>"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and almost all of his cabinet colleagues were absent for the vote. Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau was the only cabinet minister present. When it was his turn, he said he abstained "on behalf of the Government of Canada." "
Under this treaty, if the Canadian government takes actions that damage or undermine Chinese investment in Canada, then Chinese companies can sue Canada in a tribunal that is separate from both Canadian and Chinese court systems; these tribunals have broad authority to mark the findings as confidential, keeping the rulings and outcomes, including financial penalties secret. The duration of the trade agreement is 31 years.
If Trudeau and his Cabinet had endorsed this motion, it would have been a tacit attack on China, and grounds for Canada to be sued under this treaty, with virtually no defense.
Naturally, Erin O'Toole (the current leader of the opposition party in Canada) is aware of this, and the easy political points he can score by attacking Trudeau for failing to support this policy, since he had a direct hand in promoting and passing the legislation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada-China_Promotion_and_Rec...
It's easily the worst trade agreement we've signed in generations. Harper _really_ screwed us over.
I think it’s more likely just straight politics as usual. Trudeau might very well have done the same thing without the restrictions of the treaty.
There is no doubt that there is a political motivation for doing this, but in particular this treaty presents a specific extra-judicial legal jeopardy for any government at any level in Canada for taking action against China.
[1] https://nationalpost.com/news/as-geopolitical-tensions-rise-...
"Corporations from either country can sue if the country in which they have their operations has public policies even those intended on protecting the environment, health, or safety that the corporation says "interferes with the corporation’s profitability".[10]:23[5] Canada's risk of such lawsuits is much greater than China's, since "China's foreign direct investment in Canada is much higher than Canada's in China."[5] By 2015, Chinese foreign direct investment in Canada in 2015 was roughly three times the amount of Canadian investment in China."
Is there a page on the canadian government website that details this agreement with china?
> Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed [...] to prevent a Contracting Party from taking action in pursuance of its obligations under the United Nations Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security.
Labeling an act as genocide and taking measures against China as a result of it would fall under that clause, so any Chinese investors who would sue would be out of luck.
> Where, after consulting with a disputing investor, a disputing Contracting Party determines that it is in the public interest to do so and notifies the Tribunal of that determination, hearings held under this Part shall be open to the public.
In other words, the tribunals are really no less secret than any other regular court case.
> Any Tribunal award under this Part shall be publicly available, subject to the redaction of confidential information.
> To the extent necessary to ensure the protection of confidential information, including business confidential information, the Tribunal may hold portions of hearings in camera.
> To the extent that a Tribunal’s confidentiality order designates information as confidential and a Contracting Party’s law on access to information requires public access to that information, the Contracting Party’s law on access to information shall prevail. However, a Contracting Party should endeavour to apply its law on access to information so as to protect information designated confidential by the Tribunal.
Article 33 states:
> Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to require a Contracting Party to furnish or allow access to information the disclosure of which would impede law enforcement or would be contrary to the Contracting Party’s law protecting Cabinet confidences, personal privacy or the confidentiality of the financial affairs and accounts of individual customers of financial institutions.
That's more than enough rope to hang public access.
IE:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/commons-law-clerk-we-charit...
Also, back-bench MPs speak on behalf of their constituencies more than on behalf of the government.
He's the party leader. He can force his will.
And you can be booted from the party for not voting party lines.
This isn't true.
> Voting party lines is much more of a thing in parliamentary systems.
People choosing to vote party lines, yes.
They can boot you out of the party, but they still can't require you to vote a certain way. People choose to vote party lines, but they're not forced to. If you don't vote how your party wants the worst they can do is not let you be in their party any more.
I mean, if you want to leave you house but I threaten to beat you if you do - does that mean I can’t really stop you from leaving? Seems like I just did.
Obviously there is no legal requirement for MPs to vote a certain way, but in practice the party leader, and the whip will force votes it deems important from party members . And yes, getting kicked out of the party or losing cabinet or committee assignments is normal punishment for insubordination. The end result is that MPs are much more disciplined around voting along party lines than, for example, House members are under the American system. In fact, the American Congress is a wild-west compared to the strict discipline you find in the Canadian Parliamentary system. You would never see a Joe Manchin-type of behaviour when a party member breaks ranks to vote against a candidate pushed by the party leader (or whatever the equivalent would be in the Canadian system). That never happens.
I suspect that Trudeau in this case wanted to have his cake and eat it to. He allowed a free vote for Liberal MPs while he and leadership abstained. This way he isn't on record one way or the other and therefore limits how pissed China would be, and at the same time limit the amount of criticism he would get from opposition had he forced a particular vote on his MPs.
And people still think they live in democracies.
Canada is part of the core UN group about to present a resolution in the UNHCR on human rights violations in Sri Lanka soon and I hope the government shows more spine.
It's obvious realpolitik, the actual hard decisions that have to be made in politics.
Sometimes you can't have both principles and profit at the same time.
The Trudeau family has always supported dictatorships, such as the Castro regime in Cuba. The son even went as far as calling Fidel "larger than life leader who served his people" [0]
[0] https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/27/world/justin-trudeau-castro-e...
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/09/16/trudeaus-in-ti...
Perhaps this type of rhetoric should stay on Reddit and Facebook.
As a Canadian it always felt a little questionable. Cuba was always a major vacation spot for Canadians and the foreign currency they brought it certainly helped prop up the regimen.
1. The Liberals hold a minority government, and whipping the entire party rank and file into voting against the motion would not prevent it from passing.
2. The cabinet doesn't want to piss China off, and doesn't want to give their opponents ammunition (by voting against the motion), so it didn't show up to the vote.
3. This provides the cabinet with freedom of action, to quietly apologize to China in private, while not looking bad domestically. Or, alternatively, if world sentiment supports this position, and other parliaments and governments follow suit, this gives them the option to come out in support of this condemnation.
4. This will make a few rounds in the news cycle, maybe result in a small adjustment in foreign policy, but will not result in a major political shift in Canada.
tl;dr - the opposition is hammering the Liberal Cabinet on the morality of this issue, the rank-and-file Liberals go along with it, because they either have a conscience, or don't want to lose elections, while the Cabinet is playing Realpolitik.
For Americans, you can think of the Cabinet as the executive branch of government - closer in powers to the President, and their subordinate agencies. But unlike a President, the Cabinet, and the Prime Minister [1] can be removed by a 50/50 vote in Parliament.
[1] The Prime Minister in particular can also be removed by a 50/50 vote of their own party.