Bill C-2 (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

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

Madam Speaker, in the days since the Liberals breathed new life into what was a dead agreement and a dead deal, basically allowing the Colombian government to self-assess, numerous Canadian organizations have responded against what the Liberals are doing here. The Council of Canadians, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the B.C. Teachers' Federation, the CLC, the Canadian Auto Workers, the United Church of Canada, the Public Service Alliance and many other organizations have responded against what the Liberals are doing to help the government get this agreement through.

Does the member understand what the interests of the Liberal Party and Liberal caucus are in supporting the Conservatives to get this very bad agreement through this House?

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I had forgotten to mention this, but the hon. member from Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine correctly drew my attention to it and wanted me to point it out; because I am a lawyer, I am very familiar with this matter.

In reply to the hon. member's question, I do not know why the Liberals are going to support this agreement. I hope at least that Liberals from Quebec will not do so and will be absent or abstain from voting. That is the least that Quebec is asking. If they do otherwise, they will have to live with their consciences.

When I look at it, in fact, members of this House are not the only ones who are opposed to this agreement. We all represent associations in our constituencies. In mine, it is unanimous: the mayors, the municipalities, the associations and the unions in Abitibi-Témiscamingue are all opposed, be it the FTQ, the CSN, the Canadian Labour Congress' representatives in our area, and every other association, such as Development and Peace.

People from Development and Peace have met with me on a number of occasions. The government should meet with them as well. This agreement does not benefit Canada; the benefits will go to Canadian corporations. No citizen of Canada will benefit, because citizens of Canada even have a hard time going to Colombia to work, and do not want to, especially not in the union movement.

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

Madam Speaker, I will not dare to ask my learned colleague why lawyers feel obliged to say that they are lawyers. Every time we hear them, it seems that they feel some need to do so. So I will not ask him about the bicycle race he entered in Colombia either. We might like to know the results of the competition, but we can talk about them later between ourselves.

A little more seriously, Madam Speaker, I would like to hear what the hon. member has to say about workers' rights. I have been a union member, a trade unionist; I was proud to be one and am proud to declare it again. So when workers' rights are mentioned in the context of a trade agreement, we have to make sure that trade can take place, of course, but also that rights are respected in the country with which the trade is to take place.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member. I will quickly answer the first part of his question. Clara Hughes, who just won a medal at the Olympic games, made her first appearance at the World Championships in Colombia, and she won a silver medal.

To answer the rather obvious questions that the hon. members did not ask, I did not participate in the World Championships. I was the Canadian cycling association president at the time and the international president of mountain biking, and I went to check out a possible site. I assure you that we never went back to Colombia.

That being said, to answer the question so cleverly asked by the hon. member, I do not think that, if I were a trade unionist, Colombia is the place where I would choose or want to choose to go to and help workers. I had a chance to meet the president of the Colombian postal union, who has now found refuge with us. He told me that he was lucky to have found refuge outside his country, as he would be dead otherwise. So I do not think that working as a trade unionist in Colombia is a very good idea.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise again to speak to this issue. Perhaps I will speak somewhat longer this time so I can add a little more to what the hon. members for Hochelaga, Abitibi—Témiscamingue and others have said on this subject.

The first questions I had upon seeing the Canada-Colombia free-trade agreement file were the following: Who is it for? Why? What does it mean? It is much more easily understood from Canada's perspective. But, as for Colombia, it is a country that people rarely visit except to watch biking competitions or to attend conferences. Personally, I have never been to Colombia. I have heard about it, and I am well aware that it is a country in South America.

Recently, I read that Colombia has around 50 million inhabitants. So it is relatively populous. It is situated very close to the equator. It is quite mountainous and even has glaciers. A population of 50 million is fairly large. But, according to figures, that population is mostly poor. It is very unfortunate. The country is so poor that 48% of its people, according to statistics for 2006 or 2007, live below the poverty line. That shows just how rampant poverty is in Colombia.

What kind of trade do we have with Colombia? Our imports amount to $644 million, according to the 2008 figures, and our exports to $704 million. That gives us a better idea of our imports and exports. Canada exports mainly motor vehicles and automotive parts, as well as grain. These exports accounted respectively for 23% and 19% of the total in 2007.

Most Canadian investment in Colombia is in the mining sector. This is where we start to understand a little better what the agreement is all about. A country like Canada has an interest in signing a free trade agreement. We already have one with the United States and one with Mexico. We are busy negotiating another with Europe. I could come back to that another time. The Europeans lecture us about the seal hunt, but we overlook that entirely. They call us barbarians. That is more or less what they did last June by voting—not just at the Council of Europe but in the European Union—to ban all products derived from seals. This only shows that when we are considering doing business with someone, it is important that the other country involved be careful about expressing opinions on our way of doing things.

Getting back to the agreement between Canada and Colombia, this is not a mere hockey game or soccer match. Who will benefit? What interests do they want to protect? Why are they so interested in Colombia? Is it to help Colombians emerge from extreme poverty? Is it to ensure we get a military base there? That is not it at all. But there are Canadian interests in Colombia, and they have to do with mines. That is where the real interest lies. It all becomes obvious why they are suddenly so interested in Colombia and in doing business there. It is not really about doing business as such, because free trade agreements are generally intended to improve trade and to increase Canadian exports and Colombian imports. In this agreement, they want to protect investors, or actually those who invest in mines.

In view of the way in which these infamous mines are exploited, the word exploited is well chosen. The people who work there are exploited. That is why our colleagues in the Liberal Party, who are supposedly very concerned about workers’ rights, should take a closer look at the agreement.

That is not even mentioning human rights. The mere fact that children work in these mines and we are completely closing our eyes to the situation is reason enough to object to the free trade agreement. Colombia exploits children for purely speculative reasons and to serve a system in which more and more profits are made at the lowest possible cost. That is the real situation and it should lead us to refuse to sign agreements like this.

Other reasons that my colleagues raised during the recent debates explain quite eloquently why we object to this free trade agreement.

As a native pure laine Quebecker, I am interested in doing business with other countries in order to increase my wealth or to share the wealth. However, I want the parties to be equal and to treat each other with respect. There can be no doubt that foreign investors, some of them Canadian, exploit children in Colombian mines. That is crux of the matter. That is where problems can arise.

I am hearing some comments. I am well aware that my Liberal friends would rather talk about something else. Where I come from, folks would refer to the peanut gallery. Seems they have less to say now. They understand that it is easier to get a message across when it is relatively quiet than when every person in the peanut gallery wants to put in their two cents' worth.

When seriously considering a free trade agreement, we should be guided by respect. We have to assess trade volumes and make sure we have the numbers to back us up. Trade volumes could be higher, but it is not necessarily “le Pérou” as we say in French, it's not Peru, which is not far away, meaning that it is not very significant.

If the purpose of this agreement were to boost trade volumes, then fine. But when we dig a little deeper, we discover that the true purpose of this agreement is to enable unscrupulous investors to make money. One would have to be truly unscrupulous to invest in companies that do whatever they please. Fortunately, we live in a democracy, so we have access to that information. The more informed people are, the better they understand the consequences of making various decisions, such as this decision about the free trade agreement.

Canada buys only raw materials from Colombia. That is why a free trade agreement with Colombia just to benefit the mining sector is not justified.

In 2007, energy products accounted for 31% of imports and agricultural and agri-food products for 58%. In dollars, Canada buys $138 million worth of coal and related products, $115 million worth of coffee, $72 million worth of bananas and $62 million worth of cut flowers.

Regardless, we have to re-examine the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement. As things stand, shame on Canada and parliamentarians if they support this agreement.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Madam Speaker, I greatly enjoyed the speech by my colleague from the Bloc Québécois.

I am very pleased to see that, like the NDP, the Bloc Québécois stands for key values in Canada, values which are shared by the Quebec nation as well as the people of British Columbia, Ontario and the Prairies. All Canadians across the country share these fundamental values of human rights.

There seems, however, to be a contradiction. The Conservatives and Liberals have chosen not to bother with human rights. They want to dismiss them. They want to endorse, or more specifically give a blank cheque and a merit award to this regime that has the blood of the trade unionists killed in Colombia on its hands, not to mention the violent forced displacement of people, mostly Aboriginals and Afro-Colombians. This merit award was nonetheless given to the Colombian regime by the Liberals and the Conservatives.

I would like the member to tell me how come these two parties do not grasp the importance of human rights, which are essential. How should members of all stripes defend human rights in this House?

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

Madam Speaker, I am not here to explain the inexplicable or defend the indefensible.

However, I can understand certain aspects without getting into his criticism of the Liberals and the Conservatives. I do not want to compare the Canada-Colombia debate to another debate. Nonetheless, I would appreciate it if our NDP colleagues were as respectful of the principle of self-determination for the people of Quebec. That is also a principle worth fighting harder for.

I completely understand what my NDP colleague was saying. Self-determination for the people of Quebec should also be respected by all parliamentarians in this House.

It is indeed difficult to explain, but we see that it is like a system that protects a system. The Liberal-Conservative or Conservative-Liberal system—because in the end it amounts to the same thing—literally protects a system represented by investors. These same investors, regardless of where they are and where they want to invest, want things to be as deregulated as possible. That is precisely what the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement offers.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Madam Speaker, I understand that the hon. member does not want to make comparisons. However, will he not admit that supporting such a free trade agreement sets a dangerous precedent for a democracy like ours, which respects human rights—or certainly makes every effort to do so?

Does this not pose a strong threat to Canada and Quebec's tradition of respecting human rights?

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

Madam Speaker, with the current Conservative government, principles have been tossed out the window at a staggering rate over the past five years. Indeed, the very least that a government should do when preparing to sign a free trade agreement with another country is to ensure that human rights will be respected. That includes not only labour rights, but also the humane treatment of all members of the human race.

This is a situation where a country and certain interests are casting that aside. That is why, yet again, we must say loud and clear that we oppose the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to the government's proposed legislation on a free trade deal between Canada and Colombia.

Despite what we hear repeatedly from the other side, the NDP is not against trade. We are not against fair trade. We are not against good trade. In fact, we are all for it, but it has to be fair and it has to be sustainable. This trade deal is not that.

This is a troubled bill. There are many problems with it. I will not go into them all. My colleagues have done a good job in talking about such concerns as workers, labour abuses, human rights and outright murders in Colombia, just to mention a few. One of the things I want to talk about is how this deal offers no real protection for the environment.

As we know, Colombia is one of the countries in South America that is especially blessed in parts of the country with productive rainforests, especially in the southeastern lowlands near the Amazon.

Tropical rainforests are disappearing from the face of the globe. Around the world more than 32,000 hectares per day are being cut down. Rainforests are down to only 5% of the world's land surface presently, and much of this remaining area has been impacted by human activities and no longer retains its full original and rich biodiversity. Worse, rainforests are so rich in plant and animal life that we do not even know most of what we are losing, such as countless undiscovered species, renewable botanical and animal resources, and a pharmacopoeia of potential new drugs.

Aside from species extinction, deforestation means that we are losing something else: the lungs of our planet and one of the world's great carbon sinks. It is not just the oxygen they produce, it is also the carbon they store in biomass. When forests are destroyed, the carbon they contain is released into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide, which most of us realize leads to a greater probability of dangerous climate change.

Much of the rainforest in Colombia is currently being slashed and burned. Why? Because of rapidly expanding agribusiness plantations for fruit and other crops.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has said that over the last 20 years over four million Colombians have been forcefully displaced by plantation companies and paramilitaries in order to take the land and destroy the forest for new agri-business agriculture. In 2007 alone there were more than 300,000 refugees, mostly Afro-Colombians and indigenous communities.

Is that the type of production we want to help expand and accelerate with a flawed free trade deal? As the evidence submitted to the Standing Committee on International Trade in 2008 showed, this trade deal is primarily centred on agribusiness-type agriculture.

This deal offers no protection whatsoever for the environment. There is no effective method of enforcement. The only thing in it is a complaint mechanism, which would be simply to file a complaint with a bureaucrat with no independent review and no rigorous analysis.

The environmental playing field is totally uneven with this deal. Expert witnesses before the international trade committee confirmed the weaknesses of the environmental provisions side agreements. The standards for environmental protection are lower than the already very weak statutes of NAFTA.

There are no effective proactive measures for environmental monitoring or for preventive enforcement. The lackluster enforcement of environmental laws in Colombia would only make this situation even worse.

If that is not bad enough, it goes even further.

This deal is exporting NAFTA's chapter 11 mistakes, which we in northern Ontario suffer daily, to new countries. Chapter 11 allows multinational corporations to sue governments when actions taken have impacted their bottom lines, actions like passing laws to protect the environment or biodiversity.

Instead of helping to encourage conservation of South America's valuable rainforest, we will be tying their hands. As soon as they try, if they ever try, to pass conservation legislation that may affect the profits of investors, they will open themselves up to a tidal wave of litigation and liability. Talk about putting profits before people, and profits before the planet.

From an environmental point of view, the trade deal with Colombia is very troubling. It must be renegotiated to take into account environmental and human rights considerations, among others.

Sure, there is some lip service paid to accountability on human rights. The Liberals, the Conservatives and the Uribe government have agreed to produce and table in both Parliaments an annual report on the human rights situation in Colombia and amend the deal. However, in effect, the Colombian government will be forced to police itself, the very same government associated with various right-wing paramilitaries to start with. This amendment is like putting lipstick and a dress on a pig so the Liberals can feel better about taking Bill C-2 to the prom.

There is nothing in the amendment about the rules of trade, which will be the underlying cause of environmental problems, and no clear mechanism for the ongoing monitoring of the effects of free trade, for instance investment provisions, on the human rights of the population as well as on the environment.

I am not sure why the Liberals seem to be supporting this bad trade deal. They were opposed to it in 2008. The only things that have changed since then are the Liberal critic for this went down to Colombia to get a small but unfortunately ineffective amendment to this bad trade deal. And the environment as an issue seems to have dropped off the back of their platform in general. It is interesting that they would do such an about-face on human rights and the environment for the sake of a relatively minor trade deal.

Colombia ranks fairly low on the market for Canadian exports out of Latin America and the Caribbean and that has actually been falling in comparison to our trade with other countries in the region. The majority of Canadian investment in Colombia is in the mining sector. Perhaps that is really what this trade deal is about, as the previous member has pointed out.

Gauri Sreenivasan of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation said:

Beyond that issue [of free trade], in Colombia, Canadian oil and mining companies are active in some of the most conflict-ridden zones of the country, even beyond the issue of royalties. These zones are characterized by high levels of military and paramilitary control. The overlap between the two is sobering. Colombian regions that are rich in minerals and oils have been marked by violence. They are the source of 87% of forced displacements, 82% of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, and 83% of assassinations of trade union leaders in the country.

I do not see how this flawed trade deal will improve the situation. In fact, it seems to me it will make it worse. Certainly all human rights organizations agree that it will.

The Conservative government is negotiating a number of bilateral trade deals like this one. Its intention seems to be to hand over as much oversight and responsibility over multinational companies as possible under the guise of free trade, and there is little to no accountability. This is totally unacceptable as a basis for trade deals in general. It is especially unacceptable in the context of Colombia, the country with just about the worst human rights record in all of South America and one with so much biodiversity and tropical rainforest at stake. The United States would not even agree to a trade deal with Colombia.

This debate is about a lot more than just trade. It is about our values as a country. The government is asking us to go against our basic fundamental values as Canadians to uphold basic human rights and to conserve the planet's natural heritage for the sake of investment profits.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Madam Speaker, I know the member for Thunder Bay—Superior North has a bill on the table presently concerning the environment. I would like to know what this trade agreement with Colombia would do to the environment not only in Canada but especially in Colombia?

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Speaker, we must protect our forests around the world. We know that every acre, hectare, square kilometre or mile of forest is going to be increasingly precious and hanging on to the carbon sinks that most of us and most scientists would agree we need to do if we are to have any hope of preventing dangerous climate change.

Not only are there huge carbon sinks in this area in Colombia, they are also one of the richest storehouses of biodiversity on the planet. The losses will be priceless not just in terms of biodiversity but in the products and pharmaceuticals that we will need in future decades to help our sick and unhealthy stay alive.

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

Madam Speaker, the member dealt with the effects of this agreement on climate change in Colombia. However, I would like to expand that to include the effects of the agreement on farmers.

A great number of farmers have been displaced because of mining interests. They have been surviving for many years self-sufficiently and now they are being forced off the land into cities and they are entering a life of poverty because of agreements such as this.

Could the member comment on that?

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Speaker, before I had this career in the House of Commons one of my past careers was to be involved in agriculture and pesticides.

I have watched a disturbing trend over many decades. We are displacing aboriginal hunters and gatherers and aboriginal and mestizo farmers who have been using a Sweden kind of agriculture in these very sensitive soils and ecosystems throughout the tropical rain forests in the world. It is the only kind of agriculture which is sustainable in the long term. We cannot go to intensive agribusinesses as we have in other places and use those in tropical soils without disastrous results, not only on the short-term biodiversity but on the long-term productivity of those rain forest ecosystems.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Madam Speaker, this free trade agreement of course sets out investment rights and investment protection, but there is nothing on the face of it that ensures the protection of human rights as such. I would like to hear some of the hon. member's thoughts on that. Is there not something altogether disturbing in all this when we see what the mining industry is doing in other countries, especially in South Africa, which also wants to exploit deposits in Colombia? I would like to hear some of his thoughts on this.