Regarding the article “MP responds to criticisms of government” in the Nov. 28 issue of the Salmon Arm Observer.
Here are a few things about the new FIPA that Mr. Mayes tells us we shouldn’t be concerned about:
1. It undermines Canada’s democracy and sovereignty and takes away our right to make decisions or enact laws that protect our natural resources and environment.
2. It allows Communist Chinese corporate interests to sue us behind closed doors for limiting their right to profit from investments they have made in our natural resources.
3. It exposes Canadian taxpayers to hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, made payable to Communist Chinese investors – without their knowledge.
4. It has been tabled quietly in the House of Commons without so much as a press release. There has been no parliamentary debate or vote and no public scrutiny.
Moreover the agreement may thwart the restoration of three critical pieces of environmental legislation that Mayes’ government recently gutted in its Omnibus Bill C-38 last spring in order to speed up and enhance pipeline and mining project approvals for mostly Chinese investors.
Mayes’ government shamelessly promotes and grossly subsidizes production of oil from tar sands bitumen, which produces between three and five times the greenhouse gas pollution of conventional oil production while threatening the second largest watershed in North America. This comes at a time when, according to a recent report commissioned by the World Bank, humans must immediately implement a series of radical measures to halt carbon emissions or prepare for the collapse of entire ecosystems and the displacement, suffering and death of hundreds of millions of the globe’s inhabitants.
And yet, Mr. Mayes blithely states, “I love nature, I love God’s creation – it’s fantastic. I wouldn’t belong to a party that would compromise our environment.”
Really Mr. Mayes?
Calvin Wrench
