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

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question.

I would like to say two things. First of all, I am proud to be a member of a party that brings together people with different opinions, a party in which we can have discussions in order to achieve consensus and one that is able to find common ground that we can support. In the end, we determined that it was better to adopt this position for Canada and for people elsewhere.

I would also like to say that the speeches given by my hon. colleague from Kings—Hants on human rights greatly helped convince other Liberals that, as a party, we can now support that position.

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

Mr. Speaker, first, as far as the Conservatives are concerned on agricultural policy, after the vicious attacks on the Canadian Wheat Board, after the fact that Alberta has the lowest farm receipts in the entire country, and after putting supply management on the table in the Canada-E.U. negotiations, this party takes no lessons from the Conservatives on agricultural policy.

I would like to go back to the member now. The Conservatives' record is very clear. Alberta has the lowest farm receipts in the country. So, farmers are not being well-served by the current government.

I like the hon. member. I find her a little disingenuous, to say the least, on this particular issue. I know that she is not a member of the trade committee and has not been to Colombia. However, the reality is the Liberal Party systematically obstructed and refused to hear from the Canadian Labour Congress; refused to hear from the National Union of Provincial General Employees; refused to hear from the Public Service Alliance of Canada; refused to hear from the free and democratic labour unions in Colombia, where over 90% of Colombians who are workers and unionized are in that sector; refused to hear from African-Colombians; and refused to hear from aboriginal people in Colombia. It shut off all debate before the committee.

Two years ago, when we went down to Colombia, the trade committee came back with a unanimous recommendation to not proceed with this agreement. That is the one time when the trade committee did its job.

It did not do its job on Bill C-2 because of Liberal interference and Liberals refusing to hear from the groups that actively requested to come before the committee.

For the Liberals to say they are for human rights when they have accepted and in fact promoted closure, and cut off all of those important witnesses who wanted to come before the trade committee is disingenuous, at best.

I know that many activists have expressed this to Liberal members. The Liberal leader has simply said to all of the members within the Liberal Party caucus who have misgivings about this tragic turn of events with no human rights override at all in the Colombia trade deal, that the only thing the Colombian government is obliged to do is produce a whitewashed report on itself once a year.

My question for the member is very simple. Will her leader allow a free vote on the Colombia free trade agreement? Will her leader actually say that those many Liberal MPs who have expressed misgivings about this Liberal sellout on human rights will have the opportunity to vote on this agreement without being bludgeoned through a whipped vote here in the House?

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his initial kind words.

Despite the temptation to descend into a more personal approach, because I believe very strongly in our obligations here in this House to work together as much as possible with as much respect and civility without personal labels, I will say that in addressing the one issue about the trade committee's position on this issue I will repeat what I said in my answer to my other colleague from the Bloc Québécois.

We have been able, through the hard work and the excellent work of my colleague from Kings—Hants, to address significantly the fundamental concern that so many people have had with regard to human rights through the amendment, through the extra portion of this agreement on human rights, specifically. I am very proud of that fact. It was because of concerns raised by members of our own party, it was because of concerns raised by members of the public, that we were able to address those specific concerns. That is why, now, the Liberal Party is in a position to support this free trade agreement.

I want to commend all the colleagues who participated in that. I want to commend the colleagues on the opposite side of the House who appreciated the fact that that intervention, that amendment, that focus on human rights, was in fact what we needed to allow this to move forward. I would hope that my colleague would understand that we are at least trying to make progress.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-2 is now at third reading, and I would like to begin by saying that I find this rather strange and even a bit anachronistic. I am very disappointed that we have gotten to this point.

Both in committee and in the House of Commons, we have seen the Conservative government use closure to put an end to extremely important, interesting and relevant debates, especially about respect for human rights, and to prevent witnesses, including Colombians, from testifying about what their lives are like. The issue of human rights affects them directly, yet the government is using procedural tactics to prevent them from talking to the committee and is putting an end to this debate to prevent witnesses from being heard.

Moreover, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster raised a question of privilege in the House about what happened in committee, where, with the Liberals' support, the government denied members access to the committee clerk to check some information.

So it is disappointing that this bill is at third reading today, especially since the government has imposed closure to put an end to this debate. With the issue of human rights a top priority, it is particularly significant that the government is using closure, seeing as how it is bound, bent and determined to do whatever it takes to implement an extremely controversial bill.

What the government is doing goes completely against the unanimous position of the Standing Committee on International Trade, which had unanimously recommended two years ago that the government wait before implementing this agreement, because the Colombian government's respect for human rights was highly questionable.

A number of people have still not had a chance to be heard to this day. Even though Colombia has one of the worst human rights records in Latin America, the Conservative government keeps on saying that Colombia's human rights situation has greatly improved.

In all honesty, the situation may not be as bad as it was a few years ago, but it certainly is not ideal or worth celebrating, as the Liberals and Conservatives are doing by implementing a free trade agreement with a country whose trade with Canada is quite insignificant compared to other countries.

Is trade the real reason the Conservative government is so eager to implement such a trade agreement with support from the Liberals?

It begs the question. We believe that the government is not trying to promote trade through this agreement. The government is instead trying to help Canadian mining companies exploit the natural resources of another country.

They want to go after the natural resources at the expense of human rights. I said earlier that Colombia has one of the worst human rights records. It is a country where the government tolerates extreme violence. I will continue after—

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member will have 15 minutes following question period.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-2, 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, be read the third time and passed.

CANADA-COLOMBIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION ACT

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain has 14 minutes and 30 seconds to complete his remarks.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will pick up where I left off by recapitulating. I was telling the House that I was terribly disappointed to see this bill making it to third reading, thanks to the Conservative government, with the support of the Liberals, imposing closure twice, once at the Standing Committee on International Trade and again in this House, in order to limit debate. Such reversal of position is disastrous and very disappointing coming from the Liberal Party.

The Conservatives keep telling us over and over that, in their opinion, the human rights situation in Colombia has greatly improved. I agree that the situation may not be as disastrous as it used to be, but it is far from ideal. People continue to be displaced and unionists to be murdered. Canada's former ambassador to Colombia, Mr. Matthew Levin, from whom the current ambassador took over, basically said the same thing. On the Colombian economy, he had this to say:

The [Canadian] government knows that the Colombian reality is not ideal. There is poverty, violence, lack of access to services.

There is more. When he appeared before the Standing Committee on International Trade, Pascal Paradis, of Lawyers without Borders, said that the UN and the Organization of American States considered that the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet was still going on in Colombia.

It is hard to believe that a government would push us and cut the debate short to incite us to pass this type of bill. If it passes, it will do so with the support of the Liberals alone and not the Bloc Québécois. We will do our utmost to keep opposing this bill and to say to the people of Quebec and Canada that this agreement is completely unacceptable due to human rights violations.

At the Standing Committee on International Trade, the Conservatives and Liberals often say that they have been there. I was not a member of the committee at that time. They say that the situation has improved, that workers' rights are better respected, that there is less displacement of people and fewer murders. That is what we hear from the people who have been there, but there are also people who are saying the exact opposite.

How can it be that there are credible people who are testifying that the situation has not improved that much? It is impossible that Canada—which was once regarded as a leader for its defence of human rights in various countries—is now promoting a free trade agreement with a country like Colombia.

In order to get an idea of the situation, since I did not go to Colombia, I have read a lot and listened to witnesses. I know that there are four people who think the opposite of what the Conservatives and Liberals are telling us. They say that the situation has not changed. I would like to lend them my voice and my speaking time because they also need to be heard. They were silenced when the debate was cut short. They were not able to appear before the committee.

In 2008, four Canadian public sector union leaders went to Colombia. They were: John Gordon, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada; George Heyman, international vice-president of the National Union of Public and General Employees; Denis Lemelin, national president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers; and Paul Moist, national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

They toured the country and produced a document with joint and individual statements about the status of human rights in Colombia. Their report paints a totally different picture than what the Conservative and Liberal members are telling us in the Standing Committee on International Trade.

In July 2008, these four public sector union leaders made a one-week tour of Colombia. What they saw and heard there prompted them to share their observations in the hope of making as many people as possible understand the dangers workers in this South American country face.

Having seen the damage unregulated commercial activity causes most Colombian families, the Canadian union leaders promised to deliver a message of concern, solidarity and resistance to their millions of members in Canada—which is nothing to sneeze at—the Canadian government and all Canadians.

This document and other measures are part of that process. The document contains comments and personal observations from the leaders, who met with many Colombians and listened to their concerns about the harmful effects of free trade with Canada on the Colombian people.

These union leaders were inspired by the hope these people cling to and the growing resistance movement they witnessed. During their tour, the leaders focused on human rights.

I am delivering this message on their behalf, because the Bloc Québécois' greatest concern is that the government is ignoring human rights violations. It needs to ignore them if it is going to ratify an agreement that makes no sense.

The union leaders focused on human rights and labour rights, working conditions and the impact of privatization without guaranteed human rights and labour rights. They shared their concerns with representatives of the many sectors of Colombian society, including the Colombian interior minister and other senior officials, the Canadian ambassador and members of his staff, leaders of the central union of workers or CUT and union leaders at all levels, members of the opposition party—the Polo Democrático Alternativo—leaders of the indigenous peoples' movement, members of NGOs, groups representing Afro-Colombians and other displaced persons, as well as journalists and ordinary people.

Although three of the four leaders had never travelled to Colombia before, their unions were already familiar with the struggles of Colombian workers. All four have been working at the international level with Colombian unions for a number of years. They have been cultivating union relations as part of projects funded by their international solidarity funds and through exchanges of Canadian and Colombian workers.

You might wonder why they would embark on such a tour. After returning from Colombia, they followed up with a video on how the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement, which was only a proposal at the time, would be disastrous for these workers.

All the unions opposed the signing of such an agreement, especially in light of the horrifying human rights and labour situations in Colombia. The leaders knew very well that more trade unionists had been assassinated in that country than anywhere else in the world.

To strengthen the arguments against the free trade agreement and to consolidate the union solidarity already established, the leaders decided to go to see for themselves what the Government of Colombia had done to this South American country since President Uribe gained power in 2002. What they saw convinced them that they had to oppose the free trade agreement even more vigorously and in very clear terms. The leaders were asked many times to be the voice of the Colombian people and to oppose the agreement as long as the government of Alvaro Uribe has not shown that it has solved the problem of the permanent repression of trade unionists and other activists and guaranteed their protection.

This document gives them a voice and proves them right.

What we heard from the people who took this trip to Colombia gives even more weight to the fact that, in 2008, the Standing Committee on International Trade also adopted a resolution that an independent, impartial, and comprehensive human rights impact assessment should be carried out before the Conservative government considered introducing its bill in the House.

Proof was needed, coming from an independent study, that human rights were being respected. Now, it is the opposite. The Liberals and Conservatives are breaking their word. A Liberal member even proposed an amendment suggesting that we wait for the agreement to come into effect and the bill to be passed.

They will be happy with an assessment of the situation by the Government of Colombia. Colombia will be both judge and judged, and Canada will be satisfied with that. This will allow the agreement to be adopted, when we know very well that the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement does not necessarily propose any major increases in trade between Canada and Colombia, but instead, aims almost solely to protect the investments of Canadian mining companies that will exploit natural resources and workers in Colombia.

It is truly unfortunate to watch this going on. The Bloc Québécois will vote against this agreement at third reading.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is a relatively new member to the committee for international trade and I appreciate his interaction on that committee. However, I am sure he read over previous reports and studies from the committee and therefore would be well aware, although he said in his statement that there was no preliminary study on this bill, that there absolutely was a preliminary study on this bill in the last Parliament.

The committee travelled to Colombia. I travelled to Colombia myself on this study. We met with Colombians, labour leaders, union officials, human rights groups, Afro-Colombians and indigenous Colombians. All the very groups that the NDP has said that we never met with, we did meet with, and then we met with them again at committee hearings.

My question for him is quite simple. For the first time in 21 years, Colombia will not be included in the United Nations International Labour Organization's list of 25 nations to be examined for failure to comply with international workers' conditions. That is absolutely in recognition of the fact that Colombia has moved forward on workers' rights and on the protection of union leaders. The Colombian government officials will tell us that things are not perfect there yet but that they are moving in the right direction.

I wonder if the hon. member would comment on that.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, after hearing the member's question and comment, I realize that we can get statistics to say whatever we want.

The member missed part of my speech earlier. He said I was not on the Standing Committee on International Trade at the time. I want to point out that, just as there are two sides to a coin, there are always two versions of the same situation. The Conservatives, supported by the Liberals, say that all is well in Colombia, as I mentioned in my speech. But others take a different view. Other people have travelled to Colombia and say the opposite is true. That is the point I was making by quoting these individuals earlier.

They told us that the reality was not all that rosy. It is far from being as rosy as the government purports it to be. The situation has not changed, far from it. Murder and forced displacement continue. All this agreement is about is favouring and benefiting mining companies. It is far from being a true free trade agreement. The Bloc Québécois is not against free trade agreements, but this particular one does not ring true.

Since there are two different views of the human rights assessment, we believe that, when in doubt, the thing to do is to abstain. It is better to vote against this bill and wait for a real, independent preliminary study to be conducted.

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

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the United States-Colombia free trade agreement that was signed four years ago in 2006 under the Bush administration, it is still to this day sitting in the U.S. Congress and it is in no hurry whatsoever to pass that agreement.

Therefore, it is true that this agreement would not be passing in this House either had it not been for the good luck on the part of the Conservatives that the member for Kings—Hants became the new critic for international trade and basically flipped on the issue from the previous critic's position and decided to endorse the Conservatives' position. That is why and how we find ourselves here today.

We would be no further along the path than the Americans are in the United States had it not been for the change in Liberal leadership and the change in Liberal critics, which moved the Liberals' position on international trade to the right, right in line with the Conservatives' own position on foreign trade. The one and only reason this deal is moving forward now is because of the Liberals. Otherwise, this deal would be as dead as it is in the United States.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP member compared the Canada-Colombia agreement to the agreement between the United States and Colombia. He reminded us that responsible members of the U.S. Congress realized they had to negotiate further before pursuing the agreement, all the while keeping an objective eye on the human rights situation in Colombia.

The Americans put the agreement on hold. The agreement was negotiated, but the American people's representatives have not yet signed it into law. They realized that this would be like rewarding the Colombian government for its indifference and for being unable to enforce human rights on its territory.

The U.S. government is to be congratulated on its foresight and proper management of the situation. It was able to stand up to a country like Colombia, which many consider to be one of the world's worst offenders.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative member wants to argue with me about whether the American Congress is prepared to entertain moving this agreement forward.

I do not know who he has been talking with in the United States, but the member for Kings—Hants and myself were part of the U.S.-Canada visitation program back on February 19 and 20. In fact, we met with perhaps 40 senators and congresspeople and, in the case of at least three Republican legislators who support the agreement, have great respect for the Uribe government and who would do anything to have this agreement proceed, they told us straight out that this agreement was dead, that it was going nowhere.

Therefore, why has the Conservative government put this as one of its top priorities? It is very curious that the top priorities of the government are to close down the six prison farms in Canada and to deal with issues such as a Colombia free trade deal. One would think there would be many more initiatives that a government would want to be pursuing rather than a free trade deal with Colombia that is going nowhere in the United States, contrary to what the government member was trying to insinuate.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member has made another interesting comparison. He pointed out that the United States is conducting a thorough and objective analysis of what is going on in Colombia.

The Americans do not appear to be interested in signing an agreement that would have a negative effect on human rights, particularly because they know that the Colombian government cannot or will not do anything to control violence in its country.

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

Mr. Speaker, Bloc members have spoken to the fact that this free trade agreement is really all about investment for big companies. I wonder if the member could confirm that.