On Wednesday, May 9, 2001, Ottawa became the 19th Canadian city to pass a resolution against the FTAA, GATS, and similar trade agreements!
The vote was 17 to 2, with 3 city councilors missing. It seems Minister of Trade, Pierre Pettigrew sent a letter to some councilors in response to this campaign. Councilor Wendy Stewart introduced it at the meeting, but it seems very few believe the Ministers reassurances that municipalities have nothing to fear.
There was tremendous community participation during the campaign that included collecting 700 names on a petition, getting the resolution passed (unanimously) at the Health, Social Services & Recreation Committee of Ottawa, sending delegations and extensive briefing books to the 21 City Councilors and Mayor and seeing many
Ottawa residents take direct action to push councilors to support this resolution.
Ottawa is Canadas fourth largest city and has become the 19th municipality in Canada to pass a resolution regarding the GATS and only the second in a province east of Saskatchewan, the first being Tecumseh, Ontario (near Windsor).
The resolution will be forwarded to Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Pierre Pettigrew, local Members of Parliament and Members of Provincial Parliament as well as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
“This is what democracy looks like!!”