Mr. Speaker, it is rather paradoxical. I had the opportunity to go to Peru with the Minister of Labour, who at the time was a Liberal minister. I was able to see the situation of the workers in Peru and that of the children, who work for nothing and do not even have shoes on their feet to work. I could speak at length about this, but I will return to it. I would like to state the position of the Bloc Québécois, which is against the Conservative government’s strategy of concluding trade agreements on a piecemeal basis. We prefer the multilateral approach.
The present economic crisis shows us that a market economy cannot function properly unless it is regulated and stabilized by an institutional, political and ethical framework. Instead of making piecemeal agreements, Canada must work within the WTO to ensure that the rules that govern international trade are the same for all, without exception. We are also now talking about a free trade agreement with Colombia, concerning which I will also speak a little later.
We believe that trade can contribute to the enrichment of peoples, and in that sense can be an important instrument of socio-economic development. For that to happen, however, trade agreements must contain measures to guarantee that the populations concerned can develop sustainably and thrive, in other words, to guarantee workers’ rights and human rights. The free trade agreement with Peru contains an investor protection clause, copied from chapter 11 of NAFTA, which will permit companies to prosecute governments. The presence of a chapter on investor protection could constitute an impediment to the social and economic development of Peru.
As we all know, Canada’s principal commercial activity in Peru is mining. Peru does not have a glowing record on protecting the workers in that sector because it does not have the resources. In the absence of a genuine accountability policy for Canadian mining companies, ratification of this agreement will permit those companies to extend their operations without being subject to any rules or consequences when they pollute the environment or flout human rights.
We will therefore be voting against this bill. Nor must it be forgotten that we are at third reading, a stage at which it is impossible to amend the bill. The attempt was made in committee. The Bloc Québécois and the NDP tried to find out more. Everything was done on the sly. It is worrying when things are not put clearly on the table, when documents are not clear, when we do not have access to certain documents and we do not feel that we are being listened to. Instead they want to pass this bill as quickly as possible to get the Canadian economy rolling in another country, because we are in an economic crisis and we have to make money to repay the debt and see that our companies make money. It all appears to be based on worry.
I would like to talk about chapter 11 of NAFTA. We have been through highs and lows on this subject. To set the context, NAFTA chapter 11 on investment permits investors in a member country of the North American free trade area to claim compensation from the government of another party to NAFTA when they feel they have been prejudiced by the adoption of regulatory measures that modify their company's operating conditions. These regulatory or legislative modifications must, however, be comparable to direct or indirect expropriation or to a measure equivalent to expropriation.
NAFTA is the only major free trade agreement binding on Canada that contains such extensive provisions on the treatment to be given to investors in the other parties. Since the free trade agreement with Peru contains a similar clause, the Bloc Québécois considers that it is not in Quebec’s interest to support such an agreement, and we shall oppose ratification of the agreement with Peru.
In reality, it is difficult for the free movement of goods not to be accompanied by the free movement of capital.
When specific provisions are not incorporated in free trade agreements, bilateral agreements generally provide for the protection of investments coming from the other party, and all these agreements contain substantially similar provisions, that is, a neutral arbitration procedure in the event of a dispute between the foreign investor and the host state of the investment. There are presently over 1,800 bilateral agreements of this type in the world.
The provisions of chapter 11 of NAFTA governing investments have been called into question. They are the source of numerous proceedings that have been brought against various governments in Mexico, the United States and Canada. They sometimes result in millions of dollars in compensation being awarded. We need only think of the whole softwood lumber saga. I went to the United States several times myself to meet with American senators and representatives to make them aware of our problem and tell them that it was not true that we were subsidizing softwood lumber. They used chapter 11 against us, and that cost us millions of dollars more. We have to be careful.
In short, for the Bloc Québécois, chapter 11 defines an entire investment regime. The definition of investment is very broad, perhaps far too broad. Some of the provisions of that chapter, including the concept of expropriation, have generated numerous proceedings. In addition, the current trend is toward extending that concept to encompass lost profits.
I have a number of examples here. I was speaking earlier about the softwood lumber quotas. There is one legal action on the banning of MMT, another resulting from the prohibition of a toxic waste landfill site, and many others. We have many examples of proceedings.
In addition, many questions are raised about the dispute settlement mechanism provided for in this chapter. That mechanism provides that a company that considers a government to be contravening the investment provisions may bring an action directly against that state before an arbitral tribunal. The arbitration tribunals that hear these disputes are formed to hear a specific dispute. The deliberations of these arbitrators and their decisions are secret, unless both parties to the dispute decide otherwise.
Once again, everything is done in secret, behind closed doors. Even if an agreement is reached that does the least possible harm to either party, we are still talking about millions of dollars that have to be spent to settle a dispute, and that dispute can drag on for years.
While the free trade agreement with Peru contains certain advances in terms of transparency—something we do not deny—the Bloc Québécois feels that disputes should be settled on a multilateral and centralized basis, instead of case by case between the different states that sign bilateral agreements.
In fact, the NAFTA provisions on investment are similar to the ones in the proposed free trade agreement with Peru. They give very broad powers to businesses and give us concern as to the ultimate sovereignty of governments and their ability to take measures to protect the health of people and the quality of their environment.
The Bloc Québécois will therefore oppose this agreement. I have shown what chapter 11 means. As I said earlier, I had the opportunity to go to Peru with a Liberal Minister of Labour, and I saw the working conditions of the people who live there. I also saw the conditions of the indigenous people. Certainly, if you go to Lima, the country's capital, you will see a completely different reality than if you go into the mountains and meet with the indigenous people who are born there. It is a completely different reality. These are people who have no way of defending themselves. They have no unions.
They can be made to work for starvation wages. As I said earlier, children who are actually barefoot are going to be made to work. That is a fact; I am not exaggerating. Adults who have no resources and will have no choice but to work for starvation wages are going to be made to work, and our wealthy mining companies, which make bags of money around the world, will exploit them, which is unacceptable.
Once they have finished exploiting them and emptied the mine, they will work the ore elsewhere. But they will leave the mining site in a sorry state. They may have contaminated the water table, in which case the water will no longer be potable.
Peruvians already have serious drinking water problems. In fact, they have serious education, health and environment problems. Yet we are sending companies into Peru that, under this agreement, are not required to follow strict rules. Their compliance will be voluntary. I cannot get over it. I have sat in this Parliament for 16 years, and I know that voluntary measures inevitably lead nowhere.
We have seen it in every aspect, including the environment and labour, and it is not working. We have to force these companies to abide by stringent and specific rules, and we have to make sure they follow them. It is all very well to make rules, but there also has to be monitoring and an authority to do the monitoring. There are non-governmental agencies that can monitor, but that is all there is.
Canada has responsibilities to these countries. When it sends its companies to do development there, it has to make sure that this does not serve only the companies’ interests, that they are not the only ones that make money, and that the host country also benefits properly, which means that it benefits in environmental terms.
We now have methods of extracting ore and working in mines that are much better for the environment than they were in the past. We have to know how to use these resources. Obviously, the mining companies want to go as fast and as cheaply as possible, and will want everything to be as profitable as possible for them, because they are not forced to follow rules and the measures are voluntary. Well, voluntary measures lead nowhere, and will not help Peru to develop. That is what is troubling us about this agreement.
In Canada today, there are mining companies already being blamed because they do not do their work properly and they exploit people, they exploit young people and children. These companies exploit the people and the environment, and then they leave and go on their merry way. When there is no more ore and no more money to be made, the country is the one with the problem then, but it does not have the resources it needs to remedy the environmental situation.
When the environment is destroyed, it can be expensive to try to restore an acceptable environment. We talk about acceptability. The country may not even have the resources to think about investing in the environment. Very often, the country invests in essentials and tries to save its people before investing in the environment.
I have seen children there who simply did not eat and who slept in cardboard boxes. We, citizens of wealthy countries, who have a roof over our head, we need to go there and see how they live. I am not persuaded that when mining companies set up facilities there and exploit their resources it will mean that those people will not still be living in little cardboard boxes.
When this agreement was negotiated, on the sly, as I pointed out before, we should really have made sure that stringent constraints and monitoring methods were included, for overseeing work done there.
Perhaps then we would not see children and families living in cardboard boxes, but rather families making money with the prospect of forming a union. We can help them. We have expertise here. We can also send them this expertise when we send the mining companies. We cannot send only big business and not provide resources to the people in the host countries. These countries really do not have a lot of resources, and we, for our part, go there to exploit them. We lead them to believe that they will make money, but in the end they are the ones who pay the price, once more.
The same is true in the case of Colombia. There are emerald mines there, and we know the value of emeralds. When the mining companies get there, they will work them thoroughly and make a lot of money. How can these countries defend themselves against big companies, the multinationals making a lot of money? They can afford lawyers and court cases lasting five or ten years. The host country is poor and does not necessarily have the means to contend with these multinationals. So, we must help them. We are going there. There must be very strict rules to ensure that their environment, their life, the life of their children, the life of the indigenous people and the beauty are not destroyed. Peru is a magnificent country. If operations begin without a thought to the environment, whole landscapes may be destroyed there and waterways essential to the life of the country may be rerouted.
My concerns are real. I am even more concerned when I think of Peru, because we can see the agreement was negotiated on the sly. They do not want to give us information. They keep everything hidden. We do not know how it will be operated. We also see that only Bloc and NDP members are interested in discussing the matter.
We are really on the wrong track. This is 2009. There is a worldwide economic crisis to overcome. It affects these countries too. It is having a huge impact on them. In addition, we are running the risk of destroying what little they have managed to build over the years, in terms of the environment and labour with the help of NGOs and in terms of drinking water, culture and agricultural development. If we come lumbering in and destroy all that, there will be nothing left. We will have to live with the horror of saying it is our fault. It is in fact the fault of the Conservative government, not of the Bloc. Unfortunately, there are not enough of us to defeat this agreement and renegotiate it more intelligently. The Conservative government will have to take the flack.
We can imagine the impression this will leave internationally. We can imagine what people will think of Canada and what these so-called will voluntary measures will do to our international reputation.
Of course, we will oppose this agreement. I sincerely hope that this people does not suffer from the mismanagement of the Conservative government, which is sending mining companies to develop there unrestricted.
