Bill C-23 (Historical)

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act

An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Colombia, the Agreement on the Environment between Canada and the Republic of Colombia and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Colombia

This enactment implements the Free Trade Agreement and the related agreements on the environment and labour cooperation entered into between Canada and the Republic of Colombia and signed at Lima, Peru on November 21, 2008.
The general provisions of the enactment specify that no recourse may be taken on the basis of the provisions of Part 1 of the enactment or any order made under that Part, or the provisions of the Free Trade Agreement or the related agreements themselves, without the consent of the Attorney General of Canada.
Part 1 of the enactment approves the Free Trade Agreement and the related agreements and provides for the payment by Canada of its share of the expenditures associated with the operation of the institutional aspects of the Free Trade Agreement and the power of the Governor in Council to make orders for carrying out the provisions of the enactment.
Part 2 of the enactment amends existing laws in order to bring them into conformity with Canada’s obligations under the Free Trade Agreement and the related agreement on labour cooperation.

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to have this opportunity to take part in this important debate on Bill C-23, the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement.

I am going to begin my remarks with a quote from Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States. I would ask that members of the NDP and the Bloc Québécois pay close attention. President Wilson said:

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

We are here to discuss a free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia, and during the course of this discussion some pretty extreme statements have been made. There have also been some misleading statements made by those who oppose this agreement. To those who have issued these statements, may I say that they are forgetting the errand. We are on an errand through this free trade agreement to enhance not only Canada's prosperity but that of the Colombian people. There is no better weapon in the war on crime than prosperity. When people prosper, they do not jeopardize that prosperity by committing crime.

I may be new to this chamber but I am not new to the world of crime and justice. Before coming to this place I practised law in Kitchener for over 30 years, both in defence and prosecution criminal work. During my legal career I represented people who committed crimes. What I learned is that crime is often fed by fear and by desperation.

Empowering people, enriching people gives them more choices, not fewer choices, and that is sometimes the best answer to crime. It is the best answer for Colombians.

In the year that I have been a member of Parliament, sadly I have been approached by many Canadians whose loved ones face death and imprisonment from oppressive regimes all around the world. My heart has gone out to them. I have advocated trade sanctions against some of those regimes.

But trade sanctions take a toll on ordinary people, not just the oppressive regime. For that reason, economic sanctions should be a last resort. There is no reason to restrict trade when a regime is actually trying to improve the rule of law. That would simply cut off those efforts at the knees and punish ordinary Colombians.

Colombians have been through some pretty tumultuous times in the past, but let us look at what has happened since President Uribe came to power.

Between 2002 and 2008, kidnappings decreased by 87%. Homicide rates have dropped 44%. Moderate poverty has fallen from 55% to 45%. Currently, some form of the health system covers 90.4% of the population. Universal health coverage is expected by 2010. These are all signs of a regime which is really making an effort.

According to other reports, Colombia experienced accelerating economic growth between 2002 and 2007. Expansion was above 7% in 2007, chiefly due to advancements in domestic security, rising commodity prices and President Uribe's pro-market economic policies.

Colombia's sustained growth has helped reduce overall poverty by 20%. It has cut unemployment by 25% since 2002.

Now, we may observe that Colombia's economic growth slipped in 2008 as a result of the global financial crisis and weakening demand for its exports. In response, President Uribe's administration has cut capital controls. It has arranged for emergency credit lines for multilateral institutions. It has promoted investment incentives, such as Colombia's modernized free trade zone. The Colombian government has also encouraged exporters to diversify their customer base from limited markets in the United States and Venezuela, Colombia's largest trading partners.

Colombians are making progress. The Colombian government is making progress. The Colombian people are making progress. Our free trade agreement will certainly promote their prosperity. The agreement contains some very strict guidelines on how that prosperity will be attained. These include the right to freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, the abolition of child labour, the elimination of discrimination, providing protections for occupational safety and health, and basic employment standards such as minimum wages and overtime pay.

I must also point out that Colombia is not the only free trade partner that our government has pursued. We are fortunate to have a Prime Minister who believes that the route to our prosperity is through good relations with our trading partners and agreements that have our exports in high demand all around. We are pursuing an aggressive trade agenda in the Americas, Europe, India and the Middle East, just to name a few.

We will no doubt have a similar debate when some of those agreements are signed. My response will again be: Do not forget the errand. One cannot influence without dialogue, and without influence, one cannot advocate for change.

Since taking office four years ago, our government has opened many doors for Canadian businesses by signing new agreements with eight countries. We have also initiated discussions with the European Union and India, two of the world's largest economic groups.

During challenging economic times, we cannot close the doors and bar the windows. Protectionism does not work. To weather the challenges, we must throw open the doors and welcome new trading partners. We must keep the manufacturing sector, like mine in Kitchener, producing and in turn, our economy flowing. These agreements help expand trade, open doors for Canadian exporters, encourage economic growth and create jobs around the world. They build a better, friendlier world.

I am particularly proud of our government's efforts at trade diversification because I have long observed the mischief created by our heavy reliance on exports to our great friend and neighbour to the south. I began my remarks with a quotation and I will end them with another quotation, which I am sure my NDP colleagues at least will recognize:

Courage, my friends, 'tis not too late to build a better world.

Even today, Tommy Douglas is right. It is never too late to build a better world. I encourage--no, I implore--everyone in the House to vote in favour of this bill. Give the people of Colombia this chance. Build a better relationship between the people of Canada and the people of Colombia.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Conservative member if he has the courage to answer this very specific question.

In his view, how will an investment agreement—I said investment and not trade—help reduce poverty in Colombia? In fact, Canada wants to protect its investments in Colombia. How will investments, especially mining investments that can generate a lot of money, help reduce poverty in Colombia? We know that we cannot eliminate crime if we do not reduce poverty.

More to the point, how can Canadians who invest in Colombia in order to maximize their profits—we do not imagine that they are giving away their money—help reduce poverty?

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to begin with a general answer and then give the Bloc member a more specific answer as he has requested.

The general answer is that we can well observe over the last 20 or more years the general growth in prosperity around the world in countries, for example, like India and China, which have thrown open their doors to investment and which have invested in our country, a growth in prosperity, and alleviation of poverty around the world. I fully expect that this will occur in Colombia.

As to specifics, I would like to add that these agreements that we sign with Colombia will include, for example, Canadian labour projects which will provide technical assistance in Colombia, including $400,000 for the modernization of Colombia's labour administration, and $644,000 for the enforcement of labour rights. These agreements will help establish an independent review panel which will impose penalties if labour rights are not respected.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for a very interesting speech and good quotations, but he made some assumptions that I find hard to understand. He assumed that free trade would bring a decline in crime rates; with less poverty there would be less inclination to commit crime.

In one country with which we have signed a free trade agreement, Mexico, and in the free trade zones in the north of Mexico we have actually seen a ramping up of crime over the past 10 years. This is an epidemic.

Could the member explain how the free trade agreement with Mexico has reduced the crime rate and poverty in that country?

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to try to analyze all of the problems that are occurring in Mexico right now, but I will remind my friend of something I am sure he learned in his educational days and that is an old principle of logic that sometimes things can be necessary, but not sufficient. In my view, the elimination of poverty is a necessary prerequisite for the kind of rule of law that one of my Liberal friends mentioned earlier. It may not be sufficient and it may be that there are other factors at play, but the logic of the matter dictates that we have to do something to lift Colombia out of poverty.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, listened to the member's passionate speech and I thank the member for his passion. In my riding of Chatham-Kent—Essex there is a refugee family that came from Colombia about 10 years ago. Yaneth, who was a prosecuting attorney, was driven out of her country by the corruption. I know that she was so pleased to meet with the Colombian president. I want to tell the House how thrilled she is about the prospects.

What does the member see as the future for law-abiding people in Colombia? What can they expect with this new agreement?

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, have a Colombian family in my riding. I spoke to them very recently about this and they are encouraged by President Uribe's efforts. They know that he cannot solve everything overnight, but they believe he has put the country on a road to a more law-abiding context and a more prosperous future.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been waiting for nearly two weeks to speak on the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement. You will therefore understand how pleased I am to rise in this House to express my thoughts, which have benefited in the last two weeks from all the debates in this House.

We see that opinion is quite divided. The Conservatives are determined to encourage investment in Colombia and protect their investor friends. On this side of the House, and especially in the Bloc Québécois, we would like to see protection for human rights and the men and women of Colombia, and also for sustainable development and the environment. I stress that human rights must be protected, because there is really very little respect for human rights in Colombia.

I do not need to reiterate that the Bloc Québécois does not support Bill C-23, the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act. It is clear that the main motivation for the Canadian government to enter into this free trade agreement is not about trade at all, it is about investments, essentially investments and only investments: it wants to protect the investments of Canadian corporations and to protect investors. This agreement contains a chapter about protection of investments. It will make life easier for Canadian investors, particularly in the mining industry, who invest in Colombia and who will be able to do so without regard for human rights, the quality of the environment and sustainable development.

Colombia has one of the worst track records in the world, and certainly in Latin America, when it comes to human rights. Thousands of trade unionists have been killed in recent years: 2,690 trade unionists have been killed since 1986, and 46 in 2008. Unions are targeted by violence, to say the least. And they want to do business with a country like that!

Ordinarily, when a responsible industrialized state wants to do business and engage in trade, when it wants to sign a free trade agreement with a country like Colombia, it first asks it to solve its human rights problems, protect its trade unionists and protect its environment, and then it actually signs the agreement that will benefit Colombia.

With a free trade agreement like this, Colombia will benefit from all the financial investments made by Canadian mining companies. We are not opposed to it benefiting, but let us first protect the people of Colombia and this country in every way possible. Let us not send investors there who are going to excavate or operate strip mines, or who might be employing children. Let us not stand by while trade unionists who might, for example, want to do something to resolve labour rights problems are attacked by Colombia’s terrorist groups. In Colombia, trade unionists have been killed. It is one of the places in the world with the worst track record when it comes to human rights.

There have also been numerous population displacements. That shows that Colombia is a state that has little regard for fundamental rights. There are human rights abuses. In fact, it is small subsistence farmers and small miners who are sometimes forced to leave their land, for the benefit of giant agrifood or mining companies. In the vast majority of cases, the people who are displaced receive no compensation. Various methods are used to displace populations: threats, murder, flooding their land, and so on.

As if that were not enough, the Canadian and Colombian economies are not very similar, even though it is usually desirable in a free trade agreement for them to be so in order for both countries to benefit more or less equally. Lowering trade barriers between similar countries is attractive because of the volume of trade between them. Colombia, though, is a very poor country: 47% of its people still live under the poverty line and 12% live in extreme poverty.

In 2005, 42% of Colombians lived under the national poverty line. That is nearly half. More than 24% lived on less than $2 a day, and nearly one-fifth lived on less than $1. These are UN figures. They hardly compare to the average incomes in Canada and Quebec. We are very far here from similar economies.

The crime statistics also point to a very sinister side of Colombia. In 2008, the crimes committed by paramilitary groups increased by 41%, in comparison with 14% the previous year. It is the reign of the guerrillas. Colombia suffers from an armed struggle among the government, guerrillas and paramilitary groups. There is no doubt, under the circumstances, that the Government of Colombia is unable to effectively control the country, let alone foreign corporations that come to exploit its resources.

Before going to Colombia, I went to Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada to see what its recommendations were and whether these were similar economies. If we are going to conclude a free trade agreement with a country, we have to be able to go there and feel safe.

Here are the warnings and recommendations issued by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada and therefore by this Conservative government about Colombia, under the heading “Exercise high degree of caution”:

There is no specific information about future terrorist activities or threats against Canadians citizens in Colombia. However, the security situation remains unpredictable. Possible terrorist targets include military and police vehicles and installations, restaurants, underground garages, nightclubs, hotels, banks, shopping centres, public transportation vehicles, government buildings, and airports located in major cities. Canadians should be vigilant...

That is a warning from Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada on the website of the Conservative Government of Canada.

And that is not all. That is the mildest of the warnings, and it applies to the whole country. There are also regional warnings.

Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada advises against non-essential travel to the city of Cali and most rural areas of Colombia, because of the constantly changing security situation and the difficulty for the Colombian authorities to secure all of its territory.

How can we sign a free trade agreement with a country we cannot even travel to, a country where there is a risk of terrorist attacks at airports and government buildings? We should ask Colombia to make the country safer first. Then, maybe we can start negotiating, but not before.

The exception to this would be some parts of the coffee growing area southwest of Bogotá (Risaralda, Quindio and Caldas) [I am being honest], and resort areas with established tourist industries, such as the Rosario Islands off the Atlantic coast and the Amazon resorts near Leticia. In all cases, travel to rural areas should only be undertaken following the overland travel advice in the Safety and Security section of this report.

I will read another, slightly better warning from Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada about Colombia and regions of the country, under the heading “Avoid all travel”.

The presence of armed drug traffickers, guerrilla and paramilitary organizations, including the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) [who kidnapped Ms. Betancourt] and the ELN (National Liberation Army), poses a major risk to travellers. These groups continue to perpetrate attacks, extortion, kidnappings, car bombings, and damages to infrastructure in these areas. Landmines are used by guerrilla groups, especially in rural areas.

I have nothing to add.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague for having raised points that had not yet been mentioned. I think they are important in today's debate because they shed the light on the way people are treated in Colombia.

Does my colleague realize, in reading the Government of Canada's recommendations to not visit Colombia, that this is nothing more than an investment agreement?

People would not even go there because it is much too dangerous. So this is not an economic agreement as they would have us believe. Investments are made, people are hired there and exploited as much as possible, in mines in particular, without the investor even having to visit the country. They invest and then make as much money as possible.

I do not see how this can address the issue of poverty. Can my colleague explain how investments could help address the issue of poverty in Colombia?

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Brome—Missisquoi is absolutely right. I did not want to repeat all the other points brought up by the Bloc Québécois in this House regarding this agreement, because my colleagues all did so brilliantly. They were very precise. They have very carefully examined this agreement.

This is not a commercial free trade agreement. This is not what will help Colombians. This will not help free them from the violence and misery. This will not ensure that human rights are respected in Colombia. On the contrary, the agreement with Colombia before us now—that is being made, but that I wish would never be made—will simply enable Canadian investors to conduct mining operations in Colombia and to exploit not only the soil and subsoil, but also the Colombian people. It is an agreement to exploit the people of Colombia.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert on her excellent speech. I have a question for her.

We have just about reached the end of debate on Bill C-23. We have submitted a number of arguments to the effect that in Colombia human rights are not respected, companies do not meet environmental standards in mining and many people are displaced when the mining companies move in. While we have submitted a number of arguments, we have the feeling that the Conservatives and Liberals are insensitive to the points we have made.

How can we explain their feeling that signing a free trade agreement will result in economic development and the resolution of Colombia's social problems, crime and so on?

As my colleague put it so well in her remarks, the opposite is true.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we see on the website of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade that there will be absolutely no way of helping these people with the free trade agreement as currently proposed.

As we have said, it is an agreement that protects investments, exploits the local population and exploits the Colombian environment, but it is not an agreement that can help the people in any way at all. Even if we wanted to, we would still have to be able to go there, and the Canadian government tells us to avoid non-essential travel there because it is too dangerous. That is what they say at the foreign affairs website. We are told not to go, that it is dangerous. There are guerrillas and armed drug traffickers. They may perpetrate attacks, extortion, kidnappings, car bombings, and damages to infrastructure in all regions. We cannot go to help the people if we cannot at least go and see the situation.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to join this debate on the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement, Bill C-23.

I spent three months on the international trade committee on first becoming a member of Parliament and so I have a great interest in this particular agreement. I have also had the opportunity to travel to Colombia and meet with a number of representatives and individuals during the course of that trip.

I would like to first make the point that this has been a very complex decision because Colombia has such tremendous challenges that have been so capably outlined by a number of the members. However, I believe we really need to think about the question that we are trying to answer in this debate. Therefore, that is what I will be aiming my remarks at and what I believe is the key question here.

Before going to Colombia, the trade committee spent two months in hearings in Canada and heard from a great number of witnesses both for and against the idea of a free trade agreement with Colombia. Of course, we had very serious concerns among the committee members after hearing from the witnesses: the human rights issues, the lawlessness in regions, displaced persons, the drug trade, vigilante groups, unexplained deaths, a very troubled country.

We had concerns about environmental issues and that was one of the key things that I addressed as a member of the committee. It was the weak compliance mechanisms of the Colombian government, the absence of a strong enforcement mechanism for investigating complaints in the environmental side agreement.

Given those concerns, when I went to Colombia to hear firsthand from the Colombian people, I certainly was not clear that this was the right step for Canada to take.

I understand that the Liberal Party has rightfully always been for free trade agreements in principle and so am I, but this was a challenging situation. Colombia was not a huge trade partner for Canada and there were certainly serious concerns.

Having heard a number of the members talk about the very difficult situation there, I do want to point out that independent voices are verifying the great progress that has been made in Colombia. Here is a statement from the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights.

It states:

I first want to commend the Government for the significant improvement in the overall security situation in the country since 2002. Respect for the right to life and the exercise of fundamental freedoms for Colombian citizens have improved. I further want to commend the Government for designing policies and strategies for the protection of human rights defenders...I find it remarkable that the Government and the civil society, given the current polarization, have reached a number of agreements through the roundtables for guarantees of protection of human rights defenders.

I personally ran into a young person in Vancouver recently who had returned from a vacation travelling in Colombia, knew nothing about my involvement with the free trade agreement, and made the comment that it was a great trip and it felt so much safer both for people in the country and for visitors to be in Colombia. Therefore, the situation is improving.

However, that is not the key question. It is not whether the situation is improving. The key question is not whether this agreement will solve all of Colombia's problems. The question is not whether it is a perfect free trade agreement, whether Colombia is a problem-free country, and the question is not whether President Uribe is a paragon politician.

The question really should be: On balance, is this a benefit to Canadians and to the people of Colombia? Overwhelmingly, when I ask that question, is this a benefit to the people of Colombia, the answer was yes.

In Colombia, we had three full days as a committee meeting with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the ILO, international labour representatives, Canadian companies of course and environmental groups. I met with displaced families in one of the neighbourhoods in Colombia. I met with the women who had their farms and homes taken from them and asked them the same question I asked every group I met with. We met with indigenous people, with the president of the country, members and ministers of the Colombian government, human rights groups and labour groups, a great variety, and the question that I asked each of the people I spoke with during my trip to Colombia was, “Will you be better off or worse off with increased trade with Canada through this free trade agreement?” Overwhelmingly, the response was that they believed they would be better off.

That is not to imply that conditions there are perfect. It is not to imply that there were not many pieces of advice as to how the situation could be improved and what the Canadian government and Canadian people could do to help with that. There were many requests for how a free trade agreement might be structured or may be worded, but at the end of each conversation when I would ask, “If you had the choice to have a free trade agreement with Canada or not have a free trade agreement, which is preferable?”. The answer was very consistent, with the exception of the public sector unions.

Everyone I spoke to agreed that a free trade agreement with Canada would be beneficial to their situation. It would help the enforcement by the government of human rights and environmental issues by providing more dollars to the economy. It would help put jobs in the legal economy and help to displace that vacuum that was drawing young people into the drug trade. The free trade agreement would help reduce displacement by having the presence of Canadian companies in remote areas that were currently lawless and were perhaps without police forces and without judiciary to even follow up on crime.

The free trade agreement would help fund prevention measures, training for the army, help for the displaced, the things that government was improving and spending money on, but needed a budget to do.

I was told that the free trade agreement would help with the standard of corporate social responsibility because that is a strong focus of Canadian firms in Colombia and they are providing leadership on that level. It would help build infrastructure, afford the roads and the access into the remote areas. It would help to reduce control by the narco-economy. A free trade agreement would actually help with environmental compliance by having this rules-based trade and the scrutiny that would follow.

One main argument that has been made is that even the United States will not go into Colombia. I have a quote from President Obama very recently in which he acknowledged that he has instructed his ambassador, the United States trade representative, “to begin working closely with President Uribe's team on how we can proceed on a free trade agreement”. I am quoting President Obama. He continues:

There are obvious difficulties involved in the process and there remains work to do, but I'm confident that ultimately we can strike a deal that is good for the people of Colombia and good for the people of the United States. I commended President Uribe on the progress that has been made in human rights in Colombia--

The point there is that for the president of the United States the key thing is not, as I have mentioned previously, is Colombia perfect? Of course, it is not. And it is not, are there problems? Are there deep concerns? Are there tragedies happening in Colombia? That is not the question. The question is: Would free trade be good for the people of Colombia and good for the people of the United States? My question was similar: Would it be good for Colombia and good for the people of Canada? And overwhelmingly, the answer I got, right across the spectrum of witnesses, was yes, it will be good for us here in Colombia.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to the Liberal member.

For a while now, we have known that, each time the word environment is mentioned, the Liberals want to hide under the carpet. They just vanish. The environment is over for them. However, the member had the courage to say that this measure could protect the environment in Colombia.

I would ask her to explain how this agreement—this pact—could protect the environment in Colombia, when we know the extent to which this sort of agreement is not made to protect the environment.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, one of the challenges with the environment right now is an absence of financial ability by the Colombian government to carry out compliance and enforcement, just as in Canada. According to our Auditor General, the Conservative government has not adequately invested in compliance and enforcement in some areas of its responsibility.

A free trade agreement brings an additional flow of funds to the government, allowing it to implement that compliance and enforcement. The scrutiny of the international community and the Canadian government combined with mechanisms for complaints to be filed would help with environmental protection.