By Dee Nicholson
National Health Federation of Canada
Over the past ten years or so, I’ve been an activist with one overarching concern, that of stopping Codex Alimentarius, a WHO brainchild, from foisting draconian rules for food safety on Canadians… including me. Codex has been on the table in one form or another since about 1962; it has been looming over us with a promise of useless potencies in natural supplements, ridiculously low allowable dosage limits, and the requirement of prescriptions for simple vitamins, for a start.
The rules go on and on, each of them removing some right or other to choose what form of nutritional supplement you want to take, and in what amounts, and all of them are to be synthesized under “Good Manufacturing Processes” to assure “quality”. This, despite the longstanding proven safety and efficacy of all these products, as well as the fact that anything synthetic is not well-tolerated by the human body.
Now, all along, we health freedom buffs (Health Canada once called us “Nutri-terrorists”) were aware that the Codex guidelines, once accepted by our government, would be enforced by trade sanction via the World Trade Organization. And because our nation is signed to the WTO Agreement, Canada could be dragged kicking and screaming into the morass of international food standards which do nothing for health but ensure its diminishment, or pay millions for our non-compliance.
This triggered a few stalwart individuals, this writer included, to spot the fact that Canada’s own health legislation would become meaningless under these guidelines, yet we were practically helpless to stop the process, being obligated by our signing of the trade agreement. I’ve said it before and will say it again: trade agreements are enforceable international contracts, not social clubs.
Boy, we thought we were smart. But we all got hornswoggled here, big time. That Codex freight train is not the only one on the track, and something else is appearing on our radar as a more immediate threat. It’s a whole other train, and we can already see the headlights.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that Codex is not a threat. It definitely, absolutely, really, really is. But Codex is only half baked, and is not likely to be in any enforceable form for a good couple of years. Meanwhile, CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union, currently under negotiation, has in its back pocket the European Union’s own version of Codex Alimentarius, guidelines as bad as Codex or worse, which have been in place since 2005.
Bear in mind, CETA has been much more than a twinkle in the eye of globalists everywhere for ten years now. It’s only recently that word got out about what was on the table: Opening up Canada’s water utilities to privatization by foreign bidders; privatizing Canada Post; energy plans by the provinces; domination by Monsanto of our agriculture and forced acceptance of genetically-modified seeds. When they said “comprehensive”, they meant it. But somehow, none of us even thought about those EU food guidelines, probably because we didn’t see a mechanism by which they could be applied to Canada…. until we heard about CETA.
You’ve got to understand how simple it is for multinational influence to worm its way into our governance system. One trade agreement = one enforceable contract = disappearing sovereignty. It’s easy. Wherever our laws run counter to what a trade group wants enforced, a majority vote at the table forces us to govern the sovereignty of our nation according to the wishes of the group, as the WTO forced the USA to alter its corporate tax law, some years back.
The World Trade Organization is indeed a prime example. There are about 193 nations in that group, and Canada has only one vote. Our delegate goes to the meeting, presumably (but not necessarily) to present the wishes of the Canadian people, translated by our MP’s, to the assembly. If more than half of the guys at that table, each presenting their own nation’s stance, happen to disagree with Canada, Canadians are forced, by law, to surrender to their decision, even if it means repealing or amending our laws. And remember, the WTO is the enforcement arm of Codex Alimentarius.
Now the rubber meets the road: Canadian legislation, shaped, ostensibly by our votes, is rendered obsolete and of no effect, the moment the group says something different. At that point, what happened to our sovereignty, our ability to decide and make and enforce our laws?
It’s as obsolete and toothless as that lost vote, by contract.
Consider this: Canada is signed to ten international trade agreements, and is negotiating twelve more, including CETA. What possible areas of our sovereign legislation might be overturned because of them? And when all these agreements are in place, of what use is your vote?
And this: For whose benefit are these “agreements” (contracts) signed? It sure isn’t ours. Hint: they’re called “trade” agreements. Since the government does not engage in trade, but only promotes it, and since if one wants to find a prime motivator, one should follow the money, only one group can possibly benefit, and that group is made up of multinational corporations. These are the same multinational corporations whose head honchos regularly consult with our elected “representatives”. Some are members of our Privy Council.
Now might be an appropriate time to mention an old quotation from the King of Fascism, Benito Mussolini: ““Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
So Big Oil, Big Energy, Big Pharma, and Big Agriculture triumph, and get to set their own rules, while we are left scratching our heads over how democracy has gotten so weird lately.
It isn’t weird. It’s non-existent. And it’s being rapidly swallowed by Mussolini’s dream, and our worst nightmare.
Back to CETA, and how it threatens, at the very least, our health freedom. And to cover all the bases, we need to examine how our own Health Ministry is opening the door to legitimizing CETA’s influence and those EU guidelines, through a clause in Bill C-36, soon to have its second reading in the House of Commons.
The Legislative Summary of Bill C-36* states: “the definition of ‘government’ in this bill encompasses not only federal and provincial governments in Canada, but also federal Crown corporations, Aboriginal governments in Canada, foreign governments, and international organizations of states, such as the United Nations.” (Emphasis is mine)
It also says, “Clause 3 provides the bill’s purpose, which is to “protect the public by addressing or preventing dangers to human health and safety” posed by consumer products. This clause expresses the federal government’s constitutional authority to enact this bill. Because it has a “public protection” purpose, Bill C-36 likely falls under the ambit of section 91(27) of the Constitution Act, 1867,14 the federal government’s criminal law power.”
My lay person’s translation of all that is first, our Health Ministry is mandating itself to take direction from foreign entities (Notice, they mention the UN, but not trade groups… do you think they want you to grok that trade groups are “international organizations of states” too?), and second, since they’re talking about “public safety”, Constitutional rights don’t mean a whole hell of a lot either. In case that doesn’t sound familiar, you might recall the “notwithstanding” clause in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms: sounds like they just tacitly invoked it, to me.
This nation is a democracy, you say? How could it be, with our own government having kicked it into an early grave and shoveled dirt on the only thing that makes democracy possible, which is our sovereignty!
While we were sleeping, somebody stole our democracy. And I hate to tell you, but that “somebody” is us, just like the old Pogo cartoon said. You read right, we’re to blame here, because we not only slept like Rumpelstiltskin through the entire metamorphosis, but now are awakening to a fascist nightmare.
Bill C-36 must not pass. That doorway to health serfdom must be closed, and CETA must be stopped. Together, they pose more than a threat to our treasured, but waning, freedom to choose what is done to our own bodies, and those of our children, which by itself is a dismal enough outcome: they end a piece, a precedent-setting piece, of our democracy.
The clock alarm is blaring. Are you going to hit the snooze bar and roll over? Or are you going to remind our government that we never gave permission for anyone to sneak our democracy out the back door, and give them a broad hint that to you, it sounds a wee bit treasonous?
Choose it, or lose it.
*You can read the Legislative Summary of Bill C-36 for yourself here.
