Here we go again. For many Canadians, the prospect of a Trans-Pacific Partnership rekindles the fears and forecasts heard more than a generation ago on the merits and demerits of free trade with the United States and Mexico.

The corporations and their cheerleaders assured us then that freer trade would benefit everyone. Well, there’s no question that it benefitted those at the top. Inequality between the rich and poor grew faster in Canada from the early 1990s — when NAFTA was signed — to 2010.

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Even the Conference Board of Canada acknowledges that “income inequality increased in the last 20 years and the gap continues to widen.”

In 2012, corporate executives earned 122 times the average income for workers, up 45 per cent from a decade ago.

Free trade is a misnomer. It’s not about trade. It’s all about enabling corporations to dictate the terms of their investments, and, in the process, override municipal, provincial and federal laws. With the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA came secret tribunals that allowed corporations to sue governments.

The municipal government in Hudson, Que., banned the use of pesticides on all lawns within its municipal boundaries. Dow Chemical sued and won.

In fact, Canada has never won a NAFTA dispute and has paid out more than $3 billion as a result.

The TPP would affect a wide array of issues, including intellectual property (i.e. an idea, invention or process), Internet freedoms, food sovereignty, costs of health care and education, environmental standards and banking regulations.

In all these instances, the rights of corporations are promoted at the expense of the rights of communities.

According to Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel memorial prize in economic sciences, the TPP might turn out to be the worst trade agreement in decades.

Doctors Without Borders is urging countries to reject the TPP because of harmful provisions that will lock in high drug prices.

“Voting for the TPP will hurt the 800 million people in TPP countries and potentially millions more by locking them into a deal that will make lifesaving treatments unaffordable for those who need them most,” says a statement from the humanitarian organization. “They must reject the worst trade deal ever for access to medicines and uphold their obligations to protect public health.”

The Council of Canadians warns that the TPP would extend patent-medicine terms and drive up the price of medicine and health care significantly. It would also undermine Canada’s dairy, poultry and egg farmers and permit foreign investors to challenge our public policies “outside the court system, using investor-to-state dispute settlement.” Opening our borders to the American dairy industry would make it difficult to identify which dairy products in Canada contain bovine growth hormones. Canadians and Canadian farmers have steadfastly rejected the addition of hormones.

Here in B.C., even without the TPP, Nestlé is on the cusp of winning a new licence to withdraw and sell water for its bottling plant in Hope, paying a ridiculously low $2.25 for every million litres. With a TPP, the licence conditions would favour the multinational giant over the rights of all B.C. residents, including farmers, and the treaty rights of indigenous communities.

With the TPP, as with the FTA and NAFTA, there are no minimum labour standards. We would be prohibited from implementing International Labour Organization regulations. It truly is another race to the bottom.

After years of secret negotiations, the Harper government released the 6,000-page TPP document days before the government was defeated last October. The new federal Liberal government is conflicted about the TPP. While it supports free trade, it inherited this deal from the Conservatives.

It’s the same scenario as in 1993, when the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien inherited and signed the NAFTA deal agreed to by the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney.

The TPP will be on the minds of many Liberals ,and there are some within the party who understand that the TPP conflicts totally with their election promises of “real change.”

The Grandmothers Advocacy Network urges you to speak out and let your elected officials know your feelings on this “partnership.” For our part, we advocate a return to a more compassionate Canada, where governments at all levels work to reduce spiralling income inequality by promoting social and economic justice — goals simply unattainable if we are handcuffed by the TPP.

Dick Proctor wrote this on behalf of and with the input of the Victoria Grandmothers Advocacy Network.