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| Canada's Manchurian Candidate? |
But we've got 32-years to find out. That's the toxic lifespan of the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement whereby Harper sold Canada down the river to Beijing in exchange for a bag of silver coins.
According to The Tyee, Harper knuckled under to China's demands for one reason - to keep Chinese money flowing to the Oil Patch.
Gus Van Harten is an associate professor at the Osgoode Hall Law School and an expert in investment treaties.
Van Harten said FIPA is practically a one-way deal in favour of China, and Ottawa needs to acknowledge the non-reciprocal aspects of the deal and explain why they would ratify it two years after it was first signed.
"It seems to me the federal government has conceded to China under pressure to give them this treaty," said Van Harten. "My guess is this is the price China has demanded to open its purse strings for investing in the resource sector in Canada."
In a press release today, Ottawa insisted the deal will protect such Canadian investors in China and help build trade relations.
The release claims the deal will give "Canadian investors in China the same types of protections that foreign investors have long had in Canada."
But Van Harten doesn't buy that line.
"One aspect of the treaty is it has an exclusion of all existing discriminatory measures in Canada or China," he said. "China, it's safe to say, has far more existing discriminatory measures than Canada does."
Local government rules or different tax rates will now be locked in under the agreement, giving Chinese officials a tool to punish any Canadian investors it wishes to, he said.
We probably won't have to wait too long before we feel the lash of FIPA.
