Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act

An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Colombia, the Agreement on the Environment between Canada and the Republic of Colombia and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Colombia

This bill was last introduced in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session, which ended in March 2011.

Sponsor

Peter Van Loan  Conservative

Status

This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.

Summary

This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.

This enactment implements the Free Trade Agreement and the related agreements on the environment and labour cooperation entered into between Canada and the Republic of Colombia and signed at Lima, Peru on November 21, 2008.
The general provisions of the enactment specify that no recourse may be taken on the basis of the provisions of Part 1 of the enactment or any order made under that Part, or the provisions of the Free Trade Agreement or the related agreements themselves, without the consent of the Attorney General of Canada.
Part 1 of the enactment approves the Free Trade Agreement and the related agreements and provides for the payment by Canada of its share of the expenditures associated with the operation of the institutional aspects of the Free Trade Agreement and the power of the Governor in Council to make orders for carrying out the provisions of the enactment.
Part 2 of the enactment amends existing laws in order to bring them into conformity with Canada’s obligations under the Free Trade Agreement and the related agreement on labour cooperation.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Votes

June 14, 2010 Passed That the Bill be now read a third time and do pass.
June 9, 2010 Passed That Bill C-2, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Colombia, the Agreement on the Environment between Canada and the Republic of Colombia and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Colombia, be concurred in at report stage.
June 9, 2010 Failed That Bill C-2 be amended by deleting Clause 48.
June 9, 2010 Failed That Bill C-2 be amended by deleting Clause 12.
June 9, 2010 Failed That Bill C-2 be amended by deleting Clause 7.
June 9, 2010 Passed That, in relation to Bill C-2, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Colombia, the Agreement on the Environment between Canada and the Republic of Colombia and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Colombia, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at report stage of the Bill and one sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said Bill and, at the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration at report stage and on the day allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the stage of the Bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.
April 19, 2010 Passed That the Bill be now read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on International Trade.
April 19, 2010 Passed That this question be now put.
April 16, 2010 Passed That, in relation to Bill C-2, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Colombia, the Agreement on the Environment between Canada and the Republic of Colombia and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Colombia, not more than one further sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the Bill; and That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 24th, 2010 / 5:15 p.m.
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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, the agreement between Colombia and the United States has been before Congress now for a considerable amount of time. I know that the President mentioned it in his speech in January, the state of the union address.

A group of us were down in the United States on Congressional hearings on February 19 and the member for Kings—Hants was there. Although we were in different groups, we did meet with a number of senators and members of Congress. On at least two occasions Republicans told us that this deal had absolutely no chance of making it through Congress. If the member for Kings—Hants knows that, then why is he and his allies in the government so bent on forcing this agreement through, when the Americans, as I have said, have had it before Congress now for several years and they have no intention of doing anything about it this year.

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 24th, 2010 / 5:15 p.m.
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Bloc

Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC

Mr. Speaker, I have a feeling that this question is addressed more to the member for Kings—Hants. Earlier, he announced his intention to put an end to the debate by moving that the question be put. This is likely a new form of Liberal-Conservative coalition to speed up the adoption of a free trade agreement with Colombia, an agreement that goes against the values of a great many people.

As the NDP member who asked me a question earlier said, the Liberal members will surely be hearing from their constituents, who will be calling on them to reconsider. This is the complete opposite of their previous position. Before, they supported the people and said that an agreement would be harmful to them. They will have to answer for their decision.

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 24th, 2010 / 5:15 p.m.
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NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by identifying what this agreement and bill is not about. It is not about any real intentions of the government to push Canadian exports.

I just came back from Argentina. I was down there with FIPA. I asked the trade commissioners what the budget was for Canadian export supports for the market of Argentina. Argentina is a country of 40 million people. That is larger than Canada. The entire amount that the government is giving to export promotion supports, such as product promotion and service promotion, comes to a grand total of $400 a week. That is unbelievable. That is less than what an average corner store spends in my riding of Burnaby—New Westminster.

That is less than an east Montreal corner store spends.

But that is what the government is giving in export promotion support.

While we have trade commissioners having to pay for coffee of potential clients out of their own pockets, while we have $400 for the entire market of Argentina, our competitors like Australia, the United States, the European Union are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in export promotion support.

Therefore, the government is a government of trade dilettantes. It has absolutely no overall strategy to actually build export development. It does not invest in export development. To say that in some way this agreement is part of an overall strategy, when the government has failed so lamentably on the whole issue of export development, I think is to say the least disingenuous.

The other point that the Conservatives have been bringing up is why did the NDP not support the softwood sellout and why did the NDP not support the shipbuilding sellout? I would like to say to the members of the Conservative Party, it is because they negotiate bad agreements. It is as clear as that.

The softwood sellout, the shipbuilding sellout, and now this Colombian trade agreement either repudiates Canadian jobs or it repudiates Canadian values.

This is not about trade. It is about whether our foreign policy, our trade policy, should in some way be connected to fundamental Canadian values. The most fundamental Canadian value is human rights. That is something that Canadians share from coast to coast to coast.

The Conservatives have no interest in the human rights component. Liberals have abandoned any real attempt to build on human rights. If they were really concerned about human rights, they would have stuck with their support of the NDP motion to amend the trade committee report from two years ago that called for an independent and impartial human rights assessment. That was put forward by the committee.

Conservatives promptly backtracked, but Liberals under their former leader, to their credit, stuck to their guns and said that we should not move any further with negotiations with Colombia until we have an independent and impartial human rights assessment about what the potential impacts would be.

Just a few weeks after the report was issued, the government slapped the Liberals around and everyone else in the committee and said, “No. We're going to move forward with this agreement just the same”.

A year ago this week, the Conservatives brought this bad bill and this bad agreement forward to the House of Commons.

The NDP and the members of the Bloc Québécois are sticking to those fundamental Canadian values of human rights. We are not going to allow the Colombian government, given the egregious human rights violations that take place in Colombia, to get some kind of reward from the Canadian Parliament.

I certainly hope that Liberal members of Parliament, once they get a sense of the public reaction to this whitewashing, will share the view that they should go back to their original position under their former leader and stand up very clearly for human rights.

What is the human rights situation in Colombia? Over the last few years it has actually gotten worse, despite some of the comments we have heard from Conservatives and Liberals. Over the last three years the number of trade unionists killed in Colombia has tragically increased, not decreased. In fact, there was a 25% jump in 2008, maintained in 2009, and tragically we are seeing further murders this year.

Colombia is the most dangerous place to be a labour activist than anywhere else on earth. That is a reality.

Members of the Conservative Party and Liberal Party who want to push this bill forward have offered absolutely no proof that the bill and the treaty would actually improve human rights in Colombia. In fact, as I will get to later on, every single reputable human rights organization, every single independent union either in Colombia or Canada, has actually said the contrary. They have said that in a very real way, and a very dangerous way, the bill and the treaty with Colombia could worsen the human rights situation in Colombia.

There is the killing of trade unionists. What else? There are the hundreds and hundreds of the so-called false positives in Colombia over the last few years. Hundreds and hundreds of the so-called false positives is a banal term that masks a horrifying reality. These false positives are nothing less than cold-blooded murder of people in rural areas, aboriginal people and Afro-Colombians who were taken out and shot by the Colombian military.

It is important to note that a number of human rights organizations have cited the fact that in the Colombian military, there are bonuses offered for the killings of so-called guerrillas, which encourages the murder of innocent peasants and rural residents. Those hundreds and hundreds of false positives are a blight on the Colombian government and a blight on the human rights reputation of Colombia. If we pass this bill, we are essentially saying that we do not have fundamental concerns about the killing of trade unionists or these false positives by the Colombian military.

As horrific as those cold-blooded murders are, as horrific as all of that is, perhaps the most egregious aspect to the human rights situation in Colombia is the ongoing forced and violent displacement of millions of Colombians. It is the second worst situation of its sort in the entire planet, only rivaled by Sudan. In other words, the millions of Colombians who have been forcibly displaced by paramilitary groups often connected with the government, or guerrilla groups that oppose the government, are leading to the development of shantytowns throughout Colombia, particularly in Bogota.

When I was down in Colombia with the trade committee that looked at that, we went to Soacha. We met and spoke to those residents. They expressed real concerns about what is happening in rural Colombia. That has resulted in a concentration of land in rural Colombia that has intensified and it is now estimated that over 60% of agricultural land is in the hands of 0.6% of the population.

That forced displacement has led to a small number of landowners, drug traffickers and paramilitary organizations that are connected to the government taking over this rural land. The comptroller general of Colombia noted in his speech just a few years ago that drug traffickers and paramilitaries now own almost half the agricultural land in Colombia.

That is the reality. When we talk about human rights abuses, the fundamental reality is that as parliamentarians, we are obliged to consider when we look at something like a privileged trading relationship with President Uribe's regime. When we talk about the killing of trade unionists, we talk about killings by the Colombian military, the so-called false positives which are cold-blooded murder, we talk about the forced displacement by paramilitary groups connected to the government of millions of Colombians. We are not talking about some kind of state where human rights are improving, but rather we are talking about a human rights catastrophe.

That is the situation before us now in Colombia. It is not something that can be fixed by the whitewashing of reports. It is not something that can be fixed by having the Colombian government report on itself.

What is worse is the timing around what the government is bringing forward right now. It is an electoral period in Colombia. The issue of these so-called free trade agreements, and the Colombian state and human rights and democratic development in Colombia are being discussed to a certain extent by some Colombians. As the International Pre-electoral Observation Mission released in its report just a few days ago, at this critical time, it talked about the factors that impede free and fair elections in areas of Colombia. We are going into an electoral process. That is why the Colombian government is pushing this agreement, so that we Canadian parliamentarians can get involved in some way in this electoral process.

Reputable observers are saying there are factors that impede free and fair elections. The factors that they mention include widespread fear among the Colombian population and the fact that public moneys are being transferred for illicit uses in the election. They talk about negative practices such as vote buying and selling, misuse of identity documents, illegal possession of identity documents including stolen documents, coercion and intimidation of voters, fraud committed by polling officers at the polling station, obstruction of electoral observers, and control over public transportation to prevent voters from moving freely.

This is the situation right now. Instead of taking a step back, which the government should have done, to send observers so that in some way we could put pressure on the Colombian government to actually produce the free and fair elections that are being denied, the Conservatives with their Liberal allies are moving forward to reward the regime for what are clearly not going to be free and fair elections at this time.

The Conservatives and Liberals are working together to deny Colombians their democratic choice that will take place in a few weeks. Reputable observers are saying that these are the problems. Instead of putting pressure on the government, Liberals and Conservatives are saying, “Well, that is okay. We will try to get this deal through for you. Maybe that will help you in the election”.

It is so highly irresponsible, so highly inappropriate. I think Canadians in general can understand very clearly what is going on.

When we talk about the Uribe regime, the regime that is in power now, and given the impediments to a free and fair election in Colombia, presumably the government would be re-elected, we are talking about concerns that have been raised consistently about the Uribe government.

BBC News broke the story last year about the fact that a drug lord in prison in the U.S. said that he and his illegal paramilitary army funded the 2002 election campaign of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. This particular individual, Diego Murillo, also known as Don Berna, was the successor to drug lord Pablo Escobar. As we know from the history of President Uribe and the defence intelligence agency briefings back in the early 1990s, President Uribe was a close associate of Pablo Escobar. Don Berna is his successor and he says that he funded that campaign in 2002.

Now there are elections in 2010 that are impeded; there are obstacles to free and fair elections. Very clear concerns are being raised about violence, about coercion, intimidation and fraud. Instead of the Conservative and Liberal members of Parliament standing up and saying that they are going to consider seriously this issue and that they are going to apply pressure, they are giving a free pass, a reward.

As was reported in the Washington Post, Colombians found out that the secret police, run by the government, had spied on supreme court judges, opposition politicians, activists and journalists. Suspicion swirled that the orders for the wiretapping as well as general surveillance had come from the presidential palace. Those revelations have come on top of an influence-peddling scandal involving the president's two sons, Tomás and Geronimo, and a widening probe of the links between Uribe's allies in congress and right-wing paramilitary death squads. Also, there have been journalists in Colombia who have expressed concern about President Uribe's links from the very beginning with the drug trade.

When Conservatives stand in this House and say that they are opposed to the drug trade, to cocaine use and at the same time push, at this sensitive time, a trade agreement that is a privileged trading relationship with the Uribe administration, it strikes the very heart of hypocrisy.

The Conservatives cannot stand in the House and stay that they are against the drug trade, that they are against the Colombian drug cartels when they are rewarding a regime that has very clear connections and consistently over time has had personal association with the paramilitary organizations that are part of the drug trade. Yet that is what the Conservatives are pushing today in this House. They are pushing this at a sensitive time of elections when they should be stepping back and implementing an independent and impartial human rights assessment. They are trying to push forward. It is highly inappropriate and a complete repudiation of the basic Canadian values that Canadians hold dear.

There is no doubt that if Canadians were polled on this issue, they would overwhelmingly reject this agreement because they would be concerned about human rights. As people in the province of British Columbia, the “show me” province would say, the government has to show me that it has done due diligence. It has to show me an independent and impartial human rights assessment.

The Conservatives have not done it because they know darn well that the human rights assessment would show what report after report has shown.

Whether it is MiningWatch Canada, Inter Pares, Amnesty International, Peace Brigades, they have indicated in reports that it is inappropriate to move forward with this agreement. Briefing notes by the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, the Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers, the Canadian Labour Congress and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives have said that it is inappropriate to move forward with this agreement.

Report after report after report, every single reputable report has said the same thing. Every single one of them has said that it is inappropriate to move forward with this agreement.

I will read from the executive summary of the last one I mentioned:

Trade can support development and the realization of human rights, if it brings benefits to vulnerable populations and allows states, who are willing, to promote developmental outcomes and protect the environment. But neither the political conditions in Colombia nor the terms of the Canada-Colombia FTA provide these reassurances. Indeed, while Canadians were promised that this agreement had been tailored to take account of human rights concerns, in fact the agreement turns out to be a standard “market-access” oriented trade deal, with ineffectual side agreements on labour and the environment. Colombian civil society and human rights organizations have been clear: they do not want this agreement.

Colombian civil society and human rights organizations have been clear: they do not want this agreement.

We could spend the next couple of weeks citing report after report after report, but what is very clear is that killer trade unionists pay a fine, that the reward for bad behaviour, that the complete refusal to have Canada in any way try to provide incentives for free and fair elections, all of these are repudiations of basic Canadian values.

In this corner of the House, NDP MPs stand for those Canadian values. We stand for those human rights. We stand for freedom of speech. We stand for labour rights. We believe that criminals should be prosecuted, not rewarded. That is why we will be voting no on Bill C-2.

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 24th, 2010 / 5:35 p.m.
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NDP

The Acting Speaker NDP Denise Savoie

The hon. member will have a 10-minute period of questions and comments when this debate resumes.

It being 5:38 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House resumed from March 24 consideration of the motion that Bill C-2, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Colombia, the Agreement on the Environment between Canada and the Republic of Colombia and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Colombia, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 25th, 2010 / 10:15 a.m.
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Liberal

The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken

When this matter was last before the House, the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster had the floor. There were 10 minutes remaining for questions and comments consequent upon his speech. I, therefore, call for questions and comments.

The hon. member for Mississauga South.

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 25th, 2010 / 10:15 a.m.
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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I was here to hear the member's speech, and I know that he has some concerns about the human rights aspects. In fact, at one point in his speech he said that our trade agreements should have one common element; that is, that there is this respect for human rights.

The dimensions of trade with Colombia are not major. However, I think that the issue is, at what point in time does the criteria of human rights kick in and supercede the benefits of a trade agreement?

Second, I would be interested in the member's comments with regard to whether or not entering into a trade agreement would be premature, given the reconsiderations by countries such as the U.S. and the U.K.

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 25th, 2010 / 10:15 a.m.
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NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Speaker, I know the member is sincere in his concern about the ongoing human rights abuses in Colombia. I certainly hope he can make those views known to his caucus and his leader, because we are very concerned in this corner of the House about the deal that seems to have been concocted between the Liberals and Conservatives to try to ram this bill through, despite the egregious, ongoing and growing human rights violations throughout Colombia.

Just yesterday the Flanders government, another European government, rejected an investment treaty between Colombia and Belgium, saying that there was a huge gulf between the human rights rhetoric and reality in Colombia. Yesterday the Liberal trade critic said that what the Liberals are going to try to do with the Conservatives is to have the Colombian government report on itself. Can anyone imagine allowing elementary school kids to give themselves their own grades or criminals to choose their own punishments?

If one extends that ridiculous notion to other aspects of government policy, one can see that the government is desperate to ram the bill through. Canadians oppose it and say no.

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 25th, 2010 / 10:20 a.m.
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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, given that the United States Congress has yet to pass its own legislation, which has been before it now for a number of years, and given that Republican members of Congress said as early as last month that they did not feel the legislation had any chance of passing Congress with the Democratic majority in control, the question is: Why is the government, which normally likes to follow the United States in everything it does, trying to be a leader on what is basically a very unpopular piece of legislation?

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 25th, 2010 / 10:20 a.m.
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NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Speaker, the member has been front and centre on this issue.

In the U.S., the treaty will simply not go before Congress and has been set aside entirely. In the European Union, government after government after government have rejected a proposed treaty.

Thus what we have here is a Conservative government, with some Liberal allies, trying to push this agreement through at the worst possible time. Colombia is in an election period and impartial observers have talked about widespread fraud, fear, and coercion being used by the government to try to ram through a puppet election, and yet here we have the Conservatives trying to reward that government for bad behaviour on the electoral front.

The question that stands in the House is why are the Conservatives, at this worst possible time, trying to aggravate the human rights situation in Colombia rather than standing up to the Colombian government and saying that it needs to have free and fair elections, to stop the fraud and coercion and stop the fear the government is generating among the population, and to hold democratic elections in Colombia?

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 25th, 2010 / 10:20 a.m.
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NDP

Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON

Mr. Speaker, this has been a real passion of my colleague over the last year.

Other European countries are denying free trade with Colombia, and I know there have been a lot of murders of union activists and people who want to make a Colombia a better place to live. If all of these other countries are not willing to participate in free trade with Colombia, can the hon. member tell me what the motive is of the Canadian government in wanting to participate in this free trade agreement with Colombia?

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 25th, 2010 / 10:20 a.m.
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NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Speaker, the member for Nickel Belt has also been speaking out very clearly and strongly against the appallingly bad judgment shown by the Conservative government on this.

Why is it pushing the agreement forward at this time? When every other democratic government is taking steps back and trying to put pressure on the Colombian government to improve the human rights situation, why are the Conservatives rewarding bad behaviour, criminal behaviour, murder and the ongoing violence there?

I have to note that the Colombian Commission of Jurists talks about the military arm of the Colombian government, the sexual abuse of women and the ongoing murders. We know about the so-called false positives, the growing number of killings that are taking place and the paramilitary's link to the Colombian government. Yet there is not a single Conservative member willing to stand up for human rights, not a single Conservative member willing to stand and say this is an appalling human rights situation and that Canada should stand with the people of Colombia rather than a government whose hands are stained with blood.

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 25th, 2010 / 10:25 a.m.
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NDP

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

Mr. Speaker, according to the Canadian Labour Congress, more labour activists and trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia than all other countries on the planet put together. Think about that.

In this country we have trade unionists and working people who gather to sit down and discuss with their employer the working terms and conditions of their employment to try get a fair piece of the economic activity they produce. Yet in Colombia, they kill people for this. Imagine in this country if 40 Canadian trade unionists were killed this year by paramilitaries.

I see the hon. member across shaking his head. Really? Stand up and tell me what is wrong. I would like to hear where he disagrees with me on this.

Forty trade unionists were murdered this year, and this is a country that the government wants to sign a free trade agreement with. There are other countries in South America who are taking steps to progressively mobilize their economies and to share the resources more equitably with their people.

I would like to ask my hon. friend what other countries in South America does he think are on the right path and with whom Canada maybe ought to be looking at having closer economic relations with?

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 25th, 2010 / 10:25 a.m.
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NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Speaker, the member has been very sensible on this issue as well. I know that he has read the reports and that unlike a single Conservative MP, he actually understands the situation.

We have Conservatives laughing in this House about the death toll in Colombia. It is absolutely inappropriate. If they feel it is somehow funny when trade unionists are killed or human rights activists are killed, I think they should go and defend that in front of their constituents. If they think it is somehow funny that 4 million people have been displaced by violent paramilitaries connected to the government and by guerrillas, then they should go and talk to their constituents.

This appalling approach of the Conservatives, this disregard for human rights, is something their constituents do not share. Their constituents believe in Canadian values. Their constituents believe in labour rights and human rights, and their constituents, quite frankly, believe that the Conservatives are completely off-centre in trying to force through this bad deal with a bad government, when Canadian values are being repudiated.

I think it is fair to say that the Conservatives are embarrassing themselves today by trying to push this through when they should be aware of the egregious and ongoing human rights violations taking place in Colombia against human rights advocates, against labour activists, against Afro-Colombians and against aboriginal peoples throughout Colombia. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

March 25th, 2010 / 10:25 a.m.
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Bloc

Claude Guimond Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for recognizing me in this discussion on the implementation of the free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia.

I feel that this debate is very important because we do not all agree by any means with this treaty, neither the members of the House nor the people of Canada and Colombia. The debate we started yesterday will prevent the government from claiming that it did not know that parliamentarians were in favour of respecting human rights in Colombia.

We are still wondering whether the government is paying any attention to what we say. In 2008, the Standing Committee on International Trade presented a report on this free trade agreement with Colombia, which contained a number of recommendations, including the following:

The Committee recommends that an independent, impartial, and comprehensive human rights impact assessment should be carried out by a competent body, which is subject to levels of independent scrutiny and validation; the recommendations of this assessment should be addressed before Canada considers signing, ratifying and implementing an agreement with Colombia.

The committee said that in 2008. Today, as a member of that committee, I doubt that the report was even read by the Conservative members. It seems, unfortunately, that the Conservative government has turned a deaf ear and wants to proceed with this agreement even though absolutely no impact assessments have been conducted, as demanded by a number of groups, including the Bloc Québécois.

We tried in vain to find some valid reasons for signing such an agreement. There are none. The Conservatives and Liberals alike have only one argument to make: free trade brings prosperity; free trade fixes everything.

No one is against prosperity, of course, not myself or my Bloc Québécois colleagues, but it is wrong to think it can be achieved by signing bilateral agreements without any serious criteria.

Whenever we enter bilateral trade agreements, we should familiarize ourselves with the realities of the countries with which we are dealing. We should take the time to assess the consequences of our decisions, both within Canada and within our partner countries, and not just from a commercial point of view. Human rights are important.

In the case of Colombia, it turns out that the effect on trade between our two countries will be negligible in comparison with the damage that could be done to Colombia's ability to defend the interests of its own people. Even the prosperity argument collapses if we take a close look at who will really benefit from an increase in exports.

Contrary to what some may think, free trade is not always welcomed by the agricultural sector, for example. For small farmers in Colombia, an increase in trade also means an increase in imports. The free trade agreement with Canada, which provides for the immediate elimination of duties on wheat, peas, lentils and barley, among others, would be devastating for Colombian agriculture, which accounts for 11.4% of GDP and 22% of employment in Colombia.

Some organizations, such as the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, maintain that, as a result of the free trade agreement with Canada, 12,000 livelihoods will be undermined by Canada's industrially-produced wheat and barley exports and the value of domestic wheat production in Colombia will drop by 32%, leading to losses of 44% in employment levels and wages. These are serious consequences.

Another potential consequence of the competition and the progressive loss of market share is that it will favour the establishment of coca plantations because coca is becoming the only product with a strong export market that remains profitable.

The sale of coca, drug trafficking, guerrillas, paramilitaries, the link with power, corruption and so on—this is a cycle that is not easily broken and involves many innocent people. Clearly Colombia must develop the means to break it, and Canada can help. In our opinion, however, the free trade agreement is not the way to go about it.

It is not obvious from a careful look at the bill why the Conservative government, with the clear support of the Liberals, is insisting so strongly on approving such a trade agreement. From various standpoints, this agreement flies in the face of the concept of a responsible government working for the welfare of its citizens and the well-being of humanity. In the country with the worst human rights record in Latin America, Canada must create conditions to improve the situation, despite its economic interests.

Unless it is proven otherwise, it may be said that the Conservatives are not doing their duty. I myself am a farmer with a background in the farming union, and I tremble at the thought that, as I speak, unionists in Colombia are the target of attacks simply because they insist on fighting for workers' rights.

Still today, people in Colombia who try to advance human rights are paying with their lives. Even yesterday, people died as a result of an attack in the streets of Bogota. It is awful. And I am not even talking about the number of children, women and men who have to leave their homes and comfort because of conflict between the government security forces, paramilitaries and guerrillas.

Increasingly, economic displacement is forcing subsistence farmers and small-scale miners to leave their land in favour of the major agri-food and mining companies. Whole communities are obliged to leave. In this case, too, no significant measure is proposed in the agreement to remedy such injustices, and it is utterly unrealistic to think that such an agreement will help resolve the situation.

We have to ask ourselves why the government wants a free trade agreement with Colombia. We have to ask ourselves what the government's and the Liberals' real reasons are for wanting to ratify this agreement at all costs. Colombia is Canada's fifth-largest trading partner in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is its seventh-largest source of imports in this area. So, Canada has more important trading partners than Colombia.

In recent years, trade between Canada and the other Latin American countries has increased considerably, cutting into trade with Colombia. In addition, Canada exports primarily cars and grains, which represented 23% and 19% respectively of our 2007 exports, and most of Canada's investments in Colombia, as we might expect, are in the mining industry.

In my humble opinion, a free trade agreement requires a relationship of equals between the two governments. They must therefore be special trading partners and the level of the trading must warrant the lowering of trade barriers.

Let us be candid: Colombia is not a very attractive market, considering that trade between the two countries is quite limited. Might it be that the Conservative government’s main motivation for signing this free trade agreement at all costs is not trade, but investment?

I wonder about this because this agreement contains an investment protection chapter that will, without a shadow of a doubt, make life easier for Canadian investors who invest in Colombia, more specifically in the mining sector. That chapter is closely modelled on chapter 11 of NAFTA, which is in fact a charter for multinationals at the expense of the common good.

More specifically, chapter 11 of NAFTA, which, I reiterate, is what the investment chapter of the agreement in question is closely modelled on, includes the following points: foreign investors may themselves apply to the international tribunals, skirting the filter of the public good that is applied by governments; the concept of exports is so broad that any law that might have the effect of reducing an investor’s profits can amount to expropriation and lead to legal action being taken against the governments; and the amount of the claim is not limited to the value of the investment, but includes all potential future profits, which is completely excessive.

That chapter has been denounced by everyone. When a law, for example human rights legislation, reduces the profits of a foreign investor, the government is exposing itself to enormous legal claims. Ironically, when the Liberals were in power, they signed a number of trade agreements containing clauses resembling chapter 11 of NAFTA. The Liberals were harshly criticized for their improper practices and stopped signing agreements like that. And yet here they are today, supporting Bill C-2 Why?

We are seeing a return to the past, with the job of determining the common good being assigned to multinationals. That is what is being done. That is what the Liberals and the Conservatives want.

I hope the Conservatives and the Liberals do not think these multinationals will be serving the public interest by giving the public the resources that are needed and working toward greater respect for human rights, workers and the environment.

The Conservatives and the Liberals keep hammering away at their argument that we have to support developing countries and help them to progress, and they are not wrong. The Bloc Québécois and I do think that it is our duty to enable other societies to make progress, and we have to give them all the resources they need to do that. But the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement does nothing to promote that kind of improvement. There is no significant measure in Bill C-2 to improve the economic, social and environmental situation in Colombia.

Let us not hide behind pretexts to achieve our objectives. Let us instead take these business opportunities to develop an equitable form of globalization that encompasses the ideas of human rights, workers’ rights, the environment and honourable trade. Why do we not try to play that role from time to time?

The impact on the environment is another factor we cannot ignore. The side agreement on the environment does not come close to meeting the expectations of people who are concerned about compliance with environmental standards. This agreement provides for no penalties for non-compliance with the most minimal requirements and ultimately could be an incentive for Colombia not to move ahead with adopting new measures to preserve the environment.

The Canadian Council for International Co-operation report says that:

The ESA not only fails to provide a credible vehicle for enhancing and enforcing environmental laws and regulations, but it also fails to mitigate the corrosive pressures the CCFTA will exert on existing environmental and conservation measures and may in fact provide a further disincentive for environmental law reform.

Canada should be very concerned about this, yet this is exactly what the Conservatives and the Liberals plan to support.

This country should follow Belgium's lead, do the right thing, and refuse to sign this agreement because it will be bad for human rights in Colombia. Even the U.S. Congress has backed away from its free trade agreement with Colombia and does not plan to proceed without more information about the human rights situation in Colombia. We are not just making these issues up.

Free trade is meant to improve the lives of workers by providing them with higher pay and better working conditions. But here at home, in Quebec, a lot of companies are choosing to close their factories so they can take advantage of the lower wages and less rigorous workplace standards in other countries.

This industry-wide approach results in unemployment at home and promotes human rights abuses in other countries, while companies rake in the cash. Do we really want to make things worse than they already are?

Before being elected to represent my riding, I was the president of two Quebec agricultural unions for 11 years. As a member of the Standing Committee on International Trade since last year, I have had the opportunity to hear from many witnesses. As an agricultural union president in Quebec, I often took strong stances to defend the Quebec farmers I was representing. Had I done so in Colombia, I would have received serious threats. People would have threatened to kill my three daughters and me.

I do not understand why the Conservatives and the Liberals are so bent on signing this agreement, which will provide only minimal economic benefits. The answer to that is self-evident. All they want to do is roll out the red carpet for mining and agri-food companies that want to invest in Colombia, where costs are low and mineral resources plentiful. There are lots of opportunities for resource exploitation in Colombia. Labour is cheap too.

Unfortunately, this agreement will lead to the displacement of entire populations. They will be uprooted and exiled to parts of the country that are not their own.

My Bloc Québécois colleagues and I will fight this agreement to the bitter end.