see, this is the game that the ndp get to play, so long as you don't release the text - they can feign agnosticism to the text, thereby stringing along opponents long enough that they fail to organize, until they get a chance to see it.

by explicitly citing intellectual property rights protections, which appear to have been relaxed with the withdrawal of the united states, they appear to be setting up a situation where they can accept the changes.

that said, they are getting to the heart of the problem of the deal. as i've mentioned, the tpp was always meant to reconstruct the wartime japanese empire, including ambitions in australia and india, but this time as an economic block, under american hegemony, with the explicit purpose of containing china. what the american withdrawal really does is it lets loose this neo japanese empire to act outside of direct american hegemony, and that may mean co-operation, rather than competition, with the chinese, and the russians. it was a total fuck up, from an american-centric geostrategic perspective.

but, what that means is that the islands in the southeast of asia are going to be largely reconverted into japanese colonial holdings, that they will supply resources and labour to the multinationals that are headquartered in japan to service the japanese market and markets that japan exports to, including china and north america.

japan does still make a lot of electronics, but it doesn't make them in north america. the thing it makes in north america is cars. so, these new rules to reduce the cost of production in asia will tempt the japanese to move production of parts to asia, and then import them to canada, rather than make them here. in a worst case scenario, the north american operations could be reduced to something like an ikea process to building automobiles.

the trade-off is a larger export market for agricultural goods. that doesn't help people where i live much. but, if you're looking at aggregate national numbers, it might add up to a net positive for the country. and, that's the problem that workers here have really faced for decades - small concessions to industry taken one at a time always balance out to other factors, and then add up over a long time.

so, how do you fix this?

well, the ideal solution is to support workers movements in asia. the agreement is supposed to insist on labour regulations, but they already sold us that bridge at nafta - don't believe that. it's not enforceable. workers always need to win their own rights. the establishment of a sustainable wage standard across the trading block would localize production for local markets, as the transportation costs would become superfluous. that's what everybody, save the vultures, really want in the end; it's the endpoint of all of the ideologies. and, it's attainable. to get to this point, it's imperative that workers see each other as united in co-operation, rather than divided in competition. for, if they compete, they produce a race to the bottom. the focus should be on lifting them up.

but, for this particular deal, i'm not convinced it's the way forward for anybody. the agriculture industry would be far better off in a bilateral deal with japan that keeps canada outside of this neo japanese colonial sphere. and, i might agitate for that approach, instead.

but, i expect the ndp to support the deal, based on this posturing.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/ndp-trade-critic-calls-on-trudeau-to-release-all-details-of-new-tpp-deal-1.3780081

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.