North American Free Trade Agreement : Canadian Water Privatisation

[watereddy]

Dear Australian Water Networkers,

It seems Maude's grave concern about the NAFTA has been realised.
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A very important and disturbing story on how a trade agreement has
been used to set up water rights for a foreign compnay. We are
fighting back.


Maude


Subject: Media Release: AbitibiBowater NAFTA settlement has privatized
Canadian water, trade committee hears



MEDIA RELEASE
March 8, 2011

AbitibiBowater NAFTA settlement has privatized Canadian water, trade
committee hears

Ottawa -- The record-setting $130-million NAFTA settlement with
AbitibiBowater has effectively privatized Canada's water by allowing
foreign investors to assert a proprietary claim to water permits and
even water in its natural state, says trade lawyer and Council of
Canadians board member Steven Shrybman, in a presentation to
Parliament today.

"It would be difficult to overstate the consequences of such a
profound transformation of the right Canadian governments have always
had to own and control public natural resources," says Mr. Shrybman in
his presentation to the Standing Committee on International Trade,
which is studying the AbitibiBowater NAFTA settlement from last
August.

"Moreover, by recognizing water as private property, the government
has gone much further than any international arbitral tribunal has
dared to go in recognizing a commercial claim to natural water
resources."

In 2008, AbitibiBowater, a Canadian firm registered in the United
States, closed its pulp and paper mill in Grand Falls-Windsor, NL. The
company asserted rights to sell its assets, including certain timber
harvesting licenses and water use permits. These permits were
contingent on production. More importantly, under Canada's
constitution they are a public trust owned by the Province, not by
private firms. So the Newfoundland government moved to re-appropriate
them as it has a right to do under Canadian law. AbitibiBowater
sidestepped the courts to challenge the Newfoundland government.

"The case clearly put the concept of water as a public trust on a
direct collision course with treaty-based corporate and commercial
rights. However, rather than defend public ownership and control of
water, the federal government has agreed to settle AbitibiBowater's
claim," says Mr. Shrybman. "By stipulating that the payment of
compensation is on account of rights and assets, the government of
Canada has explicitly acknowledged an obligation to compensate
AbitibiBowater for claims relating to water taking permits and forest
harvesting licenses."

By settling with the company rather than challenging its case, we have
no response from the federal government to refute the company's
proprietary claims to water and timber rights, explains Mr. Shrybman.
The settlement also fails to identify the particular rights for which
compensation will be paid, and makes no attempt to exclude any of the
company's claims, "thereby acknowledging the validity of the claims."

"Moreover, by recognizing a proprietary claim to water taking and
forest harvesting rights, Canada has gone much further than any
international tribunal established under NAFTA rules, or to our
knowledge, under the rules of other international investment
treaties," he says.

A statement by the government that the settlement shall not set a
precedent is "entirely ineffective," because of NAFTA's National
Treatment clause which grants foreign companies treatment no less
favourable than national companies in like circumstances.

"It is not therefore an overstatement to describe the consequences of
this settlement as effectively representing a coup-de-grace for public
ownership and control of water and other natural resources with
respect to which some license or permit had been granted."

Shrybman suggests water takings by tar sands operations in Alberta, a
golf course in Ontario or a water bottling plant in Quebec are other
examples of where even a partial recovery of water rights by the
provinces could detrimentally affect business. If any of these
companies were foreign owned they could claim compensation on the same
terms granted AbitibiBowater.

***

The Council of Canadians strongly believes there is no place in
existing or future trade agreements for such overstretching investment
protections. It has repeatedly called on the federal government to
reopen NAFTA to remove the investor-to-state dispute process. The
Council also recently joined several other Canadian organizations in
writing to all members of the European Parliament urging them to
reject the inclusion of NAFTA-like investment protections in the
Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which
could be signed by the end of the year.

- 30 -

For more information:

Dylan Penner, media officer, Council of Canadians: 613-795-8685,
dpe...@canadians.org

To read Mr. Shrybman's full presentation to the trade committee:
http://canadians.org/