While the Harper Conservative government has pushed ahead with its Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) with the European Union, the Ontario Liberal government has failed to protect public health care. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) protection for public health care was initially supposed to be provided through the Annex II Social Services Reservations. Annex II protects social services “maintained for a public purpose”. Unfortunately, the meaning of “public purpose” is disputed and the provision may not provide protection where there is private sector involvement in health care. To clarify that health services delivered as public services are excluded from NAFTA, the parties negotiated a general reservation in 1996. This addition to NAFTA's Annex I meant that services provided by provinces since 1994 would be excluded from NAFTA liberalization. With CETA, however, general reservations like those seen in Annex I u...
Notes from Leftwords -- Doug Allan