The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) is an international investment agreement and global trade regime being negotiated by 29 industrial states including Canada. Authors Maude Barlow, national volunteer chairperson of the Council of Canadians, and Tony Clarke, director of the Polaris Institute, take the deal to task in MAI: The Multilateral Agreement on Investment and the Threat to Canadian Sovereignty.

With some modifications, we are treated to a rehash of the arguments Barlow and Clarke made in their campaigns against NAFTA and, before that, the FTA with the United States. They contend that the MAI will permit transnational corporations to threaten Canadians’ and others’ democratic rights, their labour laws, environmental regulations, cultural industries, and much more.

Indeed, the proposed pact is so ominous and far-reaching that it will, in the authors’ estimation, compel Canada Post to charge exorbitantly for postal services in the Northwest Territories while rates in Toronto stay relatively low. They argue, as they did a decade ago, that American for-profit health care corporations are poised to swoop down and cherry pick pieces of our medicare system. The big, bad corporations will be permitted to challenge government subsidies for programs targeting AIDS, breast cancer, tobacco consumption, and prenatal nutritional programs. There is bad news too for those who care about global warming, public education, the CBC, our natural resources, and our municipal water utilities. Quebec sovereigntists are warned they will lose out in their aspirations to be maître chez nous: the MAI will undermine them. Provincial governments and natives will also suffer, forfeiting powers they now have or hope to attain.

If you place stock in these scenarios, you’ll like this book. I don’t; if the proposed pact is so evil and noxious, one wonders why so many countries are negotiating partners to it. Dire predictions made during the FTA debate have not materialized. The Liberals have embraced “Mulroney’s deal” and have gone beyond it. Recent cutbacks and threats to public education, the CBC, hospitals, etc., have come from our own governments not nefarious foreigners. Canada, perhaps more than any other state is dependent on international trade for its wealth and welfare. This strident assault is intended to activate citizens’ groups and mobilize public opinion against the MAI. Even if you believe this is a noble cause, it will fail. It goes, in my opinion, against our history and our interests.