Groups warn Canada-EU trade pact a Trojan horse

(OTTAWA) - Some 25 Canadian and European civil society groups rolled a Trojan horse up to the gates of Canada's parliament Monday to protest a proposed Canada-EU trade pact, as a new round of negotiations kicked off.

"Just like the Trojan horse behind me, this trade deal carries huge threats," warned Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians, flanked by the 14-foot high wooden horse.

Canadians and Europeans have been kept in the dark during the negotiations about "what's being given away," she said, decrying a lack of public disclosure of the negotiations started in 2008 and now entering a ninth round.

Protest organizers Canadian Pierre-Yves Serinet and Frenchman Frederic Viale echoed her concerns and called for transparency in the negotiations, as well as a referendum in Canada on the accord before it is signed and ratified.

Gerald Keddy, parliamentary secretary to Trade Minister Ed Fast, dismissed the concerns as being raised by "special interest groups ideologically opposed to free trade."

"The benefits to Canadian workers and businesses are expected to be enormous: a 20-percent boost in bilateral trade, a $12-billion annual boost to Canada's economy, and almost 80,000 new jobs created," Keddy said.

The 27-nation EU is Canada's second-largest trade partner after the United States, and also is the number-two foreign investor in the resource-rich North American country.

Bilateral exports and imports total about 100 billion Canadian dollars (US$98.5 billion) annually, according to official data.

A deal with the EU would be Canada's second-largest free-trade pact, after the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Mexico, and the first to include access to municipal procurements.

According to a 2008 Canada-EU joint economic study, liberalization of trade and services, including the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers, would provide a total $25-billion (18-billion euro) boost to their economies.

However, environmentalists, farmers, auto workers and others have rallied against it.

Fast has said Ottawa hopes to complete negotiations by 2012.