andyt andyt:
BeaverFever BeaverFever:
The whole thing is ridiculous. Governments shouldn't be obligated under turn law to automatically approve whatever plan a business puts before them. If the government wants to deny their proposal, that's their prerogative, right or wrong. The world we live in today.
The problem with all the free trade deals - they're there for the corporations, not the people.
I've never understood why some critics get so frustrated at the antics of the "Court Party" who use court challenges to achieve legal changes that they can't persuade legislatures to adopt, saying that it leads to the courts intruding into areas that are supposed to be the legislature's responsibility...
...and yet they have no problem when these unelected, unaccountable trade lawyers are used by foreigners to achieve much the same thing, either by getting laws and actions struck down as detrimental to trade, or even just by threatening it.
The thing is that the courts and judges have their roles legitimized by the Constitution, and they also have important constitutional checks on their authority, most notably the notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The ISDS panels have
nothing like this. No Constitutional mandate, and few if any formal limits on their scope or power.
Oh, and they provide foreigners with more legal avenues than we as citizens get in our own damn country.
If they feel they've been ripped off, foreigners should use the same damn court system as the rest of us. Smaller Canadian firms and individual citizens have to do it, so why shouldn't the foreigners have to do it too?
CKA Uber 
