This is the 2-minute version of what will happen to Canadian sailors if the Senate approves Bill C-30 (CETA) as is and comes into application on Canada Day 1/7/17:
1. Low wage European ships ( Some foreign sailors paid as little as $1.26/hour on foreign ships according to Senate-Committee testimony on 13/4/17) can trade between any Canadian port due to Maritime Cabotage Rights granted in CETA’s Maritime Transport Chapter ( See “CETA text” on-line at international .gc, Chapter 14, only 5 pages long.) in Chapter 14, Article 3 (Obligations), paragraph 2 ( “A Party will permit… the other Party to supply feeder services between the ports of that Party.”).
2. Most of this is only temporarily suspended by Reservation II-C-14 (page1209 and1210 of CETA.), which still lets low-wage foreign ships carry international cargo between Montreal and Halifax and empty containers between all Canadian ports. This gives the false impression that low-wage foreign ships are only granted these Routes and no others under CETA.
3. Reservation II-C-14 can be revoked at any time, restoring Maritime Cabotage Rights to low-wage foreign ships to trade between all Canadian ports granted in the Maritime Transport Chapter of CETA without any further permission needed from Europe or further Debate or Approval from the Parliament of Canada.
4. You may also have noticed that employment contracts between seafarers and maritime shipping companies, including the 3 largest (C.S.L., Algoma and Desgagnes Transport) were only due to be concluded after Bill C-30 and CETA were approved in the House on 8/2/17 and over the course of the rest of the year. This may have resulted in the C.S.L. Self-Unloaders contract, perhaps the 1st to be offered since CETA would be implemented, being an indication of what is to come, due to fear of Reservation II-C-14 being revoked and Canada being flooded with cheap foreign ships.
4. For the Montreal-Halifax Corridor: President Givens told members at the quarterly meeting of the S.I.U. of Canada, Montreal Chapter, on 6/3/17 that Canadian sailors would be able to work on these ships for Canadian wages and that such foreign sailors remaining would also get Canadian pay, as well as telling the Senate-Committee that foreign ships will have to obtain Temporary Foreign Worker permits for their seafarers (permitting them to be paid Canadian wages while on Routes granted by CETA).
Exemptions granted to European ships carrying international cargo ( which is the vast majority of what ships carry in Canada) in t version he Corridor and empty containers between any Canadian port) in Clause 92 , paragraphs 2.3 and 2.4 of Bill C-30, means they do not have to do so.
Not only need they not obtain Temporary Foreign Worker permits for their sailors, no Labor Market Impact Assessment (M.L.I.A.) need be done, therefore no Canadians will have a chance at these jobs, except for residual domestic cargo.
5. President Givens has been asked to tell the Senate-Committee of these exemptions, in case the Senators have the false impression that any foreign seafarers will get Canadian wages on these Routes, due to his erroneous testimony before them, by e-mail twice, on 4 and 5/5/17, c.c.ed also in the last one to Vice-Presidents Patrice Caron and Charles Aubry: So far, no reply has been received.
Therefore, those witnesses, who testified with President Givens to the Committee on 13/4/17, have been requested to ask President Givens to do so.
Additionally, the 15 members of the Senate Committee have been e-mailed to say that President Givens may have not been aware of the exemptions at the time he testified.
Should you think other seafarers are interested in knowing that CETA is already having potentially catastrophic results, even though the Senate has not yet approved it, let them know, particularly if they are from outside Montreal, where they may not yet realize it and please let me know if the union plans any actions on CETA, now that it may very soon be approved.
Sincerely,
Marc de Villers.