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Balsillie fears TPP will cost Canada billions
- junto 11y agoNo shit. This goes for everyone else apart from the US too. That's why it was kept a secret. If we can prove that these politicians signed these agreements after receiving backhanders, can we declare it null and void?
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoIt screws over Americans too, but it benefits certain large corporations.
- athenot 11y agoExcellent point. Specifically, I wonder if it could run afoul with the US' laws forbidding bribing foreign officials. That would be a supreme irony.
- wcummings 11y agoThe TPP isn't ratified yet so I have no idea which politicians you're talking about.
- kosmic_k 11y agoThe reason why it was negotiated in secret is because there never would have been a consensus. It's literally a learned best practice of trade diplomacy.
- jellicle 11y agoThe reason why it was negotiated in secret was primarily to avoid public opposition to parts of it that will hurt the public. It wasn't secret to the entities benefiting from it, only to the entities being hurt by it.
- pbhjpbhj 11y agoIsn't "we can't negotiate in public because the public won't agree to this" pretty much the most anti-democratic thing the USA[?] could push on the rest of the world. Land of the Free ... How about instead saying: we believe in open democracy and so despite it slightly weakening our position we'll require negotiations to be open and require those ratifying the treaty to first have a free vote in their parliamentary houses [wherein one option will be to ratify following a referendum]. Now that would be spreading democracy. A cynic might think that this was the first best option to secure the world against change following the 1%-protests to ensure rich capitalists maintain their position of power because "oh we can't tax this damaging activity because it makes these people poorer and they made us sign a treaty".
- aianus 11y agoDemocracy isn't necessarily the best way to handle things. If you asked the people what they want on every bill no country could function. Every tax would get rejected, and every spending bill approved. Similarly for asking each congressperson about each individual clause in the TPP.
- serge2k 11y agoThis why the US is a republic and not a democracy.
- dragonwriter 11y agoIn Constitutional structure, the US is both a (democratic, federal) republic and a (representative) democracy, it is not, by design, "a republic and not a democracy". Cynically, one might argue that it is, in practice, a (plutocratic) republic and not a democracy, I suppose.
- antientropic 11y agoNot this again. "Republic" and "democracy" are not mutually exclusive terms: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/13/is-the-united-states-of-america-a-republic-or-a-democracy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
- DasIch 11y agoAll international agreements are generally discussed in secrecy. In most democracies even laws are discussed for the most part in secrecy. This prevents unexpected surprises, allows for a straight forward process, more honest discussion and makes it possible to reach compromises without appearing weak to constituients. It also acts as a filter for bad ideas and makes it easier to figure out, if something has any chance at suceeding without it becoming a public failure.
- kuschku 11y ago> makes it possible to reach compromises without appearing weak to constituients Why? According to that, all parliamentary debates should be secret, too. 90% of it are finding a compromise between two parties. Appearing "weak" is a virtue, not a weakness.
- kspaans 11y agoThe key word is international agreements.
- tome 11y ago> According to that, all parliamentary debates should be secret, too. Not as unreasonable as it sounds. The parliamentary system was devised when hardly anyone could read, and they certainly couldn't see debates on the TV.
- ant6n 11y agoA secret parliament is not a parliament.
- DasIch 11y agoYou should actually watch parliamentary debates sometime. For the most part they are completely boring and debates in name only. It's rare for parliaments to have actual passionate debates. That usually only happens on controversial and dividing issues, where it's worth it to make a stand to appeal to voters or where public support might help. Most of the time these debates are just a formality to pass through a compromise everyone already has agreed to pass through beforehand. Accordingly you'll see that parliamentary debates and even votes are attented often only by a small number of representatives, not because they're not doing they're job it's because they've already done theirs at that point and have better things to do.
- pwim 11y agoFor some interesting insight into why trade agreements are negotiated in secret, listen to this planet money episode: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/06/26/417851577/episode-635-trade-deal-confidential http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/06/26/417851577/episo.... Part of the problem of any trade deal is that you'll end up pissing off one group at home to make another one more happy. Trade negotiators argue they need to have the deals be negotiated in secret or special interest groups will cause too much noise and trade deals will never get done.
- snowwrestler 11y agoThis is true of legislation in general. Any significant bill brought to the floor of a legislature for a vote has already been negotiated by the bill sponsors and leadership, and usually they even have a good idea of how many votes it's going to get. It's true of business deals too. Typically the managers will negotiate the deal in private, and then present it their board and/or shareholders to be ratified. It's just really hard to make significant decisions in a large group of people. Anyone who has been in a huge meeting, or on a big committee, will understand that.
- cryoshon 11y agoHave you looked at who is going to benefit from the TPP? The legislators are forcing this pact specifically because it promotes certain interests of various corporations. The group that will end up getting pissed off is the public at large when their quality of living is reduced. Novartis et al will get their rapacious drug profiteering enforced onto countries that currently aren't under their dominion, and the people who live in those countries will suffer through high prices for medicine because their politicians got a fat kickback. Special interest groups are driving this entire partnership from start to finish.
- junto 11y agoMaybe we should democratically vote for representatives that keep their policies secret until we've voted for them.
- jp555 11y ago
- tareqak 11y agoIt is mentioned in the article that the Minister for International Trade, Chrystia Freeland, wanted Canadians to send her comments about it. Here is her tweet about it: https://twitter.com/CanadaTrade/status/662397645722361856 https://twitter.com/CanadaTrade/status/662397645722361856 It would be nice if there was a website breaking down what exactly is bad about the TPP, complete with links back to the draft text and if people just replied back with that. I think something like genius.com would be useful for this purpose, but I don't have the knowledge to highlight what is bad. Edit: Well, I'm getting started putting stuff up on Genius.com: http://genius.com/albums/Transpacific-partnership-tpp-negotiating-parties/Trans-pacific-partnership http://genius.com/albums/Transpacific-partnership-tpp-negoti... . Here is where the PDFs are: http://www.mfat.govt.nz/Treaties-and-International-Law/01-Treaties-for-which-NZ-is-Depositary/0-Trans-Pacific-Partnership-Text.php http://www.mfat.govt.nz/Treaties-and-International-Law/01-Tr... Another edit: I am just dumping the text for now. Not sure if I will get to formatting it nicely.
- disposition2 11y agoIf your in the US, I heard about this[1] site over the weekend. I haven't looked too far in to the details myself but skimming over it, it looks legitimate. In their analysis, they don't reference the section being vetted but it is rather simple analysis. 1. http://www.globaltradewatch.org/ http://www.globaltradewatch.org/
- jbeales 11y agoIt might be worth trying to get in touch with Balsillie - he may be willing to spend a couple of dollars to get something like you describe up & running - if he hasn't already started on it.
- skybrian 11y agoVox has a nice intro: http://www.vox.com/cards/trans-pacific-partnership http://www.vox.com/cards/trans-pacific-partnership
- tareqak 11y agoUpdate 10:47 AM EST: I put up chapters 0-30. I still have the annexes from chapter 2, 12, and 15 to do (I am doing them next). I made a few mistakes with chapter 20 (Environment), and I cannot delete them. I used the "Contact Us" link to ask to have those pages deleted. Here are the links to be deleted in case someone with links to genius.com is reading: http://genius.com/Transpacific-partnership-tpp-negotiating-parties-20-environment-chapter-annotated http://genius.com/Transpacific-partnership-tpp-negotiating-p... http://genius.com/Transpacific-partnership-tpp-negotiating-parties-20-environment-ch-annotated http://genius.com/Transpacific-partnership-tpp-negotiating-p... http://genius.com/Transpacific-partnership-tpp-negotiating-parties-20-environment-annotated http://genius.com/Transpacific-partnership-tpp-negotiating-p... Edit: Initially, I had the chapters categorized as X (other), but I started changing them to Law. genius.com doesn't seem to let me change it after the fact. Update 11:37 AM EST: It seems like I have hit a limit as to how many "songs" (chapters) an album ("document") can have. Any new ones I make do not appear in the album. I am going to have to stop for now since it will be hard to keep track. These are the two I made before I noticed: http://genius.com/Transpacific-partnership-tpp-negotiating-parties-2-d-peru-tariff-elimination-schedule-annotated http://genius.com/Transpacific-partnership-tpp-negotiating-p... http://genius.com/Transpacific-partnership-tpp-negotiating-parties-2-d-singapore-general-notes-to-tariff-schedule-annotated http://genius.com/Transpacific-partnership-tpp-negotiating-p... Update 12:38 PM EST: No word yet on the issue with genius.com . I did find the contact information for Minister Freeland [1], and search page for Canadian Members of Parliament (you can search by postal code) [2]. [1] http://www.parl.gc.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/Chrystia-Freeland http://www.parl.gc.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members/Chrystia-F... [2] http://www.parl.gc.ca/Parliamentarians/en/Constituencies/FindMP http://www.parl.gc.ca/Parliamentarians/en/Constituencies/Fin...
- tome 11y agoRather light on details.
- olalonde 11y ago> contains “troubling” rules on intellectual property that threaten to make Canada a “permanent underclass” in the economy of selling ideas Why? > He fears it would give American firms an edge and cost Canadian companies more money because they would have to pay for someone else’s ideas instead their own. What? > On top of that, Balsillie believes the structure could prevent Canadian firms from growing as it would also limit how much money they can make from their own products and services. Again why? I don't think this article ever specifically explains why TPP is bad for Canada.
- kelvin0 11y agoHere is a documentary which could shed more light on the issues Non-US countries face with TPP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0LOwmwgkdA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0LOwmwgkdA I researched some of the issues they mention, and so far the film makes some excellent points.
- suvelx 11y agoThe article is about TPP, and this video is about TTIP. Slightly different, as one covers the Pacific, the other the Atlantic.
- PythonicAlpha 11y agoGeographically it sounds a correct statement. But those agreements all have a common agenda -- don't think about geography, but about the common agenda behind it. We are living in the era of globalization and one of the reasons for such treaties is, that the geographical differences should vanish. Of course it is not about the same agreement -- but this video sheds a light about all those agreements.
- BookmarkSaver 11y agoOk, lets just never have another trade agreement in the history of the world. That should do it. Clearly all of them are bad. We can prove it because some of them are bad.
- DeBraid 11y agoI suspect Mr. Balsillie still owns a chunk of BBRY stock, which in turn claims ownership of a massive (multi-billion dollar)[1] patent portfolio. Some might argue that these patents represent the majority of the residual value of his former company, hence the alarmist rhetoric. The absence of any concrete info on how this will harm innovation is laughable. [1]: Patent buy in 2011: "Apple, RIM and their bidding partners control over more than 6,000 patents and applications that cover wireless and Internet technologies" which cost $4.5 Billion. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-07-01/nortel-sells-patent-portfolio-for-4-5-billion-to-group
- JamisonM 11y agoYou took the time to look for something about Blackberry patents, you could have also taken a moment to confirm that he has long since sold off his Blackberry shares. http://business.financialpost.com/fp-tech-desk/rim-co-founder-jim-balsillie-has-sold-all-his-shares-in-blackberry http://business.financialpost.com/fp-tech-desk/rim-co-founde...
- aianus 11y agoCanada's already lost at innovation. Almost everyone I know who graduated with a STEM degree moved to the US immediately upon graduation. My favorite example: Apoorva Mehta invented Instacart in Waterloo, Canada because it was too cold to go grocery shopping and too expensive to own a car. Then he immediately went to San Francisco (a city with warm weather and cheap cars?!) to start his unicorn. Waterloo students still go shopping in the snow. #fail.
- jbob2000 11y agoI don't know how you can dismiss an entire country because of one person's move. Toronto and Montreal both have big tech scenes and plenty of investors (albeit a bit on the bearish side). As much as we lose talent to the states, we also pull a lot up as well.
- tjl 11y agoWaterloo itself has a pretty big tech scene. There's a number of incubators and a few big companies have opened local offices (e.g., Google and Shopify).
- ska 11y agoI don't know how you can dismiss an entire country because of one person's move. You can't, at least not without appearing foolish. You can certainly discuss trends in education and work crossing that border, but they aren't simple or one sided.
- aianus 11y ago
- cdnsteve 11y ago6,000 page document? It feels anything that long is purposely hiding as much as possible.
- briandear 11y agoKind of the same thing with Obamacare.. Nearly all the politicians who voted for it didn't even read it.. By their own admission. John Conyers of MI comes immediately to mind.
- DasIch 11y agoPoliticans generally won't read most of the laws they sign and why would they? There are many laws on incredible wide range of different topics and you only have so many representatives. You can't possibly expect every lawmaker to be an expert on every of these topics. That's why they have experts and colleagues that they can talk to and why lobbying exists and is not an entirely bad thing.
- reviseddamage 11y agoI think what you meant to say was, "no wonder it's 6000 pages long due to this being a very large and complex project. The length of this document is reasonably commensurate with the intended scale of such a deal."
- wcummings 11y agoThe brogressives on HN hated the TPP before they ever read it, expect the low-quality anti-TPP spam to continue.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- richmarr 11y agoMeanwhile, on The Onion: "Other commenters are low-quality says name-calling generaliser"
- mcv 11y agoPeople were very skeptical about the TPP because of the contents of earlier leaks, and the way the negotiations were handled.
- kifler 11y agoWhat exactly was wrong with the way negotiations were handled? If by in-secret, that is par for the course for a number of large trade agreements.
- Retra 11y agoJust because that's the status quo doesn't mean it is right.
- serge2k 11y agoWasn't the fast track legislation and such part of the cause of the worry? The idea being that it is negotiated in secret then pushed through before people can really create informed opinions.
- mcv 11y agoThis is far bigger than merely a trade agreement. It contains provisions that replace existing laws and may hinder democratic decision making. There are a lot of things in it that have nothing to do with trade, and everything with the rights of citizens.
- XFrequentist 11y agoI'd love to see the TPP text annotated on Genius (or a similar site). Is that a thing?
- medecau 11y agoThere's a copy of the TPP on Documentcloud. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2507281-tpp-complete.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2507281-tpp-complete...
- shmerl 11y agoTPP should be opposed already for the single fact that it's an undemocratic backdoor agreement that attempts to circumvent proper legislative process to shape law.
- 3pt14159 11y agoThe issue is that vocal minorities fuck up trade deals. American corn interests can't compete with Brazilian sugar on a cost basis, and you and I might not care too much about sugar tariffs, but guaranteed lobbyists for these minor interests are going to bloat up the trade bill to the point where it isn't even readable by a single person.
- cyorir 11y agoBarbara Weisel, chief negotiator for the US, works in the USTR, which answers to the President, who was democratically elected. Koji Tsuruoka, chief negotiator for Japan, answers to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who is appointed by the Prime Minister, who is designated by the Diet, which is democratically elected. For most parties involved (cough Vietnam cough Brunei) negotiators ultimately answer to democratically elected officials, and approval follows the respective constitution of the involved party. If I had not wanted a President who supports free trade agreements, I would have voted for someone other than Obama in 2012. This may be a "backdoor agreement," but it is not an undemocratic backdoor agreement.
- shmerl 11y agoThey are from executive branch. TPP is clearly a legislative effort (of monstrous proportions), so it should be controlled by the legislative branch, including ability to amend and discuss the agreement in advance in transparent and public fashion. It is clearly undemocratic, because executive branch here usurps the power to create law.
- icebraining 11y agoThe executive branch can't pass the agreement, so there's no usurpation. If the legislative branch decides to sign-off on a fait accompli, you should blame them.
- walterbell 11y agoJeffrey Sachs commented yesterday about the U.S. fast-track requirement for a bundled all-or-nothing vote, http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/11/08/jeffrey-sachs-tpp-too-flawed-for-simple-yes-vote/sZd0nlnCr18RurX1n549GI/story.html http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/11/08/jeffrey-sachs-..., "TPP is too flawed for a simple ‘yes’ vote" … the 12 signatories should slow down, take the pieces of this complex trade agreement in turn, and work harder for a set of international standards that will truly support global sustainable development … The agreement, with its 30 chapters, is really four complex deals in one. The first is a free-trade deal among the signatories. That part could be signed today. Tariff rates would come down to zero; quotas would drop; trade would expand; and protectionism would be held at bay. The second is a set of regulatory standards for trade. Most of these are useful, requiring that regulations that limit trade should be based on evidence, not on political whims or hidden protectionism. The third is a set of regulations governing investor rights, intellectual property, and regulations in key service sectors, including financial services, telecommunications, e-commerce, and pharmaceuticals. These chapters are a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Their common denominator is that they enshrine the power of corporate capital above all other parts of society, including labor and even governments. The fourth is a set of standards on labor and environment that purport to advance the cause of social fairness and environmental sustainability. But the agreements are thin, unenforceable, and generally unimaginative. For example, climate change is not even mentioned, much less addressed boldly and creatively. … The up-or-down vote therefore raises two questions. First, are the bad parts indeed bad enough to vote down the package, thereby jeopardizing the undoubted good of other chapters? Second, do we truly face an all-or-nothing proposition, or rather could we agree with our negotiating counterparts on certain chapters while reconsidering others? … Congress should vote “no’’ on the current TPP, while simultaneously endorsing its trade provisions as well as continuing the work with our counterparts on the other chapters. Globalization is indeed so important for our common good that it’s of overriding significance to get it right."
- snowwrestler 11y agoThe reason all these things are glued together into one deal is that they will not pass on their own, because international trade is not symmetrical. Consider a wealthy post-industrial nation A trading with a poor industrial nation B. Raw materials and simple goods flow from B to A, so tariffs will be the primary concern. Capital, complex goods, services, and IP flow from A to B, so investment, IP, and regulatory issues will be of concern in that direction. A tariffs-only deal will not be balanced and therefore not succeed. Likewise a regulations-only deal. Trade issues are not even balanced between industries. A tariffs-dropping deal will find support from manufacturers, but opposition from materials companies. So to succeed, a trade deal must balance the various interests of many stakeholders. That means gluing a bunch of stuff together so that to any given person, some parts will look good and some parts will look bad. The reason Congress created fast track is that different people will see different parts as good and bad. Fast track ensures a simple vote on the balance as a whole. If enough people see more good than bad--overall--it passes. A trade deal will never look ideal to anyone. The question is whether it's a net gain for most.
- joesmo 11y ago"A country can withdraw any time, on six months’ notice." Why not give notice now? Who exactly has this power? This is incredibly vague.
- nisse72 11y ago> “It’s a treaty that structures everything forever – and we can’t get out of it.” > he noted treaties like this one set rules that must be followed forever But a few lines further down: > A country can withdraw any time, on six months’ notice. I'm confused; which is it?
- ChuckFrank 11y agoI and a lot of others have been talking about the dispute resolution processes and how they shift power to corporations over and above all sectors of government. In the domain name space they are called Rapid Dispute Resolution Processes (DRRPs) and around, in particular, intellectual property, they are fraught with danger. They allow corporations to overrule national laws around environment, climate, working conditions, you name it. I hope we can slow this train down enough so that people can understand what is on the table here. At almost 6 thousand pages there are also a lot of devils in the details.
- dgrant 11y agoA very smart friend of mine on Facebook with lots of ties in the tech industry described Balsillie as "Canada's Donald Trump." He says "I’m not a partisan actor, but I actually think this is the worst thing that the Harper government has done for Canada." The worst? He says "It’s a treaty that structures everything forever – and we can’t get out of it." Forever? Later in the article we find out, "The deal must be ratified by all 12 countries, and then it would come into force six months later. It would require a parliamentary vote in Canada. Alternatively, the treaty can also take effect if it’s ratified by half the countries representing 85 per cent of the zone’s economy. A country can withdraw any time, on six months’ notice." So not only can we get out, but it's not forever if you can get out. So Balsillie is full of $hit, alarmist, and possibly still butthurt over losing out to a patent troll that RIM never took seriously enough.
- btilly 11y agoI am surprised by this line, Alternatively, the treaty can also take effect if it’s ratified by half the countries representing 85 per cent of the zone’s economy. Is this something that the negotiators really had the power to agree and bind their countries to??? The US constitution is very clear that the negotiators lack that power. However the question can't come up because the USA is about 16% of the world economy, so you can't get to the 85% of the economy figure without the USA. But Canadian law is not entirely dissimilar. Specifically Canada may have signed it, but according to http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/lop/researchpublications/2008-45-e.htm#a5 http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/lop/researchpublications/2008-..., Canada is not bound by the agreement until it is ratified. And even then it does not have any force in Canadian domestic law until Parliament has passed specific bills to implement it. So Canada shouldn't be bound by this, and the negotiators were in the wrong to promise what they had no authority to promise. I'm sure that the US and Canada are not the only two countries where the negotiators did not rightly have power to bind their countries to that term. So why is this term considered binding rather than being pointed to as a clear example of overreach??
- dragonwriter 11y ago> I am surprised by this line, Alternatively, the treaty can also take effect if it’s ratified by half the countries representing 85 per cent of the zone’s economy. Is this something that the negotiators really had the power to agree and bind their countries to??? Of course the negotiators don't, only the ratifying authorities have the power to bind, but that's true of all of the rest of the treaty (and every treaty) as well: note that, in that case, in comes into effect between those who ratified it. So, only for those for whom those with the power to bind the country did so (including agreeing to that condition for it going into effect.) NOTE: This type of minimum threshold clause is common in agreements (many multilateral treaties have something like it.) The idea being that the prospective parties don't think that the restrictions are worthwhile unless there is a sufficiently-large group joining the arrangement.
- btilly 11y agoThat sounds very reasonable. OK, TPP doesn't. But that term does.