CANADA-U.S.: Helms-Burton Look-Alike Attracts Interest

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Stephen Dale

OTTAWA, Sep 18 1996 (IPS) - When two Canadian parliamentarians introduced legislation demanding compensation from the United States for land seized during its war of independence, the world laughed at what seemed to be a cleverly executed joke, designed to mock Washington’s moves against Cuba.

But some Canadians are apparently taking the matter seriously.

John Godfrey, who is sponsoring the bill along with fellow Liberal parliamentarian Peter Milliken, says some 50 people have expressed interest in pursuing compensation claims against the United States for land seized in the 18th century during the Revolutionary War.

“I expect there will be more people interested,” Godfrey told IPS. “There are now three million people in Canada (descended from people who had land seized) and the value of those properties is in the billions of dollars.

“We’re talking about land which is now part of Boston, Manhattan, Philadelphia — although from what I’ve seen of Philadelphia, I’m not sure that any Canadian would want to get that back.”

One woman wrote Godfrey to say that her ancestors were thrown off a chunk of land that is now part of downtown Washington.

“Can you imagine what this might mean?” the parliamentarian mused. “Perhaps the White House itself is trafficking in confiscated property.”

The intent of the Godfrey-Milliken bill is to closely mimic the logic and the language of Helms-Burton — the ‘Cuban Democracy and Solidarity Act’ that is designed to discourage investment in Cuba.

The thinking behind the legislation — whose authors are both descendants of U.S. residents who remained loyal to England during the war for independence — is that if the United States can enact measures to retrieve land that was taken at a time of political upheaval, then the same process can be used against the United States.

The U.S. law, initiated by Senate committee Chairman Jesse Helms, and Representative Dan Burton of Indiana, allows Cuban- Americans to use U.S. courts to sue foreign firms whose business in Cuba involves property seized by the Fidel Castro government during the Cuban revolution. It would also allow officers or family members of foreign companies doing business with such property to be barred entry into the United States.

Godfrey-Milliken, formally known as the ‘American Democracy and Solidarity (Loyalty) Act’ would give the same powers to Canada and to the descendants of so-called ‘Empire Loyalists’ who were stripped of their property after refusing to renounce their allegiance to England.

According to Godfrey, the Canadian bill, which will likely face a Parliamentary vote this fall, has been successful in raising questions about the broader implications of U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba.

“There’s been some huffing and puffing from the more humourless members of the U.S. Congress,” said Godfrey. “But essentially it’s got far more play as a form of protest than the formal protests from the minister of foreign affairs.”

Indeed, the Canadian government formally retaliated against Helms-Burton, with the Sep. 16 introduction of amendments to the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act. New portions of the act would block U.S. residents’ efforts to collect compensation from Canadians if they won their cases in U.S. courts.

One of the new requirements calls on Canada’s Attorney General to issue ‘blocking’ orders, declaring that judgement handed down under any “objectionable” foreign law such as Helms-Burton will not be enforced or recognised in Canada.

However, previous legislative measures designed to offset U.S. anti-Cuba moves have had little effect. A bill passed by Parliament in 1984, for instance, made it illegal for Canadian firms (even those owned by U.S. parent companies) to respond to U.S. pressure by curtailing normal trade with Cuba. But since it is close to impossible to determine that a company disengaging from Cuba had not made that decision on purely business grounds, there has never been a prosecution under the act.

Although Godfrey-Milliken has received widespread applause in Canada, not everyone in this country approves.

Conservative business columnist Terence Corcoran, who writes for the Globe and Mail newspaper, says that Empire Loyalists were already handsomely compensated when Canadian land was given to them by England. He adds that the Treaty of Paris of 1783 does not instruct the United States to compensate Loyalists. It only asks the United States to recommend that action to individual states.

Godfrey disagrees. He says that while the U.S. central government had no constitutional power in 1783 to order states to pay compensation, its members did acknowledge this as a moral obligation six years after the war.

Land provided by the English is also irrelevant, Godfrey says.

“The British decided they would give these penniless refugees some land as a way of tiding them over,” Godfrey recounts. “The fact that the British did the decent thing for some refugees does not get the U.S. off the hook. That is like saying that if the United States gave welfare cheques to Cuban refugees, that covers any possible compensation from anything else.”

When asked if the arguments he makes in favour of compensating Empire Loyalists may actually strengthen the logic of Helms- Burton, Godfrey brings the issue back — with characteristic humour — to one of consistency.

“I would be delighted if Helms-Burton provided the ethic that allowed Godfrey-Milliken to go through.” He bursts into laughter: “I’m pleased to sacrifice the Cubans on this one. If this is the new moral standard in international commerce, then I’m all for it, because I’m going to be a very rich man.”

Meanwhile, some Canadians are finding less to laugh about. Seven executives and board members of Sherritt International Corp. of Toronto (including the chairman and the president) have already been banned from entering the United States under Helms-Burton. Another firm to have its officials denied U.S. entry is the Mexican Grupos Domos.

One Canadian company deeply involved in Cuba is Delta Hotels and Resorts, which manages and operates six hotels owned by the Cuban government but using the Delta corporate logo. Delta spokesperson Marilott Bloemen told IPS that since “none of the properties we operate were expropriated or confiscated as far as we know,” the company does not expect to be targetted under Helms- Burton.

Helms-Burton may, however, be having a wider impact. The Globe and Mail has reported that Canadian jazz musician Jane Bunnett, who was set to tour North America with the Cuban jazz artists she records with, had most of her U.S. concert dates cancelled just after Helms-Burton took effect this year.

While such threats continue, John Godfrey vows he will not rest.

“My current plan,” he told IPS, “is to contact the one-half of American lawyers who didn’t work on the O.J. Simpson trial and see if they will work on contingency for us. Three million people might be eligible for compensation. That’s a lot of work.”