
This is a guest post by David Suzuki.
In 1997, Canada restricted import and transfer of the gasoline additive MMT because it was a suspected neurotoxin that had already been banned in Europe. Ethyl Corp., the U.S. multinational that supplied the chemical, sued the government for $350 million under the North American Free Trade Agreement and won! Canada was forced to repeal the ban, apologize to the company and pay an out-of-court settlement of US$13 million.
The free trade agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico was never designed to raise labour and environmental standards to the highest (Read more…)