Opponents of so-called free trade deals have always struggled with the question of why these international treaties don't generate more alarm and vocal opposition from Canadians. These treaties, after all, trump all other Canadian authority to make laws -- provincial legislatures, Parliament, the courts and even the Constitution. If, instead of being bored by news of another ho-hum "trade deal," Canadians were told that a panel of three international trade lawyers would be reviewing all new laws and determining, in secret, which ones passed muster by meeting with the approval of their giant corporate clients, would they react differently?

That is effectively what all of these corporate rights treaties establish: extra-judicial rulings whose objective is to protect the profits against laws passed in the public interest. The clauses that allow such suits are referred to as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). This is not hyperbole -- that is the actual, stated objective of ISDS: if a new law affects the expected future profits of a foreign-owned company, it can sue the federal government for damages. And the decision is made by a panel of trade lawyers whose bias is, naturally, in favour of facilitating corporate interests -- because that is who they normally work for. They aren't environmental lawyers or labour lawyers or human rights lawyers. They're trade lawyers. Foxes judging the right of other foxes to kill chickens.

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If the medicine doesn't work, increase the dose. That seems to be the position of the Harper government on these corporate rights agreements. He has signed one with South Korea and another with China (FIPA), shoe-horned his way into another, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (not yet signed) and is still waiting for the European Union to decide on yet another, Harper's most ambitious -- the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement or CETA. Harper also wants one with Japan but that country has apparently lost interest in continuing negotiations.

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Companies targeted with a hostile takeover often use a "poison pill" strategy to make their stock less attractive to the acquirer. What better poison pill for a right-wing libertarian prime minister than to tie the hands of future governments with a string of corporate rights agreements.

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2015/05/harpers-trade-deals-are-poison-pill-democracy