Editor:
In tandem with the “Defend Our Coast” protests in Victoria and at MLA offices throughout the province, another vastly important issue for Canadians has hung as an almost overshadowing dark cloud on our national economic and resources policies.
The Canada-China FIPA deal, revealed widely only two weeks ago, threatens not only Canadian rights but potentially our sovereignty.
Under this deal, China’s communist state-backed corporations can buy or establish businesses in Canada and then sue Canadian governments on any levels, in secret tribunals outside of the Canadian court system, if those governments do anything that would limit the companies’ “expected” profits.
The deal, with a mysteriously moving but as yet unfulfilled ratification date as of last Friday, is set to lodge us in such international agreements for 31 years.
This could well make it possible for China’s independent, and communist-state-backed corporations to challenge Canadian laws which create jobs, protect our First Nations cultures, offer environmental protections and create jobs encouraging healthy communities.
Canadians could be footing billion-dollar lawsuits with taxpayer money.
I for one am not prepared to support my rights being overridden by a foreign national government which has consistently demonstrated brutal disregard for human rights.
Two years of reports on Tibetans being hauled away in cattle trucks to unknown places from the headwaters of three important rivers to China and India tells me that Chinese state-backed corporations offer no proof of human rights maturity at a level for me to sign any secretive deals with them.
Yiana Belcher
Ladysmith
