presAtlantica

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UPDATED June 9, 2006

Press Release on Resisting Atlantica

left to right : Reg Anstey - President Nfld & Lab Federation of Labour; Michel Boudreau - President NB Federation of Labour; Blair Penny 1st VP PEI Federation of Labour ; Ivy Shaw - Secretary-Treasurer NS Federation of Labour ; Andrew Jackson - CLC at the Press Conference in Saint John

Atlantica: working families don’t want it! say labour leaders

SAINT JOHN (New Brunswick) – Big business’ idea of creating an integrated cross-border economic region, to be called Atlantica, will make us all poorer and will restrict democratic decision-making. That’s why working families don’t want it, according to the leaders of the four federations of labour of Canada’s Atlantic provinces.

In a joint news conference, Michel Boudreau, president of the New Brunswick Federation of Labour, Ivy Shaw, secretary-treasurer of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, Reg Anstey, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour and Blair Penny, first vice-president of the Prince Edward Island Federation of Labour, explain
that “such a wrongheaded political and economic proposal has been hatched in the dark. In broad daylight everyone will see as self-serving, undemocratic and hostile to working families.”

The labour leaders’ news conference is a response to the much-publicized “Reaching Atlantica” gathering convened in Saint John by the Atlantic Provinces Chambers of Commerce, the Saint John Board of Trade and the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, an extreme conservative think-tank.

The blueprint for the proposed Atlantica is to create a region that encompasses the four Atlantic provinces of Canada, a piece of Quebec, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and a large swath of northern New York State all the way to Buffalo. In that region of “business without boundaries,” according to the proponents, “the removal of barriers and
harmonization of regulations” will provide corporations with more privileges than those they already enjoy with NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), will weaken government ability to sustain people’s quality of life and will bring about the loss of provincial control over natural resources.

“Atlantica is not a blue print to make us more prosperous. It's a scheme by greedy corporations to make themselves richer at the expense of working people on PEI and across Atlantic Canada,” explains Blair Penny, first vice-president of the Prince Edward Island Federation of Labour. “This proposal is nothing more than a direct attack on the average citizen in Atlantic Canada.”

“The whole idea is an insult to the working people and citizens of New Brunswick,” says Michel Boudreau. “Working people and their unions have built an inclusive society in this province that is bilingual and that practices social solidarity through institutions like public medicare. Now a few greedy corporate executives want us to give it up on the altar
of ‘harmonization of regulations!’ That’s not going to happen.”

“They cannot build a modern society without strong citizens any more than they can build their businesses without workers. That’s why their Atlantica is fatally flawed,” says Ivy Shaw, secretary-treasurer of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour. “Any plan, like Atlantica, that includes abolishing the minimum wage or cancelling labour legislation is
an attack on the quality of life of the working people in Nova Scotia.”

“Because Newfoundland and Labrador seem to be an afterthought in this Atlantica scheme, I don’t see why the St. John’s business elite is participating in this?” says Reg Anstey, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour. “What big business calls ‘trade barriers’ or ‘red tapes’ are usually workers’ rights, families’ social
protections and community-driven development. Something like Atlantica will vacuum away what’s left of the control we can still exercise on future power generation, on offshore petroleum production and on our fisheries.”

The labour movement will be watching the reactions of the governments of the four Atlantic provinces and of the federal government to Atlantica. The Canadian Labour Congress, that represents over 3.1 million Canadian workers across the country, fully support the position of the Atlantic provinces’ four federations of labour in their denunciation of the Atlantica proposal.

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