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I wish more Canadians were aware of this.

It's easily the worst trade agreement we've signed in generations. Harper _really_ screwed us over.

After reading that wiki article (i.e. not the actual treaty), it seems like any argument that Canada’s vote harms profitability of Chinese companies could be flipped around just as effectively. China’s restrictions harm Canadian media companies. So I don’t see why Canada should be all that worried about passing this law.

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.

Here[1] is an article that illustrates how much China has invested in Canada. In contrast, Canada has invested very little. Canada has a great deal to lose by provoking China, and due to foreign policy implications in the United States under their previous administration, Canada was basically pushed into apprehending the CFO of Huawei. That went over well in China.

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-...

Also from the wiki article:

"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."

Wow, that is nasty, and the article makes no mention of this?

Is there a page on the canadian government website that details this agreement with china?

https://www.international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/trade-agreeme...

That still doesn't explain why Liberal MPs voted for the resolution. Presumably Trudeau could have prevented them from voting, or forced abstention.

Because it would have still passed, and they'd look bad in the press.

How would be prevent them from voting or force them to abstain? He doesn't have the power to do that.

Also, back-bench MPs speak on behalf of their constituencies more than on behalf of the government.

>He doesn't have the power to do that.

He's the party leader. He can force his will.

You cannot force an MP to vote in any particular way. You can only retaliate afterward.

If I threaten to kick you off a committee and you change your vote as a consequence I just forced you to vote a certain way.

They can't force an MP to vote in a particular way, but they can fire them, like O'Tool (leader of CA Conservative party) recently fired Poilievre and Sloan, or Ford (ON PC) fired Roman Baber for dissent.

The party whip has that power; the threat is to lose access to committee appointments, cabinet positions, or to even be kicked from the party. Or simply to have the party not adequately fund your re-election campaign.

These things are retaliation. If your only option is to retaliate afterward, then by definition you're not able to force it.

You're arguing semantics. For all intents and purposes, Canadian parties can force their members to vote a particular way. They don't always do so, especially on less important matters.

Of course he has that power. Voting party lines is much more of a thing in parliamentary systems. Typically it’s always party line unless they otherwise allow it.

And you can be booted from the party for not voting party lines.

> Of course he has that power.

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.

Right. Which means most MPs change their vote so they vote with their party.

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.

I don't understand what you're arguing. In the Westminster System generally, and the Canadian variant specifically, the leader of the party holds immense power.

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.

> 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.

And people still think they live in democracies.

Quickly reading the treaty itself (you can too at https://www.international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/trade-agreeme...), I see this bit in 33(5)(c):

> 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.

The tribunals are outside of the scope of the normal Canadian justice system and can act entirely in secret; there's no guarantee, really, that they can be counted on to agree that such a declaration is within the scope of that clause. We Canadians might not ever know how they ruled, if they ruled at all, and how much it cost us in total.

To me, an average citizen, this sounds absolutely insane. Why is there a need for such secrecy? How does that benefit us?

It generally doesn't. As an example of what kind of things might be kept secret, take a look at the history of softwood lumber disputes and aluminum disputes between Canada and the United States.

Again, reading the treaty quickly, I don't see any mention that the tribunals "can act entirely in secret." Actually, to the contrary, Article 28 does lay out:

> 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.

Article 28 also states:

> 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.

Have you never seen regular court documents that are redacted or even sealed to protect confidential information? That clause is basically saying the tribunal has the power to do that.

Yes, I have; often the document is redacted to the point of being worthless for public consideration.

IE:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/commons-law-clerk-we-charit...

China would argue - reasonably if debatably IMO - that the situation in Xinjiang is “internal” and thus not an issue of international peace or security.

Sounds like somewhat the TPP. I wonder what in the trade agreement made this a worthwhile compromise.

It basically ensured that Canada could do little to stymie resource exploitation projects that receive Chinese investment funds; this is a boon to Albertan/Saskatchewan oil companies, and BC coal companies.

This is pretty much the essence of international “free” trade agreements...