Dear Editor,

We are in real trouble, Canada!

On Friday afternoon, Dec. 7, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that he will allow CNOOC, the China's state-owned oil company, to take over Canadian fossil fuel giant Nexen.

This deal gives CNOOC control of three-to six-billion barrels of Canadian tarsands oil, and is a major step in the wrong direction for the global climate if the CNOOC exploits these oil reserves to their fullest extent.

The next step for Harper is to backdoor us again by passing the secretive and extreme FIPA (the Canadian-China Foreign Investment Protection Act, a major new trade deal that would grant unprecedented powers to Chinese corporations that own Canadian natural resources).

There has been considerable concern and backlash over this potentially disastrous deal for Canada, and Harper is attempting to remove it from the spotlight so that he can have it passed quietly when our attention is diverted elsewhere.

If FIPA passes, CNOOC will be able to sue Canadian governments in secret tribunals if our governments do anything to counter its growing interests - including common sense environmental protections and job-creation efforts.

FIPA would be like NAFTA, but more dangerous. Canada has already spent millions on lawsuit penalties launched under the North American Free Trade Agreement, and is currently being sued by a U.S. corporation because Quebec placed a temporary moratorium on fracking to study its controversial health and safety impacts.

If FIPA passes, the door will be opened for CNOOC and Chinese corporations to do even worse.

We are in real trouble, Canada, and we better come together quickly to protect Canadian democracy and our natural resources from corporate greed.

Now that Harper has allowed this damaging Nexen takeover, we must stop him from passing the secretive and extreme FIPA. Please speak out - loud and clear. Write your papers, call your MPs, rein in Harper's race to sell out Canada as we know it.

In his words: "You won't recognize Canada when I am done with it." And, sadly, he wasn't kidding.

Dana Lacroix, Maple Ridge