Canada Korea Free Trade Agreement

The blog of the Canadian Progressive Economics Forum has posted the testimony of the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives to parliament on the Korea-Canada FTA negotiations. Seems that the FTA is trying to copy the Korea-US FTA by putting a keeping a lot of the ugly stuff in it -- Chapter 11 Nafta-type investor-state dispute mechanisms, WTO TRIPS + agreements, and the like.

Below is a sample, you can read the entire testimony by Scott Sinclair of the CCPA here.

Pursuing monopoly protection beyond that required by WTO rules in the Canada-Korea or Canada-Andean pacts would set a very bad precedent, locking in domestic policies that Canadian governments may want to change in future, and reducing access to essential medicines in FTA partner countries. An analysis by Oxfam estimates that similar provisions in the US-Colombia draft FTA would cost Colombians an extra $940 million a year to buy more expensive medicines.