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BILL 11 OPENS DOOR TO NAFTA NIGHTMARE
(This editorial is from the May 16-31/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
NEED ANOTHER REASON to oppose Ralph Klein's plan to introduce private for-profit hospitals? Here's one: Bill 11 could bind future governments in any province to follow suit or face challenges under NAFTA and other trade agreements.
A recent report by the Caledon Institute of Social Policy (available on the Web at www.caledoninst.org/full115.htm) raises many concerns about the bill's potential effects, including those related to current and future trade treaties. Despite Ottawa's assurances, health care is not safe under NAFTA, which protects only policies which are "maintained in force" after January 1, 1994. If a jurisdiction changes its laws (in this case introducing for-profit health care services), it cannot reverse them later without consequences.
A future Alberta government could rescind the legislation, only to face challenges. Under NAFTA, companies denied access to the health care "market" could sue for expropriation of assets. As researcher Michael Rachlis points out in his review of the legislation, Klein's move could effectively bind succeeding Alberta governments to stick with for-profit health care.
Canadians in other provinces could be affected by the legislation as well, and not just from neo-liberal premiers who are watching Klein's actions and waiting to follow suit. Under NAFTA, a foreign-owned for-profit health care company could charge that the Alberta law had an impact on federal law and, therefore, the whole country was now open to for-profit hospitals. It could sue other provinces for blocking its access to the "marketplace." Any such challenges would be heard and judged by an international arbitration tribunal, with the decision not open to appeal.
These concerns make the federal government's refusal to stop this bill even more criminal. We can't afford to "wait and see"; as soon as the legislation is passed, the NAFTA provisions are activated. It will be too late to roll them back. Since Premier Klein has invoked closure on debate of Bill 11, there is little cause for optimism.
However, thousands Albertans have taken to the streets to defend public health care, and political pressure has caused Klein to back down on this issue on other occasions. We owe it to Albertans - and to ourselves - to do everything possible to demand that the federal government stop this dangerous legislation.
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