Rick Laliberte

[Petitions, November 17th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition signed by citizens from Ontario, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Over 2,000 petitioners call on Parliament to sign legally binding targets and timetables at the United Nations conference of parties in Kyoto, Japan this December 1997.

Further, these petitioners believe that Canada should commit to the substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

[Environment, November 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, protecting the environment and creating jobs are important to Canadians. The issue of climate change was even ratified by a great country like China.

Will the Minister of Finance commit today that after Kyoto he will establish a national commission consisting of an investment fund and asking leadership from governments and health, community and labour groups to recommend measures to maximize jobs and economic benefits for all Canadians?

[Environment, November 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, countries around the world began initiating energy efficiency measures after Rio, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. Other countries have used higher standards and proactive regulations to increase employment and protect the environment at the same time, a win-win situation.

My question is for the Prime Minister. Since coming to power in 1993 what has this government done to increase energy efficiency and meet global commitments beyond a voluntary registry program and a weak federal building standards program?

[Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, October 28th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I want to share a perspective of developmental boards, management boards of resources, our lands, our rivers and our waters throughout Canada.

If the government, in its wisdom, had to recognize aboriginal peoples on the vision of the future of all peoples on this land, aboriginal people would be a majority in this House of Commons. Aboriginal people would be a majority in the Senate. Aboriginal people would be a majority on the Supreme Court of Canada, at the infancy stage of this country. We were the majority of the population of Canada.

Today, in hindsight, government is preparing to acknowledge that aboriginal people can have a say on the land use policies and resource use policies of this country and in the regions of Yukon and Northwest Territories.

It is a step in the right direction. I welcome that in my own constituency with regard to the Athabasca lakes and the uranium mining that takes place there. We do not have resource development boards to govern or to look at the future of the environmental, economic and social impact the hon. member is so concerned about.

Resources are the wealth of the country. Without income there would be no economic cycle. To create new wealth the resources are being tapped away. If we include aboriginal people at this level it is a start. It may not be the answer for all, but the Dene, Innu and Cree all have a vested interest in investing their traditional lifestyle of time immemorial in the future development of the entire country.

I challenge the Reform member who boldly stated the country was going in the wrong direction, or had a history of making mistakes, to share with us the vision of the Reform Party for a brighter future for aboriginal people.

The aboriginal people signed treaties in recognition of the British and French nations along with the Dene, the Mohawk and the Haida, all nations of North America. They were willing to recognize the power of the country and the resources that need to be developed for the betterment of all but in co-operation and with respect for each other.

The management boards are a step in the right direction. I ask for his analysis of the new millennium and the relationship between Canada and the aboriginal people.

[The Environment, October 28th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment.

For four consecutive days toxins have been reported in the news. We have seen stories of excluded Canadian technology, toxic waste sites and dumps, PCBs being bulldozed in the Arctic, contaminated ecosystems such as the Great Lakes, and Environment Canada PCB shipment warnings ignored by federal departments.

Does the minister accept the burial of PCBs in the Arctic and is she aware of shipments of PCBs to Swan Hills?

[Customs Tariff, October 24th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, this is my first time to conduct my order as a responsible member of Parliament in a most crucial debate.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on our esteemed appointment as Deputy Speaker of the House.

I would like to state at the outset that I am against Bill C-11. The intent of the bill is to provide relief against the imposition of certain customs duties and other charges.

This morning the government asked for quick passage of this legislation. It said that there would be a quick elimination of the nuisance rates.

In recent years in some of the shopping centres in my riding we have seen the introduction of Wal-Mart stores. Are these nuisance rates for Wal-Mart trucks coming across the border? It looks like $1 billion will be gained by outside multinationals trading in our country. The estimate is that $90 million will be saved by our companies in trading elsewhere. Where is the balance? Foreign corporations will be saving $1 billion while Canadian companies will only be saving $90 million.

This is a test of our sovereignty, a test of who Canadians are. Canadians live here. When we look at the intent of all our resources, our markets, our economy and our needs, and we look at tariffs, when people want to trade with our country and we look at the history of our country, the colonization of the world was the reason that brought many of our investors here. We should not continue on the rampant path of pillaging and plundering resources and taking markets to the lowest common denominator of simply making a profit and not looking at the social aspects of our people, the need for higher education, the need for medicare, the need for people to find meaningful employment in all aspects of our economy, not just in manufacturing or the providing of products but also in the protection of our environment. It is a role where the citizens of our country can create a meaningful future for our children.

On the record on the previous agreements that have been made, Bill C-11 seems to be a process of completing the North American Free Trade Agreement. When we sing our national anthem we are the ones singing it as Canadians when we say “our true north strong and free”. It is not an American singing it. It is a Canadian singing it and being proud of who we are. We are strong and we are free to work for the future of our country and the future of our people.

It is not an American person saying it is a free country in northern Canada. It is not. They cannot come across here and get benefits from our lands, our measurable jurisdiction which we call our home. This is our future and our children.

To cause a political awareness I call on Liberals who have formed the government and in their time have served their purpose on this side of the House that in 1988 the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was an issue. The 1993 election came about with NAFTA as a major issue in the red book of the Liberals. The NDP was very clear in its opposition to the free trade agreements and the direction that was being taken, as did the Liberals, but the difference is that the NDP has stuck to its guns. We are still against the free trade and the implementations of the regulations of free trade. That is what Bill C-11 is all about. It is implementing free trade provisions.

The Liberals have turned full circle. Now they want to be champions of the free trade agreement. They ran two elections against the whole free trade aspect in this country. The Liberals were certainly right when they told Canadians that in 1993 their election campaign was if you are opposed to NAFTA you should vote NDP.

In future elections I call on Canadians to remember the New Democrats of this country. We seem to be the only ones protecting Canadians, not multinational interests, not profit making interests, but the future of all Canadians, the future of our land, the environment and also the generations to come.

Despite these claims, these ironclad assurances that we have been crying for regarding labour and environmental standards have not been signed. They have not been protected in the NAFTA and we are afraid that the government of the day will not be protecting them in the multilateral agreement on investment.

The extent to which the Liberals have joined the ranks of globalizing elites is this whole issue of NAFTA and MAI. These are major issues. Globalizing in the Miami summit of the Americas in 1994 where the negotiations began toward free trade of the Americas and where Canada began negotiating with Chile to join NAFTA, the government claimed that the trade deal with Chile would lead to cheaper bananas for Canadians. This government evidently believed that a Latin American country like Chile was a major banana producer.

Someone in the Department of International Trade forgot to tell this government that Chile is not a tropical country. It does not produce or export bananas. The vision and the explanation of this agreement is simply to protect multinational interests and to break down our borders with other countries which have huge amounts of assets and capital to come in and invest, take our resources and our markets and break the economic cycle that we need in this country.

We need to produce, to finish our products and use our products. We need to create a cycle where our Canadian dollars are changing hands within Canada, not externally. If we can attract outside interest from European countries, Asian countries, the America countries and other American states, let them come in but let them invest in our future. Let them pay the tariffs and duties that come with the existence of creating these provisions by our country.

With these tariffs we can invest in better education. We may have a future where children can have tuition free education. Let the corporations pay not only tax dollars through income tax, GST, BST, HST and provincial sales tax to improve our standard of living, but through investment into Canadians' means of providing a better future. Let them pay for medicare and the building of hospitals. Let them pay for the betterment of our medical personnel.

There are doctors in rural and northern Canada who are being imported from outside Canada to come and work and provide health services to our communities. Why can we not teach our children from our local communities to be doctors? The one simple fact is they cannot afford it. If we cannot afford to buy a career or a profession in our own country what is this country's role? What is this government's role? We have to protect our children's future.

If we do not stand up against multinational interests of pure and simple capitalism, of taking profits for their own corporations, we are going in the wrong direction. The vision of this country has been to provide a means for continued investment and globalization. Globalization is a nice, cute, sexy word but it does not mean anything to Canadians. Our purpose in this country is to look within our boundaries for the betterment of our future.

I have looked at the Liberal's trade policies. They have enjoyed the support of the Bloc Quebecois, as was obvious this afternoon when we heard Bloc members speak in favour of this, the Reform Party and the Conservative Party because it introduced the whole NAFTA project. The NDP members are the only ones to take the choice to speak in favour of Canadians, in protecting Canadian companies, in protecting the Canadian labour force, in protecting the future of Canadians and in protecting our land.

Globalization of Canadian sovereignty is for international communities. It is not for Canadians.

I would like to speak on the irony of this. As Canada has sought allies against Canadian trade harassment, it has built alliances with countries that do not contain American trade harassment. Americans are strong and powerful and they will harass you however they can. Canada has been looking for alliances to keep human rights, labour rights and environmental practices on all trade agreements, to a greater extent, in all of North America.

On the question of the social clause of the World Trade Organization, common labour practices in the free trade agreement and supporting UN resolutions condemned Chinese human rights. However, Canada has been on the side of trying to keep the social dimension of trade off the agenda against countries like the United States which have been supportive of broadening trade agendas globally. We must protect the consciousness of all people.

Canadians and Americans, like others around the world, have been asked by multinationals and their allies in government to sacrifice considerable national sovereignty; our investment policy in social, labour and environmental standards in exchange for rule based regimes and profit making schemes by multinationals.

The NDP wants to work toward international trade rules that are not so one sided in favour of multinationals. We are part of a system of international governance that balances economic opportunities for a new economy.

We must build a responsible international economy that is accountable to our communities and the public interest of our country. That is why Canadians have put us to the challenge of being here in the House of Commons to create the consciousness of this government and all governments of the world.

The social clauses are a major source of awareness for our party. We have fought to protect labour, farmers and other people of our communities. A co-operative movement has striven in many corners of the country to protect the community interest, to keep the investment, profits and the dividends at a community level. These are part of a Canadian vision for Canadians.

The biggest challenge is to build a more democratic international community. Multinational and international agreements have been trying to create international trade agreements. They must deal effectively with the social dimensions of trade. A growing international movement seeks to build social clauses such as NAFTA and the World Trade Organization. We are calling on the government to keep that consciousness in mind when it is negotiating the multilateral agreement on investment.

Such clauses should respect human rights, basic labour rights, economic decision making within the new economy and the ability of workers to negotiate the terms under which they will participate in the global economy. Social clauses allow states to establish environmental regulations that have challenged non-tariff barriers to trade.

The new trade rules are remarkably one sided in defence of the rights of investors. I guess their lobbying strategy is working. They seem to have multi-parties talking in favour of multinational rights to intellectual property.

Intellectual property rights are a major cause for sovereignty and national interests. If we have resources within our country we must work to create, negotiate and fight for the rights of our people and our interests. We cannot simply give them wholesale access to multinationals. For the pharmaceutical companies to have access to resources for medicinal purposes, the interests might be in our backyards in Canada.

We must protect our environment and our livelihoods. If we trade them off and give them to the profitable right of somebody else we will never create an economic cycle with our own resources. We will have lost it.

To reverse this process seems to be a battle in itself. How can we get away from NAFTA once we have signed on? It seems to be a big ship that goes down. We just cannot to keep it buoyant.

There is nothing about workers rights and trade unions and the right to a safe workplace. They speak loudly of level playing fields but globalization, according to many observers, has certainly been a race to the bottom, to the lowest common labour standards, to the lowest possible wage levels with the highest level of profit.

There is no limit to profit taking. The banks of the country brag that they are making 25% to 30% more profit than they did last year. This means they made profits the years before. They are measuring percentages over their profits, just leapfrogging their profit-making margins.

Then international banks are coming into our markets. They are trying to break down the rules to allow them to compete against our banks. We must speak on behalf of our own banking institutions as well. We must protect our own market, our own industries.

We see products like old growth forests being cut down on the west coast. Whole logs are shipped to Japan for the people there to provide products and possibly sell back to Canadians. Let us finish our products here. Let us market and be aggressive.

In order to be aggressive and competitive we have to train and teach our children. If we do not acquire further taxes from our corporations and the multinationals operating within our market, we will lose a big source of revenue generation. We must create revenue and wealth by taxing the people doing business with us.

The Liberal government accepts one of the cliches of globalization, that the best way to address the problem of human and environmental rights is by developing open trade in society.

Where does Canadian sovereignty fall into place? Support for the social cause is a start. We are seeing the government going hell-bent to negotiate these agreements. We must call on the government to have a social conscience and link trade benefits to the human rights of the people of the world.

Without such causes the World Trade Organization is like a turkey shoot where multinationals and their allies in some developing countries can exploit the most vulnerable. Chile is an example. Why is it not negotiating free trade agreements with the other countries of South America? It chose Chile because it was the most vulnerable.

I call on the government to be fair and equitable to all developing countries of the world and not to pick on the weak. Speaking of the weak, Canadians cannot be seen as a weak entity. We must stand up for ourselves. I call on the government to stand up on behalf of all Canadians, to be strong and to be free to speak for the will of all Canadians.

I call on the government and the House of Commons to challenge each other to provide a way of negotiating our needs with the rest of the world. If they are willing to invest in our country, let us stop the colonization move.

There are remnants of colonization remaining in our northern communities. I draw attention to the reality that in northern Canada the Hudson's Bay Company has changed its name to Northern Stores. The Hudson's Bay Company and Northern Stores do not invest in our communities.

We talk about our aboriginal communities needing to create an economic cycle for the betterment of their lives and those of their children. The Hudson's Bay Company does not invest in our communities. It deals in profits as it did in the days of the fur trade and takes them elsewhere. We have to put up trade barriers to stop profit making and keep some of those revenues in the country.

I speak on behalf of our party against Bill C-11 because it is a remnant of the NAFTA. I challenge the House of Commons and the leadership of the country to protect the interest of Canadians wholeheartedly. Let us keep our companies, workers, banks and our railroads in this country for future generations. Let us stay Canadian, strong and free.

[Aboriginal Affairs, October 24th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Royal Bank said that the deplorable state of Canada's aboriginal people is a national shame. If investments are not made to infrastructure in the northern communities, if investments are not made in jobs and economic development, if investments are not made in the social realities of aboriginal people, will the deputy prime minister commit today to look at the deplorable means of aboriginal people and work with them to look at the betterment of our future and our country?

[Aboriginal Affairs, October 24th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, as the aboriginal population grows the crisis deepens and costs rise. By the year 2016 the cost to Canadians could be as high as $11 billion a year. For thousands of young aboriginal people poor health, lost economic opportunity and lost hope for the future can never be measured in dollars. When will this government honour its commitment to aboriginal people and provide a full and complete response to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples?

[The Environment, October 22nd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to comment on the climate change treaty to be signed in Kyoto, Japan this December.

Canadians know about global warming. However, empty Liberal promises, broken international treaties, misleading words and fearmongering uttered in this House are not giving Canadians an honest picture. The environment minister and Reform members keep stressing the supposed costs for all Canadians. Why do they ignore the potential benefits for our industry and our workers?

Canadians need to know that thousands of jobs would be created in any country dedicated to meeting international emission targets. There are more than environmental and economic benefits involved: There is our children's future. As we enter the new millennium, Canada should be in the forefront of developing efficient technologies to use existing fuels, while encouraging alternative and renewable energy sources.

[North American Indigenous Games, October 10th, 1997]

I rise today to give tribute and acknowledgement to the 8,000 young participants in the North American indigenous games that were hosted in Victoria, British Columbia this past summer. The impact of experiencing and sharing the involvement of fellow athletic and cultural participants from all over North America is a profound accomplishment.

Congratulations to the organizers and the people of British Columbia for making this event another success. It is our hope that these games will be a base for indigenous peoples' participation in the world's Olympics.

I would also like to recognize the four time champions of these events, Team Saskatchewan. Canada should be proud of its aboriginal peoples.