Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise in this House to discuss a government bill that involves much more than simply entering into an economic agreement.
Bill C-24 is an example of a bill where one questions what benefits there will be for Canadians and Panamanians and what problems it could cause. It is quite obvious that Panama has, unfortunately, a long history of money laundering. It is not the only problem with the country's reputation, but it is the most visible. Panama is famous for the huge amounts of money laundered there in order to escape the taxman and law enforcement authorities in other countries.
One has to ask what Canada will get out of this treaty with Panama. The government wants us to approve this process. The core problem is that Bill C-24 proposes a treaty without sufficient guarantee that Panama will go to the effort required to improve its situation and become a good partner from a trade, political and social standpoint. In short, a country that is making progress for its population and for good order in the world. Panama is a far cry from that.
Throughout my speech, I am going to provide facts on Panama and the relationship that it has with Canada. I am going to put things into perspective to demonstrate the dangers that this government could expose us to by entering into this kind of agreement.
Just like my colleague, the member for La Pointe-de-l'Île, I serve on the Standing Committee on International Trade. Over the course of the last few months, having observed the manner in which members of the governing party have acted, I have been surprised, and even disgusted, by the government's bad faith. The government is trying to lecture us, ram through measures, and short-circuit the process of consideration without giving us an opportunity to act as equals and carefully study the issues we face. The government is trying to silence us on every issue we deal with. The government is trying to reassure us, as my colleague said previously in her speech, by telling us that it is going to negotiate in the best interests of all Canadians. The government is asking us to blindly accept what it is doing.
The elected representatives in this House and I cannot simply give this government a blank cheque. If the government really wants at least minimal approval from us, it should be amenable to debate. And I am not necessarily referring to criticism. My colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île expressed it well.
On principle, the New Democratic Party is not opposed to pursuing free trade agreements. However, as regards all the free trade agreements examined in this House, and in all the debates that have taken place here, the New Democratic Party has always made observations on various fundamental aspects that affect the interests of all Canadians.
We are certainly not asking for any preferential treatment, or anything like that. We are simply asking for a respectful debate as equals between all members from all parties, whether in committee or here in the House of Commons.
I have been watching the behaviour of government members for a number of months. The government is running away from the issues to avoid facing the real challenges, its own turpitude and the problems it is creating on a large scale. That is not too strong a statement. By running away and signing all sorts of free trade agreements with countries with which we have limited trade, compared with Canada's overall trade activity with the world's nations, the government is trying to hide the fact that it is leaving Canadians to fend for themselves.
I would remind the House that, in my riding, I was the victim of the government's reprehensible abandonment when the management of White Birch Paper brutally shut down the Stadacona plant. Now, there is a possibility that management and the workers may reach a respectful agreement as equals and that the plant will resume operations. However, through its inaction or, rather, its desire to run away from the reality of Canadians and go all over the world to engage in marketing operations, the government is putting the weight of all these new treaties on the shoulders of officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Unfortunately, we recently learned that there is a bottleneck. The government does not even care about the impact that these free trade agreements, which are multiplying for no good reason, could have. That is very disturbing.
The problem is that the government wants us to approve a free trade agreement with a country that has a very bad reputation but that seems—yes, “seems”—to want to clean up its act. Unfortunately, Canada seems content to rubber-stamp the agreement without insisting on guaranteed outcomes. France did not hesitate to criticize the Republic of Panama, and it signed a tax information exchange agreement, but Canada did not. Canada wants to sign a partnership with another country without protecting itself and without knowing what it is getting itself into or whether the Government of Panama is truly making an effort to improve the situation and become a respectful and respected member of the international community.
The absence of a tax information exchange agreement is a problem to begin with, but in the context of this agreement, it can be interpreted as an agreement to protect investors. I must say that I cannot support the government in this folly. Let me be clear. I want Canadian investors to benefit from a certain degree of protection when they do business in Panama, but how is it in Canada's interest for a Panamanian investor to be protected by this kind of clause? This kind of clause in NAFTA, in chapter 11, was really bad for us. In Canada, the rule of law prevails, and all investors, like all Canadians, can rest assured that their rights will be protected if they have been wronged.
The problem is that this type of provision to protect investors creates two classes of citizens. We have seen this with our American and Mexican trading partners and, unfortunately, we risk seeing it if we sign an agreement with our European partner. On one hand, there are the average Canadians for whom the normal legal protections are in place if ever their rights are violated and if they have the means. In fact, that is another problem—whether a person has the financial means, the perseverance and the moral capacity to use the court system. All Canadians are protected in that sense. On the other hand, there is the investor class, who have extraordinary powers to take the Canadian government, or a province or municipality, to court if they feel their rights have been violated by legal provisions legitimately passed by the House.
What is this perspective, this direction that the government wants to commit to taking? Based on this provision alone, the New Democratic Party absolutely cannot support Bill C-24. Nevertheless, it is far from being the only problematic provision. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I mentioned another problem earlier: when an agreement such as this is signed with a country like Panama, we find ourselves in a position where, to some extent, we are directly supporting that country's practices and reputation. We are telling the whole world that Canada believes that everything is going very well, or at least rather well, in Panama and that, ultimately, we do not see any problem with supporting the government's practices and we are prepared to live with the consequences if things ever go awry.
It is important to remember that this type of agreement will create strong ties with Panama—very strong ties—and that the government of Panama stands to benefit very handsomely. Such an agreement is far from benign because Canada has already signed many other international agreements, whether it be human rights agreements or agreements against illegal money laundering and tax evasion.
Canada has already made commitments to all the countries in the world, or at least with all those who have signed this type of agreement, to say that it finds certain practices to be unacceptable.
This means that, by passing this bill, Canada could find itself practically committing perjury, to use a legal term. It would be perjuring its signature, its commitment to defend rights, justice, and good behaviour and to oppose bad behaviour.
Coming from a government that claims to defend victims and uphold law and order, if this were not such a serious subject, such antics would almost be funny. However, this is definitely no laughing matter. Indeed, this means that Canada is going to earn a bad reputation by association. Any time Canadians are travelling abroad, whether for business or pleasure, wand showing off Canada's savoir-faire, they may find themselves accused of supporting tax evasion, money laundering and repressing workers who are simply asserting their right to respectful, egalitarian negotiations. Those are rights that workers in Panama unfortunately do not have.
Then, Canadians will have to say that there is no problem—it is business as usual—and that this agreement is important because of business and trade worth $149 million in 2008, which really is peanuts. Too bad for our reputation, because the important thing is that we enter into this free trade agreement. I can clearly see the media scrum with a staff member of the Minister of International Trade, where this agreement will be described as “fundamental”. We are talking about $149 million. I know that trade, without free trade agreements, is increasing significantly, but this really is a small amount. It is an insignificant fraction of all of Canada's economic activities. Are we willing to sell our reputation for next to nothing for this? To use the biblical terms, in the end, Canada will sell its birthright for a mess of pottage. This is very worrisome. I do not agree with this.
As a legitimately elected representative of all Canadians, I want to maintain that reputation. Canadians have quite often said they are proud of having a reputation that until recently was practically above reproach. We see the government frantically running, out of breath, to conclude free trade agreements with Panama and Jordan, without any serious studies, without any serious guarantees that everything will go well. At the end of the day, those countries, which have very serious domestic problems, will make no effort to correct those problems. I am sorry, but Canada is positioning itself for a future role as a has-been in the community of nations. That is not an exaggeration.
I have been interested in matters of international relations for a very long time now. I even studied international relations at Laval University. Let us not forget that in the community of nations, in terms of international relations, the actions of a country are very closely observed. I know—I am convinced—that this agreement the government is trying to conclude too quickly will forever alter Canada's reputation. Indeed, a very large number of countries, upstanding ones and good partners to Canada, are going to react quite negatively to this.
The government is on notice. It cannot count on our support and I will continue to denounce this type of hastily concluded agreement.
