Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-2, and I want to thank the member for Berthier—Maskinongé for his presentation. I did have a question for him.
A month ago, he and the member for Kings—Hants and I were on a congressional visit in Washington and this topic did come up in some of our meetings. Even though the U.S. bill has been before the United States Congress since 2006, as the member just indicated, it did not pass Congress while George Bush was president and has not passed Congress since Barack Obama has been president, and it will not pass Congress anytime soon. We were told in our meetings by Republicans who support President Uribe and the free trade agreement that they knew it was dead. We were not getting this from Democrats, but Republicans.
It makes one wonder about a group, the government and the Liberal opposition, that tends to follow the United States like little trained seals, like little puppy dogs who follow the Americans and do not do anything the Americans would not do. It seems rather strange that somehow they have quickly put together a little agreement here to get this deal on its way.
The question is, why? How does this deal made here benefit the Liberals? What do the Liberals have to gain from this? This whole agreement has caused them a lot of grief within their own party. Under the previous leader, they were onside asking for a human rights assessment. Then all of a sudden the leadership changed, the critics changed, and they flipped totally the other way and now support the government.
We managed to remove this bill by our efforts last year, and the only way it could possibly have been brought back was with the Liberals' compliance. The Liberals have now made an arrangement and put an amendment that is acceptable to the government.
The question is, for what? After all the grief they had put up with in their caucus, and we are promising them much more grief as the days progress, there must be a lot at stake here for the Liberals to be doing this. I do not know what the government had to promise them to get them onside. Perhaps it was nothing, but I just see a lot of effort being made here for very low returns.
It was pointed out by one of the speakers in the debate earlier today that this bill is nothing more than a red carpet for mining companies. Currently there is $1.3 billion in trade between the two countries. That trade will not be affected by a free trade deal. If we do not pass the free trade deal this year or next year, the $1.3 billion in trade will continue, so what is this trade deal supposed to accomplish?
Do we have projections? Has anyone seen any projections? I think I asked the question last year if anyone had seen any projections from the government of what two-way trade will be next year and the year afterward. We have not heard anything from the government on that. We have not heard any speeches from the government in the last two days. We have not heard much from the Liberals either.
It reminds me of that old song, I think by Peter, Paul and Mary, Where Have All The Flowers Gone? I just substitute the word “Liberals” there. I hear some comments from their bench, but the fact of the matter is that we have a lot of issues, a lot of bills, a lot of things to be addressed and done in this Parliament, and I have questions here.
The government talks about its tough on crime agenda incessantly, saying it is something that has to be done. It is, as Mulroney used to say, the sacred trust. What does the government do? It prorogues Parliaments and wipes out all the bills. So much for the sacred trust.
Now we get back into Parliament. Does the government bring back the crime bills? No. It wants to talk about free trade with Colombia.
Clearly, there is an agenda, one that certainly I do not understand. I do not know that we are really clear about it either. However, members of the Bloc, the previous speaker and others, have alluded to the fact that this is a red carpet for mining companies and big business, that this is all to support investment. They are presumably friends of the other two parties because I have not been lobbied lately by any big mining companies.
Most of the details of this agreement, in terms of why we should not sign it, have been spoken to by other members. For example, Colombia itself is not a significant trading partner with Canada. It is only our fifth-largest trading partner in Latin America. We have dealt with the whole issue of 2,690 trade unionist having been murdered in Colombia since 1986 and that the number in 2008 was up substantially the previous year. One Liberal said that it had been reduced so we were clear to go now.
However, I do want to talk about fair trade. Whenever the NDP opposes one of the Conservatives' free trade deals, they ask us what sort of deal we would support and what it would take to get the NDP to support a free trade deal. In response we say that it has to be a fair trade deal.
The fact is there are more people than the government thinks waking up to the possibilities of what could be in a fair trade deal. We only have to look at the co-operative movements. Even Starbucks sells fair trade coffee. I think the younger people growing up are getting a good education as to what fair trade is all about, as to opposed to “free trade”.
Free trade is all about exploitation, multinational exploitation, essentially flooding, for example, the Colombia agricultural market with cheap agricultural products, displacing farmers who have been on the land for hundreds of years, putting them out of work, forcing them to go to cities where more problems are created and then they become dependent on foreign food.
How could that possibly be a good idea? The whole idea is to develop products in one's own environment and not import things. Trading is great. We cannot grow bananas in Manitoba, so we have to import those from somewhere. However, if we could grow them there, we should grow them there. We should be self-sufficient. Communities should be self-sufficient wherever they are and they should always strive for that.
We are certainly in favour of trade, but we want to have fair trade. We do not want to be flooding markets with cheap products, putting people out of work and ruining the environment in the process. When the environment is ruined and all of the damage is done to the environment, the companies simply walk away and let the government clean up the mess. That is great for investors. If they can buy shares at $20.00, then they go up to $100 and they can pocket the gains, I am sure they will support that type of economic activity. However, we in the House are supposed to think a little more deeply about the matter than simply holus-bolus rolling over and accepting what some corporate group wants us to do.
On that basis, the question is this. What do we mean by fair trade? We mean new trade rules and agreements to promote sustainable practices, domestic job creation and healthy working conditions, while allowing us to manage the supply of goods, promote democratic rights abroad and maintain democratic sovereignty at home.
From my information, tomato farmers in Mexico were put out of work by the thousands when the free trade agreement was expanded to Mexico. Those workers are basically out of jobs. People are no longer able to support themselves on their farms, and they have to buy cheap imports.
How can we promote fair trade? We can promote it by making speeches in Parliament, but the best way is by educating the public to the elements of fair trade so they can in turn put pressure on their MPs and not grow up and develop the way government MPs have. To that extent, we will show some progress but it will take some time.
New trade agreements should encourage improvement in social, environmental and labour conditions rather than just minimize the damage of unrestricted trade. Federal and provincial procurement policies should stimulate Canadian industries by allowing governments to favour suppliers at home. Supply management boards and single desk marketers like the Canadian Wheat Board could help replace imports with domestic products and materials.
The Wheat Board has been under constant attack from the very beginnings of the Reform Party. The present government continues to take whacks at it. It seems the Wheat Board is one of the Conservatives' pet peeves, particularly if they get a majority government.
This is yet another reason why we should never allow the Conservatives to form a majority government. If the Conservatives had four years of a majority government, we would not recognize the country. That is why the public has not given them a majority government. The public will never give them a majority government because Canadians know, at the end of the day, that the Conservatives would do something they could not tolerate.
Another way to promote fair trade is by having local community and individual initiatives to buy fair trade imports and locally produced goods. We see local community and individual initiatives. People in my community are offering fair trade coffee. It causes people to think about this, and that is what we have to do.
If we cannot beat the Conservatives at the boardroom level, and I guess we will never be able to do that, or beat them in advertising, we will have to beat them on the streets. At the end of the day, that is what we will have to do.
Why fair trade and not free trade? Fair trade policies protect the environment by encouraging the use of domestically and locally produced goods. There is less freight, less fuel, less carbon. Why would we ship a product across the continent? It makes no sense to me to send truckloads of produce across the continent when the product can be produced locally.
The environment is a huge issue. Some companies hide behind free trade agreements. They can get into a jurisdiction and hide behind a structure that does not require them to take care of the environment. If they can use all sorts of pesticides without the proper controls, then they essentially gain in the long run because they make more money. At the end of the day, they pollute the environment and perhaps sell a product that is not as healthy as it should be.
Free trade policies, even those created with the environment in mind, do little to impede multinational corporations from polluting the environment, which I have already indicated.
The environmental side agreement of NAFTA, for example, has proven largely unenforceable, particularly when compared with other protections for industry and investors.
A system of fair trade can encourage the growth of Canadian jobs, both in 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 to the bottom, which has resulted in the loss of Canadian manufacturing jobs. We have seen over and over again manufacturing jobs leaving North America and moving to other countries because of the “free trade” deals.
Free trade rules, on the other hand, have hurt Canadian job quality. Since 1989, most Canadian families have seen a decline in real income.
Fair trade can also protect labour rights by fostering the growth of workers' co-operatives and labour unions. Like the environmental side accord, the NAFTA labour agreement has gone mostly unenforced, giving industries that are willing to violate workers' rights incentives to relocate Canadian jobs. Fair trade policies which favour co-ops, unions and equitable pricing will protect workers in the developing world who might otherwise be exploited and take away reasons for Canadian producers to export the jobs. That is all part of rebalancing these agreements, making them more fair than where they are right now.
Fair trade rules will also protect societies and human rights around the globe. That is certainly the big issue we are dealing with in Bill C-2, the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement, although not the only issue.
Although some predicted a human rights benefit from unrestricted free trade, and we heard that from the member for Kings—Hants over and over again, this has yet to be seen. In contrast, conflicts between locals and multinational corporations in such places as Peru become violent. A fair trade policy that aims for benefits for all parties can protect the most vulnerable from human rights abuses.
That is what it is all about. We have already dealt with this issue, with many people saying that this is a minor trade agreement in the whole scheme of things. I do not know why the government would drive it to the top of its agenda and have the Liberals roll over the way they have, but I guess they are used to that. This is tantamount to putting lipstick on a pig.
The member for Kings—Hants has dressed it all up and he is happy to go along with this, but members in his caucus are not so happy. I do not know how members will vote because the other day we saw two or three Liberals, as a matter of conscience, vote against their own motion and a number of others skipped the vote.
I really do not know what will happen with this vote because several members in the Liberal caucus will proudly vote with us in the NDP. Some members in that caucus will probably miss the vote because there is more to be gained by not being here or voting against than standing up and voting for it.
The previous leader of the Liberal Party and the previous critic had it right two years ago when they were on the international relations committee. They opted for the review that we all wanted. What is wrong with a review? If there are no human rights abuses in Colombia, then why are they afraid of an independent human rights examination. If there are no abuses, it will pass with flying colours and we are on our way.
To have the Liberals simply change leaders and critics and flip their policy is very strange. It has certainly aided in the divisions that currently exist in the Liberal Party. The NDP Party will be happy to watch the drama unfold over the next few days and weeks to come.
