OTTAWA - "Canada's resources belong to the people of Canada and should not be subjected to private-sector pillage," says the president of Canada's largest forest union following yesterdays news of AbitibiBowater's NAFTA challenge.

AbitibiBowater Inc. has launched a challenge under the North American Free Trade Agreement against the Newfoundland and Labrador government's expropriation of its resource rights and most of its assets in that province. "This company has put hundreds of people out of work in Grand Falls, has refused to pay them their severance pay, and now it wants to pillage the province's natural resources," says Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.

"It's a triple whammy for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, and it has far-reaching consequences for Canadian sovereignty." "It speaks to far-reaching and fundamental issues about the impact of Chapter 11 of NAFTA on Canada's right to its own resources."

"CEP intends to oppose this challenge," says Coles. "It's outrageous that Canada is party to an agreement that gives multinational corporations so much potential control over democratically-elected governments."