Ed Fast

[Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023, October 24th, 2023]

There were 47.

[Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023, October 24th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, as members know, free trade is very close and dear to my heart.

I want to ask the member about his own Ukrainian community, the diaspora that is gathered within his community and why they would feel that this agreement is really important to Canada. I would welcome his thoughts on that.

[Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023, October 23rd, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is right that the most effective way of speaking to the institutional capacity of countries that are struggling, that are perhaps coming out of troubled histories, is to engage with them on trade. As we do so, it opens up opportunities to speak to their democratic institutions, law enforcement institutions and human rights. It is all based on developing trust. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that Canada remain engaged.

The negotiation of trade agreements is, of course, at its heart, about our Canadian economic interests. However, it is amazing how these negotiations open up these opportunities to help countries such as Ukraine, Colombia and Peru to emerge from their difficult histories and start to develop strong, democratic institutions.

[Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023, October 23rd, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly cannot speak for the Liberal Party. What I can say is that free trade agreements are always brought to the House for discussion and full debate, as we are having today, and then those agreements have to be ratified by the House. If they are not ratified, it is a big problem because the government cannot move forward with implementing them.

I do not know if the member has a misunderstanding of the process required to get free trade agreements in place and implemented, but I do know that robust discussions take place in this House and have taken place in this House for many years, starting with the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, which was the first major trade agreement Canada ever had. It morphed into NAFTA, which is now called CUSMA. Since that time, Canada has negotiated trade agreements with a total of 51 countries. It has opened up new trade access for Canadian businesses to export and to have the opportunity to grow.

[Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023, October 23rd, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I am chuckling a bit because the member talked about a trade agreement. What Canada signed with China was not a trade agreement; it was an investment protection agreement. The purpose of that agreement was to protect Canadian investors when they invest in China, because China does not respect the rule of law the way we do in Canada.

We worked very hard for many, many years to get that agreement in place because we had identified situations where Canadian companies had made significant investments in China. One example was gold mining. After the prospecting was done and after a very productive deposit was found, guess what happened. The Chinese government stepped up and said it wanted to have Chinese businesses develop the mine and take the profits out of it. That is why we needed an investment protection agreement. It is not a trade access agreement. It does not provide new access to Canada for China to trade. It protects Canadians when they do business in China.

I encourage the member to please get his facts right and make sure he understands the agreements that Canada is signing.

[Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, 2023, October 23rd, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to this implementation bill for the modernization of the Ukraine free trade agreement.

I always welcome opportunities to talk about trade. It is one of my passions, which is why I was somewhat disappointed by the disparaging remarks made by my colleague from Winnipeg North regarding the previous Conservative government's record on trade, especially Stephen Harper's focus on trade as the linchpin of Canada's economic strategy.

During the Harper years, the government set an unprecedented pace for negotiating trade agreements. When the Conservative government was first elected back in 2006, Canada had trade agreements with five countries: the United States, Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica and Israel. By the time we were finished some nine years later, we had free trade agreements with 47 additional countries, an astounding number. That included the Canada-Europe free trade agreement. It included the TPP, which morphed, of course, into the CPTPP. It also included South Korea, which was a very difficult negotiation but was successfully concluded.

One of the agreements that former prime minister Stephen Harper really wanted to get done was between Canada and Ukraine. Even back in 2010, Ukraine was facing difficult challenges. It had a very weak economy and was struggling in trying to deal with Russia. The Prime Minister at the time, Stephen Harper, said the government was going to negotiate a trade agreement with Ukraine that would be unique in that the outcome would be asymmetrical. What that meant is that the benefits flowing each way were not necessarily going to be equal or balanced, at least at the beginning. The phasing in of market access and the elimination of tariff barriers would be done on a differentiated basis so that the outcome was not a quid pro quo in the perfect sense of the term. The Conservatives did that because we wanted to give Ukraine a leg up and help Ukraine re-establish itself as economically viable and strong.

I should indicate that I will be splitting my time with the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

When the former Conservative government negotiated the trade agreement, the negotiations started in 2010 and were concluded in 2015. We left office in 2015. These agreements sometimes take a number of years to come into force, so the agreement came into force in 2017 and has served Ukraine well. Our trade with that country has increased. It was not completely unexpected that when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, trade flows declined. In fact, the current government and Ukraine stopped negotiating for a while because of the invasion by Russia into Ukraine.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and made sense out of the fact that Ukraine still needed to move forward economically and put in place the economic structures that would allow it to be successful. Negotiations were then recommenced in 2022, and here we are, a year later, in a position to pass the implementing legislation.

The purpose of modernizing this free trade agreement is that the free trade environment around the world, the playing field, is evolving rapidly. Some things are happening that are not necessarily good. For example, the world is becoming more protectionist. We are putting up more and more tariff and non-tariff barriers.

The United States, under Donald Trump, turned inward. In fact, members may recall that it was former president Donald Trump who pulled the U.S. out of the TPP negotiations. Why? I do not know. He was running for office. I suppose he saw it as politically beneficial.

The whole premise for the TPP was to take advantage of what is called comparative advantage. Every country has its own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to manufacturing goods and delivering services. If we can take the strengths of each country and cobble them together into a coherent trade strategy, we can ensure that the outcome for partner countries is optimal.

Unfortunately, the United States has pulled out, and since that time, it has really turned inward. It is not negotiating free trade agreements. When we go to the World Trade Organization, we notice that large countries, such as Brazil, China, South Africa and India, often block consensus on trade liberalization.

This causes us to reconsider how we engage with the world and open up new opportunities for Canadian companies to do business abroad and expand exports. That is why this agreement with Ukraine, which was negotiated under the former Conservative government led by Stephen Harper, is now being modernized. Many of these factors that were not in play back when we first negotiated this agreement now call for us to update the agreement and modernize it.

For example, there are 11 new chapters included in this agreement. There is a chapter on cross-border trade in services. There is a chapter on investment, which is very important. There is a chapter on temporary entry for business purposes, to facilitate the travel of business people back and forth between our countries. Financial services are covered, as is telecommunications. There is a chapter on small and medium-sized enterprises.

There is also a chapter on digital trade, because digital trade has evolved so quickly that it has left a lot of our trade agreements behind. One of the reasons that our free trade agreement with the United States was updated is that we had no chapter on digital services. People are doing business online now. Amazon has become an obscenely profitable company. Why? It is because of online purchasing, which is digital trade. There is a separate chapter on that.

There is a new chapter on how labour and workers will be treated, and the high standards that both countries want to set. There is also a chapter on the environment.

The bottom line is this: We as Canadians need to step up and stand in the gap for Ukraine. Canada has a large Ukrainian diaspora that expects us to partner with Ukraine in its time of need. That is what this agreement does. That is what the original trade agreement did.

In my home city of Abbotsford, many Ukrainians have fled their home country and made their home, or at least their temporary home, in Abbotsford. We now have something called the Ukrainian village, which is reinforcing why it is so important for all of us to work together with our Ukrainian diaspora and with the people of Ukraine to put in place a trade agreement and structure under which the Ukrainian economy can be lifted back up. Both of our countries can benefit from that.

[Justice, October 18th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, today, this House will vote on whether to protect the mentally ill against assisted suicide, but yesterday the justice minister falsely claimed that euthanizing vulnerable Canadians was good public policy and the only way to comply with Canadian law. Meanwhile, we are hearing more and more reports of Canadians crying out for help and being offered assisted suicide instead. Is this the sorry state of our mental health system? Millions of Canadians oppose the government's fascination with assisted death.

Will the government now bring a full stop to this madness?

[Justice, October 17th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, once again, we hear reports of Canadians crying out for help with their mental health, but being offered assisted death instead.

The government refused to listen to mental health experts, to veterans, to disabled people and to indigenous Canadians. It did not listen to the family whose mother begged for help, but instead was euthanized before her kids could even say goodbye.

Canadians overwhelmingly oppose this overreach on assisted suicide. Tomorrow, we can end this madness by passing Bill C-314.

Will the government give Liberal MPs a free vote? This is for the whip, yes or no?

[Criminal Code, October 5th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask for a recorded division.

[Criminal Code, October 5th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, medical assistance in dying will soon be expanded to include those with mental illness, including depression. My bill, Bill C-314, would reverse this terrible decision. My bill is very narrow and would not repeal the other provisions of Canada's medical assistance in dying laws.

There is no national consensus on expanding MAID to include mental disorders, none. The most recent Angus Reid poll found that a very small number of Canadians actually favour expanding assisted suicide to the mentally ill, somewhere around 28%.

The mental health community has raised significant concerns. A recent letter to government from the heads of seven Canadian psychiatry schools implored decision-makers to hold off on expanding assisted suicide to the mentally ill. Similarly, the Canadian Psychiatric Association does not support the expansion of MAID due to the many ethical and clinical concerns that have not been resolved. They argue that mental illness is often highly treatable and that patients should be provided with the treatment they need to manage their symptoms and lead fulfilling lives.

Stakeholders have deplored the lack of social and economic supports for persons with mental illness and how this can lead people to consider MAID. They have pointed to the fact that the federal government has not fulfilled its promise to deliver dedicated mental health and palliative care funding to the provinces, leaving Canadians without access to the support that would lead them to choose life rather than death.

Many others have joined the chorus. They note that the issues of suicidal ideation, irremediability and competency have not been resolved, ensuring that Canadians will needlessly die because we have rushed ahead with expanding MAID.

At greatest risk are those suffering from depression, veterans suffering from PTSD, the opioid addicted on our streets, our indigenous communities and those seeking to escape a life of poverty. The government has even signalled its openness to allowing children to access assisted suicide, presumably without their parents' consent.

Last year, in my home town of Abbotsford, Donna Duncan was swiftly approved for assisted suicide after failing to receive proper treatment for chronic mental health issues. Her assisted death happened so quickly and so totally blindsided her daughters, Alicia and Christie, that they referred the case to the RCMP. Is this the dystopian world we are leaving behind?

Has anyone consulted with our first nations? Meaghan Walker-Williams of the Cowichan Tribe recently wrote in the National Post:

As a Sixties Scoop survivor, my lifelong personal journey back to my community of Cowichan has also been marked by the painful consequences of policies that didn’t respect or understand Indigenous cultures. Another policy, blind to my culture, may soon join them: assisted suicide for mental illness.

She concludes by saying, “it's crucial that the narrative remains firmly rooted in upholding the sanctity of life—a cornerstone of Coast Salish teachings.”

I note that the government originally excluded the mentally ill from its MAID regime and went to great lengths to explain why that was necessary. It was only after the unelected Senate included the mentally ill in Bill C-7 that the government suddenly enthusiastically embraced the idea.

The question is this: Should Canadians be able to trust their government to act in a way that values the life of every Canadian, or do we give up on the most vulnerable among us? Someday, all of us will have to give an account.

A famous world leader by the name of Moses once challenged his own people with a choice and a promise: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live”. I want my descendants to live, to prosper, to thrive, and I want the same for our mentally ill, our Indigenous peoples and indeed all Canadians. It is time to end this experiment. With so much uncertainty, surely we should err on the side of life, not death.

I respectfully ask members to support Bill C-314.