Corporate Spin Doctors will never quit - Why would they let the truth get in the way?

A column recently appeared in the Globe and Mail, written by Judith Maxwell, suggesting that momentum is building for provinces and territories to sign on to the anti-democratic B.C./Alberta Trade Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA).

A rebuttal has been written by Saskatchewan Federation of Labour Trade Committee Chair, Gary Schoenfeldt and is reproduced below:

"This is pure Bay Street propaganda from the Globe and Mail.

Saskatchewan rejected TILMA on the grounds that it threatens democracy by taking decisions on local procurement and local regulations of benefit to communities away from governments, placing those decisions in the hands of unaccountable appointed tribunals.

Maxwell thinks that by telling the public that "Momentum is building", she can ignore the fact that TILMA is stalled, that the people in BC and Alberta, who were never consulted when that back-room deal was signed are waking up to the fact that their governments have sold them out to a business lobby headed by the CD Howe Institute and its Chamber of Commerce cronies.

Maxwell has somehow overlooked the mass of academic research showing that TILMA is a massive attack on democracy, that there are no significant barriers to internal trade or to labour mobility and that the intent of TILMA is a deregulatory mechanism safe from "interference" by democratically elected governments. If TILMA can be said to have generated any momentum at all, it would have to be with respect to the massive opposition to it that has been seen across Canada particularly in Saskatchewan where it was rejected.

Maxwell should take note of the fact that the CD Howe Institute took a beating on TILMA when it tried to hold a secret meeting to drum up support in Saskatchewan in 2007. She should write a story about the resistance to TILMA that continues to develop across the country.

Gary Schoenfeldt
CEP Vice-president,
Saskatchewan Federation of Labour"