Bill C-24 (Historical)

Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act

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

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 Peru and signed at Lima on May 29, 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-Peru Free Trade Agreement Act

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

Mr. Speaker, as we were saying, progress reports and committee reports are not being complied with. As parliamentarians, we should, as a minimum, be able to see the impact of an agreement on employment and on the economy, to see if that type of agreement is beneficial, to see if conditions within the agreement are respected even though they may be standard within these types of agreements, to have a follow-up on all these issues.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to this bill today.

It is of utmost importance not only to Canadian workers and Canadian society but obviously to Peruvian workers and Peruvian society as well.

Quite often the government, as well as their new coalition partners, the Liberals, is really fond of talking about rules-based agreements. When one thinks of those terms, it sounds rather magnanimous, we are going to have rules. The first thing that comes to mind is that somehow the rules will be even-handed, because most of us grew up playing games that had rules in them that were about fairness, equity and making sure that those who were not as gifted as others when it came to the games we were going to play could be included. So we developed rules for that.

Here we have this agreement that is based on rules, but we have to ask the fundamental question, “Who set the rules and for whom were they set?” When we look at this particular agreement, the rules are set but clearly they are set for one group to dominate another. We did not learn anything from NAFTA's chapter 11. We might have learned to do it a little bit better in the sense of making sure that those who could take advantage could take advantage even more.

What we have inside this agreement is indeed still that style of chapter investor protection that we all have come to recognize does not work well. If it does not work well and the rules are not working for Canadians and for other trading partners who sign on to those agreements, then why indeed would we continue to make them part of the rules, why would we not amend them or change them drastically to make sure that they are not in there.

In fact, we can see in other more modern agreements, and my colleagues in this House quite often tend to use the term fair trade, that they still use fair trade with chapter 11-type agreements. Whereas a fairer trade would actually eliminate those types of provisions and deal on a more even-handed basis with all participants in trade, including workers, the environment, civil society and communities as a whole. However, that gets lost in this agreement.

One may well ask, “Well, who sets the rules?” In this particular case, the government of this country bargained this agreement with the government of Peru. Did it have ability to do that? Yes. Does it have the moral authority to do that? Well, in Peru, I would suggest the Peruvian government does not. President Garcia's most recent poll ratings are 19%. One can say, “Well, a poll is a poll”. That gages public sentiment at least. And the public sentiment clearly shows that less than one in five Peruvians agree with the leadership of that government.

If the Peruvian government is about to set the rules for Peru in the labour movement, for workers and general society, and four out of five or 80% of the population is not in agreement with that government, is it going to be setting rules that really are about fairness for all of those citizens of that country? I think that when one does the arithmetic, one would have to come to the conclusion that no, that is not the case.

Here we have a rules-based agreement being set up by a group, in this particular case the Peruvian government, that really has no moral authority to do so. Consequently, how do we know what the Peruvian government is saying to us is really representative of what Peruvians are saying to their government? I think we have to doubt, very much, what exactly it is saying to us.

We need to look no further than what the Peruvian authorities do in their actions inside their own government, inside the country, for us to take a look to see if indeed we should believe the things they are telling us they will do, when indeed inside the country itself they are doing the opposite of what they are telling us they will do.

As my colleagues pointed out earlier, there is this question of how the Peruvian government treats trade unions, especially in the public sector, where basically it is taking away the right of collective bargaining; however, one of the rules in the rules-based agreement is to protect collective bargaining.

The Garcia government says “We are going to protect that type of right. We are going to enshrine it as a piece off to the side of the agreement”, and I will get back to talking about why it should be in rather than outside the agreement, but yet by its deeds it is actually taking rights away from collective bargaining and from workers in general.

So, here we have the government of Peru saying one thing, and some folks would use the old acronym “talk is cheap” when it is saying one thing, but when it gets to doing the walk and doing the deed, we can see the dastardly deed it does when it takes rights away from workers, takes collective bargaining away from workers, and it puts processes in place that would affect those workers, the very workers that it is supposed to represent. This is a government that is supposed to protect its workers, as we should be protecting ours. But then again that is a debate of probably another bill for another day as to how well the current government and the preceding one actually protected workers in our international trade agreements. One could argue, I would say, very successfully that that did not happen in this country either.

So, when we look at that sense of where workers are in Peru and the fact that only 9% are really covered by unions and that minimum wages cover a certain portion of the population, we would say that does not seem so bad, that it looks like it is going to up. In fact, I believe the statistics state it went up to $176 a month. I know that is a very paltry sum in this country, but that is a different society. But then again, if we delve much deeper and we actually look at what is the minimum wage and who does it cover, we find by the very deed that it in fact covers very few people at all because the vast majority of folks work in what is called an informal economy.

Here we might have called that under the table or the grey market, which usually is a market where people go out and work to subsidize an already established income. They have a job but maybe they work on the side. Dare I say it, the grey economy is usually to avoid taxes in this country.

However, the informal economy in Peru is the majority of the economy, where wages are not the paltry $176 a month but are $20 to $30 a month, which is not quite 15% of the minimum wage.

We all know that minimum wage is really established as the floor. But really what we have is folks not living on the floor but living underneath it. The vast majority of them, indeed, are living underneath it. And here we have this agreement, entered into by the current government and the government of Peru, to somehow do something to help folks who are below the floor when we see the government is not enacting legislation to help them rise up even though it says in the agreement that it will definitely do that.

So when one looks at what is said in agreements and the words that are written there, it is the deeds that are done by government that actually tell us whether the words will true or they will ring hollow.

In the case of the Garcia government, clearly they ring hollow, and the echo is deafening. They do not protect the workers in Peru nor civil society in Peru. Large tracks of the indigenous population in Peru are saying they do not want this agreement, that it is not good for the Peruvians.

I would argue it is not necessarily good for Canadians either, in certain aspects, because it did not get rid of the chapter 11 situation. It did not get rid of that whole sense of investor rights. I would call it investor privilege because the labour organizations and workers in this country do not get treated on an equal footing. If we cannot equate the two and we cannot make them equal, then we cannot have fair trade. It will always be free trade for some and an obligatory trade for others, those of us who have to live under the rules and those who get to write the rules. That will never make agreements fair for all of us who participate in them.

So, when we look at this agreement, and there are a number of folks who have, and we are looking at the implementation of this agreement, not the debate of the agreement, obviously, but simply the implementation of it, we ask, “Is this in the best interests of those who are there?”

My colleague from Scarborough—Guildwood has a private member's bill before the House that talks about mining companies and talks about how they should behave in a manner that is fair and equitable, similar to what they do in this country, when they are in South America, and places like Peru.

In my riding office, I have received literally thousands of signature cards from young people, their parents, grandparents, and in some cases their great grandparents who are saying that until the government can make sure that workers in Peru and other parts of the hemisphere are treated fairly and the same way they are treated in Canada for the same corporations, then we shouldn't enter into these agreements. By signing these cards, they are saying they do not agree with this agreement. They do not agree that this agreement is actually a good model for Peruvian workers in Peruvian society.

When there is an outpouring of support which was not generated by me as the MP but by civil society in my riding and there is a private member's bill that talks about that, and is supported by literally tens of thousands across this country, that should tell us something about what people feel and intrinsically know is not a good deal, and so should we.

As parliamentarians we should know it is not a good deal. We should know that we should have labour and environmental standards. Why are we any different than the U.S. when it actually signed a deal, albeit flawed? The U.S. signed a deal and enshrined the labour and environmental standards in the body of the collective agreement. I call it a collective agreement because it is bargained between two countries.

Normally, in collective bargaining, when something is intrinsically important to the parties, it is put in the body of the agreement because that it is how it is defined and enshrined as being that important. It is not put in as a side piece or an addendum. It is not added on at the back. It is not referred to in a chart. It is put in the body of the agreement because that is the weight given to it.

When we look at this agreement, what do we find in the body of it? We find the usual platitudes of the back and forth between two governments and, of course, investors' rights enshrined in the heart of the agreement. We do not find that as an addendum or a chart. We do not find it stapled to the back of the agreement. Yet, when it comes to the fundamental situation of labour and workers' rights, it is tacked on at the back.

Let us look at the environment, the very place in which we live. We have all heard the horror stories about environmental degradation throughout the entire world and Peru is not immune to that. It is, indeed, in the same situation as other countries where environmental degradation has taken place against their best interests and wishes in a lot of cases. Why would we not have enshrined that in the heart of the agreement? We tacked that one on the back as well.

When the question is raised as to why it is not in the body of the agreement, the answer is, “Trust us, we have your best interests at heart”. Again, those are words and the words “trust us” from the Peruvian government are not matched by the very deeds it talks about when indigenous people are being forced off their lands. There was an attempt by the Garcia government to change the constitution so there would be a different voting structure to remove people, which was eventually lost in a constitutional challenge.

Good for those who challenged it through the Peruvian constitution and said the president of the country could not do that. Unfortunately for them, the constitutional courts upheld it and said no, the government would have to enshrine and secure all of the pieces, which takes two-thirds of a vote to remove people who would give up land willingly.

If we left it to Garcia to do, he would have removed indigenous people in favour of mining corporations. In fact, he was quoted one time as telling a mining company not to worry, he would take care of it, the company would get its land claim and be able to set up its mine. He forgot to ask the folks who actually owned and lived on the land if that is what they wanted. Until this particular point, they said no. That mine has not established itself yet and good for the indigenous folks who live and farm there.

From the NDP's perspective, when it comes to Canadian agriculture, we did not get the same deal that the Americans got. If we were to look at some of the pieces that may be of benefit to Canadian agriculture, there were certainly some issues around the grains and pulse sectors.

When it comes to the red meat sector, we did not get the same access that Americans did. Why would we sign a deal that is inferior to the Americans? On one side, we are unable to get the open access to the markets, which the government says it wants, yet it is willing to sign a deal that does not open the market the way it wants it to.

There is the old adage that half a loaf is better than none, but I would argue half a loaf that has gone bad is probably worse than none. At least if we start at the beginning, we have an opportunity to craft something that makes sense and that is a positive benefit for all the parties. In this case, it seems the bill will not do that.

We did not get the open markets. The Peruvian government says that it will do certain things and then it restricts things when it comes to workers. It agrees to a settlement process that states a fine might have to be paid, yet it turns a blind eye. It reminds me of one of the old Monty Python skits of nudge, nudge, wink, wink. It has become one of things that is between the mining corporations and those who will benefit directly from this agreement. It has become the nudge, nudge, wink, wink of an agreement.

The government pretends it has this agreement, that it will include a piece about labour and environmental standards in the agreement and that we should not worry because we it will not have to walk the walk. It then will be able to tell its friends and international labour organizations that it has this as part of the agreement, but that is not the case. It is simply an add-on.

The Americans did not do that because the agreement would be held up in the U.S. Congress. They enshrined the labour and environmental pieces inside the agreement to ensure it would pass through the House of Representatives. It is still flawed because those provisions about the same penalties still apply and no one is certain how that penalty will be exacted and enforced because there are no teeth when it comes to those pieces.

That is the problem. The investor piece gets an arbitration panel, gets to make charges before it. Yet with the labour and environment pieces, there may be a fine. Again, this is a flawed agreement that is weighted on one side and not on the other.

One has to wonder if this is the future for us. Will we continue down this path of constantly opening up free markets and free agreements that are not fair or balanced? It would seem that is the case. It seems we have not learned anything from the previous ones. We have learned to perhaps placate those of us who say those are wrong-headed agreements, but we have never learned to fundamentally change the direction so we develop fair trade agreements.

If we are not going to do that, why would we sign flawed agreements? That is a fundamental question that all members should ask themselves. If we know the agreements are flawed, and I have heard many members say that it is not exactly what we want, or not quite what they would like to see, why sign it? Why not take it back and start again? Why not listen to those parties who have said that it is flawed and have given suggestions how to fix it? It is not just a question of opposing for opposition's sake. It is saying that it is flawed and here are some fixes.

The Peruvian population is saying the same. There are things we need to do to fix it and we are willing to come forward to give the governments the opportunity to fix it. The agreement could have a number of propositions that will enhance the bill and make it fair for both countries so we can trade.

It should never be confused that somehow those who oppose free trade agreements, especially those that have chapter 11 enshrined in them, are opposed to trade. It is not the case. We all understand that trade takes place on this globe and it is one of the things we have done for centuries. We will always continue to do that. However, we should not allow ourselves to sign flawed agreements that will either not benefit Canadians or those of our reciprocal trade partners. We should never stoop to taking advantage of those who find themselves in precarious situations. It should be about even-handedness and ultimately about fairness.

That fairness will drive equality for both partners and ultimately then, and only then, will we have trade agreements that all of us, I believe, unanimously could stand up and support. We should strive to be there because that would be equitable and fair for all the parties and for the world.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canada exports about $390 million worth of merchandise to Peru and we import $2.5 billion. That gives an idea of the dimensions about which we are talking. There is a trade deficit. Peru has also entered into trade agreements with the United States, Chile, Thailand, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Singapore. The member is well aware that not to participate in a trade agreement with Peru will put Canadian business at a substantial disadvantage. In fact, wheat sales are an example.

The member has raised some interesting points about the chapter 11 side deal and the environmental side deal. If we continue to expect to have 100% of what we want every time we do a trade deal, we will never be able to negotiate meaningful trade relationships that will help our economy and help us to ensure the trade deal operates in a manner which is fair to all stakeholders.

Is the member seriously suggesting that we should not enter into trade agreements, which clearly are to the advantage of Canadian business, simply because we want to look at some other areas outside the trade umbrella that we think, as boy scouts, we should look at? Is that his view is?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one could argue that the only boy scouts around here are those who sit in government now and the others who sat in government before them. When they bargained the North American Free Trade Agreement, they gave away everything, including the forestry agreement, then they lost nearly every challenge to the Americans since. Therefore, one might argue that the boy scouts were those two governments and they gave things away.

We need to look at the sense of this fairness aspect to trade policy. Trade policy is about not taking advantage of one country over another. That is the intent. That is the spirit of the policy when we enter into it.

My hon. colleague talks about how much we send to Peru through the business route and how much Peru sends back to us. However, I remind my colleague that the majority of that dollar value out of Peru is raw resources and a lot of it is gold. It comes out of Peru as gold, not as finished products, and heads north and a lot of it heads back into the country to be reprocessed. We are extracting raw materials from Peru and quite often bringing them into the northern hemisphere to reprocess them into finished product of one dimension or another.

In a lot of ways Peru reminds me of Canada in its infancy 150 years ago, when we used to extract things. Some might say that this is what is happening to us again because we seem to be extracting raw materials and sending them out of the country to let someone else do things for us.

We see both things happening. Peru's industries are extraction industries, which are Canadian held in most cases. Without a question, Canadian mining corporations are some of the best in the world. They have gone to all these different countries to set up mining operations, and they have done that in Peru. They are extracting that raw material from Peru and sending it elsewhere to be processed.

The figures are somewhat skewed. They do not really give a true indication of what type of trade goes back and forth between this country and Peru. I remind the hon. member that numbers can look bad or good depending on how one tries to frame them. In this case it may look like there is a trade imbalance between us and Peru, but then again, by the time we finish the product, it may be indeed more valuable.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the member speak about the Canadian mining companies in Peru. In my earlier remarks, I talked about the corporate social responsibility report that was never tabled in the House. A year has passed since that report was completed. It is very concerning to civil society and those of us who are concerned about the approach Canadian companies take in different countries.

Last week, Yessika Hoyos Morales was next door. Her father was a trade unionist who was assassinated in Colombia. I understand she was scheduled to speak before the trade committee and the door was closed to her. I have to wonder why in the world that would happen in Canada, a place that champions human rights.

We were very fortunate, and I want to give credit to all members of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, because, by consensus, this woman was added to our agenda at the last minute. However, it strikes me as strange that one of our committees would do such a thing.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could answer that for my colleague. I wish I could give him an answer that makes sense and that would be representative of the House, but clearly does not make sense.

One would hope that we would want to hear from someone who has intimate knowledge of what happens in the southern hemisphere. As much as Peru is not identical to Colombia with regard to trade policy and internal operations, there are indeed lessons to be learned and things that we could have learned. Unfortunately, the committee had an opportunity to learn and it turned it down.

For those who made that decision to turn her down, they should always remember that learning is always a positive thing, regardless of whether they think they believe in the piece or not. There is always value is learning new things and having them validated. Unfortunately, in this case, the young woman was not heard by the committee and that did an injustice to the House. More important, it did an injustice to those members who said no.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the previous Bloc speaker had an interesting thesis in which he argued that bilateral treaties of this ilk should be superseded by a broader multilateral regime that would deal with environmental and social responsibility issues and so on.

Rather than focusing on the bilateral relationship with respect to sidebar agreements, would he not back the Bloc member in terms of looking at the International Court of Justice, the International Labour Organization tribunal and those multilateral regimes that would deal with the kinds of issues he has raised, rather than suggest that a government should not enter into, in the better interests of its citizens, the kinds of agreements for the kinds of reasons as put forward by some of my colleagues?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, people always have to be careful about acronyms because they can get caught up in them. The ILO has clearly stated what it believes should be the minimum standards when it comes to labour. Indeed, the Canadian Labour Congress is calling for those standards.

The difficulty is we have added it as an addendum. We did not enshrine it in the agreement. We could have. We cannot say that no one else has done it, that we would be the first to do it and that we could not get it done. The Americans did it. That begs a simple question. Why did we not? It was not that the Peruvians did not want to do it. They did it with the Americans, who are a trading partner of ours. The Americans have the same sorts of rules that we do because we entered into NAFTA with them. It is not as if Peru was to find that as a foreign piece. It just simply did not want to do it and our government said okay. I do not believe the Conservative government actually believes in enshrining labour rights inside the agreement.

The fundamental question we should ask is this. Was it really the Peruvian government that said no, or was it the government across the way that simply said that it was not important enough to do? Did it say it did not care, that would not put it in the agreement? However, when there was some pressure, it then tacked it on the back of the agreement.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Peru, the Agreement on the Environment between Canada and the Republic of Peru and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Peru, be read the third time and passed.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That this question be now put.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-24 proposes to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Peru, the Agreement on the Environment between Canada and the Republic of Peru and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Peru.

I will explain the position of the Bloc Québécois, which will oppose this bill to implement an agreement with the Republic of Peru.

I will first quote from the statement by the Canadian Labour Congress, Peruvian central labour organizations, the Coordination of Andean central labour organizations and the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas, or TUCA, on the free trade agreement and the agreement on labour cooperation between Canada and Peru.

I found it interesting, because we have seen the new democratic American Congress force President Bush to review the agreement he had already negotiated with Peru—not by himself, of course, but through others—because Congress wanted that agreement to provide for greater rights, particularly for workers, and a greater social safety net. That was done.

Are these amendments enough for us to support this free trade agreement? No, and I will explain why.

Here is, first, an excerpt from the statement:

Based on their collective experience of free trade and investment agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the Free Trade Agreement between the United States of America and Peru and the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and Peru, the above-mentioned organizations [the ones I mentioned a moment ago] state that they profoundly disapprove of this kind of agreements that put the rights of investors before human rights, labour law and the social, economic, cultural and democratic rights of the people. These agreements are designed to be entered into by nations with comparable levels of development—

That is why a free trade agreement served as a basis for the establishment of the European Union. The declaration continues:

—and therefore ignore existing disparities between the economies of nations like Peru and those of nations like the United States of America and Canada, whose development is a hundred times greater than that of nations like Peru.

Clearly, those who made this statement also disagree with the signing of the United States-Peru agreement.

The Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement and the Canada-Peru Agreement on Labour Cooperation were negotiated in record time, and no civil society or labour organizations were consulted, nor were any analyses conducted on the effect they would have on the sectors of production, employment, human and labour rights, and the environment of both countries.

These agreements were negotiated in record time, without any consultations or analyses of the consequences.

Experience has shown that these types of agreements compromise the democratic process by giving more power to companies than to citizens and governments. They make the creation of an unregulated free market easier and more widespread, and encourage the adoption of economic, social and labour policies that make the job situation more precarious. That increases poverty, social exclusion and negative impact on the environment, particularly in Peru. Since we are experiencing a global economic crisis, this is not an appropriate time to be signing this type of agreement.

As indicated in Labour's Platform for the Americas, which was adopted by labour organizations of the entire western hemisphere, in order to be considered acceptable, all international trade agreements must have a primary objective of creating decent jobs and sustainable development. The agreement must protect the fundamental labour standards that can be implemented in the signatory countries.

Experience suggests that it is unlikely that the labour provisions [which I spoke of earlier] in trade agreements, whether they are side deals or the main agreements, will lead to concrete improvements to the situation of workers. Trade agreements like NAFTA are not intended to improve labour standards, and there is no indication that they can become a means to ensure labour rights.

We urge the Parliament of Canada to refuse to ratify the Canada-Peru FTA until there has been a full assessment of the economic and social impacts it will likely have on capital mobility, wages, employment stability, working conditions and the environment in both countries and steps have been taken to make up for any deficiency.

The Bloc Québécois is opposed to implementing this free trade agreement not only on these grounds, but also because the Bloc Québécois is against the government's strategy of making piecemeal trade agreements. The Bloc Québécois prefers the multilateral approach. Multilateral is a word that may seem complicated, because it is not used on a daily basis, but Latin scholars will know that it means a strategy that includes all the parties, on different sides.

The current economic crisis clearly shows that a market economy can work properly only if it is regulated and stabilized through an institutional, political and ethical framework. Canada should work within the International Labour Organization to ensure that the rules governing international trade are the same for everyone.

The Bloc Québécois believes that trade can contribute to the prosperity of nations. That does not mean that trade and trade agreements automatically profit everyone. It is important to see whom these trade agreements benefit. However, ordinary people can benefit only if these trade agreements include measures that will ensure sustainable development and that will promote the development of the populations involved.

However, I must point out that the Canada-Peru free trade agreement includes a clause to protect investments that is patterned on NAFTA's chapter 11 and that will allow businesses to sue governments. I will talk about this later, but I want to say that the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement, which has been in force for a number of years, has promoted development in Canada and the United States. That free trade agreement included an investment clause, but it was nothing like the clause in NAFTA. It was mainly because of that investment clause that the Bloc Québécois campaigned hard against the free trade agreement of the Americas.

In fact, the presence of a chapter to protect investments such as one patterned on chapter 11 might interfere with Peru’s social and economic development rather than helping it to develop, as is hoped.

Peru is a minor trading partner for Quebec. Quebec’s exports to Peru represent only 0.14% of total exports from Quebec. It is therefore a small partner and Quebec does not stand to lose.

It must be added that Canada’s main business activity in Peru is in the mining sector. Unfortunately, Peru’s track record on worker protection in that sector is hardly a glowing one. So the agreement does not contain any real policy to hold Canadian mining companies accountable. We talk about it here and there, and the government commissioned a substantial report on the need to impose constraints on mining companies that are created in Canada and everywhere in the world.

Ratifying this agreement will enable mining companies to expand their activities without being liable to any consequences for their actions when they pollute or when they flout human rights.

In Peru, this agreement will not help the situation of people in need, and it will especially not help the Peruvians most desperate to defend their rights, the indigenous people. There are about 600,000 indigenous people in Peru, in the Amazon region, who are subject to enormous inequality, and yet they are the ones most affected by this agreement between Canada and Peru, from what I understand. The mines and the extraction companies that operate facilities in the tropical forest or in areas where the indigenous people live will destroy their habitat without offering any compensation and without consideration, as is generally the case. The indigenous people, for whom it is already difficult to defend their rights, will find themselves in an even worse situation.

Is that our business? Yes. We cannot tell the Peruvians to look after the indigenous people there. Quite the contrary. We know that various products like oil are extracted there. Other products are extracted from mines by various companies. There are also the forestry companies.

Those companies certainly do not come bearing gifts for the indigenous people; quite the contrary. The agreement, which provides for there to be a significant increase in investments, cannot help but please the government, regardless of its feelings about the people there otherwise. I do not want to meddle in this, but I simply want to point out that Canadians have a responsibility in negotiating this kind of agreement, which will enable extraction companies to displace populations who have no means to defend themselves.

To provide an idea of the situation they are in, I thought I would tell the House about some of the documentation I have seen.

There was a study, for example, on inequalities in infant mortality rates. Infants born near the national capital of Peru have first year survival rates that are more than two times higher than the national average. These are children born near the capital. Children born in the forest or the Sierra region, especially in the south, have rates that are almost two times lower than the national average. These inequalities in the infant mortality rates are the result of social inequality, which itself reflects the different rates of inclusion in the social system. This study was a few years old, but there is nothing to indicate it cannot be used today to understand the plight of the indigenous peoples.

The government and Peru's Indian communities are meeting this week in Lima, the capital, against a backdrop of mounting tensions in the northeast, where a state of emergency was decreed pursuant to indigenous demonstrations against the oil concessions granted to the Franco-British multinational, Perenco.

The president of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle, Mr. Pizango, described this decree as an act of aggression. Pizango and a number of Indian leaders are going to meet with Prime Minister Simon today, but without any apparent hope of making progress. “The government, and not just the government, has always treated us like second-class citizens”, Pizango said. His organization represents 65 different ethnic groups living in 1,350 communities with a total population of 600,000 located in the east Amazon part of Peru.

There have been blockades for a month now of roads, rivers and airports in the north to get the decrees I mentioned rescinded. According to the indigenous communities, the controls over mining, petroleum, forest and water development on their ancestral lands are being weakened. Between three and ten demonstrators were hurt on Sunday. On Monday, the International Federation of Human Rights supported the demands of the indigenous peoples and called for the withdrawal of these decrees as well.

One of the reasons I have been fighting the free trade agreement is that it allows all Canadian investors—who may be fine individuals—to pursue and to step up the exploitation of sub-surface resources in these sensitive regions, which need to be protected, along with the people who live there.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member whether she is aware of the geopolitical drivers or events that have driven the agenda in favour of this agreement at this time. It seems that the government is very eager to get this agreement signed. In her mind, what is driving this whole agenda?

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an interesting question. I cannot say that I have an exact answer. However, the logical answer is important, since it is the American policy that seems to be driving this. It is clear that the Prime Minister wanted to negotiate a free trade agreement on the heels of the American agreement. Now the conditions have changed and I hope that Canada will revise its policy. The Bloc Québécois does not want this agreement to be ratified.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to what the hon. member for La Pointe-de-l'Île had to say.

I would like to ask her if I am right or wrong. We just discussed a free trade agreement with Colombia and now Peru. It seems to me that the negotiations were not open or transparent enough to believe that these agreements are in the best interest of the people of Colombia, Peru or Canada. I am left with the impression that only the resources matter. It is as though we are seeing a new colonialism and returning to imperialism, which is a form of colonialism. That is my impression. Does the hon. member feel the same? Can she comment on that?

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an interesting question. As I have often said, as the Bloc has often said, and as others have no doubt written, free trade agreements are negotiated between countries and among groups of countries that are more or less similar economically and socially. They are not negotiated between a rich country and a poor one. If they were, it is likely that the country benefiting would not be the one that ought to in terms of social justice.

Upon closer examination of the two agreements in question, what stands out is the fact that we are committing to increasing mining investment. One might think that would help develop the country, but we have looked at a number of cases and it is clear that groups of people are often displaced and forced to give up their traditional livelihoods, after which they cannot find new ways to make a living. Either there are no provisions restricting investors' actions or there are none protecting workers and allowing them to unionize. Even if there were, it is extremely difficult to make sure that the rules are being followed when we are so far away.

My colleague used some strong language, but he was right. This situation is a kind of new colonialism.