MAKE POVERTY HISTORY - 2005

News Release

For immediate release: November 14, 2005

Barenaked Ladies Lead Charge
Make Poverty History Targets WTO

Canada’s Make Poverty History campaign, endorsed by over 700 organizations and a quarter of a million citizens, launched an email blitz today targeting politicians on the ongoing World Trade Organization negotiations. The action is the first of many to mobilize Canadians ahead of the WTO summit in Hong Kong in December.

“Unjust international trade rules have a huge impact on lives of the almost 3 billion people in the world who are living on less than $2 a day,” wrote the pop stars Barenaked Ladies, in a message to campaign supporters, urging them to write International Trade Minister Jim Peterson and Agriculture Minister Andy Mitchell. “Tell them you expect Canada to stand for development and trade justice. Tell them Canada must refuse to sign any agreement that doesn’t. Tell them to help make poverty history.”

“Trade is the fourth leg of our effort to change the policies that keep people poor,” said Gerry Barr, CEO of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation and co-chair of the campaign. “Along with more and better aid, canceling the debt and ending child poverty in Canada, trade justice is essential if we are to make poverty history.”

November 14 is the fourth anniversary of the Doha Declaration, when governments in the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreed to tailor new trade negotiations to fit the development needs of the world’s poor countries.

Sadly, with barely more than a month to go before a deal is to be inked in Hong Kong, development has fallen off the trade agenda. Trade talks continue to be dominated by a handful of rich countries, far from citizen scrutiny, with commercial self-interest over-riding poor countries’ development needs.

“Unless things change dramatically, the poor may actually come out worse off after these talks,” Barr said. “Millions of small-scale farmers, mainly poor women, will lose their earnings in the face of continued dumping of subsidized exports; workers will face lay-offs as local firms are forced to compete with global corporate giants before they are ready; and essential services like water may be privatized, leading to user fees the poor cannot afford.”

On November 14, citizens around the world are taking part in a global action to call for trade justice. In Canada, besides the e-mail blitz, Make Poverty History activists will hold public stunts in Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax, Montreal, St. John’s and Ottawa.

MPH Trade Justice page

For more information:

Katia Gianneschi
Make Poverty History
(613) 241-7007 ext. 311
media@makepovertyhistory.ca