NAFTA Ruling Allows Companies to Seek Damages for Possible Breaches of Canadian law

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By Larry Brown, National Secretary-Treasurer, National Union of Public and General Employees Apr 07, 2015

These agreements have included a clause giving individual companies the right to challenge the decisions of democratically elected governments, in ways that citizens themselves don’t have.

Welcome to the bizarre world of corporate supremacy over domestic laws and governments. In this world, it's all backwards logic that provides powers to corporations to override democratic decisions by our courts and our governments.

NAFTA rulings continue to undermine Canadian decisions

For example, a company is given timber rights in Newfoundland and Labrador in exchange for setting up a pulp and paper mill. The company closes down the plant, lays off the employees, but wants to keep its timber rights. The provincial government says no, you aren’t living up to the original agreement; the federal government pays the company damages for the way they’ve been treated to avoid a NAFTA arbitration on the issue.

Or take this scenario: the Newfoundland and Labrador government says a company that wants to pump oil and gas out of the province’s territory has to agree to spend money in the province on research and development. Even though that’s perfectly legal, the government is found to have violated the company’s rights and damages are awarded. This ruling comes from a NAFTA arbitration.

And lastly, in one of the most outrageous slaps in the face to Canadian sovereignty, the Nova Scotia government turns down a company that wants to dig a huge quarry in an environmentally sensitive area that is important to the local community. The company is awarded damages through a NAFTA arbitration because they were denied the right to destroy the local landscape. 

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