I strongly urge all of you to go to sites like policyalternatives.ca - which have some very clear writing on them, and read, and keep in mind that there is another side to them which the media isnt covering and that is transnational subcontracting. That's basically the "trade" part, literally.
"We" which in the case of these deals means huge multinationals that have the government's ears have to give up something to get something else. Thats basically the whole idea behind he global "progressive liberalisation" scheme.
The changes will effect services' which "includes any service in any sector except services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority;"
But that often trotted out exemption is extremely deceptive.. because
'a service supplied in the exercise of governmental authority' means any service which is supplied neither on a commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers."
In other words, it would not apply to most of what most people think of when they think about public services.
Although this issue is slightly different, superficially in terms of applicability, I think its safe to say that the 'message' being sent by the events depicted in this news story is on the services state of play in the context of recent media coverage of Presidential candidates whose statements might lead one to believe that the last 20 years of neoliberalism, the WTO, etc, had never happened.
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