Debates of Feb. 23rd, 2000

Point Of Order

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC]

Mr. Speaker, following the introduction by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, a sorry fellow as everyone knows, of a bill denying Quebecers their fundamental rights, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to table a document that will enlighten this House.

It is an article published in the February 19, 2000 issue of La Presse entitled “Gérald Larose Against the Clarity Bill”.

It says: “The former president of the CSN, Gérald Larose, and lawyer André Tremblay have vigorously condemned the bill seeking to frame an eventual referendum and asked for its withdrawal”.

“Since Bill C-20 intends to give the federal government control over the whole process, it subordinates the people of Quebec which is already perfectly autonomous in these regards”, readily declared Mr. Larose who was appearing before the legislative committee dealing with the clarity bill.

Sponsored by the Bloc Quebecois, Mr. Larose and Mr. Tremblay were appearing before the federal members in their capacity as president and vice-president of the Prodémocratie Group. This organization—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I ask for the unanimous consent of the House because our colleague from Charlevoix had started to read from a document and was not allowed to finish. I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to grant him a few more minutes so that he can finish his presentation.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Is there unanimous consent for the hon. member for Charlevoix to return to his document?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

There being no further points of order, we will go to the daily routine of business.

Committees Of The House

[Susan Whelan, Liberal, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on Industry in relation to Bill C-276, an act to amend the Competition Act, 1998 (negative option marketing), with amendments.

Department Of Health Act

[Reed Elley, Reform, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-434, an act to amend the Department of Health Act (genetically modified food).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to introduce my private member's bill. Over the past number of months genetically modified food has been bandied around in the media like a football. It has become a war of words between those opposed and those in favour of GM food.

Unfortunately, there has been so much information and misinformation that few people truly know and understand the issue at all. This bill calls for the issue of genetically modified organisms to be researched publicly before the Standing Committee on Health and the results brought before the Canadian public.

As parliamentarians, we have a duty to ensure that our food supply is safe and yet not be scared by legitimate scientific advances. This bill seeks to identify the truth behind genetically modified food.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Referendum Act

[Reed Elley, Reform, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-435, an act to require a referendum on the restoration of the death penalty as a sentencing option and to amend the Referendum Act.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to reintroduce to the House my private member's bill.

Canadians from coast to coast are justified when they express their dissatisfaction over our current justice system. This bill simply calls for a national referendum to test the will of the Canadian people to be held at the next general election. It would allow all Canadians to state whether or not they would like to have the death penalty as an option for sentencing for first degree murder.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Right To Work Act

[Jim Pankiw, Reform, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-436, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code, the Public Service Employment Act and the Public Service Staff Relations Act (trade union membership to be optional).

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to introduce this bill, the purpose of which is to allow workers to decide whether or not they wish to join or be represented by a trade union, and to provide that no union dues are to be deducted effective July 1, 2000 from the wages or salary of employees who are members of unions.

It also prevents discrimination by the commission against a person applying for employment on the basis of whether they are or wish to be a member of a union.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Committees Of The House

[Maud Debien, Bloc, Laval East, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the second report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, tabled on Thursday, December 16, 1999, be concurred in.

I rise today to speak to the second report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, tabled on Thursday, December 16, 1999. This report is entitled “Exporting in the Canadian Interest: Reviewing the Export Development Act”.

First, I will deal with the form and then I will talk about the content.

Members may not know this, but the way the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade approved this report was rather odd, even though the report is of a paramount importance. It is therefore totally unacceptable for the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, or rather the Liberal majority on the committee, to have approved this report in such a hurry.

Believe it or not, the whole approval process took fifteen minutes. The Liberal majority approved this report of close to one hundred pages—and I stress this—in less than fifteen minutes. Moreover, in view of the fact that some Liberal members on the committee had hardly ever taken part in this review, it was obvious that nothing was going to stop the government from having the report approved on the sly, just before the Christmas recess, unless Liberal backbenchers are able to read faster than the best speed readers.

More importantly, the Export Development Corporation does for $34.7 billion worth of business. In 1998, its profits amounted to $135 million. It is unconscionable to take only fifteen minutes to approve a report dealing with such huge amounts of public money.

Just by pure chance, that particular day when we were determined to maintain the pace of the committee meetings, was the very day that this House debated Bill C-20, a bill which is attempting to stifle the democratic rights of Quebecers to decide on their own future.

The cavalier and disdainful attitude of the Liberal majority in adopting this report at the committee on foreign affairs and international trade will remain in my memory as one of the blackest and most tragic episodes in my parliamentary experience. Heaven only knows that, in my six years on that committee, we have never had to rush the adoption of a report through in such an unacceptable way.

That said, nevertheless the Bloc Quebecois considers that the spirit of the Export Development Act generally responds fairly well to the objectives behind it when it was passed. There is, however, still some room for improvement in the way the Export Development Corporation operates.

We identified three flaws in the committee report, and I would like to address them now.

First of all, as many of those who spoke before the foreign affairs and international trade committee pointed out so clearly, there seems to be a flagrant lack of transparency in the way the corporation operates, and there are serious shortcomings as far as access to information is concerned.

For example, it was impossible for a Bloc Quebecois member on this committee to obtain a breakdown of the corporation's financial activities in Quebec. It is therefore not surprising that it is difficult for the House to know if EDC is respecting the spirit and the letter of the law. That is why we also wanted the Export Development Corporation to be subject to the Access to Information Act.

Bloc Quebecois members are not the only ones worried about this lack of transparency. On October 20, 1998, then Minister for International Trade, Sergio Marchi, engaged Gowling, Strathy and Henderson to review the Export Development Act.

In June 1999, project leader Guy David tabled his report, which contained 39 recommendations, one of which had to do with the issue of accountability and transparency. What is now known as the Gowlings report recommends, and I quote:

EDC should be required to post, on a regular basis, specific information regarding transactions it has supported. Such information might include, for example, the name of the borrower, country, name of exporter, amount and type of financial support, term and a brief description of the goods, services or project involved. Transactions should be posted within 60 days of signing.

Our second reservation is much the same and has to do with the Export Development Corporation's respect for human rights.

Although the Export Development Corporation offers financing services, its particular focus is credit insurance. The risks assumed by the corporation may include factors of a political nature. However, in its evaluation of political risks in each country, the Export Development Corporation does not take into account the human rights situation in the countries where the businesses it is helping are operating.

In the opinion of the Bloc Quebecois, before granting any money, before providing financial support to any business, the EDC should at least make sure the business adheres to the code of conduct set out by the OECD with regard to human rights.

We find it unacceptable that the Export Development Act could be used to circumvent the values treasured by all Quebecers and Canadians. It is disturbing to think that the Export Development Corporation might help businesses operating in developing countries where they contribute to propagate values conflicting with ours.

In fact, a disturbing situation has just confirmed our apprehensions. No later than last week, KPMG published the results of a poll conducted with 1,000 chief executive officers of Canadian corporations. The results are more than worrisome.

Fifty-eight per cent of the corporations and government organizations that responded to the poll have no senior manager responsible for ethics. Only 38% of respondents said they provided ethics training to their managers and, one time in three, less than one hour a year is devoted to such training.

In spite of all the public discussions that have taken place in recent years on child labour in developing and emerging countries, 16% of exporting businesses have yet to adopt a policy on this issue.

Perhaps even more telling and sad is the fact that the response rate to the survey was extremely low in the private sector, at under 8%. Businesses do not care much about ethics, to say the least. But Canadian businesses are not the only ones to blame. The example is set a the top.

As members know, civil war has been raging in Sudan for several years. A number of non-governmental organizations have condemned the fact that slavery is practised openly. Serious violations of fundamental rights are a common occurrence. Over one million civilians have been killed and 4.5 million people have been displaced within the country.

Talisman Energy, an oil company based in Calgary, does business in Sudan. A few months ago, the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs promised to impose sanctions on Talisman if it was demonstrated that the company's presence in Sudan was contributing to the continuation of the civil war in that country.

Also, the American government urged the Canadian government to prohibit Canadian businesses from investing in that African country, which serves as a haven for terrorist organizations.

Yet last week the Minister of Foreign Affairs announced that he no longer had any plans to exercise any sanctions against Talisman, despite the fact that his special envoy, John Harker, has demonstrated that oil is a key factor in the terrible civil war that is being waged in Sudan.

Moreover, international observers do not see any hope for a ceasefire as long as oil exploration continues. This is compounded by the fact that the royalties being paid to the Sudanese government are being used in the war effort.

As Bernard Descôteaux rightly asked in an editorial in Le Devoir last week, “Is there no limit to our complicity in a morally reprehensible situation? Clearly, today the Canadian government is accepting this complicity”.

The Export Development Corporation is in strange position. When the government directing it is interested only in the smell of money and of trade, how could we expect the EDC to be inspired by noble ethical and moral values?

Finally, the third problematical element in this second report by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade addresses the EDC's environmental responsibilities.

The Gowlings report made one recommendation on this which we felt to be very reasonable: “Canada should encourage the early development of an international consensus on environmental guidelines and procedures for export credit agencies. In the meantime, EDC should adopt a substantively and methodologically clear and transparent environmental framework”.

I will dispense with the reading of another recommendation of 424 words, in which anyone could get irretrievably lost in a maze of pompous, complicated and inapplicable language.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Saint-Eustache—Sainte-Thérèse, QC]

What about clarity?

[Maud Debien, Bloc, Laval East, QC]

My colleague asked “What about clarity?” If the Liberal majority were to ask the question in a referendum, there would be clarity problems.

In this regard, the Bloc Quebecois would have preferred that the Export Development Corporation draw more on the very simple and probably more effective operational framework of the World Bank or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, since they require, for each sensitive project in a sensitive area, an impact study, public hearings and most importantly process transparency.

The Bloc Quebecois would not support the EDC's using public funds for projects that would damage the environment or violate human rights and to do so with impunity and in absolute secrecy.

I want to make myself clear, we consider the role played by the Export Development Corporation both positive and vital, but we feel it must conduct itself as a crown corporation of a country that cannot blindly encourage and support exports and investments abroad without considering the effects of its action.

In closing, I would point out that the export sector is of vital importance to the economy of Quebec, which is one of the world's most open economies.

This week, the Quebec minister of state for the economy and finance, Bernard Landry, wisely pointed out that over the past decade Quebec's international exports increased by 130% to $78 billion annually. We must not forget either that Quebec exports 55% of its gross domestic product and that the increase in these exports has meant over 142,000 new jobs.

Quebec supports free trade. Its people understood long before the Liberal government the importance of establishing a trade economy. We too are democrats and we want to assure you that trade and business are conducted according to the ethical values and ideals of the vast majority of Canadians and Quebecers.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank my colleague from Laval East. I believe that her speech reflected her long experience on the Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs and International Trade as well as her determination to remain well informed of any infringement of human rights wherever Canada is active.

I have a double question. Considering the huge budget of the EDC and fact that that agency has a lot of assets it can use without informing the public, does the hon. member not find it extremely strange that the committee—whose past work she is aware of, having been part of it—hastily adopted without review a report of such crucial importance, in view of the fact that Canada is being censured in several parts of the world?

[Maud Debien, Bloc, Laval East, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the member for Mercier for her question.

In my speech, I did point out that EDC's budget for all activities was $34.7 billion—not $34 billion. The budget for its activities was $34.7 billion. These are commitments of public funds. Even if the EDC provides benefits, the fact remains that these are very substantial commitments of public funds.

As the member for Mercier said, it is unthinkable that the committee rushed through consideration of this report in such a cavalier fashion. In addition, as the member indicated, it is also unacceptable that there is no information or transparency mechanism, given the size of EDC's budget.

One of our recommendations was that EDC be subject to the Access to Information Act. Obviously, the Liberal majority did not go for this.

The member for Mercier is absolutely right about how this report was adopted. I personally have been on the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade for over six years now, ever since I was elected to the House of Commons. On a few occasions, we had to speed up consideration for certain reports. The member for Toronto Centre—Rosedale, who chairs the committee, and who is here and listening today, knows it only too well.

Each time, Bloc Quebecois members agreed to work closely with other members of the committee and in good faith, so as to improve the report. Whenever we had dissenting opinions, we expressed them in good faith and in the spirit of improving the report and Canada's policy. This time, unfortunately, is the first time I have seen such incomprehensible haste at report stage.

[Richard Marceau, Bloc, Charlesbourg, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like first to congratulate my hon. colleague from Laval East for her eloquent speech on a subject matter of tremendous importance to a lot of people.

There are few people on this earth more attached to human rights than Quebecers. Respect for human rights is one of the core values of the Quebec people. The Bloc Quebecois, which is truly reflective of this, has, through the hon. member for Laval East, made the defense of human rights a major thrust of all the positions it has taken in this parliament.

My hon. colleague from Laval East is an ardent defender of human rights. I would like to know what she would have done if she had been the one deciding what to put in the Export Development Act, as far as the human rights are concerned.

What would she have put in, and what would she like to see in the Human Rights Act that would bring satisfaction not only to her personally, but also to all Quebecers, for whom the respect of human rights is a core value?

[Maud Debien, Bloc, Laval East, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank my colleague from Charlesbourg for his question.

He said that one of the values considered important by the people of Quebec is respect for human rights, which is a major consideration in most of its decisions.

Indeed, since the Bloc Quebecois has been in the House of Commons, the issue of human rights has been a constant concern, not only of the member for Laval East, because she is the human rights critic, but of all the Bloc Quebecois members.

Since the hon. member has asked me what I would have done, had I drafted this report, to put some teeth in it on the subject of the respect of human rights, I would refer quite simply to the Gowlings report.

Its recommendation is very simple, it provides “As a matter of practice, EDC should consult with DFAIT in advance to ensure that EDC's planned country activities abroad do not conflict with Canada's foreign policy on human rights. DFAIT should establish a process to formulate human rights guidelines and disseminate information on a timely basis, which all businesses dealing with the EDC should follow”.

The recommendations of the Gowlings report are clear and precise, as you can see. There is no 254 word recommendation as is found in the committee's report, on the environment, for example.

The Gowlings report also provides “EDC should implement a policy whereby, when applying for EDC financial or insurance services, Canadian exporters are asked to indicate on a voluntary basis whether they have adopted their own codes of conduct that ensure respect for human rights, ethical business conduct and fair labour standards in their international activities”.

The Gowlings report is clear and precise. It is much clearer than the “clarity act”, and it seems that the government and the EDC should stick just to that.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, Human Resources Development; the hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River, Agriculture.

[Bob Kilger, Liberal, Stormont—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That the House do now proceed to orders of the day.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?