---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 20:07:40 +0200 From: Laurent JESOVER <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: ATTAC LISTE WELCOME <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [ATTAC] Fw: TOBIN TAX UPDATE AND NEXT STEPS - APRIL 15.99 Robin Round is part of the canadian NGO Halifax Intitiative d'Halifax. Please see the "TT Planetary Ring" on the first page of http://attac.org/ to have a link to their website. -----Original Message----- From: Robin Round (by way of Pierre Rousset) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: vendredi 16 avril 1999 17:12 ------------- TO THE TOBIN TAX NETWORK: Congratulations to everyone who made the historic passage of the Tobin tax motion possible! By a resounding two-thirds majority, the Parliament of Canada became the first in the world to declare its intention control speculative capital. We all deserve to celebrate this important victory - when we engage our democracies our ability to make change is made possible. The success of the Tobin motion campaign, along with last year's MAI victory, provides ample evidence that citizens working together can take on economic globalization. Our task now is to keep the campaign alive, both at home, and internationally. WHAT CAN I DO NEXT? A list of how the MPs voted is included with this email. Please check to see how your MP voted. Write him/her a congratulatory (or otherwise) letter and ask what they will be doing next to act on the mandate provided by the vote. It is not yet clear what the federal government plans to do regarding the motion. Neither of the House of Commons Standing Committees on Finance nor Foreign Affairs have yet been instructed to investigate the tax. These all-member committees hold public hearings and produce reports in order to advise Parliamentarians on critical issues. Write Minister Martin a congratulatory letter as well, and call for public hearings on the motion. Ask him how he will be acting on the motion internationally. Write your bank manager and cc your letter to the President of the Bank. Let them know that you are a supporter of the tax and part of a movement that collectively has millions of dollars sitting in their institution. Find out what their position is on the tax and why.( As you may have noticed, the financial community was not impressed by the vote. The March 24 Financial Post called the supporters of the motion " well-meaning but economically challenged" - they neglected to mention that we base our work on that of James Tobin - a Nobel laureate in economics...). Write the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Gordon Theissen. He doesn't like the tax and is convinced it won't work. He may be trying to convince Minister Martin that the tax is not feasible and should be dropped. Let him know you think otherwise. His address is: Bank of Canada 234 Wellington Ottawa, ON K1A 0G9 WHAT'S HAPPENING INTERNATIONALLY? I was in Bangkok when I received the news of the vote and announced it to over 300 academics, NGOs and Parliamentarians from over 75 countries to a round of cheers! We were all attending a conference sponsored by leading Southern research and advocacy NGO, Focus on the Global South entitled "Econonomic Sovereignty and Globalizing World". Financial transaction controls figured prominently in our discussions. The next morning, 20 NGOs and Parliamentarians from 14 countries held the inaugural meeting of the International Tobin Tax Network. What became apparent is that interest in the Tobin tax is high and there is much work happening at the country level : * Two Philippine Parliamentarians were inspired by the Canadian victory and will draft ttheir own House Resolution based on the Canadian one. They have comitted to linking with supportive Parliaments including the ASEAN Regional Parliament and the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Union; * A UK NGO will launch its Tobin Tax Campaign this week and will host a tour by Lorne Nystrom next week. On April 20, Mr. Nystrom will brief the European Parliament in Brussels on the Tobin tax, his motion and next steps, he will then go to London to meet UK MPs; * In Brazil, a coalition of organizations has engaged 45 Parliamentarians in its campaign on currency controls. Official public hearings on capital flows will be held this summer; * The Austrialian Parliament will launch a Parliamentary Inquiry into the impacts of international currency trading this week. Australian NGOs are planning to appear and recommend the Tobin tax; * Over 200 Spanish groups are engaged in the "Citizen's Right to Basic Income" Campaign, which is inviting politicians to rethink the Tobin tax from a revenue generation perspective; * French NGO ATTAC - "Association pour une Taxation des Transactions financi�res pour l'Aide aux Citoyens", which has offices in Brazil and Quebec, will hold a conference which will include discussion on the Tobin tax following the G8 Summit in June. ATTAC also has an excellent website (www.attac.org) which links all major sites on the Tobin tax. * In Belgium, 100 organizations developed a financial sector campaign ( which includes the Tobin tax) and presented it to all parties for response. Four parties have integrated recommendations on currency controls in their party platforms. Elections will be held in June; * A Finnish network has conducted a Tobin feasibility study and is working to build support in the European Parliament. Additionally this month, 15 US groups have struck at Tobin Tax Advisory Committee to share information and develop strategy. Many are working in support of Congressman Bernie Sander's Global Sustainable Development Bill which includes the Tobin tax. In the coming months, the Halifax Initiative will be working with Parliamentarians and citizens groups around the world to build an International Parliamentary Caucus on the Tobin Tax. Interested elected representatives will be invited to lend their names to a world-wide call for the development of a Tobin tax. We will also be building support for the Tobin tax by linking with interested citizen's groups around the world. If have contacts within your organization working in other countries or with other groups working internationally that may be interested in the tax, please have them contact us for more information on the campaign (In Ottawa - 613-789-4447, [EMAIL PROTECTED] or in Vancouver 604-915-9600, [EMAIL PROTECTED]). Next week, the Halifax Initiative will be in Washington for the Annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund where they will be meeting with institutional representatives from around the world. Discussions at these meetings among bankers, bureaucrats and governments will focus on measures to prevent the next financial crisis. Also next week, we will be holding discussions with staff from the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Finance in Ottawa on Canada's position to the upcoming G8 meeting in Cologne. AND FINALLY, THANK YOU On behalf of the Halifax Initiative, I want to thank everyone for making this campaign a success beyond our wildest dreams. We will continue to keep you apprised of developments both at home and internationally and urge you to continue to participate. Please also continue to forward the Citizen's Declarations on the Tobin Tax. We will do a regular drop onto Mr. Martin's desk to remind him that the task is not over though the motion is past. With sincere thanks for an incredible victory, Robin Round Regional Coordinator Halifax Initiative PS: To those who may not have received notice of the passage of the motion, we apologize. We had computer problems in Ottawa after the vote and our staff (including myself) has been out of the country ever since. FINAL NOTE: I have just received the final version of the paper produced by Rodney Schmidt effectively arguing for the feasibility of a foreign exchange transaction tax. If you read Linda McQuaig's book, The Cult of Impotence, you may recall that Rodney was the Finance staffer who was asked to assess the efficacy of the Tobin tax prior to the G7 Summit in Halifax in 1995. When he produced a paper that said it was feasible, he was told, by his boss at Finance, to go back and write the paper that proved it was not. Paul Martin got the second version. We have the first. I will post the recently revised version of paper #1 to the Halifax Initiative homepage site this week (www.sierraclub.ca/national/halifax). HOUSE OF COMMONS VOTE RESULTS - MARCH 23, 1999 MOTION M-239 "That, in the opinion of this House, the government should enact a tax on financial transactions in concert with the international community. " YEAS - 164 Adams Alcock Assad Augustine Bachand (Saint - Jean) Bailey Baker Bakopanos Barnes Beaumier B�lair B�langer Bellemare Bennett Bertrand Bevilacqua Blaikie Blondin - Andrew Bonin Bonwick Boudria Bradshaw Brown Byrne Caccia Calder Cannis Caplan Carroll Catterall Cauchon Chamberlain Chan Charbonneau Clouthier Coderre Collenette Comuzzi Cullen Desjarlais DeVillers Dhaliwal Dion Discepola Dockrill Dromisky Drouin Dub� (L�vis - et - Chutes - de - la - Chaudi�re) Duhamel Dumas Earle Easter Eggleton Finestone Finlay Fontana Fry Gagliano Gallaway Godfrey Godin (Acadie - Bathurst) Godin (Ch�teauguay) Goodale Guarnieri Hardy Harvard Hubbard Ianno Iftody Jackson Jennings Jordan Karetak - Lindell Karygiannis Keddy (South Shore) Keyes Kilger (Stormont - Dundas - Charlottenburgh) Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast) Kraft Sloan Lebel Lee Lefebvre Leung Lincoln MacAulay Mahoney Malhi Maloney Mancini Marchi Marleau Martin (Esquimalt - Juan de Fuca) Martin (LaSalle - �mard) Martin (Winnipeg Centre) Mass� Mayfield McCormick McDonough McGuire McKay (Scarborough East) McLellan (Edmonton West) McTeague McWhinney M�nard Meredith Mifflin Minna Mitchell Morrison Murray Myers Nault Normand Nystrom O'Brien (Labrador) O'Brien (London - Fanshawe) O'Reilly Pagtakhan Paradis Parrish Peric Peterson Pettigrew Phinney Pickard (Chatham - Kent Essex) Pillitteri Plamondon Proctor Proud Provenzano Redman Reed Richardson Riis Robillard Robinson Rocheleau Rock Saada Scott (Fredericton) Sekora Serr� Solomon St. Denis Steckle Stewart (Brant) Stewart (Northumberland) St -Hilaire St - Julien Stoffer Szabo Telegdi Thibeault Torsney Tremblay (Lac - Saint - Jean) Ur Valeri Vanclief Vautour Wappel Wasylycia - Leis Whelan Wilfert Wood NAYS - 83 Ablonczy Alarie Anders Asselin Bellehumeur Benoit Bergeron Bernier (Bonaventure - Gasp� - �les- de - la - Madeleine - Pabok) Bernier (Tobique - Mactaquac) Bigras Borotsik Breitkreuz (Yorkton- Melville) Brien Brison Bryden Cadman Cardin Casey Casson Chatters Chr�tien (Frontenac - M�gantic) Cr�te Cummins Dalphond -Guiral Doyle Dub� (Madawaska - Restigouche) Duceppe Duncan Epp Forseth Gauthier Girard - Bujold Grewal Grey (Edmonton North) Grose Guay Guimond Hanger Harb Harris Hart Harvey Herron Hill (Macleod) Hill (Prince George - Peace River) Hilstrom Hoeppner Jaffer Johnston Jones Kenney (Calgary Southeast) Konrad Lalonde Laurin Loubier Lowther Lunn MacKay (Pictou - Antigonish - Guysborough) Marceau McNally Mercier Mills (Red Deer) Muise Pankiw Penson Picard (Drummond) Power Price Ramsay Reynolds Ritz Schmidt Scott (Skeena) Shepherd Solberg St - Jacques Strahl Thompson (New Brunswick Southwest) Thompson (Wild Rose)Vellacott -- Liste de travail du Groupe International. Pour toute information sur la liste, adressez-vous � mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=[INTER]Info_liste -- Attac discussion list For any information about the list and the work done by the Association http://attac.org/ <http://attac.org/> if you want to be taken off the list: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=unsubscribe
