There is nothing new under the sun. In 2013, Saskatchewan is riding the crest of a resource boom which is providing a wealth of raw materials to other countries. In 1847, the Elgin-Marcy Reciprocity Treaty gave the British colonies of North America the right to duty free exports of lumber, fish, coal and agricultural products to the United States. Due to British support of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, the treaty was abrogated in 1866.
In 1911, Wilfred Laurier, recognized as Canada's most illustrious prime minister, was instrumental in negotiating a reciprocity treaty which provided for the duty-free movement of raw materials and some manufactured products between Canada and the United States. The pending enactment of the treaty was a major issue in the election of 1911. The Conservatives, under Robert Borden, saw the proposed treaty as the avenue for an American takeover of all of Canada. They were joined in their opposition by a group of dissident Liberals. Laurier's wounded party was defeated. The treaty was never enacted.
The threat of an American takeover was overblown. Had there been reciprocity, American corporations would have kept their production in American factories. Without it, American industrial interests avoided the payment of Canadian duties by setting up branch plants in Canada. There were winners and losers in Canada. The winners were Ontario and Quebec, where corporations, both American and Canadian owned, profited hugely during the settlement of the Canadian West. The losers were in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and - to a lesser degree - British Columbia. For 60 years, beginning soon after Confederation ,Western settlement kept the factories running in Canada's industrial heartland, while people of the West had few factories of their own, paid duties on goods brought in from near-at-hand American suppliers, and had only a limited market for agricultural products south of the border. Ontario and Quebec sold to the West. Western agriculture sold to Britain and other European countries. It was a situation which generated continuing distrust of Easterners in the lands west of Ontario.
What is significant in the reciprocity treaty of 1847 and the failed treaty of 1911 is that neither dealt with anything other than tangible goods. There was no reference to services of any kind. Beginning with NAFTA, Canadian governments have accepted treaty terms which permit foreign corporations to sue governments of every level in Canada for exercising their prescribed functions under made-in-Canada laws. People who claim to have penetrated the veil of secrecy cloaking the proposed trade agreement with the European Community claim the treaty, if enacted, will override even more Canadian law and whittle away even more Canadian sovereignty. They see threats to Canada's health care plan and to the use of generic drugs. They believe Canadian municipalities will no longer be able to give preferred treatment to local contractors. They see Canadian environmental law withering into a puny caricature of what it was, which has always been less stringent than it should be. They talk of threats to the Canadian banking system, to patents and to intellectual properties. What they fear most of all is European (and other corporations) being permitted to sell Canadian fresh water as a commodity, both in Canada and abroad.
The impending sacrifice of so much that is sane and reasonable, of so much that is Canadian, is designed to further enrich, through expanded trade, both Canadian and European corporations, and to trickle down a few coins to the rest of us. From 1939 to 1945, Canadians fought in a war to make the world safe for democracy. We are now doing trade deals to make the world a paradise for corporations and their investors.
Where are the whistle-blowers? We need millions and millions of them.
