International Trade Committee on Nov. 5th, 2009

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Unfortunately, Mr. Harris's motion did not pass, so I have to telescope my comments into seven minutes.

Mr. Cardin mentioned the diaspora. Certainly the vast majority of the feedback I have received from the Colombian diaspora in Canada opposes the agreement. There is no doubt about that.

You mentioned the issue of Mexico having signed more free trade agreements than Canada. Quite frankly, if anything, I think this kind of argument is actually more supportive of the position that the NDP and Bloc have taken on this agreement.

Mexico signed 33 trade agreements, as you are well aware, and we're seeing a meltdown in the Mexican rural economy. Because of the recent tariff reductions under NAFTA at the beginning of 2008 we're looking at about two million rural jobs lost in Mexico. Many of those people who've lost their jobs—thousands of them—have been applying for asylum in Canada, and the Conservative government has moved instead to cut off those asylum seekers. There is no doubt that Mexico, and particularly its rural economy, is hardly an example for Canada to follow.

You also mentioned comments around NAFTA and misinformation, but we should note that Americans did vote for Barack Obama. He did call for major changes to NAFTA. So what we are seeing very clearly is that the American public has looked at what has happened to their family incomes and they said that the promises of NAFTA simply have not had those clear results. In Canada, we're in a similar situation. About two-thirds of Canadian families are earning less now than they were 20 years ago. So systematically we are seeing economic problems that I think should be addressed in discussion.

We have very clear empirical evidence that suggests quite the contrary: that there are serious problems with the human rights situation in Colombia, with the killing of labour activists and the killing of human rights advocates. Some civil society groups have called for a full and independent human rights assessment prior to moving forward with this agreement, and in fact this committee endorsed that position.

Do you not agree, given that preponderant weight, that there are serious concerns about human rights violations? Could we not agree that at least we need to proceed to a full and independent and impartial human rights assessment of the impacts of the agreement before the government moves further on this agreement?

[Carlo Dade]

That's a very direct question built upon several very interesting building blocks. If we go back and take a look at a couple of these, I think we may wind up with an answer to that question along the way.

Let's just take a look at some of the things that you've raised here. In the case of the false positives, as identified in the report, there has been an increase as paramilitary groups have shifted to private crime and from ideological to other reasons. There has been an increase in these sorts of false positives, in targeting people, claiming they're guerrillas, and going after them for financial award.

Here's what interesting about this. Again, think about this in the larger context of the Colombian struggle with FARC, the struggle to re-establish rule of law, and the struggle to provide security throughout the country. It's an amazing struggle and the Colombians have made such great progress. They've made progress by responding to challenges as they've come up: re-establishing the armed forces, retraining the police, establishing the rule of law throughout the country, strengthening the judiciary, and providing protection to vulnerable groups.

When the false positive cases began to appear, the Colombians also responded. Again, it's a dynamic situation. The country is coming out of a civil war that has gone on for decades. The challenges they face are enormous. What's really amazing is how the Colombians have shown themselves to be open time and time again, responding to the international community and working with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights whenever issues have come up.

In the case of the false positives, the Colombians recently sacked a general and, I believe, four other senior officers at the rank of colonel or higher.

Gentlemen, when was the last time you heard of a president firing a sitting general in a country in this hemisphere? When was the last time we ditched a general? The Colombians have taken this very seriously and have responded.

In terms of empirical data, what you have there is a collection of anecdotes. What we have in the other report are data from the ENS and data from the government, cross-longitudinal and latitudinal data. This is serious data, on the other hand.

We can take a look at what databases they're using, their sources, and their methodology, but I would challenge it to stand up to what we've seen coming from Professor Mejía, an academic of outstanding credentials at the Universidad de los Andes, the most prominent university in the country, using union data. I would doubt seriously that it would hold up to that.

In terms of the issue with NAFTA, we could--

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

You haven't answered my question on the human rights assessments. Yes or no?

[Carlo Dade]

I'm following your path to get to the answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Mr. Julian, you're over time. It's nine and a half minutes already.

If you could, just quickly wrap up that answer, Mr. Dade.

[Carlo Dade]

The last issue is NAFTA and how we've done with NAFTA. The Mexicans are in a unique position that only we share with them vis-à-vis NAFTA: so much of our trade depended on the United States. Had the Mexicans not moved to expand trade elsewhere, we can only imagine that the recent negative impacts they've suffered from the fall in the U.S. economy would have been worse. With so much of our trade also dependent on the United States, we also need to look at branching out to mitigate the impacts of the decline in the U.S.

The debate in the U.S. has been negative. About NAFTA, you're--

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

My time is almost up, but I did ask a very specific question on the human rights assessment. Yes or no: that's all we need to hear.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Your time is up.

Mr. Allison.

[Carlo Dade]

We already have that in place with the UNHCR and with the institutes that are in Colombia. I would suggest that we use them and talk to them before designing something and sending it down to Colombia without consultation with them.

Work with the Colombians. Work with the independent institutions in Colombia rather than sending something down from Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you.

Mr. Allison.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dade, for being here. We did meet in Panama. I was part of that delegation to Colombia.

You raised an interesting point and I think it's important to restate it. Sometimes it's the obvious.... But we are already trading with Colombia, so once again, the purpose of this agreement is really to put some rules in place that will benefit our businesses and protect some of the people who are there. Is that correct? We're not doing something--

[Carlo Dade]

Yes, sir.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Exactly. I think we can't overstate enough that we're already trading with this nation and that really what we're trying to do is protect some of the investors from Canadian companies and Colombian companies as we move forward. Is that correct?

[Carlo Dade]

Yes, sir, and it's also to protect our position vis-à-vis the Americans, our competitors. We do enough for the Americans; we don't need to hand them the Colombian market too.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Thank you very much.

My second of three questions is about the challenge of misinformation. When were debating this in the House, the Bloc and the NDP went back to some old numbers and talked about all the crime that happened before Uribe was in power, etc., so I really appreciate the hard data you've provided. This is important information because I know they'll still be quoting information from years gone by as if Uribe had something to do with the current situation.

I want to go back to where Mr. Brison started, which was in terms of ideology. Why do labour unions around the world or in Canada spend so much time trying to make this not happen and spreading these myths? Why do you think labour unions are so against this when quite clearly people from their own countries, on both sides of the coin, have said this is important?

[Carlo Dade]

I think there are two factors here. One, again, is the debate in the United States, where it's not about whether or not the United States should have a free trade agreement with Colombia, but as Mr. Julian correctly pointed out, about the fact there is a great deal of hostility towards trade in the United States, for several reasons, including the current downturn and unhappiness in the past, etc. There are several reasons for this in the United States. We don't need to get into those reasons, but the Colombian agreement has been caught up in them.

Also, at one time, this was a serious issue in Colombia. The number of homicides of union leaders in the country was close to 200 per 100,000 people. It was also a time when the overall murder rate in Colombia was 78 per 100,000 versus the 36 it is today. The Colombians have made a great deal of progress.

You're correct when you say that if you look at the past you would have one picture, but that if you look at today, there's a difference in the trend lines or the progress that has been made and continues to be made. I would argue that rather than looking at one fixed point in time, be it 10 years ago or today, it's more important to look at the trend lines and the progress. That's what's been lost.

The arguments about Colombia are grounded in an era when the homicide rate in the country was 77 or 78 per 100,000. They are not grounded in the reality of today, where that's been cut in half, on average, where for union leaders it's been cut even more, and where the government has put in protections and done so much.

Again, the amazing thing about Colombia—and the free trade agreement speaks to this—is their openness and willingness to look at new ideas and to address issues. They've been very open and forthright in accepting help and seeking help to address issues. The agreement provides us another vehicle to do that in a more formalized mechanism. Of course, our ambassador, Geneviève des Rivières, is hard at work on these issues, as is the team from DFAIT. But this gives them another vehicle, another tool, to help them in the progress they're making.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

The last question I have, Mr. Chair, is about the whole issue of corporate social responsibility. Once again, we hear a lot of anecdotal information about how for us Canadians for some reason that just isn't there, which I disagree with. I mean, we've talked to companies about this.

In regard to your experience of dealing with the southern hemisphere and Canadian companies, and from what you're seeing, would you talk to us a bit about what Canadian companies are doing in how they're leading by example and how they do so much to add to the economies they're in?

[Carlo Dade]

Canada has a reputation for being very forward thinking and our companies for doing very well with corporate social responsibility; it's not an issue of being Canadian or of having a golden heart but of economic survival. Companies are finding a competitive advantage in dealing with communities in a more transparent way up front rather than having to deal with problems later on. Companies are finding it an advantage in learning about new markets.

We had a discussion with one mining company, which shall remain nameless, about sharing information with Spain. The Spanish have consistently come to me when I've been in Madrid and have said that Canada does CSR really well. They ask why Spain doesn't set up a joint CSR program and do more work on CSR. They say they want to learn from Canadians, given our reputation on CSR.

But in talking with some Canadian companies, their response is that it's the last thing they want to do. They say that we have a competitive advantage here, that we do this better than anyone else, and that we're recognized for this. Spain has an advantage in culture and in language, they say, while our competitive advantage is based on CSR. This is not an opinion. This is hard analysis by guys who are concerned only about the next quarter. They see a competitive advantage in this and the Spanish see it too.

Also, hemispherically, we have a reputation for doing this. This doesn't mean that every Canadian company is doing this. There are some neanderthals that just don't get it, but in a couple of years I think we're going to see fewer and fewer of these companies. The market simply won't let them survive. You either get it and the new way of doing business or you don't.

We've also seen very quickly in the mining sector that the majors have begun imposing CSR requirements on the prospectors and the juniors. They have started to discount the claims they're buying from the juniors if the juniors haven't put into practice good community engagement. They're saying, look, we're going to be paying this claim that's worth maybe $100 million, but we're going to be spending $20 or $30 million dealing with protests, shutdowns, and problems with the government, so either you get it right from the beginning or we'll provide you with resources, prospectors, and developers who are doing a great job in developing frameworks for the juniors.

We're seeing this throughout the Canadian mining sector and Canadian private sector. Again, it's not out of the goodness of their hearts, but from a competitive advantage. When we're competing against countries like Spain who have advantages over us in culture and language, we have to be more efficient, we have to do a better job, and we have to find competitive advantage where we can. One place we have found it is in community engagement, social investment, and CSR.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Dade.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

That was a great cap.

Thank you, Mr. Dade, for another excellent presentation. I think it was of great benefit to the committee. We appreciate your being here.

With that, we're going to adjourn for today. We'll be back in 10 days.

[Carlo Dade]

Thank you, gentlemen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

The meeting is adjourned.