When the trees drop their yellow leaves this year I will be 87 years old. I will look back on a life marred by errors and embarrassments but redeemed by one small success. I am able to identify, study and write about problems that I can't solve. This is the mark of an expert. Although it is too late now for me to sell my expertise in the labour market, I have gained an understanding of what experts do and don't do.
Normally, the most important panels of experts, or whatever they are called, are engaged in juggling hot potatoes that are handed to them by governing bodies. Their purpose, as they well understand, is to study but not to solve. Because their continued income depends on it, they will study until it hails in Hades.
In Canada, investigations and studies drag on, preventing the scandals and misdeeds that have dogged secretive Harperdom from being fully aired in the House of Commons, which, constitutionally, is our country's most important debating society. Using so-called experts in this way is a political device. The expectation is that full disclosure of the scandals and mysteries will not occur until after the next federal election. Or never.
There are also experts who work behind thick veils of secrecy to hammer out treaties with other nations. Their purpose is to study and devise in order to gain the objectives of their political masters. This may mean an immediate problem is solved and a larger problem created. The experts have devised the Canadian position on the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Economic Community. The terms of the agreement have not been divulged to Parliament, but every MP understands that the agreement must be ratified while the Conservatives retain their hold on power or it won't be ratified at all.
Information about CETA has been leaked. Like the North American Free Trade Agreement, it sacrifices Canadian sovereignty in order to expand trade. Under NAFTA, foreign corporations can and do sue federal, provincial and municipal governments for enacting laws and bylaws which, while of benefit to their citizens, limit the profits of foreign corporations trading in Canada. CETA contains the same provisions and some that are even more stringent.
According to the leaked information, Canadian fresh water and municipal water supplies are at risk. So is the Canadian construction industry, since local preference in works commissioned by Canadian governments will no longer be permitted. What is most at risk is the Canadian generic drug industries. Under CETA, manufacturers of proprietary drugs will be able to place a crushing financial burden on the Canadian health care system. There are other dangers in CETA as well. Unless later events change the dynamics of the proposed treaty, it will not allow Canadians to be who we are and where we are and to have the right to chart our own course in maintaining and preserving our own natural and cultural heritage.
In the past century, opponents of what was called the welfare state claimed government handouts would destroy the moral fibre of the citizenry. In 2014, we seem to be inventing the corporate welfare state. It is difficult to see how conniving corporations are, or ever will be, the keepers of the global conscience.
Regrettably, I have seen the Harper regime privatize and eliminate government services that I valued. Other services, such as the CBC, are on the chopping block. CETA, as presently proposed, is more of the same. Enough should be enough. I am an old man who may not be around the next time Canadians go to the polls. I am an expert because I can identify and study problems that I cannot solve.
