To: Members of U.S. Congress and Canadian Parliament
Governments have a responsibility to serve the people: protect citizens and workers, communities, and the environment. Trade agreements should support that imperative, not undermine it to protect the profits of multinational corporations.
The TPP would allow multinational corporations to bypass our courts and sue our sovereign governments over hard-won labour rights, long-established air and water protections, imperiled Internet rights, and access to affordable medicines, amongst other things. The cases would be heard in private tribunals that are a law unto themselves. Corporate lawyers, rather than unbiased judges, would decide these cases -- without democratic accountability.
This isn't theoretical. Although the TPP would take this corporate power grab to a new level, it's already happening under existing “free-trade” and investment agreements. Oil corporations, big banks, pharmaceutical companies and others have used these private tribunals nearly 700 times to challenge the policies of more than 100 governments. For example, they’ve demanded taxpayer compensation for the U.S. rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline ($15 billion), the Czech Republic’s refusal to bail out a bank ($236 million paid), a fracking moratorium in Quebec ($119 million), Germany’s phase-out of nuclear power ($5.3 billion), and court rulings in Canada that support access to affordable medicine ($390 million).
Under the TPP, billions more tax payer dollars would go toward further enriching the profoundly rich simply because average citizens fought to keep their drinking water clean, to prevent their jobs from being shipped overseas, or to earn a decent wage.
The TPP was negotiated in secret. We, the public, had no say in its creation. But you, our elected officials, do have a say in its fate. You have the power to stand up for our countries’ dying middle class, and dying democracy, by demanding a new, democratic trade and investment model that serves the people and our planet instead of signing them away to the highest bidder.
The TPP is not just a bad deal for America; it’s a terrible deal for humanity. We urge you to reject it.
Sincerely,