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-Jordan Free Trade Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak to the bill and follow the hon. member from the Bloc.

As the members know, the bill was introduced last year as Bill C-57, but after Parliament prorogued it was reintroduced on March 24 as Bill C-8.

For people who are watching today, I will give a little information about the bill. This is an act to implement the free trade agreement between Canada and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the agreement on the environment between Canada and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the agreement on labour cooperation between Canada and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The volume of the speeches in terms of intensity has dropped a lot compared to the speeches a few days ago on Bill C-2, the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement.

Clearly from our perspective in the NDP caucus, we certainly do not see the situation in Jordan being anywhere near as dire and bad as what we see with regard to the situation in Colombia.

Having said that, we see some concerns we can address as far as Jordan is concerned. We have reports from the U.S. Department of State dealing with the 2009 reports on human rights practices, which I will get into during my speech, and also a report by a lawyer from Jordan indicating problems with honour killings in Jordan and what is going on there to stop that from happening in Jordan.

Certainly there is room for improvement, once again, but it is not as dire a situation as we are dealing with in Colombia.

The critic for the NDP, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, indicated this morning that we will be looking at this and are prepared to have the bill move to committee and deal with these issue at committee, because that is obviously where we are going to have to resolve some of these issues as to what the true situation is in Jordan as far as human rights are concerned and how we might better be able to amend or reconstruct the bill to deal with the situation in Jordan as we find it now.

I note that the volume of trade with Jordan is not large. In fact it dropped in 2009 from what it was in 2008. To get a flavour for what type of trade we are dealing with, I simply consulted the speech by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade in which he indicated that many Canadian companies have a solid presence in the Jordanian market. Interestingly enough, a company that I have been familiar with for many years, the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, for instance is one of Jordan's top foreign investors. I did not know that.

It is joined by companies like RIM, Research In Motion, the manufacturer of the BlackBerry that we are all tied to; Bombardier; SNC-Lavalin; Four Seasons Hotel; and Second Cup coffee shops. Many others are active in Jordan.

The member who spoke before me dealt with the components of the trade between the countries. They are diverse. It is everything from forestry to agriculture, from food to machinery, as well as communications technologies and apparel.

Canada's expertise in nuclear power is another sector of interest to the Jordanians, especially as they are embarking on a nuclear energy program for their country. The member did talk about over $90 million in 2008 in trade between the two countries, although as a matter of fact I believe it was $92 million. Once again, that dropped substantially last year.

Canada is a supplier to Jordan of a range of goods, including paper, copper, vegetables, machinery and wood. In addition, Canadian and Jordanian exporters have access to respective markets eliminating tariffs on a number of key products, and world-leading Canadian sectors, such as forestry and manufacturing, agriculture and agri-food will benefit as well as pulp and paper.

We get an idea, looking at his presentation, as to what sorts of products we are talking about here that are trading between these countries.

As I indicated, we are talking about a fairly small amount of trade. Jordan is a country of 5.1 million versus Colombia, which I believe is in the 40 million range, and has the smallest GDP among middle-eastern states. The economy remains dependent on foreign aid. Interestingly enough, Canada contributed about $7.9 million in foreign aid in 2006-07.

The fact of the matter is that, on practically every debate about free trade agreements in this House, we have had the Conservative speakers question the NDP about why we do not like the agreement or what kind of agreement they have to come up with that would make us happy. Of course we respond to them that we are not in favour of their free trade approach nor have we ever been. We are in favour of a fair trade approach.

I would think that over time, whether it is with the government or a future government, we are going to see agreements renegotiated over time, in keeping with what the Bloc members have mentioned in their speeches. We are going to be looking at more multilateral approaches to fair trade, and we are going to be taking into account some of the elements that we in the NDP have been suggesting should be in fair trade agreements. For example, we have been suggesting new rules in agreements that promote sustainable practices and domestic job creation. We never seem to consider domestic job creation when we are negotiating these agreements.

When we are doing bilateral agreements, there is usually an imbalance of power in the arrangement. Our negotiators are trying to negotiate exactly what is best for us, not necessarily what is best for the local economy of the people we are negotiating with.

In addition to sustainable practices, we should be looking at domestic job creation and healthy working conditions, and while allowing us to manage the supply of goods, we should promote democratic rights and maintain democratic sovereignty at home.

The question is how we can promote fair trade and, as I indicated, new trade agreements that encourage improvement in social, environmental and labour conditions, rather than just minimizing the damage of unrestricted trade.

The federal and provincial procurement policies, which stimulate Canadian industries by allowing governments to favour suppliers here at home, supply management boards and single desk marketers, like the Canadian Wheat Board, headquartered in Winnipeg, can help replace imports with domestic products and materials.

The way the multilateral trade agreements have developed over the years is that we have potentially a flooding of a local market, as we have with the free trade agreements with Mexico and Colombia. For example, with tomatoes to Mexico and foods to Colombia, it basically put farmers, who have been self-sufficient for many years, out of business.

We destroy a solid farming community in a place like Colombia and we flood the market with cheap produce, which makes our farmers happy in the short run but at the end of the day we are not looking at the overall effect and the long-term damage to the local people. What we should be looking is developing agriculture on a local basis. We should be efficient and grow as much of our own products as possible. Obviously, we need to export some of our products and some products just do not grow in certain places. I mentioned the other day about importing bananas into Canada because we do not grow them here. We can export products that people do not have in other areas.

However, wherever possible, if a country can produce a product locally then we should be encouraging that in our practises and in our trade agreements.

Local community and individual initiatives to buy fair trade imports and locally produced goods are really important. As I indicated before, companies like Starbucks, which I am becoming increasingly familiar with almost on a daily basis, do tell people that they buy their coffees on a fair trade basis. People, especially young people, are more than willing to pay a fair price for coffee or whatever product they are selling, if they can be assured that the people at the other end are getting a fair wage and a fair return for the product.

People like to feel good about themselves. They like the know that if they buy an article of clothing, shoes, sweaters or whatever that it was not manufactured under sweat shop conditions. They like the idea of helping to bring up our economy and the economy of the producing country.

However, the bilateral agreements that we have seen so far are essentially extensions of the Ronald Reagan mantra and ideology of a race to the bottom, that we drive markets down and prices down to the lowest common denominator and we think that will be the ultimate in efficiency and that we will have a healthy economy because of it.

What has been the effect? The whole American mid-west is suffering greatly because jobs are being exported. We are exporting not only plants and the jobs that go with them out of Canada and the United States but we are exporting entire industries that were the backbone of our economy, our country and this continent for a number of years. There might be some short-term benefits but in the long run it is not better for the country as a whole.

The bottom line is that we need to become self-sufficient not only for ourselves but also for the people we are trading with.

We in the NDP feel fair trade policies are important. Even some members of the Conservative Party caucus feel that protecting the environment is the way to go by the use of domestically and locally produced goods. If a product is produced locally rather than sending it thousands of miles across the continent, there will be less freight costs, fuel costs and less carbon will be produced. Promoting environmentally conscious methods for producers is something that benefits all of us and it is something that we should be working toward.

The free trade policies that we have adopted, that we have fostered over the last 10, 20 years as a government, have basically resulted in increased pollution to the environment and a bigger concentration of multinationals.

The environmental side agreement of NAFTA, for example, has proven to be largely unenforceable, particularly when compared with protections for industries and investors.

A system of fair trade can encourage the growth of Canadian jobs, both in terms of quality and quantity. Fair competition rules and tougher labour standards will put Canadian industries on a level playing field with our trading partners and slow the international race for the bottom that has resulted and the loss of Canadian manufacturing jobs. I dealt with that issue before about this kind of neo-conservative, and I guess liberal, ideology of racing to the bottom thinking that somehow that will solve the economy's problems.

Free trade rules, on the other hand, have hurt Canadian job quality. Since 1989, most Canadian families have seen a decline in real incomes. I know the member for Burnaby—New Westminster has spoken at length about that point many times, not only here in the House but at other speaking engagements he has had across the country.

Fair trade can also protect labour rights by fostering the growth of worker co-operatives and labour unions. Like the environmental side accord, we have a co-op in Winnipeg that anyone can join. Every year I get a cheque for $800 or $1,000 on gasoline purchases and the price of the gas is the same at all of the gas stations. It is the same price for the product and yet the co-operative sends rebates to the consumers of the product.

For example, NAFTA's labour agreements have gone mainly unenforced, getting industries that are willing to violate workers' rights giving incentives to relocate Canadian jobs. Fair trade policies that favour co-ops, unions and equitable pricing will protect workers in the developing world who might otherwise be exploited and would take away reasons for Canadian producers to export jobs.

Fair trade rules will also protect society and human rights around the globe. That was a very large concern in our debate just last week with regard to the Canada-Colombia free trade deal.

In the few minutes I have left I want to deal very quickly with the whole issue of the 2008 human rights report on Jordan produced by the U.S. Department of State. We say right at the outset that Jordan is not Colombia. Jordan does not have as many obvious human rights abuses as Colombia but there is potential for concern.

In addition to that report, we have a report prepared by an attorney, Ms. Nimry from Jordan, who explains in detail the whole issue of honour killings. The committee needs to look into that issue and find out why we are looking at an average of 25 honour killings a year in Jordan. We recognize that the Jordanian government is taking steps to deal with the issue but it is still happening. In some areas of Jordan, a woman's life is at risk if she talks to a man who is not a relative or if she refuses to marry someone who is chosen by the family or if she marries someone with whom her family does not approve or if she marries a man from a different religion.

I could go on with excerpts from this particular report. It is very interesting reading and it is something that we need to look at.

The Liberals, once again, might want to go holus-bolus and marry up with the Conservatives to try to run this through as quickly as possible to meet their free trade agenda but we in the NDP have no intention of letting things go that quickly. We want to ensure this bill goes to committee and is properly dealt with there.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member has raised in the House a number of issues on the Colombia deal, and I sense that he has some similar concerns with regard to the Jordan situation vis-à-vis human rights.

Last week the government seemed amenable to an amendment to Bill C-2, which in the record says:

there must be a prior written agreement between the governments of Canada and Colombia, where each country provides annual reports to their respective parliaments on the impact of this FTA on human rights in both Canada and Colombia.

I had to read the amendment again and I am still reading it, and I do not yet clearly understand what it means. If it does mean something and it would be helpful in terms of getting us over this hurdle of human rights concerns, I am wondering whether a similar provision in the Jordan trade deal might be applicable or appropriate in the circumstances. I am not sure. I do not think so, but maybe the member has some comments.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-8, which is the implementing law for the trade agreement between Canada and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

I will start by referencing the delay the government has put on. We have heard a lot of rhetoric around this deal as we have heard from previous deals the government has put forward. However, it is important to do a reality check. The government had a green light from all four corners of the House from the very beginning to bring it to committee. There are some major concerns that I will raise and reference a little later on.

I think it is fair to say that the controversy around Bill C-2 and the Colombia agreement is very clear and palpable on the floor of the House. With the Jordan agreement, all four corners of the House wanted to bring it forward, have it debated and sent to committee where we could have heard from the many witnesses who have an interest in this. The committee could then have made the necessary amendments.

However, for eight months the government has refused to bring it forward. For eight months it has hidden behind the Colombia deal and stalled on this bill. Far from agreeing with the rhetoric that this is another important step forward in trade policy for the government, we need to ask why the government stalled for eight months on this when it was given the green light to at least bring it to committee within a few days. All four corners of the House asked for it to be brought forward and the government said no, that it would not do that.

This speaks to a larger problem, which is the complete incoherence of the government's trade policy and industrial policy in general. For four years we have seen the kind of legislation the government brings forward. It is fair to say that the NDP has been front and centre in standing up to what the government has brought forward, but the delay around the Jordan bill just shows the dilettantism of the government when it comes to trade policy.

This is no small issue. When we look at the last 20 years, since the implementation of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the real income of most Canadian families has gone down not up. The real incomes of the two-thirds of Canadian families who comprise the middle-class and poor Canadians have gone down right across the country.

The only ones who have actually profited and seen an increase in their real income over the past 20 years, since the first implementation of these agreements, have been the wealthiest of Canadians. The wealthy 10% have seen their incomes skyrocket. One-fifth of Canadians, the wealthiest 20%, now take most of the real income in this country.

To say that the free trade agreements that have been brought in by the Liberals and Conservatives have led to instant prosperity is simply false. Statistics Canada puts the lie to those pretensions that this is somehow a coherent and smart industrial and economic strategy. There has been no economic strategy, no real focused trade strategy and the result has been that most Canadians are poor.

We need to ask about the actual record of the government since it came to power. We saw the softwood lumber sellout, which killed jobs right across this country, including 2,000 in the two communities in my riding of Burnaby—New Westminster. We have seen the shipbuilding sellout, which was opposed by the NDP because we heard from hundreds of shipyard workers from across the country, including Quebec, Atlantic Canada and British Columbia, who said that this wold have a huge negative impact on their industry.

The government did no impact studies. It was just flying by the seat of its pants. It was out-maneuvered by Liechtenstein. I hesitate to say it, but it is true that Liechtenstein, a tiny country in Europe, actually out-maneuvered the Conservative government.

We saw the softwood sellout, the shipbuilding sellout and the Colombia trade deal, which we can discuss another day because I know we should stick to Jordan, but the government's record is extremely poor.

What are our competitors doing? Our competitors are investing in export promotion support. The United States, Australia and the European Union are spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year in providing support for their export industries and export promotion supports. What are we doing? If the government actually wants to go beyond its dilettante approach on trade issues, what is it doing?

I was in Argentina last week with a number of hon. members, including my colleague from Honoré-Mercier, and we found out, astoundingly, that the Conservative government's total budget in export product promotion support for the emerging market of Argentina, a country of 40 million people and the wealthiest market in South America, is $400 a week. That is less than the average dépanneur in Quebec and the average corner store in Burnaby—New Westminster will spend for a marketing radius that is a few blocks on either side.

That is repeated across the board. In the United States we spend paltry cents on the dollar compared to other countries, like Australia. Its total budget for export promotion support is half a billion dollars. Our total budget is a few million dollars. This is what is wrong with the government's approach. It simply does not provide the kinds of supports that other major industrialized countries, our competitors, do.

What the NDP has been saying ever since the Conservative government came to power is that it needs to change that approach. The government simply cannot go to these trade agreement ribbon cuttings and expect that the job is done or will be done. Most Canadians are the poorer for it. Canada is making less and less as a result. We had our first export deficit in 20 years a few months ago. Obviously, there is something wrong with this approach.

Even if these trade agreements were fair trade based as opposed to the old NAFTA template model, do the trade agreements themselves make a difference? Obviously not, because with a number of these bilateral agreements our exports have actually gone down in those markets after being signed. In every case, imports from the countries that we have signed with have gone up. In other words, those countries have managed to profit from the agreements signed with Canada but in Canada's case, exports have actually gone down. How can we sign an agreement and not have the follow-up or strategy to bolster our exports? That is, indeed, what has happened.

The problem with the government's overall approach is that it not only has no industrial strategy but it also does not have an export-oriented focus and it is not willing to invest Canadian government funds in the way that other countries do to bolster their industries.

As there has been some rhetoric flying around the House this morning on this agreement, I should note that this whole idea that Canada should not be trying to protect and sustain certain key industries is something that every other industrialized economy has adopted and put forward as part of their industrial strategy. The Conservative government is seemingly selling out every industry in our country, but France, the United States and every other country are focused on investing in their key industries.

The NDP gets criticized by the Liberals and Conservatives for bringing forward buy Canada strategies but that is where the rest of the world is. It is ensuring it has a strong foundation.

Far from making things together, which is sort of the spin, the buzzwords that we hear from the Conservatives, Canadians are making less and less, exporting more and more raw materials, whether it is raw logs or raw bitumen, across the line, and those jobs end up elsewhere. That is the fundamental problem with how the government approaches economic issues generally and trade policy in particular.

Now we can talk about the more specific aspects of the Jordan agreement. As I mentioned earlier, this agreement needs to have a thorough vetting at the committee stage and amendments need to be brought forward for reasons that I will mention in a few moments. What we are endeavouring to do is to get this to committee so we can hear from labour activists, human rights advocates and from those who are concerned about women's equality because those are all issues that have been cited in some of the many reports that have come up about problems with Jordan.

It is fair to say that Jordan has made progress in a number of different areas. Jordan is certainly not Colombia with the horrific death toll, disappearances and killings of labour activists that are a tragic daily reality in Colombia with paramilitaries tied to the government and the Colombian military. In a very real sense, Jordan has tried to make progress and I will mention some of that progress later on.

However, the agreement itself is a NAFTA template style agreement, with investor state provisions that we have raised concerns about before, and labour and environment cooperation agreements that are toothless, which is the overall problem and the reason we will need to bring strong amendments to this bill at the committee stage.

There is no doubt that Canadian values are betrayed when we have toothless components around labour rights and environmental stewardship. Most Canadians want to see very robust protections there. We also undermine our own Canadian values when we subject the kind of democratic decision-making with an override, which is the investor state provisions of NAFTA. We have raised this issue before in the House. This is simply, in our minds, not the appropriate route to go.

Given the framework of the agreement, which is inadequate and is a template from which other countries have moved away and are looking at more fair trade approaches to their trading relationships, what is happening in Jordan? What are the issues?

I would like to cite three reports. The first report is from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor which was released a couple of weeks ago on March 11. It is the 2009 country reports on human rights practices in which it cites Jordan and states:

Restrictive legislation and regulations limited freedom of speech and press, and government interference in the media and threats of fines and detention led to self-censorship, according to journalists and human rights organizations. The government also continued to restrict freedoms of assembly and association. Religious activists and opposition political party members reported a decline in government harassment; however, legal and societal discrimination remained a problem for women, religious minorities, converts from Islam, and some persons of Palestinian origin. Local human rights organizations reported widespread violence against women and children. The government restricted labor rights, and local and international human rights organizations reported high levels of abuse of foreign domestic workers.

The report goes on to cite some of the specific areas of concern around respect for human rights. I think it is important to mention those reports and to flag some of the comparisons with other countries.

Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life

There were reports during the year that the government or its agents committed unlawful killings.

On November 8, Saddam Al Saoud died of injuries allegedly sustained in police custody at the Al Hussein Police Station. On October 17, police arrested Al Saoud during a fight between street vendors in Amman. On October 18, authorities transferred an unconscious Al Saoud to a private hospital. Al Saoud's family said police caused Al Saoud's injuries when they hit him on the head with a gun. The Public Security Department (PSD) investigated the case, arrested six police officers, and charged them with two felonies: death caused by hitting and abuse of PSD regulations. At year's end cases against the officers were ongoing.

They also cite one other case, that of Fakhri Kreishan, who died of injuries sustained during an altercation with police in the southern city of Ma'an. Again police prosecutors investigated the case, arrested the police officer and charged him with two felonies. The case before the police court was ongoing.

In terms of unlawful deprivation of life, we have two incidences. It is fair to say that, in both cases, the police officers have been charged. That is important and it contrasts with other countries, most particularly Colombia, where the ongoing slaughter, and there is no other way of putting it, of human rights activists and labour activists was treated with impunity, where 95% of the cases did not lead to any sort of prosecution at all. In Jordan's case, the two cases have been followed up with charges.

Disappearances is category B. There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances, and that is welcome. Again it contrasts with other countries. I will take Colombia as an example, where there have been widespread disappearances, hundreds of people who have simply disappeared in politically motivated kidnappings or killings done by paramilitaries tied to the Colombian government and the Colombian military. In Jordan's case, there were no reports of politically motivated disappearances in 2009.

Category C is torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The report continues:

The law prohibits such practices; however international NGOs continued to allege that torture and mistreatment in police and security detention centers remained widespread. Nevertheless, some domestic NGOs claimed that recent reform efforts had reduced cases of torture and mistreatment in police and security detention centers.

The fact that NGOs are reporting that is welcome, and of course we contrast that with other countries. I will take Colombia, for example, where the Colombian Commission of Jurists has pointed out widespread cases of sexual abuse perpetrated by the Colombian military and by paramilitaries tied to the Colombian government.

For the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, there are obviously some concerns; however there are some indications of improvement.

I would like to move on to Human Rights Watch. Its “World Report 2010: Harsher Climate for Human Rights” cites concerns around migrant domestic workers and the abuse of women in Jordan. It states:

In 2010, Jordan should:

Strike clauses from the law that allow for punishment-reducing mitigating circumstances for “honor” killers.

Ease restrictions in the law governing the operation of nongovernmental organizations to bring it into compliance with international standards on freedom of association.

Revise regulations governing migrant domestic workers to comply with international labor and human rights standards, and set up a mechanism to investigate allegations of abuses against workers.

—again, a concern about domestic workers—

Strengthen accountability for torture by moving jurisdiction over acts of torture by police agents from the Police Court to civilian courts.

Stop withdrawing the nationality of Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin.

These are concerns raised by Human Rights Watch.

The final report I would like to cite is done by Lubna Dawany Nimry, who is an attorney at law in Jordan, raising concerns about the treatment of women. She states that the number of so-called crimes of honour, and there is no other way of describing it except as abuse of women, averages about 25 a year.

She does reference the fact that civil rights activists were speaking out loudly and fighting this phenomenon and mentions that some members of the royal family have participated in demonstrations against article 98 and article 340 of the penal code. She sites that in some areas of Jordan, a woman's life is at risk if she talks to a man who is not a relative. She says very clearly that there is a need for substantial revisions to the code in Jordan to assure women's equality.

For those reasons, we raise concerns about this agreement.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Before I go to questions and comments again, I will remind hon. members that we are debating Bill C-8, the free trade bill between Canada and Jordan, not Bill C-2, the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement. Clearly there would be issues that would overlap the two, but questions that deal specifically and explicitly with other legislation are out of order and will not be accepted.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster.

[Claude Guimond, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question and comments.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour of independent studies, particularly in relation to Bill C-2, in order to evaluate the agreement's impact on human rights in the countries involved.

My colleague also spoke about fair trade, which is an issue I feel strongly about, as does the Bloc Québécois. It is not overly complicated and, if we made the effort, it would be very easy to engage in fair trade. Fair trade has three pillars: respect for the environment in all dealings, respect for the economy—agreements must be economically viable—and respect for the social rights and societies involved in the agreements.

If the Government of Canada included these few guidelines and principles in its international trade policies, Canada's image in terms of globalization would be transformed.

[Claude Guimond, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin speaking about Bill C-8, I would like to congratulate the wonderful initiative of those who organized Earth Hour. On Saturday, more than 10 million Canadians and nearly a billion people throughout the world symbolically turned out their lights for an hour from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. In Montreal, Hydro-Québec turned off the logo on its head office. Even the Canadian Parliament participated. In all, more than 3,400 cities in more than 125 countries took part in Earth Hour.

Since we know how important the fight against climate change is to the Conservatives, we do not need to talk about the importance of rallying together to send a clear message to our representatives. We need to be giving this issue more attention. I would also like to take a moment to mention the exceptional work of my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie in the fight against climate change.

Having said that, let us return to today's topic of debate, the free trade agreement between Canada and Jordan. The Bloc Québécois generally supports this bill. However, we believe certain aspects should be revisited. The Bloc Québécois has come to this conclusion because, as always, it methodically studied this agreement and concluded that, for the most part, it respected the values of our party, and hence those of Quebeckers.

Last week, I rose in the House to denounce the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement because it does not in the least respect the principles defended by the Bloc Québécois—fundamental principles such as human rights and workers' rights, as well as respect for the environment. I can assure the House that we will rise and speak out as long as a treaty or government decision does not respect this moral standard.

In this case, there is no indication of a transgression of these principles and we even salute the efforts that may be undertaken. However, we must ask ourselves why sign an agreement with Jordan when our trade with this country only represents $92 million in goods? More importantly, trade with Quebec only represents a meagre $32 million.

Nevertheless, we believe that this agreement is necessary to balance our support in this part of the world. Knowing full well that Canada has already approved a free trade agreement with Israel, it is important, considering the tense political situation in the Middle East, to send a clear message to this region that we are open to fair trade and agreements with all nations in the region. This could even promote better relations between the East and the West and open doors to certain eastern countries that wish to cultivate better economic relations with the West.

Nor should we ignore the considerable efforts made by Jordan to modernize its government and its economy. These efforts will help deal with the difficulties created by the incredible gap between rich and poor. We should herald these efforts. Implementing this agreement would send, once more, a clear message to other Middle Eastern countries that it is important that they modernize their governments and economies.

A moment ago I said that Jordan is not a major player in terms of trade with Canada and Quebec. Despite that, the Bloc Québécois nevertheless believes that this agreement would be beneficial for Quebec. As the private woodlot critic for the Bloc Québécois, I am extremely troubled by the forestry crisis, which affects so many Canadian workers and especially Quebec workers. It is especially troubling knowing that nearly $10 billion was invested in the Ontario auto industry, while next to nothing has been invested in Quebec.

For some time now, the Bloc Québécois has been calling for loans and loan guarantees at the market rate for the Quebec forestry industry, as well as a comprehensive policy to support and modernize the forestry industry, including a policy to use wood in the construction of federal buildings. Bill C-429, introduced by my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, will help with that.

Furthermore, private woodlot owners in Quebec have been the forgotten ones in this forestry crisis. They need to be taken care of as well, perhaps through some sort of tax measures. Accordingly, the creation of a registered silvicultural savings plan would be a very important tool for these private woodlot owners. This could also one day, I hope, make it possible for them to export pulp and paper around the world, particularly to Jordan, the subject of our debate here today.

Despite everything I just said, the Bloc Québécois sees this agreement as a positive step for the Quebec forestry industry. Let us not be idealistic: this agreement is in no way a concrete solution to the Conservatives' inaction when it comes to the forestry industry, particularly in Quebec. However, the fact remains that this agreement would mean significant gains for this industry, one that has been in crisis for far too long.

There was $32 million worth of trade between Quebec and Jordan in 2008. Of this amount, $25 million was for our pulp and paper industry, which is a significant amount. Since Jordan has an obvious lack of forestry resources, because of its climate, and since the Quebec pulp and paper industry has been ignored by the Conservative government for a long time, the agreement being debated right now is an interesting solution to compensate for the lack of resources in Jordan and the Conservatives' passive attitude towards this industry.

As I mentioned earlier, the Bloc Québécois and I think that there are some points that will have to be reviewed and debated in order to justify an agreement of this nature.

As deputy natural resources critic for the Bloc Québécois, I, along with my Bloc Québécois colleagues, think that we absolutely must ensure that Quebec's significant water resources are clearly excluded from the agreement, to ensure that Quebec remains in control of its water resources. Although this is not mentioned in the agreement itself, this condition absolutely must be included in the agreement.

We will have the opportunity to examine the agreement more closely in committee over the next few weeks.

Although the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement is unacceptable in terms of agriculture, that is not the case with this agreement with Jordan. In contrast to Bill C-2 concerning Canada and Colombia, because of the small size of Jordan's market and the type of agriculture practised there, there is not likely to be a negative impact on either our Quebec agricultural producers or agricultural producers in Jordan. It is very important for us to respect our own agricultural producers, as well as those in the countries with which we are signing or trying to sign an agreement.

I am a farmer, and it is important to farmers to consider the particular agricultural situation in countries and help them develop. In Quebec, the Union des producteurs agricoles approved this agreement and said that it did not pose any problems. We could talk about farming for a long time in the House.

It is alarming to see what the Conservatives are doing about such a crucial issue. The government is definitely showing its ignorance and incompetence. Farming as it is practised here could be improved with some practical, low-cost, workable measures. There is no shortage of ideas; the Bloc Québécois has presented a whole list of practical solutions. There is a shortage of political will, though, especially among the Conservatives.

Knowing the government's intentions and where farming figures on its priority list, we find it hard not to be worried about the future of farming in Canada and especially in Quebec.

But let us come back to the free trade agreement between Canada and Jordan. The Bloc Québécois also condemns the Conservative strategy of signing bilateral agreements with other governments instead of the multilateral agreements we have long been suggesting.

The Bloc Québécois firmly believes that a multilateral approach is a better way to develop fairer trade and respect the interests of all the countries of the world.

In order for trade to be mutually beneficial, it must first be fair. The free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia is hardly fair, but the Conservatives, like the Liberals, do not seem too concerned about that.

A trading system that leads to the exploitation of poor countries and dumping in rich countries is not viable. The Bloc Québécois cannot accept a system of free trade that would be based on the lowest common denominator. We also cannot accept free trade agreements where the absence of environmental or labour standards puts a great deal of pressure on our industries, especially our traditional industries. It is very difficult for them to compete with products that are manufactured with no regard for basic social rights.

To make trade agreements fairer, the Bloc Québécois is urging the federal government to revise its positions in trade negotiations in order to ensure that trade agreements include clauses ensuring compliance with international labour standards as well as respect for human rights and the environment.

The Bloc Québécois believes that if Canada wants to maintain its credibility on this front, it should immediately sign on to the International Labour Organization's principal conventions against various forms of discrimination, forced labour and child labour, as well as those in support of the right to organize and collective bargaining.

Those are the issues we should focus on in our trade agreements. It is clear that the Conservatives—and lately, the Liberals, with their obvious complicity concerning the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement bill—have no desire to consider these issues.

The Bloc Québécois' support for Bill C-8 is a one-time-only offer. We will continue to keep a close eye on agreements signed between Canada and other countries. If Canada fails to respect the fundamental principles that our party stands for and the interests of the Quebec nation, we, the members of the Bloc Québécois, will stand up to criticize such agreements and do everything in our power to cancel or change them.

We will never ignore such legitimate issues, and we will never support such injustices, as the Liberal members have done with the Colombia free trade agreement.

I hope that the federal government will consider these principles in future agreements. That should go without saying, but the members opposite seem to have forgotten these humanitarian ideas.

All the same, every time the Conservative Party or any other party in power chooses to ignore these issues, the Bloc Québécois can be counted on to call them on it and defend these principles. This is about respect for human rights, for workers' rights, for the environment and for Quebec's interests.

Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today to speak to this bill. At the outset, I want to note that the Liberals and the Conservatives seem to be onside, once again opposing this legislation. We saw them yesterday join together as one to try to support Bill C-2, the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement. Today we see them join together to try to stop Bill C-444.

At second reading we are dealing with the principle of the bill. I would think the Conservatives and particularly the Liberals should be open-minded enough to at least want to send the bill to committee so they could debate it, discuss it and try to amend it, If they do not agree with it at that point, after the amendment process is concluded, by all means, they can come back to the House and vote against it. However, to simply preclude the possibility of the bill going to committee is a very bad choice on their part.

The member who spoke for the Conservatives pointed out that we did not need a new regulatory body, that we did not need duplication of existing regulations. However, he is not prepared to give us the chance to even debate the issue further, to explore the issue in committee, perhaps call witnesses to the committee, look at the issue from all different angles and perhaps come up with a solution that would make everyone happy in the House, particularly the member who introduced Bill C-444. He is prepared to shut the door tight right at the beginning, defeat the bill and move on.

I do not think that is a good approach, particularly since the government finds itself in a minority situation. By the looks of it, it will always be in a minority situation. I see there are signs that it is beginning to accept that fact. There are some signs that it is tentatively making approaches to the opposition. I see it selectively dealing with the Liberals on the Canada-Colombia free trade issue and certainly dealing with other parties on other issues. I applaud it for that because it means it will survive longer as a minority government and it will, at a certain point, learn how to govern properly in a minority situation.

Up until now, it has been more or less a disaster for the government in the minority situation. Clearly from the very beginning, it could never accept the idea it was a minority and so it gave up on the idea, very early on, of trying to make a minority government work. It is going to take it a while to learn. There are some signs it is learning, but this is not one of them. The government should at least be open-minded enough to send the bill to committee.

My colleague from Vancouver Kingsway also spoke on this issue earlier today. He had indicated that the bill opened up a potential debate for members of the House to deal with public broadcasting and cultural policy in the country. My party and I are very strong believers in public broadcasting. I am a very strong supporter of the CBC. Many members here are of the same age or older than I am and will know that when we were growing up we only got one channel. It was the CBC and it was in black and white, so we had a very positive view of CBC programming in those days.

Things have developed and things have changed over the years. We now have multiple stations competing for the viewers and we have introduced the private sector.

The government, that is basically very dedicated to whatever the private sector wants, the private sector gets, is tied to deregulation. If we could redraw the map from a Conservative point of view, we would sell off or dismantle the CBC, turnover the whole market to the private sector, and while we did all of that, we would dismantle all the regulations. We would allow free enterprise to run its course.

We would have a situation develop where we would have the big guys gobbling up the little guys to the point where we would have just one or two broadcasters, media giants, in Canada and that is in fact what has happened.

Then we get to deal with the whole issue of the too big to fail syndrome. We have a situation right now with CanWest essentially going into bankruptcy because the original owners and founders of the company managed to load the company with $5 billion of debt. Then when the market downturn happened and the economy dove a couple of years ago, the bond holders were forced to take over the company. Now we see them basically selling off the assets to other corporate takers and that process is ongoing at this point.

Coupled with that we find ourselves in the middle of an extreme recession and the government announced last year that it was planning to sell off crown assets to, I believe, realize $2 billion.

I am not aware that it was able to do any of that last year, but I know the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance is listening very attentively and taking notes, I might add, and I am certain that this coming year the government will find a way to realize that $2 billion and maybe more by selling off public assets.

We on this side of the House have suggested that one of those public assets that it may be interested in selling off might be the CBC.

Bill C-2--Notice of time allocation motion

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement, we have debated it for over 30 hours in this chamber and the standing committee has already studied it twice. Unlike the Bloc and the NDP, this government is committed to pursuing a free trade agenda. Therefore, I would like to advise that an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage of 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.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the Crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.

Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to offer my condolences to the hon. House leader for the official opposition, given the fiasco that occurred in the chamber last Tuesday night when some of his members did not know how to vote. I can certainly sympathize with the embarrassment that I am sure he felt.

On the issue of the documents, which I think would be more likely a question for question period rather than contained in the order of business question, as posed to the government House leader on Thursdays, I would point out that it has always been the intent, and it has been our commitment as a government, to make all legally available documents available to the opposition and, through the opposition and Parliament, to Canadians at large when they do become available, which is what happened this morning. The documents were in their original form. Some of them were in English and some were in French and we made that known at the time we tabled them this morning. We asked for permission, acceptance, approval and agreement of all opposition parties, and they gave that approval before those documents were tabled in the House of Commons.

I find it a little ironic that the opposition has all along been demanding these documents and yet, when we make them available, they criticize us for doing so.

As for the issue of the House business for the upcoming week to carry us through to next week, we will continue today with Bill C-2, the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement.

Tomorrow we will begin with Bill C-3, gender equity in Indian registration, and Bill C-2 will be the backup bill should we need it tomorrow.

Next week we will continue with the bills from this week but we will also be introducing the budget implementation bill and it is our intention to begin debate on that bill at second reading.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by saying how much I appreciate your sending me the photocopy of the rules that govern our operations in the House, in particular the rules on the scope and asking of the Thursday question and my response.

Hence, I am going to hesitate this week from launching into a full-blown debate with my hon. colleague about prorogation and the fact that so many of his colleagues seem not to understand that prorogation is over and the House is back in business.

When it comes to the business leading up to next Thursday, I would note that we will continue today with the address in reply to the Speech from the Throne.

Tomorrow we will begin debate on second reading of Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act , known as Sébastien's Law.

Monday, March 22, will be day three of the address in reply to the Speech from the Throne.

Tuesday will be the last supply day for the opposition. Hopefully, we will get some meaningful motions put forward by the official opposition and they will show up for the debate.

We will continue with the address in reply to the Speech from the Throne, followed by Bill C-2, the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement.

If time permits, we could start Bill C-3, An Act to promote gender equity in Indian registration by responding to the Court of Appeal for British Columbia decision in McIvor v. Canada (Registrar of Indian and Northern Affairs).

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I really do not know where to begin. I think you would agree with me, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. House leader of the official opposition seems to be making the Thursday question longer and longer. In fact, he is ending up making speeches as opposed to just asking a question about future government business. Let me just add some points as briefly as possible, in response to some of the questions he posed.

First, on the issue of prorogation, I think I did reply at some length last week when his deputy House leader asked the question, because he was unfortunately detained, I am sure, somewhere and not able to ask the question himself last Thursday. I would not suggest, as he has, that he was AWOL, of course. At any rate, on the issue of prorogation, very clearly this is a mechanism that governments have used from the very beginning of Confederation. We have said this repeatedly. On average, it has been about once a year that prorogation has been used to end a session of Parliament and begin a new one.

I would point out to my hon. colleague that under a previous Liberal administration, it was used a couple of times and 15 sitting days were lost. He would be able to do the math. He alleged during his remarks that prorogation was actually from December to March. In fact, we only lost 22 sitting days and, of those, 10 have been restored. With the acceptance of all parties in the House, we have agreed to set aside two of the constituency break weeks and instead do the business of the House here in Ottawa. Therefore, in reality, we have lost 12 sitting days during this prorogation, unlike the Liberal Party in past parliaments that on more than one occasion lost 15 sitting days, and they did not think there was anything wrong with that. They thought that was the way they would go about doing their business.

As I said last week, very clearly what they are upset about is that prorogation was used once before to prevent Canadians from facing an illicit, and immoral, I would add, coalition of the three opposition parties to seize power just weeks after Canadians had gone to the polls and re-elected the Conservative government with an increased mandate. We want to be very clear about that use of prorogation.

I will get to the order of business, but first, we will continue today with our very important address in reply to the Speech from the Throne. I note that the hon. House leader for the official opposition, even though his own leader spoke at some length this morning, does not think, obviously, that those remarks were worthwhile, because he questions whether we should in fact be debating the Speech from the Throne. However, we will continue with debate on the Speech from the Throne. There are many members, I am sure, on both sides of the chamber who want to make some points about that great speech.

Tomorrow we will debate Bill C-2, the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week shall be opposition allotted days. I am looking forward with bated breath as to what the opposition parties think should seize the nation, what issues they will bring forward. I hope it is not to discuss things like prorogation, but rather some substantive issues with some policy suggestions of how they want to see Canada go forward. It will be interesting.

To the very point about allotted opposition days, the opposition House leader knows very well that he and his colleagues in the opposition parties got together and deemed it necessary to impose upon me as government House leader certain parameters where I have to allot certain opposition days in a certain timeframe. Hence, his allegations that he would not like to see opposition days are pretty ill-founded, when it was his idea that he cooked up to begin with.

To the other point on how to go about fixing the present situation where, because of the Standing Orders, we see that we should have begun the supply cycle on March 1, I would like to make the following statement, because we do, as he points out quite correctly, eventually need to fix the supply cycle with a special order.

As background I refer to pages 881 and 882 of O'Brien and Bosc where it states:

From time to time, circumstances may require a deviation from the normal supply process and cycle. For example, because of an unscheduled adjournment or a prorogation or dissolution of Parliament, the main estimates might not be tabled and referred to standing committees before the March 1 deadline, or the interim supply or the main estimates might not be concurred in by the June 23 deadline. In those cases, the Standing Order provisions relating to the business of supply (such as those respecting the timetable for the tabling of estimates, their reference to standing committees and their return to the House, the concurrence motions and the appropriation bills) no longer apply.

This is the exact situation that we find ourselves in today. We currently have no mechanism to vote on the main estimates and supply. O'Brien and Bosc offers a solution on page 882:

Such situations may be dealt with by temporarily suspending the relevant Standing Orders. There may be an arrangement worked out between the government and the opposition parties to finalize supply as expeditiously as possible. Typically, this involves adopting a special order--

We have a typical problem with a typical solution. It has always been worked out in the past. I am sure it will be again.

If the NDP, for example, is tempted to deny consent for a special order to protest against prorogation, I point out that prorogation is a legitimate constitutional right, as I have said, exercised by Conservative and Liberal governments at the federal level and, in addition, by NDP and PQ governments at the provincial level.

The average duration in fact of a session of the NDP government in Manitoba has been 9.7 months. Yes, members heard me right: 9.7 months on average. René Lévesque's record was 10 months. Both of those governments had six sessions in one legislature, meaning they prorogued five times in a single legislature.

None of the members of the coalition of the prorogation outrage could even meet their own standard, I would submit.