Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Canada negotiating TPP ‘as if there’s no election’: New Zealand trade minister

The Conservatives aren’t using the federal election as an excuse to delay reaching a final Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, according to New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser.

“The Canadians are negotiating as if there’s no election,” he said in an interview with the New Zealand Herald, published Wednesday. “Everyone is really trying.”

As iPolitics reported Tuesday, there isn’t really anything stopping the Conservatives from concluding the talks in the final weeks of the federal election.

And with the 12 countries negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership trying to reach a final agreement in Atlanta next week, Groser identified three familiar stumbling blocks: market access for both dairy and autos, and patent extensions for biologic pharmaceuticals.

Though trade has factored very little into the federal election campaign thus far, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper surprised some by saying in last week’s economic debate that the Canadian auto sector might not like everything in TPP — but would be hurt more by being shut out of global supply chains.

“That would be a disaster. We’re going to make sure we get the best deal for that and all of our sectors,” he said.

Canada, the U.S., Mexico, and Japan held auto-specific negotiations in San Francisco on Monday and Tuesday that failed to result in a deal. But the trade publication Inside U.S. Trade reported that enough got accomplished to move ahead with the ministerial meeting in Atlanta.

When it comes to dairy, however — New Zealand’s primary offensive interest — Groser signaled they weren’t having much luck getting Canada to make acceptable market access offers in the supply managed sector.

“Basically, the situation is that I and my negotiators can see a very good deal for New Zealand in everything except dairy and I don’t know to characterize the deal there because it’s not a deal we could accept,” he told the Herald.

Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: BJ Siekierski

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