The Council of Canadians

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Founded in 1985 to oppose the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the Council of Canadians is a left wing citizens' organization that advocates for leftist policies on behalf of its members across the country. The Council concentrates its advocacy around the core issues of fair trade, public health care and the right to water, but has recently focused on what it calls the deep integration of Canada with the United States.

The Council of Canadians is chaired by Maude Barlow, who is best known internationally for her work on water. In 2005, Barlow received the Right Livelihood Award, or the "Alternative Nobel Prize," with Tony Clarke, "for their exemplary and longstanding worldwide work for trade justice and the recognition of the fundamental human right to water." In 2002 Barlow and Clarke published Blue Gold: the Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World's Water, which was published in 40 countries.

In 2005, Barlow published a book on Canada-U.S. relations called Too Close for Comfort: Canada's Future Within Fortress North America. It argued that Canada and the United States were being pulled together by stealth through a series of working groups devoted to the harmonization of continental regulations on trade, the environment, immigration and citizenship, and labour.

Internationally, the Council is recognized for its role in blocking the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, which would have allowed corporations to challenge national laws, even those related to environmental and labour regulations, if the laws hurt profits.

The Council publishes a seasonal magazine called Canadian Perspectives.

1 Campaigns
2 Board of Directors (2006/2007)
3 External links
- 3.1 Chapters

[edit] Campaigns

Deep integration
Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP)
TILMA (Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement)
Health Care
Trade
Water
Energy
Food
Peace

[edit] Board of Directors (2006/2007)

Maude Barlow — Author and National Chairperson of The Council of Canadians

Leticia Adair — Coordinator, immigrant and refugee support services, Diocese of Saint John.

Bob Ages — Financial analyst, former coordinator of the Manitoba Coalition Against Free Trade.

Morna Ballantyne — Managing director of the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ union education and development services.

Pina Belperio — Researcher, community activist, writer and journalist. Founder of citizen watchdog group “Whistler Watch”.

Roy Brady — Community activist, retired elementary schoolteacher and former Chair of the Peterbrough Health Coalition.

Leo Broderick — Retired teacher, past president of the P.E.I. Teachers’ Federation and former vice-president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation.

Robert Chernomas — Professor of Economics at University of Manitoba.

Andrea Furlong — Youth Care worker and former special projects officer with Conservation Corps Newfoundland and Labrador. Studied community and economic development in Zimbabwe.

Garry John — Chief of the Seton Lake Band and the Chair and spokesperson of the St’at’imc Chiefs Council.

Gordon Laxer — Political economist at the University of Alberta and Director of the Parkland Institute.

Claire McNeil — Legal aid lawyer and educator, works with individuals and groups on a rang of low-income issues in the are of mental health, law, housing and income support.

Marion Moore — Librarian and community activist, former chair of Lunenburg County Project Ploughshares and Bridgewater Amnesty international group.

Garry Neil — Policy issues management consultant working in all cultural industries, media commentator and former general secretary of ACTRA and vice-president of the Canadian Conference of the Arts.

Martha Robbins — Former prairies organizer for the Canadian Federation of Students and youth president of the National Farmers Union. Works with Via Campesina, the international peasant movement.

Rick Sawa — Educational consultant with the Prince Albert Grand Council and sessional lecturer at the Prince Albert Campus of the Saskatchewan Urban Native Educational Program.

Steven Shrybman — Practices international trade and public interest law in Ottawa.

Louise Vandelac — Professor in the Sociology Department and the Environmental Sciences Institute at the University du Québec à Montréal.

Fred Wilson — Trade union and community activist, assistant to the president, communications, energy and paperworkers Union of Canada.