A Trade and Investment Research Project bulletin from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
September 2024
Ecuadorian rights defenders
Women leaders engaged in dangerous efforts to protect rights and the environment in Ecuador will visit Canada next week to speak out against trade talks aimed at expanding and attracting Canadian investment in resource extraction projects in ecologically vulnerable regions.
During the seven-day "Why We Say No Tour," which starts Monday, four Ecuadorian Indigenous women and rights defenders will meet with government leaders, parliamentarians, trade negotiators, Indigenous leaders, civil society organizations and the press in Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal.
“Our territory, our rights, and our lives are at stake in this trade deal, and it’s being negotiated behind our backs and without our consent,” says delegation member Zenaida Yasacama, vice-president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), Ecuador’s largest Indigenous body. “We already know from experience the harm more Canadian mining will bring, which is why we’re coming to Canada to urgently call on the government to reconsider a trade agreement that will make a deteriorating human rights situation worse.”
According to Canada’s ambassador to Ecuador, Stephen Potter, speaking at an Ecuadorian Chamber of Commerce meeting this week, Canada plans to invest more than $3 billion in mining projects in Ecuador over the next three years. Ecuadorian vegetable, cut flowers and shrimp exporters hope the agreement will increase market access in Canada for their products, but minerals (primarily gold), petroleum and cocoa beans—none of which face tariffs—are Canada’s main imports from the country.
The Ecuadorian delegation to Canada next week is equally concerned about ongoing efforts to include an investor-state dispute settlement process (ISDS) in a future FTA that will pass the scrutiny of Ecuador’s supreme court.
“ISDS is already prohibited by Ecuador’s Constitution and people voted in a referendum this past April to reaffirm this ban,” says Ivonne Ramos from Acción Ecológica, who is also participating in the visit to Canada. “Including any provision allowing for ISDS in this trade deal would drastically limit Ecuador’s ability to govern in the interest of all Ecuadorians, setting a serious precedent for disrespecting the Constitution and the will of the people.”
The "Why We Say No Tour" is co-organized by MiningWatch Canada, Amnesty International Canada, KAIROS, the Canadian Labour Congress and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and takes place between a virtual third round of Canada-Ecuador trade talks earlier this month and a planned fourth round in Quito in October.
According to recent news, only three of the agreement’s two-dozen chapters have been closed: small and medium sized enterprises, good regulatory practices, and competition. Nonetheless, Ecuadorian officials think "technical closure" can be achieved across all chapters and a deal finalized in round five (Dec. 9–13). Both sides hope to sign the FTA before general elections in Ecuador this February.
For more information on the tour, including public events in Ottawa and Montreal, click here.
