from last fall and leaked reports from private negotiations to go on. Yet Stephen Harper says he hopes to wrap up negotiations by the end of 2012.
"The first thing to know about CETA is really it's not mainly about trade: genuine trade barriers between Canada and the European Union are already very low," says Scott Sinclair, a senior research fellow for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and a former senior trade policy advisor with the B.C. government.
"My concern is that the agreement's more about limiting democratic policy options and enhancing corporate power, really, than enhancing trade."

Cashing in on provinces

Unlike past trade agreements, including the failed Trade and Investment Enhancement Agreement negotiated with the E.U. under the Liberal government in 2005-06, this agreement involves areas of provincial andprovince responded by taking back the company's rights to water and wood in the province. AbitibiBowater sued the province for violating NAFTA, and the federal government stepped in and settled the dispute by giving AbitibiBowater $130 million.

"[That] made Newfoundland angry; they thought the water and timber rights belonged to the people of Newfoundland and they were only given to AbitibiBowater so long as they lived up to their end of the agreement, which they ceased to do when they closed down the operation," says Moist.

"So you had a national government, in our case the federal government, signing international trade deals that affect matters that come under the purview of the province, in this case water and timber rights in Newfoundland."

Terry Boehm, president of the National Farmers' Union, worries