Council of Canadians shocked that the WTO set to negotiate away our water
(OTTAWA) - In the intense final round of all night negotiations in Qatar, The World Trade Organization (WTO) secretariat and the European Union slipped into the final Ministerial Declaration, a plan to negotiate "the reduction, or as appropriate, elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers to environmental services." (clause 31-iii)
"What this means," says Council Chair Maude Barlow who is at the meetings in Qatar, "is that with one stroke of a pen, they have launched a process that will see our water and water services turned into commodities and open the floodgates for the big global water corporations to sell off our water."
"Once you open the trade tap on water, we will never be able to maintain environmental measures that protect our rivers and lakes from being diverted and shipped overseas," said Council Water Campaigner Jamie Dunn.
"From all the accounts we have received, Canada played a very forceful role in pressuring developing countries to approve the final declaration, said Tony Clarke, Council Vice-chair and co-chair on the Common Front on the World Trade Organization. "It is shameful that Canada would be applying pressure on developing countries to accept a declaration that clearly most Canadians will not accept. Trade Minister Pettigrew will have a lot to answer for once Canadians realize what he has done in our name."
Maude Barlow reported that many developing countries' delegates seemed to be unaware of the inclusion and the implications of these clauses in the declaration. "The global water companies were in Qatar to lobby the world trade ministers hard and must be very happy to see how the WTO will now be moving ahead to open up the world water markets, she said. We absolutely must get this information out to the world and start to prepare ourselves for this incredibly important battle to stop the corporatization of the world's water.":
