Madam Speaker, I would like to start by welcoming my constituents from the wonderful riding of Laval. They will note that, despite all the rumours circulating, all the MPs in the House of Commons and Parliament are continuing to do their work and will do so until the government falls.
What is most surprising to me about today's discussion on this free trade agreement is that, on the one hand, there seems to be the belief that this government, which has never recognized or respected the rights of people from our own country, the rights of Canadians and Quebeckers who go abroad and find themselves in dangerous situations, will now ensure that the rights of Colombians are respected simply by signing a free trade agreement with them.
The Bloc Québécois is not against free trade agreements or international trade. However, we are against anything that could hurt or be harmful to vulnerable people. We have seen this too often in the past. The fact that the government did not bother to wait for the committee to draft and table its report is even more hurtful and shows again the government's lack of respect in this matter. This is such an obvious lack of respect that it is a wonder my Liberal Party colleagues can nevertheless support sending this bill to committee. It is evident that there is no way of ensuring respect for the rights of Colombians.
This is a free trade agreement in which there is no guarantee for the people who are going to be displaced and who will have to move elsewhere. Notwithstanding the comments of the hon. member earlier, since 2007 there has been an increase in the number of murders and assassinations in Colombia. When I talk about assassinations, I am referring to political murders. There has been an increase in the movement of people who must leave their land because it is too dangerous for them to live there. These are small mine owners who are being displaced by large mining companies, or small-scale farmers who are being displaced by large agribusinesses. When these people are displaced, they move to large cities, such as Bogota for example. We know what happens in big cities when new people arrive with no way to make a living. People find themselves living in shantytowns, as is the case in Brazil, where such slums are a common occurrence and where people are not living, but surviving.
I do not think that when we sign a free trade agreement, these are the results we want to achieve through it. I wonder how one could possibly believe that these mining companies would take it upon themselves to maintain and respect the human rights of Colombians, when they are not subject to any regulations and when nothing forces them to do so.
Every year, for the past number of years, officials from Development and Peace have come to see us to tell us and show us what is already happening with mining companies in other countries. We see that human rights are also being violated in these other countries. How can we believe that these companies will suddenly endorse more progressive and open social values and ensure that the people they are going to displace will at least be relocated to areas where they can live decently? I do not believe that is the case. I do not believe in the good intentions of those businesses, which stand to make billions of dollars.
Colombia has very rich soil. It has a lot of ore. It also has emerald mines. I know that women love emeralds. That country has very rich soil that can generate billions of dollars in profits annually. The only way to stop and to sanction mining companies is to impose on them fines of up to $15 million annually for all offences.
What does $15 million mean when one can get billions of dollars? Absolutely nothing. That amount is meaningless on such a large scale.
If we had really wanted to ensure the whole thing would be done in a fair and equitable fashion, first, we would have waited for the report to be tabled. Second, we would have listened carefully to the Colombians who came to meet with us. Last spring, I met with five Colombian women who urged us not to ratify this free trade agreement.
We should, at the very least, have listened to their concerns, to their pleas, and thus realized that we are actually abusing a whole segment of Colombia's population in order to give a few members of the elite class something they can boast about, namely to have succeeded in reaching an agreement with Canada. It is an agreement that gives more to them than to Colombia's population, even though they have not done anything to deserve it.
Hon. members mentioned President Uribe, who was running again. He would certainly like to run ad infinitum. That does not mean he will necessarily succeed, but if he does unfortunately, what will be the effect on human rights? How can we possibly think there will be more respect for them? I do not think so. As soon as someone starts getting ideas about being a dictator, as this man is apparently doing, the only possible conclusion is that there will be no respect or support for human rights and that nothing will be done to lend credibility to the organizations that fight for them.
Someone said earlier there were reports from reliable, credible organizations that Colombia was on the right track and had made progress. That depends, though, on the organizations we listen to. There are organizations as well on the other side that fight for human rights. Five in particular are telling us that this is not true and that there are actually more and more acts of violence against union organizers, more and more displacements to the cities, more and more marginalized people and more and more disappearances.
If we want to compare these two assessments, we should give greater credibility to the most vulnerable people and be very demanding in what we require when we sign a free trade agreement.
We saw what happened with softwood lumber. If we are negligent and insufficiently attentive about the way these free trade agreements are phrased, we will discover that the results are not necessarily what we expected.
If the government had really wanted to show some respect for the people of Colombia, for Parliament and for the parliamentarians here who worked hard and were exemplary committee members, it would at least have waited until the report was tabled and its recommendations could be considered.
That was not done. I am hardly surprised to see this in a government that does not care about women’s rights here in Canada and the rights of Canadian soldiers. We saw veterans this morning whose means of subsistence had been cut. This is also a government that does not care about the rights of the first nations.
How could a government that acts in this way toward its own citizens be expected to act differently toward the citizens of another country for which it has no respect?