoods. It worked. Being Covid free, everything is open domestically - at full capacity- and small business are thriving. In contrast, ISME is attacking NPHET, oblivious to the fact that its members’ businesses are being sacrificed at the altar of the aviation lobby in particular. It’s like turkey’s voting for Christmas.

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The “personal responsibility” chestnut is also straight out of the lobbyist’s handbook, Chapter 1: “Blame shifting”. It ignores the absence of power and choice of our vulnerable and abdicates the state’s duty to protect its citizens. For example, our government’s lack of mandatory quarantine meant that one person returning from holiday abroad was free to circulate, infecting 56 other people, including 10 households and a sports team.

No amount of personal responsibility can mitigate the ineptitude and indolence of a dysfunctional government. The vaccine can prevent people getting sick but we don’t yet know if it can prevent infection. Without a mitigation strategy, we’re facing several more months of restrictions.

Choosing to put their cronies’ interests before those of everyone else, Messrs Martin, Varadkar and Ryan have hastened an inevitable third wave in which far more than Christmas will be lost."