NAFTA scrutiny of oilsands tailings ponds opposed by Canada

[Newsjock]

Source: CBC News

Canada is trying to stop NAFTA's environmental watchdog from taking a closer look at the environmental effects of the huge tailings ponds produced by Alberta's oilsands, and it appears Mexico and the U.S. will go along with efforts to stop a formal investigation.

If that happens, it would be the third time in a year Canada has stopped North American Free Trade Agreement scrutiny of its environmental record.

The tailings ponds are a touchy political issue for both the Alberta and Canadian governments. They've become a symbol of the environmental footprint of oilsands production. The ponds cover more than 176 square kilometres and contain a toxic mixture of water, clay and chemicals, what's left over when the oil is removed.

Evidence suggest the ponds are seeping into the nearby ground and water.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nafta-scrutiny-of-oilsands-tailings-ponds-opposed-by-canada-1.2896100

[Recursion]

1. That's one of the good thing about trade agreements (nt)

[djean111]

2. I will wait to see what actually happens, before I apply a Good! sticker.

Maybe the correct palms have not been greased. Maybe any penalty will be fought until everyone gives up.
Maybe there will be a lawsuit because having to take care of the ponds affects earnings.
In the meantime, that stuff will continue to seep into the groundwater.

[arthritisR_US]

7. I live in Alberta and everyone willfully turns

a blind eye to the environmental degradation going on.

[DetlefK]

3. Being able to unilaterally deny security inspections?

[Recursion]

4. Partner countries raising environmental and labor standards (nt)

[DetlefK]

5. The TPP would lower standards to the lowest common denominator.

[Recursion]

6. Well, no, this is a perfect example of that

TPP is the same framework as NAFTA, so the same lawsuit (the thing people complain so much about here) would be valid.

[Faryn Balyncd]

9. You are misrepresenting the facts:

Last edited Mon Jan 12, 2015, 05:04 PM - Edit history (1)

If you read the article in the OP, there is no lawsuit.

Unlike the suits that corporations are empowered to make when they feel their profits are threatened (which go to an investor state tribunal which is exempt from appeal to the judicial system), the environmental groups which are attempting to prompt an investigation are NOT empowered to sue in the tribunals.

The complaint which has been made by the environmental groups referred to in this article is a complaint to the "Commission on Environmental Co-operation" which has a mission "to provide the public an outlet for environmental concerns."

As reported, "Commission staff investigate public complaints in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. and can recommend an in-depth investigation, called a factual record, if they find there are grounds. But it has no power to compel the countries to do anything."



Public Citizen has extensively documented the 20 year history of weakening of Public Interest laws by the investor state tribunals. (see Reply #8).

Environmental groups or other concerned citizens are NOT empowered by NAFTA or TPP to sue in these sovereign investor state tribunals. On the contrary, they may only make complaints (and try to instigate an investigation) to a commission set up to field public complaints, but which has no power to enforce anything.



Since your "perfect example" is a misrepresentation, can you provide a single example of any lawsuit in an investor-state tribunal under NAFTA which resulted in strengthening, rather than weakening, environmental law?

Can you provide a single example of a complaint filed with the "Commission on Environmental Co-operation" which resulted in strengthening, rather than weakening, environmental law?

If you can provide examples, can you make a case that they outweigh the documented cases attacking environmental law that are documented in Public Citizen's "NAFTA’s 20 - Year Legacy and the Fate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership"?



The sad reality is that NAFTA set up a system in which corporations who feel that their profits are threatened by pesky environmental or labor regulations may sue in a special tribunal exempt from judicial appeal, while environmental groups and citizens may only complain to a commission set up to give an "outlet" to such citizens, but which is given no enforcement powers.

Is there reason for anyone to expect that the secretive details of a so-called "Free Trade Agreement" of which corporations have both knowledge and input, but to which even U. S. Senators (not to mention the public) are denied access, will somehow be better?

[Faryn Balyncd]

8. PublicCitizen: NAFTA’s 20 - Year Legacy and the Fate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership

NAFTA’s 20 - Year Legacy and the Fate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership


The data compiled in this report on the outcomes of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) provide an answer: 20 years of living with NAFTA has created deep default skepticism among Americans about trade agreements. Even before many Americans hear details of how the TPP would expand on the NAFTA model, NAFTA’s two-decade legacy has primed them to oppose the deal.

This is not a story about protectionism, but about lived experience. The data show that NAFTA proponents’ projections of broad economic benefits from the deal have failed to materialize. Instead,millions have suffered job loss, wage stagnation, and economic instability from NAFTA. Scores of environmental, health and other public interest policies have been challenged. Consumer safeguards, including key food safety protections, have been rolled back. And NAFTA supporters’ warnings about thechaos that would engulf Mexico and a new wave of migration from Mexico, if NAFTA was not implemented have indeed come to pass, but ironically because of the devastation of many Mexicans’ livelihoods occurring, in part, because NAFTA was implemented. NAFTA was an experiment, establishing a radically new “trade” agreement model.

NAFTA was fundamentally different than past trade agreements in that it was only partially about trade. Indeed, it shattered the boundaries of past U.S.trade pacts, which had focused narrowly on cutting tariffs and easing quotas. In contrast, NAFTA created new privileges and protections for foreign investors that incentivized the offshoring of investment and jobs by eliminating many of the risks normally associated with moving production to low-wage countries. NAFTA allowed foreign investors to directly challenge before foreign tribunals domestic policies and actions, demanding government compensation for policies that they claimed undermined their expected future profits.......


https://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTA-at-20.pdf

A review of the 20 year history of the effect of NAFTA on Public Interest Laws begins on page 16, with documentation of specific environmental cases beginning on page 19 of the above document.


The actual history of these investor-state tribunals has consistently been to destroy the ability of governments to protect the environment.


A closer reading of the article quoted in the OP shows the following:

Two environmental groups and three private citizens from Alberta, Saskatchewan and the N.W.T. want the Commission on Environmental Co-operation to find out whether Canada is breaking its own Federal Fisheries Act by failing to prevent tailings from leaking into the Athabasca River and nearby creeks in northern Alberta.....

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nafta-scrutiny-of-oilsands-tailings-ponds-opposed-by-canada-1.2896100

Public Citizen's report documents a consistent pattern of repeated weakening of environmental protections through NAFTA proceedings.

Other that this current attempt by Canadian environmental groups to attempt to get the "Commission on Environmental Cooperation" to act to get Canada to enforce its own law, can you provide a single example of this so-called "NAFTA environmental watchdog" acting to strengthen (rather than weaken) environmental law?