I am steaming about the last and I hope final outrage committed by Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The deal he rammed or slimed through, the controversial Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) today simply cannot be allowed to stand.
The deal will come into force on October 1, 2014, and will be effective for 31 years, until 2045.
The deal would allow Chinese investors to sue British Columbia if it changed course on the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal. Shockingly and surely illegally, there is no requirement in the treaty for the federal government to make public the fact of a Chinese investor’s lawsuit until a tribunal has issued an award. This means that the federal government could settle the lawsuit in a way that many Canadians would oppose, or by paying out public money before an award is issued, and we would never know.

Say what now? Stephen Harper does not have the political capital to make deals that extend decades into the future and give away constitutional rights. Though I am looking intently I do not see the energetic routing of him that other elected representatives owe us. What’s an individual to do? Where are the leaders who will stand up for Canada? I am befuddled that this sellout could happen.
I have been a follower of international and global politics my whole life. From the days when we used to call them Statesmen –rarely women – because that was their primary role. Regardless of their personal peccadillo’s, and down through many centuries they all had them, from the Caesars to Roosevelt to Shaka Zulu; regardless of that the business of the state seemed to be conducted with some cohesion of vision. Canada is now running a permanent garage sale. Step right up, everything is reduced. It is tragic to witness. Did Canadians give him the right to do this?

It feels slightly bogus to be writing about this when clearly what is needed is sleeve-rolled-up activism across the country. I am out of practice and out of connections and am not cheered by what I read and hear.
I first became politically active when I was nine years old, going door to door in my working-class ghetto in Dublin to encourage people to vote and arrange their transportation to booths. The idealistic concept of government for the people, of the people, by the people fires my blood.
This righteous fire came with me to Canada and contributed to the creation of the foundation of Canadian film making through CFDC/Telefilm and the provincial film offices across the land. Hand in hand with this was the need to create jobs and so we organized the success of Canada as a location for foreign filmmakers. Billions and billions of dollars into the Canadian economy. Had to be done.
We were all volunteers. We had Boards and meetings and fights and illuminations and all believed that Canadian culture was worth it and that the power of the people was the greatest force in any country. The Government of Canada had already sold out their filmmakers many years before in an agreement with Hollywood. We needed to move the behemoth to reverse that. It took smart people from many disciplines, linear and creative. And it took time. And we did it.
The rallying cry for all of us, because the cultural argument fell on deaf ears, was that filmmaking was labour intensive and non- polluting. It brought in fresh money, and took nothing from the land but canisters of film. This was an argument that Canadians, even politicians, could get behind as it was true to the spirit of Canada.
Some years ago the NFB sent filmmaker Mo Simpson across the country during yet another period of head scratching on Canadian identity, what it was, did it exist and where was it. From Coast to Coast to Coast Mo reported back that regardless of origin, ethnicity, religion or politics, what Canadians had in common was love of the LAND.
We are the keepers of something as old as time, a continuing pulsating life force through infinity unless we kill it; one of the few remaining places on earth where animals roam free on land and in the water. And that natural freedom has a very strong impact on what it means to be Canadian. I see it in my children. Even with an Irish mother and an American father and living on both sides of the border, their Canadianess is a strong identifier.
There is copious evidence that this is not a factor in the business machinations of China. Their own land is polluted perhaps beyond recall. Their workers rights, divisions between rich and poor, their steadfast denial of what Canadians take for granted as civil rights – all of these are antithetical to the Canadian way. Any business between us should be based first on complying with the Canadian way of life. Hundreds of thousands of people have died for this land – started with Native Canadians (Indians) and through world wars.
Are we really just going to let it be sold out in this way?
I will return to this in more blogs.