WTO rules against solar industry

In 2014 the United States launched a WTO case against India's ambitious solar program. The United States claimed that the "buy-local" rules of the first phases of the program, which say that power companies must use solar components made in India in order to benefit from the government-subsidized program, discriminate against U.S. solar exports. In its ruling, the WTO agreed that India's buy-local rules "accord less favorable treatment" to imported solar components, even while acknowledging that "imported cells and modules currently have a dominant share of the market for solar cells and modules in India." India has indicated that it may alter its solar program to try to persuade the U.S. to drop the case. It is unclear whether the U.S. will accept the proposed changes, and what impact they may have on India's solar expansion plans.
Bringing this case is a perverse move for the United States. Nearly half of U.S. states have renewable energy programs that, like India's solar program, include "buy-local" rules that create local, green jobs and bring new solar entrepreneurs to the economy. The U.S. government should drop this case to avoid undermining jobs and climate protections not just in India, but also at home......
The ruling boldly states that domestic policies seen as violating WTO rules cannot be justified on the basis that they fulfill UNFCCC or other international climate commitments. In effect, the WTO has officially asserted that antiquated trade rules trump climate imperatives.
From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-beachy/the-wto-just-ruled-agains_b_9307884.html


Why is this about India in a blog about Canadian Democracy? Quite simply because various trade agreements both already in place (NAFTA) and waiting to be ratified (TPP - CETA) have clauses in them that enable this kind of backwards thinking in permitting corporations to sue governments for actions that give preference to their own manufacturing sectors. Any action (including environmental legislation) that gives preference to domestic suppliers for government projects is fair game for these multinationals or foreign corporations to claim a loss of business income and make a claim for 'compensation'.


This is so wrong on so many levels that I cannot comprehend how the government of any country would agree to these clauses (clearly put in to satisfy the corporate interest) in said trade agreements.
It is no less than an attack upon our national interest and our democratic right to have say into our own destiny, small as that may be. It diminishes our sovereignty and those who promote such clauses in 'trade agreements' are bordering upon 'traitorous' action IMHO. That in India’s case it diminishes their ability to fight global climate change and is a sad reflection of where corporate and the U.S. Governments priorities lay, do not be fooled into thinking that our situation is any different!

UPDATE the CETA deal has just been "approved" (but not ratified) with some changes to the investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism but without any changes to the clause itself.

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Oh Canada!

Many years ago I stood proudly with other newcomers to Canada and became a Canadian Citizen, of late I have not been so proud to be Canadian. The Canada that I became part of was, I thought, an open and accepting and diverse country governed as a parliamentary democracy and open to new citizens and new ideas. I begin to question where those Canadian values have gone, not that the people have changes significantly except perhaps being even more diverse, but our “leaders” be they be federal or provincial, union or business, city or corporate with a few notable exceptions seem to have been infected with some kind of “Me, me, me” syndrome. Only they have the answers, everybody else is wrong, only they are entitled to their entitlements, the rules do not apply to them but let us rule with a heavy hand over those 'beneath' us.
Recently a number of news items brought this into sharp focus for me, we all know that the Harper regime has had this disease for some time and the following includes some examples of that but it seems the syndrome is spreading. Here is a case where 'lead by example' is NOT a good way to go.

Lets start with the Ontario Elementry Teachers union who are now threatening to fine their members up to $500 a day if they dare to spend a little extra time actually helping the kids. This whilst spending thousands on dollars on radio ad's calling their employers (the government and by extension the Ontario taxpayers) 'undemocratic' and anti human rights for refusing to allow the union to hold the kids and their parents up for hostage in their annual demands for more compensation for less work.

There is our Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird's vociferous rant before the UN condemning Palestine for simply trying to become an 'observer state' in that organization, one of only 3 nations to speak to the motion and the only major nation to vote against it.
Then there is is lesser publicized vote in which Canada was one of only six nations in the UN General Assembly to vote against a resolution Monday that called on Israel to quickly open its nuclear program for inspection and that backed a recently cancelled conference to ban nuclear weapons from the Middle East.

Recent days have reinforced what we knew all along – that the government lied about the cost of the useless and as yet unbuilt F35 fighter jets the Harper regime decided upon without tender and is now rather belatedly reconsidering their choice. Once again our Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page is proved right! Remember the failure to produce documents on this one was a reason for a contempt motion and the subsequent early election in which many alleged irregularities took place, none of which have yet been fully investigated.
Whilst the F35s are 'on hold' so it seems are those promised SAR helicopters and the arctic icebreakers and deep water port promised back in 2005-8 this whilst the need to establish our sovereignty over those water increased each year due to the receding ice.

Even the proceedings in the HoC have gone down hill even more (is that possible) with Peter Van Loan, the regime’s House leader, storming across the floor to get into the face of the oppositions MP, Nathan Cullen and having to be restrained by his colleagues. Parliament is rapidly becoming a farce with Harper running the show via the PMO and PCO and neither the opposition or those citizens they represent can do anything about it.
All this taking place as the Harper regime rams trough the second over 400 page omnibus budget without consideration of any amendments offered by MPs from other party's. A budget which continues to attack our environmental protection laws, our scientific research and countless other fundamental issues that will no doubt come to light once the document is properly examined. According to a new report by the Polaris Institute, the nation's two largest pipeline companies Enbridge and TransCanada plus four other oil firms met with cabinet ministers 52 times between 2011 and 2012 just as the last budget was being dreamed up.

I could go on, but whats the point when all we can do is sit and watch as the Canada we know and love goes down the tubes. We can but hope that enough people sit up and start taking notice, start thinking about Canada before blindly following the leader in to the abyss, and start thinking about our fellow Canadians more and about self less. If we don’t then I fear for our future.






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The Future of Canadian Democracy

“Sudbury” Steve May, a green party supporter, is in the middle of writing a series of articles for his blog entitled “The Future of Canadian Democracy: A Personal Journey”. The first of these pieces just touches upon the threats to our democracy and focuses upon the inaction of our government on the “green” file, the second and third articles are more in tune with our focus upon democracy contained in these pages. Part II is subtitled Media in Crisis and contains these truths……

“Most (people) are accessing (news) through visual formats, be it on television or on the internet. The written word format lends itself to being more comprehensive than a visual format, which tends to rely on images, the more sensational the better, to tell the story, with perhaps some commentary about what it is that you’re supposed to be looking at. It’s a very powerful medium, for sure. But is it the best medium for individual citizens to inform themselves on the issues?Increasingly media outlets are moving away from “fact-based reporting” to providing infotainment. What are we losing? Well, for one thing, we’re losing smaller media outlets which can’t compete with the big boys, whether it’s because of format (local newspapers no longer being published because no one is reading them) or consolidation (local tv and radio stations closing down their shops because it’s too costly to produce local content; so if you live in Sudbury like I do, you can find out as much as you want about what’s going on in Toronto but you won’t find out what’s happening in Sudbury). For another thing, we’re losing the oversight which media used to provide us with to keep our institutions in check. Now, some might take exception to this point of view, and that’s your right, I suppose. But I’d ask that maybe you conduct a bit of a critical analysis here. First, one of the roles in which we have come to expect from media is to report the facts, expose the cover-ups, and keep us all honest, whether it’s our government or the business community, or just individuals who may have done bad things. What used to distinguish truly democratic countries from authoritarian regimes was the extent of freedom those nations allowed their media to operate within. I say that those days are long gone. Media has evolved, because media now has a different master. As a result, they are playing a different role. Media no longer answers to you, the media consumer, by providing you with facts and information. Media now answers to their shareholders, to the corporate giants which have acquired media outlets, from newspapers to radio stations to tv stations.”

Part III is subtitled “Democracy in Crisis” and expands upon this theme of media inattention and corporate bias…..

“(If) the hallmark of a healthy democracy is a healthy and free media, and our democracy is showing signs of not being healthy and so is our news media...where does that leave us? What we value in our democracy is slowly being eroded, and it is happening in tandem with what we have come to value as media oversight. It is doubtful that our democratic institutions could have ended up where they are today if the media had been more vigilant in drawing attention to what has been happening. In part, though, this has happened because we ourselves have had false expectations of the media. We really thought that they would be there for us to help us understand issues, to educate us and assist us in making up our own minds.But that’s not the media’s role. The media is there to make money for its corporate owners. And as a result of this media mandate, the truth can be and has been a casualty. And it will continue to be a casualty…………………”

“But many Canadians may not realize that our government and media might be holding something back in the truth-telling department. Many still labour under the impression that the media is there to hold our government accountable, and not simply to be its mouthpiece. Our media is free, after all, is it not? And a free media is a sign of a healthy democracy, so it’s not a problem.It’s too bad that our media is not free from interference, controlled by an increasingly powerful corporate elite. But does that alone explain why our government seems to get off easy when it comes to some of the more difficult issues? Well, keep in mind the power structure of our government. It could be said that the interests of our government happily coincide with the interests of the media-controlling corporate elite. Happily, alas, for government and the corporations, but not for you and I, the Average Canadian………………”

“What does this say about the state of our Democracy? I think it says that we’re in trouble, especially when you extrapolate existing conditions into the future based on current trends. As governments continue to become more secretive and put power in the hands of Caesar, er, their Leaders, and as the media continues to move from reporting the news to providing infotainment, where will we be in 10 years time? And do you think that we’ll have started to address those very real and important issues which we need to start getting serious about right now?I, for one, just don’t see it happening. Instead, based on current trends, I believe that the Average Canadian is going to become even less engaged in political decision-making, and that governments will continue to spin reality in self-serving ways, aided and abetted by a media which will end up looking a lot more like Entertainment Tonight…………………’’

Now whilst I cannot totally agree with Steve that the “media” is totally lacking in the desire to seek and publish the “truth” I must say that the ever increasing “news magazine” type format and the lack of reporting on some very important issues by some media is very troubling. The word “media” covers a broad range of individuals and organizations and some do a much better job than others, the independent and local newspaper, television and to some extent radio has all but gone by the wayside but individual reporters and guest contributors still on occasion do bring some balance to their articles by actually doing some real research into their pieces. Those individuals must be congratulated and supported even though what they do should be the norm. Meanwhile the power of the internet and the blogging community just might save us from ourselves, for whilst these are as many opinions as there are users out there, the corporate and government “leaders” cannot control and filter the news and opinion (yet?) expressed by the many “citizens reporters” who are now the source for so much of our information.

I look forward to Steve’s next post in this series with interest. Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers

MPs Background & Behavior

There have been two articles of note recently, the first deals with the background and quality of our MPs, the second with the behavior of them in the HoC or more particularly the exemption from prosecution for lying and making personal attacks on other members whilst in that house.

It seems to me that these things are connected, for if we had principled and honest politicians who engaged in debate about the proposed legislation and refrained from personal attacks and stuck to the facts then the debate about “parliamentary privilege” (or the ability to lie and defame in the house without repercussions) would be moot. We all know that this is not the case, it seems that the MPs who are appointed to cabinet or to an opposition portfolio are the ones that are prepared to ignore the facts and spew innuendo and lies in order to further their partisan point of view. The honest MP is relegated to the back benches, given few opportunities to speak and if (gasp) he or she should speak a truth that does not coincide with the party spin risks expulsion to the back corner to sit as an independent.

Jennifer over at Runesmith wonders if their background has a bearing on their behavior and decisions, she notes that in Ontario almost half our MPs come from a corporate background and goes on to say…..

“Corporations have their place I suppose, but here's the thing: you CANNOT run a government like a corporation. You just can't. You can sort of run it like a business because real businesses provide tangible goods and services, and frequently measure success by something other than pure profit.Corporations exist to make money for their shareholders. Period. They don't have to care about the people they employ or the communities they set up shop in or the products they produce, except to the extent that these considerations might impact their quarterly statement.Governments are in many ways the exact opposite of corporations because their primary purpose is to provide services and other tangible benefits to the public. They accomplish this using the taxpayers' own money and so are obligated not to waste it or spend it frivolously, but it's understood that any given government program or service is not necessarily going to be 'profitable'. Many are distinctly unprofitable and inefficient by corporate standards - but they are also carefully regulated and made accessible to all according to their need. The measure of their success is public benefit, not profit.”

I must agree but also wonder what would happen if these corporate types used the same methods and rhetoric in the board room exactly how long they would be there. The only reason that this childish behavior continues is because their are no repercussions, it has become acceptable for our politicians to attack the individual rather than debate the subject. Devlin Johnson has this to say….

”Perhaps the time has come to re-think Parliamentary privilege. Undoubtedly, it will survive in one form or another; after all, there is considerable evidence to suggest that it is an essential component of a free and open democracy. On the other hand, absolute privilege is an invitation to discourteous comments and unfounded accusations. I think that we are living in an age in which the risk of Members of Parliament being arrest for proposing legislation is low, while the risk of the Members of Parliament spreading vicious rumors about one another is high. To that end, perhaps it is time to ease up on Parliamentary privilege in order to make it more responsive to the needs and challenges of contemporary political reality.
Parliamentary privilege should be broad enough that it protects what is integral to democracy and accountability, but narrow enough that there is a disincentive to act like children.”

He has also included a little history of the way parliamentary privilege came to be, we inherited it from the British where they recently attempted to change the rules without success……

“There was plenty of criticism of an early proposal which would have allowed MPs' words in the Commons - now protected by Parliamentary privilege - to have been used against them in court. As worded, the original bill said "no enactment or rule of law which prevents proceedings in Parliament being impeached or questioned in any court" should stop "any evidence from being admissible in proceedings" against MPs accused of breaking rules. It was not just MPs who had their doubts. The most senior official in the Commons, Malcolm Jack, warned it could have a "chilling effect" on MPs' freedom of speech. The government stuck with it but were defeated when more than 20 Labour MPs rebelled to vote against it “

Seems to me that we need both a better class of MP, and I don’t mean more lawyers and teachers but honest and principled individuals, AND better rules to ensure real consequences for those who would use lies and personal attacks to sidestep real debate. The first is, in part, up to us at the voting booth, the second requires a majority of MPs to want such a change. I am not holding my breath for either to happen any time soon. Support Democracy - Recommend this Post at Progressive Bloggers

Canada is a corporate plutocracy

I want to state what I believe is the main reason why we don't have a democracy anymore. It's because Big Business has established themselves as the policy makers in this country. We do not elect them. They are not accountable to us. However, they have the ear of probably at least 95% of our elected officials. They are, in effect, the puppet masters. Their involvement in Canadian politics (all levels of Canadian politics) is not all that transparent, although in some ways it is blatant. It's hard to believe perhaps - and that is why their control has slipped by us. I will share what I have learned so far in order to get the ball rolling. It will hopefully help us start understanding why politicians do what they do; make decisions that benefit the filthy rich corporate players and undermine the rest of us, and especially the environment and the poor. And another question; why do politicians these days come from and return to the business world instead of the legal world or whereever they used to come from? Once you start thinking about it, the government's strict adherence to right-wing corporate ideology, which is totally un-patriotic, only makes sense in light of the fact that they and the business elite are one and the same.

There is a group in Canada called the BCNI: Business Council on National Issues (Now renamed CCCE). I think most of us don’t know about this group; I only recently found out about them. Here are some main points (all quotes are taken from Tony Clarke’s 1997 book, Silent Coup):

-The BCNI was formed in April, 1977, by Canada’s top business leaders (lead by W.O. Taits, CEO of Imperial Oil and Alf Powis, CEO of Noranda Mines) to act as a streamlined, effective business lobby with the purpose of essentially wresting power away from the government in favour of a free-market system in which corporations would no longer be held in check. Its contempory in the US was the Business Round Table, out to accomplish the same goals.

-After exerting pressure onto Pierre Trudeau and winning a few battles with him, the BCNI became firmly entrenched in Canadian politics with the 1984 election of Brian Mulroney. Mulroney opened up the door to the Corporate Market after having been given hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations.

-To the BCNI, there was too much democracy in Canada and that had to change. They lobbied for tax cuts and then suggested revenues be made up for with the GST – they wrote the policy for this, presented it to Brian Mulroney’s Tory government, and it was made into law. The GST is a corporate subsidy paid by us, suggested by corporate CEO's and approved by our elected government.

-It was the BCNI that lobbied in the early 80’s for the focus of the government to change from unemployment to fighting inflation.

-p. 29 "Canada’s major banks and investment houses wanted to secure greater control over the country’s fiscal and monetary policy. Historically, the federal government was responsible for managing monetary policy through its agency, the Bank of Canada. But, throughout the 1980’s, both the BCNI and the Howe Institute called for substantial changes in the central banks’ mandate and greater independence from the cabinet and elected officials. At the same time, they urged Ottawa to depend more on private financial markets. In the past, when the government needed extra funds to finance its debt load, it traditionally relied on interest-free loans from the Bank of Canada. In 1977, for example, the Bank of Canada held 21 per cent of the federal debt. When the Mulroney government took office in 1984, the Bank held only 10.5 per cent of the federal debt, and this portion dwindled to 6 per cent by 1993. Moreover, Ottawa not only agreed to borrow more from private banks at much higher interest rates, but it also abolished the requirement that private banks hold non-interest paying cash reserves with the Bank of Canada, thereby allowing them to pile up many millions more in interest and profits. In turn, these new monetary policies served to multiply Ottawa’s mounting debts."

-In this way, the BCNI engineered a Canadian panic about paying off debts rather than attending to unemployment or other social programs. Keeping people unstable was in their best interests; they could keep wages lower and unions weak. People all through the 1980’s, 90’s and up until today still believe that we can not afford strong social programs for our most vulnerable citizens, while the corporations walk away with millions of dollars of profit each year and who knows how much environmental damage which they will never pay for. They have purposefully eroded our health and education systems as well. Their goal has been a weak, disenfranchised, struggling society with no political power of their own; this is what best serves their needs to make more money. On the other hand, huge expenditures which serve big business are readily made all the time - just look through the daily news to find examples of this.

-In 2008, the top 10 CEO’s in Canada earned between them a record-breaking 1 billion dollars(this statistic comes from the Canadian Council on Policy Alternatives).

-All the major political parties are influenced heavily by the BCNI. In Clarke's book he outlines various amounts of money donated to both the Conservative and Liberal parties by various member corporations of the BCNI or other business groups. I didn't write down the details (and I had to return the book to the library) but the sums were extremely large...anywhere from $25 000 to more than $100 000, over and over again. This information is available through the freedom of information act.

“Ultimately, what counts for the big business barons is not which party forms the government but whether they can maintain their stranglehold over the levers of power and policy-making in the nation’s capital and the provinces. As long as the BCNI, through its member corporations, had the ability to buy parties and elections, it would retain the power to steer the ship of state.” p. 37 The laws have changed about campaign donations, but if you think that big business can’t find ways to circumnavigate the laws, guess again. They can hide money in Swiss bank accounts; surely they can hide campaign donations too.

This influence of the government by big business is true at all levels of government. The recent meat legislation in BC, for example, was almost certainly a campaign spearheaded by a couple of powerful factory farms as an attempt to squeeze out small producers. The claim that it was motivated by a desire to protect people’s health is ridiculous when we know that tainted meat comes from the factory farm system, not from small, local farms. There is no scientific or common sense basis for this law and intense lobbying by farmers and consumers has not been able to change it to date.

When it comes down to it, all environmental battles that are pitched in this country are a fight between people trying to save environments and/or people and corporations trying to make a profit. It doesn’t matter what issue you look at – it can be traced to corporate greed and governmental support of that greed.

A flawed economic theory has been driving globalization and Canadian politics for 30 years now. The experiment is failing. The gap between the rich and the poor has grown. The environment is being destroyed, species being lost at an accelerated pace. We are putting too much carbon needlessly into the air; farming practices alone are releasing carbon through mis-management of both soil and livestock. Humans are just cogs in a machine in this way of viewing the world. We need to live under a different paradigm, one where the dollar is not the bottom line. We need to become educated about civic life and re-gain our voices as a free and democratic people. We need to do it now.

For More Information See:

The Council of Canadians

The Canadian Council for Policy Alternatives

The work of Ed Finn, John Ralston Saul, Tony Clarke, Maude Barlow, Naomi Klein,

I strongly recommend reading Tony Clarke's Silent Coup

Mel Hurtig, author of The Truth About Canada

Edit – BNCI was renamed The Canadian Council of Chief Executives in 2001

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