Bill C-23 (Historical)

Canada–Jordan Economic Growth and Prosperity Act

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

This enactment implements the Free Trade Agreement and the related agreements on the environment and labour cooperation entered into between Canada and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and signed at Amman on June 28, 2009.
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-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-20. I would like to thank my colleagues for being here and for allowing me to speak to this very important issue.

Incidentally, I would like to commend the member for Richmond Hill. He actually asked a few questions tonight. He took part in the debate, although I did not hear him speak. I would have liked to hear his take on things in order to ask him questions. It is all well and good to ask questions, but I would remind him that he is a government MP. As such, he could answer questions as well. Unfortunately, we have not heard his story. More accurately, his story seems to have evolved somewhat over the course of the evening.

I have here the Hansard from March 5, 2012. I was an MP. On page 892, we were talking about Bill C-23, 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. I invite my colleague to read it. I cannot read all of the names that are included because we are not allowed to name members who are present, but the NDP was there and voted in favour of the bill. I would also invite the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons to read this and take note of it, because I hear time and time again that the NDP has never supported a free trade agreement. However, it is here, in black and white.

Even though we keep explaining it to the Conservatives, it seems they do not understand. We keep saying that when the government enters into its free trade agreements, it is not negotiating them well and it is not doing a good job choosing its partners. The objective is clear: move on to another scandal, talk about something other than the scandals and the corruption on that side. The government is signing all kinds of free trade agreements and is very proud of that fact. However, we must look at the facts. I remember talking about the free trade agreement with Panama. In that case, there were problems with tax evasion. In this case, with Honduras, there are human rights issues.

We are hearing rather peculiar questions from the other side. The Conservatives appear to be saying that human rights may not be that important after all, which means that they can be pushed aside. Of course, when the Conservatives go back to their ridings and talk with their constituents, they claim to support human rights, but when push comes to shove, during negotiations and discussions with a partner, they simply push these rights aside. I want to stress how important it is to consider human rights during negotiations. According to the Conservatives and the Liberals, once we sign a free trade agreement, the market will open up and everyone will be happy. They mean, of course, that everyone will be rich and happy.

This is not what happens in real life. I would like to remind my colleagues opposite of the agreement Canada signed with Colombia. Reports were produced afterwards. The Conservatives argue that by signing a free trade agreement, we are helping people in the other country. We have seen that the agreement with Colombia did not help at all, just the opposite, in fact.

What we are saying is that when the Conservatives go negotiating agreements left and right, they have to learn from their mistakes. They are poor administrators. They do not know how to negotiate agreements properly, and that is why those of us on this side of the House are opposed to those agreements. We have given them solutions and suggestions. We have made proposals and put forward amendments. Since they have a majority, they have always rejected our ideas.

It is important to me to be here tonight, to talk to them and tell them what they can do because more free trade agreements, such as the trans-Pacific partnership agreement, are on the way.

That is still under negotiation. Unfortunately, those of us on this side of the House do not have much information because the government is very secretive and lacks transparency, as usual. I suggest that my colleagues take a look at what happens in the United States. Their politicians have access to agreements and can read them. This is a time when they can negotiate something in return for the agreement.

One good example is Vietnam. I talked about this at second reading. Vietnam is part of the trans-Pacific partnership. The U.S. House of Representatives is putting pressure on its negotiators to ensure that they demand improvements in the realm of human rights and workers' rights in Vietnam before signing the agreement. That is meaningful action.

This should be a lesson to the Conservatives as well as the Liberals. We need to agree that a free trade agreement with Honduras is technically not that significant. It will not do a great deal for Canada as a trading partner. That is how they see it in the United States. They give a country a free trade agreement to help it improve its human rights record.

No one in this House can say that respect for human rights is not an issue in Honduras. Clearly, when a government rises to power after a coup and when journalists and opposition politicians are murdered, we know there are problems. Not once have I heard today, from either the Conservatives or the Liberals, that they disagree with what the NDP has said. They agree with us that there are problems in Honduras. However, the response of the Liberals and the Conservatives to these problems is to throw the dice and hope it all works out.

In contrast, the NDP says that we should take the lead. We are in a position to negotiate and demand change. It was for that reason that I entered politics. I wanted to change things. Quite frankly, I know that some of our Conservative colleagues also want to change things for the better. Unfortunately, I have not heard much from them to this point. I heard some questions, but I did not hear them defending their position.

I would like to have a debate with the Conservatives to know exactly how they think that signing this agreement will improve the plight of Hondurans and help improve respect for human rights.

Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise with some concern for my friend, who seems to have cribbed much of his notes from the Conservative Party's talking points regarding the NDP and trade. The fact is that under previous Liberal regimes, 13,000 consecutive foreign takeovers were approved without one single rejection. Not once in all of those years and all of those takeovers did the Liberal Party think that standing up on Canadian sovereignty issues and the rest was important.

To clarify the record, because I know my friend is very keen on records, I would point out that when the motion was presented by the members for Calgary Northeast and Wild Rose with respect to some trade negotiations and trade legislation, particularly around Bill C-23, the act with Jordan, that act was passed by this place.

The House resumed from June 4 consideration of the motion that Bill C-23, 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, be read the third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.

Extension of Sitting Hours

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 27, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be 12 midnight, commencing on Monday, June 11, 2012, and concluding on Friday, June 22, 2012, but not including Friday, June 15, 2012.

Today I rise to make the case for the government's motion to extend the working hours of this House until midnight for the next two weeks. This is of course a motion made in the context of the Standing Orders, which expressly provide for such a motion to be made on this particular day once a year.

Over the past year, our government's top priority has remained creating jobs and economic growth.

Job creation and economic growth have remained important priorities for our government.

Under the government's economic action plan, Canada's deficits and taxes are going down; investments in education, skills training, and research and innovation are going up; and excessive red tape and regulations are being eliminated.

As the global economic recovery remains fragile, especially in Europe, Canadians want their government to focus on what matters most: jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity. This is what our Conservative government has been doing.

On March 29, the Minister of Finance delivered economic action plan 2012, a comprehensive budget that coupled our low-tax policy with new actions to promote jobs and economic growth.

The 2012 budget proposed measures aimed at putting our finances in order, increasing innovation and creating suitable and applicable legislation in the area of resource development in order to promote a good, stable investment climate.

The budget was debated for four days and was adopted by the House on April 4. The Minister of Finance then introduced Bill C-38, Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, the 2012 budget implementation bill. The debate at second reading of Bill C-38 was the longest debate on a budget implementation bill in at least two decades, and probably the longest ever.

On May 14, after seven days of debate, Bill C-38 was passed at second reading.

The bill has also undergone extensive study in committee. The Standing Committee on Finance held in-depth hearings on the bill. The committee also created a special subcommittee for detailed examination of the bill's responsible resource development provisions. All told, this was the longest committee study of any budget implementation bill for at least the last two decades, and probably ever.

We need to pass Bill C-38 to implement the urgent provisions of economic action plan 2012. In addition to our economic measures, our government has brought forward and passed bills that keep the commitments we made to Canadians in the last election.

In a productive, hard-working and orderly way, we fulfilled long-standing commitments to give marketing freedom to western Canadian grain farmers, to end the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry, and to improve our democracy by moving every province closer to the principle of representation by population in the House of Commons.

However, in the past year our efforts to focus on the priorities of Canadians have been met with nothing but delay and obstruction tactics by the opposition. In some cases, opposition stalling and delaying tactics have meant that important bills are still not yet law. That is indeed regrettable.

In the case of Bill C-11, the copyright modernization act, a bill that will help to create good, high-paying jobs in Canada's creative and high-tech sectors, this House has debated the bill on 10 days. We heard 79 speeches on it before it was even sent to committee. This is, of course, on top of similar debate that occurred in previous Parliaments on similar bills.

It is important for us to get on with it and pass this bill for the sake of those sectors of our economy, to ensure that Canada remains competitive in a very dynamic, changing high-tech sector in the world, so that we can have Canadian jobs and Canadian leadership in that sector.

Bill C-24 is the bill to implement the Canada-Panama free trade agreement. It has also been the subject of numerous days of debate, in fact dozens and dozens of speeches in the House, and it has not even made it to committee yet.

Bill C-23 is the Canada-Jordan economic growth and prosperity act. It also implements another important job-creating free trade agreement.

All three of these bills have actually been before this place longer than for just the last year. As I indicated, they were originally introduced in previous Parliaments. Even then, they were supported by a majority of members of this House and were adopted and sent to committee. However, they are still not law.

We are here to work hard for Canadians. Adopting today's motion would give the House sufficient time to make progress on each of these bills prior to the summer recess. Adopting today's motion would also give us time to pass Bill C-25, the pooled registered pension plans act. It is a much-needed piece of legislation that would give Canadians in small businesses and self-employed workers yet another option to help support them in saving for their retirement. Our government is committed to giving Canadians as many options as possible to secure their retirement and to have that income security our seniors need. This is another example of how we can work to give them those options.

In addition to these bills that have been obstructed, opposed or delayed one way or another by the opposition, there are numerous bills that potentially have support from the opposition side but still have not yet come to a vote. By adding hours to each working day in the House over the next two weeks, we would allow time for these bills to come before members of Parliament for a vote. These include: Bill C-12, safeguarding Canadians' personal information act; and Bill C-15, strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act. I might add, that bill is long overdue as our military justice system is in need of these proposed changes. It has been looking for them for some time. It is a fairly small and discrete bill and taking so long to pass this House is not a testament to our productivity and efficiency. I hope we will be able to proceed with that.

Bill C-27 is the first nations financial transparency act, another step forward in accountability. Bill C-28 is the financial literacy leader act. At a time when we are concerned about people's financial circumstances, not just countries' but individuals', this is a positive step forward to help people improve their financial literacy so all Canadians can face a more secure financial future. Bill C-36 is the protecting Canada's seniors act which aims to prevent elder abuse. Does it not make sense that we move forward on that to provide Canadian seniors the protection they need from those very heinous crimes and offences which have become increasingly common in news reports in recent years?

Bill C-37 is the increasing offenders' accountability for victims act. This is another major step forward for readjusting our justice system which has been seen by most Canadians as being for too long concerned only about the rights and privileges of the criminals who are appearing in it, with insufficient consideration for the needs of victims and the impact of those criminal acts on them. We want to see a rebalancing of the system and that is why Bill C-37 is so important.

Of course, we have bills that have already been through the Senate, and are waiting on us to deal with them. Bill S-2, which deals with matrimonial real property, which would give fairness and equality to women on reserve, long overdue in this country. Let us get on with it and give first nations women the real property rights they deserve. Then there is Bill S-6, first nations electoral reform, a provision we want to see in place to advance democracy. Bill S-8 is the safe drinking water for first nations act; and Bill S-7 is the combatting terrorism act.

As members can see, there is plenty more work for this House to do. As members of Parliament, the least we can do is put in a bit of overtime and get these important measures passed.

In conclusion, Canada's economic strength, our advantage in these uncertain times, and our stability also depend on political stability and strong leadership. Across the world, political gridlock and indecision have led to economic uncertainty and they continue to threaten the world economy. That is not what Canadians want for their government. Our government is taking action to manage the country's business in a productive, hard-working and orderly fashion. That is why all members need to work together in a time of global economic uncertainty to advance the important bills I have identified, before we adjourn for the summer.

I call on all members to support today's motion to extend the working hours of this House by a few hours for the next two weeks. For the members opposite, not only do I hope for their support in this motion, I also hope I can count on them to put the interests of Canadians first and work with this government to pass the important bills that remain before us.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am not quite as enthusiastic as the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, but I will try.

This morning, my hon. friend, the member for Edmonton—Leduc and chair of the hard-working Standing Committee on Finance reported to this House that Bill C-38, the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, has passed the committee and been recommended for adoption by the House.

I am pleased that the Standing Committee on Finance followed the lead of the House with respect to the longest debate on a budget bill in the past two decades. The committee gave this bill the longest consideration for a budget bill in at least two decades. That is in addition to the subcommittee spending additional time to consider the responsible resource development clauses.

This very important legislation, our budget implementation legislation, economic action plan 2012, will help to secure vital economic growth for Canada in the short, medium and long term. Given the fragile world economy that is around us, this bill is clearly needed, so we must move forward. Therefore, I plan to start report stage on the bill Monday at noon.

In the interim, we will consider second reading of Bill C-24 this afternoon. This bill would implement our free trade agreement with Panama, which I signed when I was international trade minister, some 755 days ago. It is now time to get that bill passed.

Tomorrow, we will consider third reading of Bill C-31, the protecting Canada's immigration system act, so the Senate will have an opportunity to review the bill before it must become law, within a few weeks' time.

Next week I plan to give priority to bills which have been reported back from committee. It goes without saying that we will debate Bill C-38, our budget implementation bill. I am given to understand that there is a lot of interest this time around in the process of report stage motion tabling, selection and grouping.

Additionally, we will finish third reading of Bill C-25, the pooled registered pension plans act, and Bill C-23, the Canada–Jordan economic growth and prosperity act.

The House will also finish third reading of Bill C-11, the copyright modernization act. The bill is a vital tool to unlock the potential of our creative and digital economy. It is time that elected parliamentarians should have their say on its passage once and for all. I would like to see that vote happen no later than Monday, June 18.

If we have time remaining, the House will also debate second reading of Bill C-24, the Panama free trade act, if more time is necessary, as well as for Bill C-7, the Senate reform act, and Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act.

Canada–Jordan Economic Growth and Prosperity Act

[Devinder Shory, Conservative, Calgary Northeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today in the House to speak about Bill C-23, which is the Canada-Jordan free trade agreement and related agreements on labour co-operation and the environment. Canada signed this agreement with Jordan on June 28, 2009. The government is taking action during these difficult economic times by reaching out to our trading partners and reducing barriers to trade.

Jordan is a key partner for Canada in the pursuit of peace and security in the Middle East and we welcome this opportunity to strengthen our ties with this regional leader. These agreements mark a positive step forward, further enhancing Canada-Jordan relations by stimulating increased trade and investment between our two countries. Upon implementation, the immediate elimination of tariffs on the vast majority of current Canadian exports to Jordan will benefit Canadian exporters, Canadian families and Canadian workers.

This free trade agreement provides Canadian companies with a competitive edge in a variety of sectors, including forest products, machinery, construction equipment and agricultural and agri-foods products such as pulse crops, frozen french fries, animal feed and various prepared foods.

The Canada-Jordan FTA will also improve the competitiveness of Canadian exporters in the Jordanian marketplace and their foreign competitors, particularly from the U.S. and Europe, which already have trade agreements with Jordan.

I move:

That this question be now put.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak at this stage of Bill C-23, which is the Canada-Jordan trade agreement.

A great deal has occurred since the trade agreement was initially agreed to in August 2008, four years ago. When the agreement was officially announced in June 2009, the Arab Spring had yet to occur. The instability that has overtaken the region in the past year has been nothing short of transformative. In this climate, the FTA with Jordan is about to unfold.

We are supportive of the bill in principle, as we have been supportive of previous trade agreements. However, we remind the government, which boasts about its trade agreement accomplishments, that this agreement with Jordan is now more than four years old and still has not really been completed. That point was raised by witnesses before the international trade committee.

It is easy to announce new so-called agreements, but it would be nice to finalize them. That seems to be a long time coming. There is a lot of talk by the government on all the trade agreements it has on the go, but we have yet to see much in terms of results. Closing deals is something that the government just cannot seem to achieve.

I would note that the CETA agreement is not near completion, although the minister said earlier in the year that it would be completed before spring. Now the minister is saying that it is going to be a considerably longer period of time.

On the trans-Pacific partnership that the government is talking about getting into, the problem is that the price of admission is the selling out of our supply management system. The members of the TPP know it and the government knows it.

I will give the government some credit, in that it has said it will not put it at issue on the table as the price of getting into negotiations. However, we are concerned about what we are hearing from TPP partners. We know of Canada's great interest in getting in and we know that one of the conditions raised by the United States and New Zealand is in fact at the price of our supply management system.

This morning I had the opportunity to tour, with a couple of members of the NDP and a member of the Conservative government, some supply management operations an hour outside of Ottawa. The success of those operations is phenomenal in terms of their ability to provide consumers with a high-quality product at reasonable prices.

Driving through that community, we see quite a number of supply management operations. hose numbers tell us of the health of that industry, not only in terms of the operations themselves but also in terms of the communities and their development. People in the community are bringing sons and daughters into the operations.

Supply management is a very successful program, and we need to ensure, no matter what the trade agreement, that our supply management system remains intact and successful in this country. I would suggest it is a model of rural development that we should be promoting to the rest of the world, rather than giving the multinational corporate sector the advantages it wants through the demise of supply management.

However, I believe it is just a matter of time before the government finds a way to transition our supply-managed system to a more open market system. In fact, we have seen the Prime Minister's statement when he signed the deal with the Conservative Party and the Alliance party. The Prime Minister himself said that he would like to see supply management basically be given some time to transfer to the open market system.

Those are the words of the Prime Minister before he was prime minister. We just simply, from this end, do not trust the government on maintaining its support for supply management when it comes down to the hard fight.

During the course of committee testimony, Jim Stanford of the Canadian Auto Workers presented the committee with facts that should be of concern to all Canadians concerned about economic growth and the real impact of trade agreements that the government is pursuing. The facts speak for themselves. We have, as a country, lost more ground than we gained through the free trade agreements that we have signed and we have actually performed better with countries that we do not have any such arrangements with. That is a concern.

According to Mr. Stanford:

I've reviewed our five longest-standing trade pacts: with the United States, Mexico, Israel, Chile and Costa Rica. Canada's exports to them grew more slowly than our exports to non-free-trade partners, while our imports surged much faster than with the rest of the world.

Mr. Stanford went on to say:

If the policy goal (sensibly) is to boost exports and strengthen the trade balance, then signing free-trade deals is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Mr. Stanford himself said that he supports trade arrangements. He respects the importance of trade. However, I think that statement spells out something that we do not have in this country that the Liberals believe we should have—that is, an industrial strategy, in terms of value added, that has to happen domestically and internally within the country to reap more of the benefits back to Canadians and the Canadian labour force from these trade agreements. I think that is what we are missing. That is something that I think the country has to work on.

Allow me to focus on the Canada-Jordan agreement itself.

We should keep in mind a cautionary note included in a recent report by the RAND Corporation, which stated:

Small states situated next to states in turmoil frequently suffer collateral economic damage. Jordan is a case in point.

There are a couple of areas of concern that were raised during the hearings by the international trade committee. Among the areas of concern are those related to child labour matters and to other labour-related issues which would best be resolved through an open and transparent agreement. I will get to a statement on that aspect in a moment

We have heard a bit about the labour conditions and working conditions in Jordan, and it is really a matter of concern. Jordan is a country with a workforce of 1.8 million, of which 313,000 are guest workers. That means they are migrant workers in the country. According to a September 2011 Human Rights Watch report:

Pressing financial needs have led hundreds of thousands of women to migrate as domestic workers to Jordan, where many face systemic and systematic abuse. This results from a recruitment system in which employers and recruitment agencies disempower workers through deceit, debt, and blocking information about rights and means of redress; and a work environment that isolates the worker and engenders dependency on employers and recruitment agencies under laws that penalize escape. Jordanian law contains provisions and omissions that facilitate mistreatment, while officials foster impunity by failing to hold employers and agencies to account when they violate labor protections or commit crimes, and belittling or ignoring a disturbing pattern of abuse.

What concerned me as I started to raise questions on this issue was the trade zones in Jordan where these plants for manufacturing garments are. They are not local companies or employers, nor do they employ local employees. These are migrant workers who are coming in. The plants are located in Jordan and there is some spinoff to the economy but we will find that the companies are owned elsewhere, the managers are often from other countries and the workers are migrant workers, just to put into context the way that these operations work.

The International Labour Organization, the ILO, in a July 2011 report on Jordan, outlined the following area of concern. It states:

Since 2006, continuous action has been taken to improve labour law compliance in particular in Qualified Industrial Zones (free trade zones) and the apparel sector as a response to the increasing number of labour infractions in relation to migrant work in this sector.

It goes on to state:

In Jordan, labour inspection campaigns are conducted in the apparel sector, as many labour law infringements take place in this sector, mostly concerning migrant workers.

Therefore, there is a lot of concern being expressed by the ILO as it relates to this issue.

We did hear testimony that was rather disturbing and it is on the committee record. I would like to mention some of that testimony because we were told by the Jordanian representatives that there was some improvement, and I will grant them that, but it has not improved to the extent that we would like to see. Therefore, I am putting this on the record to make it very clear to Jordan that the Government of Canada is watching, the NDP is watching and we are watching.

This testimony was given by a Mr. Jeff Vogt, legal advisor to the Department of Human and Trade Union Rights of the International Trade Union Confederation, the ITUC, which is a global confederation of some 160 million workers worldwide, including workers in Canada. He gave testimony on March 29 of this year. He stated from a report that he had done:

The workers have no rights whatsoever. It's a real sweatshop. Workers are housed in primitive dormitories. The Chinese workers and Bangladeshi workers have no voice. In the dormitories during wintertime, there is not sufficient heat or hot water. Their bathing facilities are a bucket of water; they use a cup and splash water on themselves. The workers are treated with no rights whatsoever.

He went on to say:

I would say in that Rich Pine factory, every single labour right under Jordanian law and under the U.S. free trade agreement is being blatantly violated in broad daylight.

Those are pretty serious allegations. What I find troubling is that those are the working conditions so that the wealthy in the industrialized countries of the world can buy cheaper clothes. There is something wrong with that situation. We would certainly demand that the Jordanian government apply the laws that it has in place so that those kinds of working conditions do not exist.

He went on further to say:

I want to talk finally and briefly about the Classic factory in Jordan. It's the largest factory in Jordan. There are 5,000 workers from Egypt, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and China.

They have $125 million of exports to the U.S., most of it Walmart and Hanes. The workers are working 14, 15 hours a day. Maybe they get two Fridays off a month. The workers are slapped, screamed at. When shipments have to go out, they'll work 18-and-a-half-hour shifts. But that's the least of it. What we have discovered is that at the Classic factory, Jordan's largest factory, there are scores and scores of young women guest workers who have been raped at the Classic factory.

He goes on and explains further.

The fact is that, even though Jordanian representatives have come before committee and talked about the laws, from what we are hearing in that testimony, they are not being forced aggressively enough. That should not be happening in the global community in terms of apparel manufacturing. Those are inhuman conditions for people to work in. It is clearly a violation of human rights, and unacceptable.

I would suggest that the Canadian government needs to be very strenuous in its observation of those labour rights and demanding that proper labour and human rights be applied to the workers following a signature to this free trade agreement.

The Canada–Jordan labour co-operation agreement would commit both countries to ensuring that their laws respect the International Labour Organization's declaration of fundamental principles and rights at work.

The ILO's 1998 declaration, which aims to ensure that social progress goes hand in hand with economic development covers the right to freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, the abolition of child labour, the elimination of forced or compulsory labour and the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

To further protect the rights of workers, Canada and Jordan have also committed to acceptable protection for occupational health and safety; acceptable minimum employment standards, such as minimum wage and hours of work; providing compensation in case of workplace injuries and illnesses; and providing migrant workers with the same legal protection as nationals in respect to working conditions. I think it is very important that that agreement is part of this FTA with Jordan.

The countries have also agreed, subject to the availability of resources, to develop a framework for co-operative activities that he will allow Jordan to better meet its obligations under the LCA.

I will come back to what I said earlier. A lot needs to be done to ensure that workers' rights, human rights and the conditions of work are being applied properly because, clearly, as Mr. Jeff Vogt said on March 29, the evidence is that that has not been happening to date.

The United States department of state, in its most recent country report on human rights 2010, outlined a number of concerns which, even though the statutes are in place, remain. I will not go through all those concerns that are outlined in that report. I have outlined a lot in terms of the rights' issues.

While the Conservatives have proclaimed the promotion of trade, it has been under their watch that the mismanagement of the file in terms of trading relationships has resulted in trade deficits for the first time in over 30 years.

With respect to the United States, we have seen the government surprised by increased United States protectionist actions. First, it was surprised by the initial buy American provisions in the 2008 United States stimulus package. Second, it was surprised in the fall of 2011 when buy American provisions returned in the Obama administration's recent jobs plan. Finally, it was surprised by the announcement of the United States Federal Maritime Commission that, at the instigation of United States senators, an investigation in United States-bound container traffic being diverted to Canadian ports and whether to impose fees or tariffs as a result of the diverted trade.

While we are looking at a lot of trade deals around the world, the government is falling down on the ones we already have in existence.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on behalf of the official opposition New Democrats about Bill C-23, an act to implement the free trade agreement between Canada and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The bill affords me my first opportunity to speak in this House, not only on this bill in specific terms, but also on what I think are the principles that should guide Canada's trade policy in general. I would like to start by speaking about some of those principles.

New Democrats are a pro-trade party. We understand deeply that Canada is a trading nation, and always has been. Our economic system depends, in substantial measure, upon selling goods, commodities and services to the world. We are in the enviable position of having a wealth of resources that the world wants to buy. In exchange, Canada also benefits from the importation of many products and services from around the world. These items supplement Canada's natural bounty and provide a richness and diversity that enhance the quality of living for all Canadians.

However, we approach pro-trade policy somewhat differently from what the Conservatives and, indeed, the Liberals have traditionally done. In our view, trade policy should respect and incorporate thoughtful and established values, trade agreements must meet concrete objectives, Here are some of the core principles that New Democrats believe should guide Canadian trade policy.

Trade deals must result in increased trade that benefits Canada's export sectors. Disturbingly, data is showing that in a number of cases, Canadian trade deals have resulted in imports exceeding exports, which adds to our trade deficit, costs us jobs and impairs our economic growth.

Trade deals must be reciprocal. Good trade deals allow fair access by Canadian enterprises to international markets that seek access to our own. Trade deals must create good jobs in Canada. It is vitally important that Canada encourage value-added production and enhance the value of our exports. Shipping raw products out of Canada is short-sighted and shortchanges Canadians. Good deals must raise the economic and social conditions in each jurisdiction. Respect for human rights and a concerted focus to raise the living and employment conditions for the people of the trading nations must be major priorities.

Trade deals must respect and improve environmental standards. In an interdependent world, that is increasingly aware of our need to sustain development, ensuring that commerce is done sustainably is critical. Finally, trade deals must not damage our democracy by diminishing the ability of governments at all levels to make decisions in the best interests of our citizens. All these issues must be factored in and create a balanced approach to trade.

As I have said, Canada is a trading nation and engaging in trade is demonstrably economically beneficial to Canada. It always has been.

However, that does not mean that we have to give up our sovereignty or our ability to set good policy to do so. This leads me to another policy area that is inextricably linked to trade, that is industrial policy. Trade is not only about with whom we trade and on what terms. It is also about what we produce in our country to trade. Industrial policy is fundamentally linked to trade because our industrial policy is about what we make and how we make the things that we are trading.

The guiding principle for New Democrats is that government must help create the conditions to create and develop good, well-paying, sustainable jobs here in Canada for our citizens and future generations of Canadians. As a cornerstone, a strong industrial policy would help Canadian enterprises make value-added products here in Canada. We must make the successful transition from being hewers of wood and drawers of water to an economy that is based upon secondary and tertiary production.

The resource extraction sector in Canada is incredibly important to our economy. However, wherever possible, we should be developing our resources before shipping them off to another country for them to add value. Shipping raw logs to the U.S. or China only to see those economies derive the benefits of exponentially adding value is not only unwise, it costs our citizens jobs. Shipping raw bitumen offshore instead of processing it in Canada costs our businesses profits and our economy billions of dollars.

New Democrats want to encourage a manufacturing sector that makes products here in Canada, high-quality goods made by Canadians making good wages in safe conditions under the most effective environmental protection. In fact, governments all over the world, from the EU countries to China to Taiwan, from Japan to South Korea to Brazil, are partnering with their private sectors to develop domestic industrial policies that position their enterprises to be successful on the world stage while developing their local economies.

Canada must do the same. Government assistance in market development, R and D support, incentives for sustainable technologies and support for strong education systems are vital parts of a successful trade policy.

Let me now turn to the trade agreement at hand, Bill C-23, 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 co-operation between Canada and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Canada and Jordan signed a trade agreement in June 2009. It consists of three separate but linked agreements: the actual free trade agreement and parallel agreements on labour and the environment. The free trade component is relatively straightforward. It eliminates or reduces tariffs on a wide variety of goods and services.

Currently, Jordanian tariffs are quite low. While some are as high as 30%, the average tariff rate is 10%. Most tariff rates are in single digits. Jordan would eliminate all non-agricultural tariffs, which currently average 11%. These include tariffs of 10% to 30% on many products of Canadian export interest, including industrial and electrical machinery, auto parts, construction equipment and forest products. Canada would eliminate all non-agricultural tariffs in turn and most agricultural tariffs on Jordan's imports to Canada immediately. Over-quota tariffs on supply managed goods, dairy, poultry, eggs, et cetera are exempt from this deal. Non-tariff barriers would be dealt with through the creation of a committee on trade in goods and rules of origin as a forum for discussion.

Turning to the labour co-operation agreement, the labour rights provisions in the Canada-Jordan deal include both the summary in the main trade agreement of obligations on labour issues and a separate agreement on labour co-operation where the labour obligations are elaborated in greater detail. The agreement references rights contained in the 1998 ILO declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work and the ILO's decent work agenda, which are very substantive. The following commitments are made:

Each Party shall ensure that its labour law and practices embody and provide protection for the following internationally recognized labour principles and rights: (a) freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining (including protection of the right to organize and the right to strike); (b) the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour; (c) the effective abolition of child labour; (d) the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation (including equal pay for women and men); (e) acceptable minimum employment standards, such as minimum wages and overtime pay; (f) the prevention of occupational injuries and illnesses; (g) compensation in cases of occupational injuries or illnesses; and (h) non-discrimination in respect of working conditions for migrant workers.

In principle, a complaint regarding labour violations could lead to a ministerial consultation, a review panel for determination of non-compliance and ultimately, to the imposition of fines being paid by the offending government.

The agreement on the environment obligates both sides to comply with and enforce effectively their domestic environmental laws, not to weaken these laws in an effort to attract investment, ensure proceedings are available to remedy violations of environmental laws, co-operate on compliance in environmental technologies, and allow members of the public to question obligations under the agreement. An independent review panel process is also present.

After careful consideration of the agreement, I am pleased to announce that Canada's New Democrats will support the passage of Bill C-23. The Canada-Jordan deal is not perfect. It is not a deal in a form that a New Democrat government would necessarily have negotiated. However, after careful consideration of the deal before us, we have determined that it is worthy of support because we think it is good both for the Canadian and the Jordanian people and because it avoids the major problems that characterize other trade deals that the Canadian government has signed.

Here are some of the major reasons the New Democrats will support the bill. While Jordan is a minor trade partner, the agreement would provide net economic gains for Canada, including in value-added industries, and for Jordan. There is no real evidence of domestic harm to the Canadian economy caused by this trading relationship or agreement. In fact, trade relations and volumes have been increasing among both countries in positive fashion. The New Democrats believe this agreement would bolster business and jobs in both nations. Jordan is a moderate Arab state with a constructive foreign policy that has made, and is making, important progress in the areas of democracy, human rights and labour standards.

This agreement addresses labour standards squarely, and in particular the rights of migrant workers, which were not included in the trade deal the United States made with Jordan 10 years ago. These include elevated standards of work hours, wage protection and stronger penalties against human trafficking. They also include extending domestic employment standards to migrant workers and affording them the ability to join unions if they so wish.

Jordan has demonstrated its commitment to raising the living conditions of its workers, including raising the minimum wage twice in the last several years. Anti-discrimination commitments and provisions to raise conditions among Jordanian migrant workers will particularly help women, who make up two-thirds of the migrant work force.

At committee, the ILO testified that there is encouraging progress on labour issues in Jordan.

New Democrats supported this legislation at second reading, and at that time we stated in the House that we would consider further support if the labour situation continued to improve in Jordan. In important ways, it has.

The environmental agreement, while far from perfect, contains a benchmark commitment to enforce environmental standards. In addition, this free trade agreement contains no investor-state provision, which we generally oppose. There are no invasive chapters on public procurement or intellectual property in this deal, which are serious criticisms of other trade deals including in CETA presently being negotiated.

With no agreement, trade with Jordan will still occur given the low tariffs. It is therefore arguably better to sign an agreement that engages Jordan in a positive, constructive manner with significant commitments than to have none at all. Sometimes it is better to have good progress, if not perfect progress.

As the dominant economy in this relationship, Canada is in a strong position to ensure enforcement of and compliance with labour and environmental commitments. New Democrats will hold the government to account to make sure it does this. When we form the government, we will actively engage with all of our trading partners to ensure compliance with our agreements.

Unlike Colombia, Jordan is not a major human rights violator. Unlike Panama, Jordan is not an international money laundering jurisdiction or tax haven.

I want to read a quote from Ms. Nancy Donaldson, director of the Washington office of the International Labour Organization, who testified at committee. She said:

The government has placed employment and decent work for Jordanians at the heart of its response strategy....They endorsed the national employment strategy in May 2011...formally signed a decent work country program, or a national framework strategy, for 2012 to 2015.

The goal is to support national initiatives to reduce decent work deficits and strengthen national capacity to mainstream decent work.

...We're excited about Jordan because very recently the government has decided they are going to require all manufacturers to participate in the Better Work Jordan program. That means, frankly, bad actors can't opt out and have good actors carry the responsibility.

It's a good policy approach. There are monitoring processes, which are then reported back to the manufacturers, with remedial recommendations where there is non-compliance. Then, after a period of time, they are published for the public to know and for the brands to know.

We've been in Jordan long enough now that we are seeing some progress in a number of areas where there has been difficulty in non-compliance.

Mr. Pierre Bouchard, director of bilateral and regional labour affairs in the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development, said:

To elaborate on those options and what the legal obligations are, it's important to underline that our agreement with Jordan is the first agreement where Jordan makes specific commitments concerning the labour rights of migrant workers.

These are encouraging signs. This shows a willingness and a good faith attitude on the part of our trading partner, which gives us hope that this deal will encourage continued progress in Jordan.

While the development of respect for the rights of labour and migrant workers in Jordan is encouraging, there is more work to be done. At committee, there was also alarming testimony about continuing mistreatment of workers in Jordan, particularly in the qualified industrial zones where migrant labour is used. Concerns have been raised about the ability to effectively enforce the standards called for in the labour side deal.

This agreement also has no real sanctions or penalties for non-compliance with the environmental side agreement.

While there is no investor-state provision in the free trade agreement, Canada did sign a foreign investment protection agreement with Jordan in advance of this deal, which contains the very problematic tribunal complaint mechanism that subjects governments to attack by multinational corporations, as we just saw in the Mobil decision that will cost the Newfoundland and Labrador government and the Canadian government millions of dollars for simply requiring that certain research work be done in Canada. This shows how important protecting sovereign democratic rights in trade agreements is and why New Democrats believe so strongly in doing so.

This leads to an important point. Signing an agreement is not an end in itself, and it is not the end of the process either. As with any good contract and ongoing relationship, care must be taken to monitor and enforce the reciprocal commitments if the deal is truly to have integrity and meet its stated objectives. I sincerely hope that the present government will take this care.

However, we must recognize when we see an agreement that does not have many of the provisions to which we object. We see that here. We must recognize when we are working with a partner who, while by no means perfect, as we are not, is improving with regard to human rights and labour rights. We see that in Jordan. We must recognize when we see a deal that will bring mutual economic benefit to Canada, our trading partner and our business sector. While Jordan is a small trading partner, our trade relationship is growing and we see that this agreement would bring mutual benefit. That is why I am happy to stand with my New Democrat colleagues and support this bill.

This is the beginning of a new chapter in our trade relationship with Jordan. Our countries already trade with each other every day, but this is the start of a new engagement which we, along with the government, business and other stakeholders, including, most importantly, the labour movement and civil society, believe has the capacity to bring increased economic activity, improved labour standards and a lasting commitment to environmental protection to both countries.

If these results do not occur, we can withdraw from this agreement. This agreement provides that either party can give six months' notice at any time and withdraw. This is something that is not mentioned enough. We cannot just sign a deal and assume that the market will take care of everything or that others will monitor the agreement for us. We cannot assume that the promised benefits of trade agreements will happen organically and magically without monitoring or working hard. If, as the time goes on, we determine that the benefits are not happening, we should not hesitate to use the termination clause that is present in all trade agreements to get out of this deal, if required. Promises must not just be made; they must be kept.

In conclusion, I want to say how exciting it is for me to have been named the official opposition critic for international trade at this time. Now more than ever, Canada's New Democrats are poised to form the government, but New Democrats know that this does not just happen and that the trust of the electorate is not something to be taken for granted. It must be earned.

With regard to trade, I am excited to show Canadians that a New Democrat government would put trade at the top of its agenda. I am excited to work with business, labour, all levels of government and civil society to build a new template for the trade deals we would sign, because New Democrats know we can sign deals that do not hurt our democracy by imposing restrictions on provinces and municipalities to make policy. We need not sell our sovereignty or impair our democracy by insisting on investor-state dispute resolution mechanisms that tip the balance of power away from people to multinational corporations.

We know we can unite trade policy with sound environmental protection and labour and human rights standards. We know we can have better enforcement mechanisms to ensure these are not empty promises. We know we can sign trade deals that provide a mutual benefit to Canada and our trading partners. New Democrats will write better trade agreements than the current government and the Liberals before them.

Today our world faces many large questions. Can we have a global economy that has global, social and environmental policies and open democratic governance by the economic decision-makers? Can we ensure that the benefits of increased trade produce shared gains that elevate the living standards of all the people of our world? Can we commit to a more just economic policy that sees trade as a tool to make a better world for every nation? New Democrats say yes, we can. We will continue to show Canadians that a New Democrat government would advocate positive proposals precisely to these ends.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today to commence the third reading debate on the Canada-Jordan economic growth and prosperity act.

The Canada-Jordan free trade agreement is yet another example of our government's commitment to helping Canadian businesses compete in markets abroad and create more jobs for Canadian workers here at home. We continue to see fierce competition in the global marketplace, with emerging economies and global players further establishing themselves in a wide range of sectors and integrating themselves into global value chains.

In a number of countries, Canadian firms are at a disadvantage because their foreign competitors have preferential market access under some form of free trade agreement. Like other initiatives in our negotiating agenda, the Canada-Jordan free trade agreement addresses this serious issue by levelling the playing field with key competitors who are already benefiting from preferential market access to Jordan, namely, businesses from the United States and the European Union.

Through the negotiation and signing of the free trade agreement with Jordan, our government is ensuring that Canadian firms are on an equal footing to compete with firms from across the world in the Jordanian market.

Opening doors to trade and investment is the right approach to create opportunities for Canadian workers and businesses in global markets. Our government will do everything it can to ensure that Canadian workers and businesses have the tools and opportunities to build the links needed to succeed in today's global economy. We are committed to bringing continued economic prosperity to Canadians by pursuing bilateral and regional free trade agreements. That is why we are moving forward on an ambitious pro-trade plan to help Canadians compete and win in global markets.

Over the years, Canada and Jordan have built a strong, mutually beneficial relationship and this free trade agreement continues to build on that important relationship. It is a relationship grounded in common aspirations, aspirations like peace, stability and prosperity for our citizens, and this new free trade agreement would help to move these aspirations forward.

Members will recall that, in 2007, the Prime Minister joined His Majesty King Abdullah II in a commitment to take our commercial relationship to the next level. The Canada-Jordan free trade agreement, along with related agreements on labour co-operation and the environment signed in 2009, are a direct result of this commitment. This free trade agreement would benefit both Canada and Jordan by giving Canadian and Jordanian exporters unprecedented access to our respective markets, eliminating tariffs on a number of key products.

Jordan's current average applied tariff is 10%, with peaks of up to 30% applied on some products of Canadian export interests. In fact, 67% of Jordanian tariff lines, covering over 99% of Canadian exports, will be eliminated when the agreement is first implemented. Jordan's remaining tariff reductions will then take place over three to five years.

Of course, a free trade agreement is not a one-way street, nor should it be. Jordan also stands to gain from this free trade agreement. Our government will eliminate all Canadians tariffs on Jordanian goods immediately upon entry into force of the agreement, with the exception of over-quota supply managed dairy, poultry and egg products which are excluded from the tariff reduction.

Canada's trade with Jordan is very diverse. Our top five merchandise exports to Jordan are pulses, mainly lentils and chick peas; wood; vehicles; paper and paperboard; and machinery. Our bilateral merchandise exports more than doubled between 2003 and 2011. This free trade agreement would further enhance the Canada-Jordan trade relationship.

Members will remember that our free trade agreement was just one of the agreements we signed with Jordan in 2009. We also signed a bilateral foreign investment protection and promotion agreement, or FIPA, which came into force on December 14, 2009. This agreement establishes clear rules for investment between our two countries. Canadian investors are particularly excited about opportunities in Jordan's resource extraction, energy, telecommunications, transportation, manufacturing and infrastructure sectors. The FIPA provides Canadian and Jordanian investors with the predictability and certainty they need when investing in one another's markets.

I am sure all hon. members would all agree that this free trade agreement and the 2009 FIPA with Jordan are no doubt complementary.

In addition to the free trade agreement and the FIPA, our government also signed parallel agreements on labour co-operation and the environment. The labour co-operation agreement signed with Jordan includes commitments to ensuring that each other's laws respect the International Labour Organization's 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and that they protect labour rights and provide a mechanism to address labour complaints.

Canada and Jordan have also negotiated an agreement on the environment that commits the parties to maintain high levels of environmental protection, to effectively enforce domestic environmental laws and to not relax or derogate from such laws to attract trade or investment.

Canada believes that trade liberalization and environmental protection can and must be mutually supportive.

We are living in very challenging economic times and our government has made the economy its number one priority. In order to ensure that our economy continues to grow and continues to compete in the global marketplace, trade barriers are being broken down all across the world through new free trade agreements.

Protectionism is never the answer.

Demonstrating Canada's commitment through new agreements, such as the Canada-Jordan free trade agreement, is key to encouraging other countries, including developing nations, to reject protectionism and embrace free and open trade.

Our government recognizes that trade and investment are cornerstones of our economic success as a nation. Sixty per cent of our GDP and one in five jobs depend upon trade. While our economy has out-performed much of the world in recent years, we cannot take our success for granted. Hard-working Canadians are counting on us to continue expanding markets and opening doors for our businesses to succeed around the world.

That is what our pro-trade plan is all about. It is the most ambitious plan of its kind in Canada's history. The potential benefits are enormous. This is why I ask all hon. members to support Bill C-23, the Canada-Jordan economic growth and prosperity act.

I said earlier in my speech that we should not take Canada's prosperity for granted and we should not. The prosperity that we have today is based on a number of tenets. It is based on a secure and solid financial footing. It is based on free trade agreements and jobs and opportunities for Canadian businesses and workers through those agreements.

Before I sit down I would be remiss not to ask our opposition critics and the opposition parties to support this agreement, then to move forward and support Panama and support the agreement with the European Union because that is the only way that we will maintain our place in the world and maintain markets for our Canadian businesses and jobs for our Canadian workers.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-23, 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, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, we will continue with the NDP's opposition day motion.

Tomorrow, we will finish report stage on Bill C-31, the Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act. Including second reading, this will be the eighth day of debate on the bill, in addition to many committee meetings. As the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism told the House on Tuesday, this bill must become law by June 29.

On Monday, we will resume the third reading debate on Bill C-25,, the pooled registered pension plans act. Following question period that day, we will mark Her Majesty the Queen's jubilee and pay tribute to her 60 years on the throne. After that special occasion, we will get back to the usual business of the day, debating legislation. Bill C-23, the Canada–Jordan economic growth and prosperity act, will be taken up at report stage and third reading.

Jumping ahead to next Thursday, we will resume debating Bill C-24, the Canada–Panama economic growth and prosperity act, at second reading. I would also call Bill C-25 that day if the debate does not finish on Monday.

Finally, June 5 and 6 shall be the seventh and eighth allotted days, both of which will see the House debate motions from the NDP.

I can confirm notice of a motion for unanimous consent regarding the private member's bill, Bill C-311. This is the bill to amend the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act that the NDP filibustered the other day. I understand the NDP has now agreed that was a mistake and it is willing to allow it to proceed to a vote at this time. Therefore, we anticipate we will be consenting to that motion to undo the damage that the NDP unwisely did when it filibustered the bill previously.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, our government's priority is, of course, the economy. We are committed to job creation and economic growth.

As a result, this afternoon we will continue debate on Bill C-38, the jobs, growth and long-term prosperity act. This bill implements the budget, Canada's economic action plan 2012, to ensure certainty for the economy.

For the benefit of Canadians and parliamentarians, when we introduced the bill, we said we would vote on it on May 14. The second reading vote on the jobs, growth and long-term prosperity act will be on May 14.

After tomorrow, which will be the final day of debate on this bill, we will have had the longest second reading debate on a budget bill in at least the last two decades.

On Monday and Tuesday we will continue with another bill that will support the Canadian economy and job creation, especially in the digital and creative sectors.

We will have report stage and third reading debate on Bill C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act.

This bill puts forth a balanced, common sense plan to modernize our copyright laws. Committees have met for over 60 hours and heard from almost 200 witnesses. All of this is in addition to the second reading debate on Bill C-11 of 10 sitting days.

After all that debate and study, it is time for the measures to be fully implemented so Canadians can take advantage of the updated rules and create new high-quality digital jobs.

Should the opposition agree that we have already had ample debate on Bill C-11, we will debate Bill C-25, the pooled registered pension plans act; Bill C-23, the Canada–Jordan free trade act; and Bill C-15, the strengthening military justice in the defence of Canada act in the remaining time on Monday and Tuesday.

Wednesday, May 16, will be the next allotted day.

On Thursday morning, May 17, we will debate the pooled registered pension plans act. This bill will help Canadians who are self-employed or who work for a small business to secure a stable retirement.

In the last election, we committed to Canadians that we would implement these plans as soon as possible. This is what Canadians voted for and this is what we will do.

If it has been reported back from committee, we will call Bill C-31, the protecting Canada's immigration system act, for report stage debate on Thursday afternoon.

[Bob Kirke, Executive Director, Canadian Apparel Federation]

Mr. Chair, honourable members, I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to speak to you regarding a Canada-Japan bilateral trade agreement.

My name is Bob Kirke. I'm the executive director of the Canadian Apparel Federation. Our association is made up of several hundred firms throughout the apparel industry. Members of our association import and export apparel throughout the world. They make it in Canada and abroad. We also count as our members industry suppliers and vertical retailers.

I recently had the pleasure to appear before the committee on Bill C-23. I'm happy you were able to report to the House regarding the Canada-Jordan Free Trade Agreement, and I'm happy to speak to you today about a very different agreement, with a much different trading partner.

Before I address the merits of free trade with Japan, perhaps I could provide a little background on the specific rules of origin that apply to apparel in our bilateral trade agreements. I'd like to outline how we view these rules and mention a few of our industry's international trade priorities.

Before the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, Canadian exports of apparel were minimal. After the FTA we grew as an industry almost exclusively on the basis of exports to the United States. Canadian apparel manufacturers prospered under the Canada-U.S. FTA and NAFTA, and we became far more market oriented within the North American marketplace.

Once import quotas on imports from lower-cost countries were fully removed at the end of 2004, many companies reoriented their production to take advantage of trade liberalization, both for the domestic market and the U.S. In basic terms that meant moving production to other regions of the world, particularly Asia.

We have had and we continue to have good success under NAFTA, but I want to underline for you that the success has come despite the product specific rules of origin, and not because of them. For that reason I would like to mention a few things about the standard apparel rule of origin that Canada has incorporated into many of its bilateral agreements—pretty much everything since NAFTA.

Under the Canada-U.S. FTA, we had a specific rule of origin established for Canadian manufactured garments. To qualify for free trade they had to be manufactured in Canada from fabric produced in ether Canada or the United States. This is what's called a fabric forward rule of origin.

NAFTA, which came into force 18 years ago now, imposed a significantly more stringent rule. Under NAFTA, for apparel to qualify for free trade, the yarn had to be produced in North America, the fabric had to be manufactured within North America, and the garment had to be cut and sown in one of the NAFTA countries. This is a yarn-forward rule of origin.

The challenge created by the rule of origin is that it establishes the unlikely scenario where the origin of a garment, similar to what I'm wearing now, and its tariff treatment are determined by the origin of the yarns woven into the fabrics, which are then designed and cut and sown and made into a garment. Since NAFTA, virtually every free trade agreement Canada has negotiated has been based on these rules of origin.

For the record, the Canadian apparel industry never supported this rule of origin, for apparel in NAFTA or any other agreement. These rules are cumbersome and serve as a barrier to trade. I would be happy to give the committee numerous examples of how this complicates trade.

With respect to Japan, our message to the committee and the government regarding any agreement with Japan is very simple: we support this initiative. The Japanese market is challenging, but it has great potential for all our industry. But free trade with Japan should be undertaken with the most straightforward rule of origin for our products.

The Canadian government has recently implemented agreements with less burdensome rules, for example, the FTA between Canada and the European Free Trade Association, EFTA, which was implemented in 2009. Under the Canada-EFTA accord, there's a simple rule of origin for apparel. To qualify for free trade, apparel need only be cut and sown in the territory of one of the parties to qualify for free trade. There's no restriction on the raw material origin.

These are precisely the type of rules our industry needs when we are trading with another developed country such as Japan. For both Canada and Japan, their mainly domestic production of apparel is focused on niche markets, the higher value-added goods. There is potential to grow this trade between the two countries, but only if we adopt simple rules of origin.

We would also add that we urge the government to proceed on a bilateral basis with Japan, and not wait for the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal to be negotiated or for us to be able to join. Those are both up in the air, I would suspect, if for no other reason than that the American government, we believe, is looking essentially for NAFTA rules of origin for apparel under the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

This brings us to a few other priorities in international trade, which echo some of our comments about Japan and will also give you a little more background. First, we encourage the government to establish what we call commercially viable bilateral trade agreements. We need to ensure that agreements offer reasonable opportunities for companies both in Canada and our trading partners. Extraordinarily complex rules of origin and other regulations defeat this purpose.

Our second priority is that we should be improving existing agreements. We should be looking to review and improve existing FTAs and other trade arrangements, and in particular to move from a yarn-forward rule of origin, which we have negotiated for the last 18 years, to a fabric forward rule wherever possible.

Our third point is very basic: don't forget the United States. I would never come before this committee without saying that. Even now, our exports to Japan per year are basically equivalent to about three days of exports to the United States. So please remember that the regulatory barriers between Canada and the U.S. remain the most important issue.

I guess the last point I would say is that we are committed, and we hope the government remains committed, to a rules-based trading system. As I mentioned, the Canadian apparel industry shifted a lot of its production from domestic manufacturing to other producing countries. We make it here; we make it in Asia; we buy foreign fabric; we bring it here. It's a very complicated mix. The best expression of this was formulated by Export Development Canada, which calls this process “integrative trade”. The World Trade Organization calls this "made in the world". It's very indicative of our industry.

In reality, Canadian firms design and manage the production of literally billions of dollars in apparel, which is assembled in other countries, such as China, for sale in third markets. For this to operate we need strong multilateral trade rules, and it is in Canada's interest to support such a trading system.

Those are my remarks. I'd be happy to answer any questions the committee has.

International Trade

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on International Trade in relation to Bill C-23, 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 committee has studied the bill and has decided to report it back to the House, without amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I call the meeting to order. I first want to explain to the committee that we will be working on clause by clause on Bill C-23, 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. This is the bill before us that we will be dealing with.

Just prior to that we have one little order of business, which we are now ready to do. Since we have had a change in the vice-chair on the official opposition side, I would ask the clerk to rule over the election of the replacement for the vice-chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I know that Raymond has a new and improved team with him. It's great. I congratulate him.

We'll now go to our orders of the day, the Jordan legislation, which is Bill C-23. We're planning to do to clause-by-clause on Thursday, but prior to that we want to hear from the witnesses we have before us today.

From the Council of Canadians, we have Garry Neil, the executive director. From the United Steelworkers, we have Mark Rowlinson, a labour lawyer. Thank you both for coming in.

We have had some very interesting testimony on this piece of legislation to this point. We look forward to your presentations. Then we'll follow up with questions and answers. Thank you for being here.

We'll start with you, Mr. Neil. The floor is yours.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

There seems to be a bit of a delay, but let's try it and see how you make out.

We want to thank you for coming to the committee and testifying with regard to Bill C-23, the Jordan-Canada free trade agreement.

The floor is yours, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I'd like to call the meeting to order.

We have with us today, in our further study of Bill C-23, the Canada-Jordan free trade agreement, two witnesses in the first hour, and I'd like to introduce them.

From the International Trade Union Confederation, actually from Brussels, Belgium, we have Mr. Jeff Vogt. He is a legal advisor from the Department of Human and Trade Union Rights. Thank you for being with us.

Are we coming through okay?

[His Excellency Basheer Fawwaz Zoubi, Ambassador, Embassy of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan]

Good morning, and thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for inviting me here today. I know I'm the first Jordanian to talk to you about the subject, and I thank you for the invitation. Also allow me to voice my admiration for the comprehensive approach your committee has taken on this subject, which we attach great importance to in Jordan, namely Bill C-23, the Canada-Jordan Economic Growth and Prosperity Act. I shall try within the allocated 10 minutes to shed some light on certain areas that were not covered in the previous sessions.

Jordan is partner to eight free trade agreements, four of which are multilateral regional agreements with regional economic groupings such as the Arab countries and the European Union. We also have economic agreements and arrangements relating to trade, investment, and double taxation with 77 countries, including Canada.

For its part, the Jordan-Canada free trade agreement is a concrete example of Jordan’s striving to support its economy through a viable partnership in international trade while at the same time building on a long history of close ties with a like-minded country. We consider Jordan and Canada to be very close in our positions internationally in other arenas and we see eye to eye on many subjects.

The following are some examples to put to you here today. Jordan is the only Middle Eastern member in the Human Security Network, and our two countries contributed in the development of the International Criminal Court. Jordan was also one of the first countries in the Middle East to sign and ratify the anti-personnel mine ban convention in 1998. By next month, we will be free of all known land mines in Jordan, ending an operation of demining that started in 1993 to clear over 300,000 land mines.

For decades Jordan has been the largest host to Palestinian refugees. Our country of six million people hosts about half a million Iraqis, and with the recent Syrian situation, our records show that over 80,000 Syrians have passed to Jordan through border crossings. Eight per cent of those newcomers are students who have been admitted to Jordanian schools. Canada’s history in positive involvement in refugee issues in the Middle East includes support to UNRWA and having been once the gavel-holder of the committee on refugees during the multilateral peace talks with Israel.

The Honourable Lester Pearson is considered the father of the peacekeeping concept. Since 1989 over 100,000 of our troops have participated in more than 32 United Nations peacekeeping missions. As of November 2011, Jordan is the largest provider of civilian police personnel and fifth-largest provider of military personnel to United Nations peacekeeping, deploying both men and women.

On the humanitarian level, Jordan dispatched eight field hospitals, covering Afghanistan, Gaza, Benghazi, Jenin, Ramallah, Liberia, and Congo. The two hospitals in Afghanistan have treated more than half a million cases since their first deployment in December 2001, and the hospital in Gaza has treated 800,000 cases since 2008.

Two years ago Jordan began sending imams—Muslim clergymen—and combat-trained women into the villages of Afghanistan. Their mission was to preach moderate Islam to Afghan women. His Majesty King Abdullah II said that the people who he thought really hold the power, those who are going to make an impact, are the women, and nobody is talking to them.

Mr. Chairman, His Majesty King Abdullah II paid close attention at a very early stage to the necessity and urgency of political reform while focusing on the concerns and sometimes frustrations of the youth. In 2009, before the Arab Spring, His Majesty presented the Prime Minister of Jordan with a set of reforms to fight corruption, increase transparency, protect the rights of women and children, and remove all obstacles to the development of a free and professional media industry. Such an open, inclusive, and tolerant political sphere determined that the course of reform in Jordan is peaceful, gradual, and evolutionary.

In the past 15 months, Jordan has witnessed more than 100 protests, marches, or sit-ins per week, reaffirming and enhancing the peaceful character of the Jordanian political discourse.

In 2011 His Majesty King Abdullah II initiated the constitutional reforms. The royal committee entrusted with reviewing the Constitution suggested amendments to 42 fundamental articles of the Constitution to ensure the provision of the constitutional foundations that guarantee the balance between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, established for the first time a constitutional court that will safeguard the constitution, and set up an independent electoral monitoring commission, as stipulated by the National Dialogue Committee.

The government is currently completing the legal infrastructure legislation that will ensure the integrity and credibility of the political process, primarily through a political parties law and a representative election law. With endorsement of the new laws, Jordan will have accomplished most of the legislative infrastructure required for an institutional process to ensure that engagement of the grassroots, of political parties and unions, and of Parliament and government lives up to national ambitions and expectations.

It is true that the King of Jordan appoints the Prime Minister, but this appointment has to gain the approval of our elected Parliament with a two-thirds majority in a vote of confidence. The number of political parties in Jordan exceeded 30, yet due to prevailing voting trends in the voters in Jordan, many parties never made it to Parliament. The maximum majority obtained was 6%, which we admit is very low. It follows that His Majesty names an independent personality as a Prime Minister, the approval of whom remains vested in Parliament during a confidence vote. The aim of the new political parties law and the new election law is to further enable political parties to achieve the required majority to form a government.

Mr. Chairman, for political reforms to be incremental, durable, and sustainable, they need to be made in conjunction with economic reforms that develop the economy so as to reflect on the living conditions of Jordanians. Since 1989 Jordan has been committed to economic and fiscal reforms aimed at decreasing the budget deficit, achieving healthy growth rates, limiting unhealthy subsidies, and gradually moving toward a market economy.

The regional upheavals, armed conflicts, increases in energy prices, population movements, and most recently the disruption of the Egyptian gas supply to Jordan—the gas supply that comes from Egypt to Jordan has been bumped 15 times so far since the Arab Spring, and it costs us about $5 million a day for each day that supply is halted—have forced the Jordanian government to intervene in the economy, at a massive cost to the budget, to limit the impact of such upheavals on the living conditions of Jordanians. This has impacted our progress in economic reforms, since Jordan imports 96% of its energy needs.

Solidifying national political and economic reforms and allowing them to progress and flourish require a conducive regional environment. Democratic transition must be combined with peace and security regionally to avoid the risks of radicalization, derailment, or hijacking, hence ensuring that the transition toward the desired reforms will fulfill the aspirations of the public for freedom and prosperity.

Finding a just, lasting, and comprehensive peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and achieving the two-state solution is the utmost priority of Jordan. The Arab-Israeli conflict is the core issue in the Middle East. It has consumed immense energies and rendered development and reform efforts secondary to the efforts of settling the conflict and stabilizing the region. Peace is a prerequisite for stability and development, and these two are essential to democracy and good governance.

Jordan believes a timelined resumed peace process should be launched as soon as possible, with defined terms of reference and a clear end point based on the original terms of reference. Those terms of reference are the United Nations Security Council resolutions 242, 338, and 425 and the “land for peace” formula; the Arab peace initiative of the Beirut Summit; and United Nations Security Council resolution 1397, which is the two-state solution.

Earlier this year Jordan embarked on a diplomatic effort to break the impasse that had befallen the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, and this culminated in exchanges and direct exploratory talks. Those talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis took place in Amman.

These talks were serious, and we hope that they have enabled us to maintain the timetable identified by the quartet in its September 23, 2011, statement under which an agreement on all issues should be reached by the end of 2012, realizing the two-state solution.

I thank you very much.

[Bob Kirke, Executive Director, Canadian Apparel Federation]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members. I would like to thank you for this opportunity to appear before the committee on Bill C-23.

My name is Bob Kirke. I am the executive director of the Canadian Apparel Federation. Our association is made up of hundreds of firms in the apparel industry across Canada, representing every sector and product in the industry.

I would like to provide the committee with some background on the industry concerning trade and other policies that impact our operations and to answer any questions you might have.

I would like to focus my remarks on issues that were raised in the debates in the House both in December and earlier this month. I have summarized them under three headings: one is the potential risks to Canadian employment posed by this deal; the second is the labour situation in Jordan, as was reflected in conversations earlier; and third, what I guess might be called the wisdom of signing an FTA with Jordan.

The retail market for apparel in Canada is about $29 billion. Of this amount, about 75% is now imported, in most cases from developing countries. If we look back, 2001 was a high-water mark for Canadian apparel production and employment in recent times. At that time, the Canadian dollar was at 62 cents to the U.S. dollar and the industry had approximately 100,000 employees. After 2001, employment began to decline as the dollar appreciated. This was accelerated with unilateral Canadian tariff concessions to least developed countries or LDCs in 2003 and the ending of import quotas in 2005.

It's not just the source of apparel destined for the market that changed, but the prices in the market declined on a continual basis over the last decade. With 2002 as the base year, the consumer price index shows that prices for clothing have declined by 10% over the last decade, even as other commodities have increased in price between 10% and 40%. Clothing is the only category in which prices have declined over the period. The actual price for clothing in the market has gone down.

I'm just going to go briefly to the impact on domestic employment. I understand that many members would be concerned about granting tariff-free access to the Canadian market to low-cost producers from developing countries such as Jordan. At the same time it's important to understand that the Canadian government has granted tariff-free access to our market to many developing countries—the LDCs that I just spoke of. These undertakings have led to the restructuring of the domestic manufacturing industry. Manufacturing employment is a fraction of what it was a decade ago, both in apparel and in textiles. In many respects these changes are impossible to reverse.

Tariff-free access to the Canadian market granted to least-developed countries in 2003 led to a massive increase in duty-free apparel entering Canada from countries such as Bangladesh, Lesotho, and Madagascar. As an example, last year Bangladesh exported more than $950 million in apparel to Canada, fifty times as much as Jordan does.

Establishing a free trade agreement in Jordan will have virtually no impact on this situation. It will divert production from other developed countries, but it will have no measurable impact on domestic employment in the apparel industry—or the textile industry, for that matter.

In granting the concessions to LDCs, Canada receives no reciprocal benefits. These countries offered no preferential access to their markets for Canadian goods. By contrast, an FTA wherein we can generate export opportunities for some industries—I think of the industries sitting here beside me—seems far preferable as a trade policy.

I would add that some Canadian firms that are or would be producing in Jordan would welcome the agreement, because it would allow them to source duty-free for both the U.S. and Canadian markets from the same source. Jordan has an established trading relationship with the U.S., as was mentioned in the earlier meeting, both under its qualifying industrial zones program, which preceded the U.S.-Jordan FTA, and the FTA.

In terms of labour conditions, during the debates on the floor and just previously in this meeting a number of concerns were raised about the labour standards in Jordanian factories. I encourage the committee to speak directly to firms with operations in the country. Yesterday I referred to the clerk the name of one company that would love to testify. They have been mentioned on the floor of the House in regard to the labour conditions at their factory, a factory that has subsequently been recertified and is working with the ILO.

This is a good example of exactly what happens in the country. I'm confident that these companies whose operations were the subject of comments from members of Parliament would be more than happy to address this committee, if asked.

I was glad to see that there were comments directly about the ILO program in Jordan, the “better work” program. My comments in regard to the labour situation reflect the comments in that report. In general terms—and I just want to repeat—on all measures that it measures, labour standards and the conditions on the ground in Jordan are improving.

Work is being done in Jordan to improve and reinforce labour practices. These efforts are far more substantial than one finds in virtually any other developing country, many of which have been granted duty-free access to the Canadian market.

To repeat, we have given duty-free access to our market to over 40 least-developed countries, many of which have apparel industries that are fundamentally the same as what we find in Jordan. The only difference is that, with one exception, none of these countries have established an internationally supported program to improve labour standards under a credible institution such as the ILO, as is found in Jordan.

I urge you to consider the real progress being made to improve compliance and create an infrastructure in Jordan to provide for continued improvement.

My final comments relate to what has been referred to as the wisdom, if you will, of entering into a free trade agreement with Jordan. As my comments will attest, a free trade agreement with Jordan will not have a major impact on the apparel industry in Canada. In addition, the labour conditions in Jordan are better, and they are subject to greater scrutiny than many of the other countries that currently enjoy duty-free access to our market.

I believe there are positives in the Jordan FTA. While the argument might be made that we need to negotiate free trade agreements with more significant partners, I don't think that precludes signing this agreement with Jordan.

If members of this committee wish to understand our industry's priorities, I would echo the comments made earlier. Our position would be that this committee should urge the government to move forward on our free trade agreements, especially with the European Union.

In reality, we are not cost-competitive on high-volume moderately priced goods, with very few exceptions. At the same time, numerous firms in Canada, such as Canada Goose, have demonstrated that there are opportunities for domestic manufacturers if they focus on high quality and move up the value chain to higher-end products. Free trade with Europe offers real export potential for these types of firms.

Setting aside anything else, I believe it's important to say we have negotiated an agreement with another sovereign country and it has already taken nearly three years to get this bill to this stage. I think longer delays actually harm our reputation.

With that, I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to address you, and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

[Andrew Casey, Vice-President, Public Affairs and International Trade, Forest Products Association of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It is a real pleasure to be here today to testify on Bill C-23.

Thank you very much, on behalf of the Forest Products Association of Canada. We're the national trade association that represents Canada's lumber, pulp, and paper producers across the country. It's an industry that directly employs more than 240,000 Canadians and it's the economic lifeblood of more than 200 communities from coast to coast.

All parliamentarians are very familiar with the economic challenges this industry has faced over the past couple of years: the rapid rise in the Canadian dollar, the U.S. housing market and their economy more broadly, the troubles in Europe, and the changing demographic in terms of readership and the use of paper as everybody moves to electronic devices. All have presented what we've commonly called the perfect storm. Some might argue, in fact, that it's a changed climate for the industry.

The upshot of this—and parliamentarians, of course, are no stranger to this—is that we've been forced to close nearly 200 mills across the country and have lost nearly 100,000 jobs across the country. That has had a devastating impact on regions and certainly on a significant number of communities across the country. As I said, parliamentarians are very well aware of this, as many of you have had a number of communities in your ridings strongly impacted by what is happened in the industry.

I'm not here to say that the industry has rounded the corner and that everything looks bright and rosy, but I can say that the industry has not stood idly by as it has been challenged. It has been reinventing itself, transforming itself, moving aggressively into the bio-economy through bio-products, bio-chemicals, and bio-energy.

That represents a significant part of where this industry is going. But we can't lose sight of the fact that we still need our core products to be strong; that is, the lumber, pulp, and paper products. They need to continue to be a major part of our economic model going forward. Without them, the move to the bio-economy will not happen.

An important part of ensuring that we have a strong core for our industry is our trade markets. Our industry produces about $56 billion worth of product each year. Nearly half of it is exported. Obviously a lion's share of it goes to the U.S. marketplace, but another large chunk of it goes to other markets around the world, Europe and Asia being the primary other markets. In fact, we're the single largest exporter to both India and China.

This leads to the question why we would be here in support of Bill C-23 for Jordan. Jordan represents a market of about $20 million for our products. When you look at that in the grand scheme of things, in an industry that exports more than $24 billion worth of products, $20 million doesn't really represent a large market share.

The fact is that the Jordanian market is growing. It represents a market of nearly $400 million per year in forest products; that's what they're importing. They're getting a lot of their lumber and paper products from other countries with whom we compete. We'd like to have a bigger part of that market share. Having a deal such as this allows us to secure that marketplace and drop some tariffs on certain products. Certainly on the lumber side and on the paper side it drops some significant tariffs.

If I might use this as an example, what we found in previous deals, when we looked at the big deals such as those with India and China, is that we became excited about them, and for good reason. Those are large marketplaces that represent large potential for the industry. When you look at smaller markets, what we have found in cases such as the Jordanian deal is that it represents a very important marketplace for one mill. It's similar to what Kathleen just outlined for her membership. When we dive into these marketplaces, we find that one mill or one particular region is where that product is coming from, and so it represents a very important opportunity.

I'll give you an example. We have a product that comes out of a joint venture between Canfor Pulp, out of Prince George, British Columbia, and Tolko, out of The Pas, Manitoba. They sell cement bags to Egypt. It's a similar deal. They're competing against European producers of that product. The European producers are benefiting from a low tariff rate—in fact, 7% less than what the Canadian producers are benefiting from. This represents $35 million to the joint venture, Premium 1 Papers, in Canada and represents about 500 jobs in Canada. They are losing market share to the Europeans because we don't have competitive access to that marketplace.

In a similar vein, we're looking at marketplaces such as Jordan as a way of ensuring that we can grow and diversify our marketplaces to lessen our dependence on the U.S. marketplace and provide long-term jobs for certain parts of the country.

I'll leave it at that and I'll be happy to take questions once we've gotten through the panel.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Marvin Hildebrand, Director General, Trade Negotiations Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak to the committee about the Canada–Jordan Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, which implements the Canada-Jordan free trade agreement and the related agreements on the environment and labour cooperation.

As you may know, I was Canada's chief negotiator for these negotiations, and today I'll highlight briefly Canada's trade negotiations agenda more generally. We'll note some key benefits of the Canada-Jordan FTA, as well as discuss generally Canada's relationship with Jordan.

Mr. Chairman, permit me at the beginning of my remarks to introduce my colleagues joining me at the table here today. To my left is Ton Zuijdwijk, general counsel with Foreign Affairs and International Trade. To my right is Pierre Bouchard, director of bilateral and regional labour affairs, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. Also joining me is Denis Landreville, lead negotiator, trade negotiations division, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. To my far right is Barbara Martin, director general, Middle East and Maghreb bureau at Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Following my remarks, we will be available to respond to your questions.

First of all, let's talk about the government's pro-trade plan.

Consistent with government priorities as set out in the Speech from the Throne and the Global Commerce Strategy, the government is pursuing a robust pro-trade plan, which is an essential contributor to Canada's future prosperity, productivity and growth.

A key component of the government's strategy is the ambitious pursuit of regional and bilateral free trade agreements.

As highlighted in both the Speech from the Throne as well as Budget 2011, free trade agreements open doors for Canadian businesses by providing improved market access and other preferences to an increasing number of foreign markets, which in turn helps to make Canada stronger in an increasingly competitive global economy.

To this end, we are conducting free trade negotiations with two major global economic powers, the European Union and India. Trade negotiations are also already underway with a number of smaller partners, including Ukraine, Morocco and the Caribbean Community, CARICOM.

Canada is also exploring opportunities to deepen trade and economic cooperation with other major economic partners, including Japan, China, the nine-member Trans-Pacific Partnership and MERCOSUR—Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

To date, Canada has implemented free trade agreements with 11 countries, including with our North American Free Trade Agreement partners, Mexico and the United States; Israel; Chile; Costa Rica; Peru; Columbia; and the member states of the European Free Trade Association—Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

In August 2011, Canada concluded a free trade agreement with Honduras, which is currently ongoing detailed legal review. Implementing legislation for our Agreement with Panama was tabled in Parliament in mid-November 2011, at the same time as Bill C-23.

Regarding the Canada–Jordan free trade agreement, in particular, we still face a measure of global economic uncertainty, Mr. Chairman. In a growing number of countries, Canadian companies are at a competitive disadvantage because their foreign competitors have preferential market access under some form of free trade agreement. The Canada–Jordan free trade agreement addresses these concerns by levelling the playing field with key competitors in the Jordanian market, namely those from the United States and the European Union.

Over the years, Canada and Jordan have built a strong, mutually beneficial relationship. Despite a small decline in our bilateral trade with Jordan in 2009 with the impact of the global economic slowdown, Canada's 2011 merchandise exports of $70 million were more than double the $31 million total in 2003. This free trade agreement provides an opportunity to further enhance this growing relationship.

Jordan's current average applied tariff is 10%, with peaks up to 30% on some products of Canadian export interest, such as certain forest products and articles of machinery. Upon implementation, this agreement will eliminate Jordanian tariffs on the vast majority of current Canadian exports to Jordan, with remaining tariffs phased out over three to five years. There are only a small number of exclusions in the areas of tobacco, alcohol, and some poultry products.

This agreement provides Canadian companies with benefits in a variety of sectors, including agriculture and agrifood, with products such as pulses, frozen potato products, beef, animal feeds, and various prepared foods. Forest products such as paper and wood building products, industrial and electrical machinery, construction equipment, and vehicles and parts are also included.

The Canada–Jordan free trade agreement's focus is primarily goods market access. The context is that our services interests via-à-vis Jordan are being adequately addressed in the World Trade Organization. Canada's investment-related interests are addressed in the Canada–Jordan foreign investment promotion and protection agreement, which was signed at the same time as the free trade agreement and implemented in December 2009.

As Canada's first-ever free trade agreement with an Arab country, the Canada–Jordan free trade agreement will not only help improve market access to Jordan's growing market, but will also provide a platform for expanding commercial ties and raising Canada's profile in the broader Middle East. This FTA will also benefit Jordan, ensuring access to Canadian products at more competitive rates and increasing access to the Canadian market for Jordanian goods.

In fact, Mr. Chair, upon the coming into force of this agreement, Canada will eliminate all tariffs on Jordanian exports to Canada, with the exception of over-quota supply-managed dairy, poultry, and eggs, which are excluded from tariff reduction.

The Canada–Jordan FTA is not about goods market access alone, however. The agreement also contains principle-based chapters on the environment and on labour cooperation, and high-quality side agreements with strong binding obligations, which were negotiated in parallel with the free trade agreement.

The Canada–Jordan FTA is a concrete demonstration of Canada's commitment to enhancing regional peace and security by helping to improve economic conditions in the region.

This agreement also shows Canada's support for Jordan as a moderate Arab state that promotes peace and security in the Middle East, as well as Canada's support for the commitment of His Majesty King Abdullah II and his government to implement comprehensive political and economic reforms in Jordan. Such reforms include measures to enhance accountability and political participation, as well as economic measures to liberalize the Jordanian market and provide support for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Regarding the next steps, Jordan has already notified Canada that it has completed all of its internal steps to allow the agreements to come into force. Should Parliament elect to pass this implementing legislation, officials will then work with their Jordanian counterparts to bring the Free Trade Agreement and the related Agreements on the Environment and Labour Cooperation into force on a neutrally agreed-to date as soon as possible.

Mr. Chair, this concludes my presentation. We would be happy to respond to questions the committee may have on the Canada–Jordan Economic Growth and Prosperity Act.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I will call the meeting to order.

We are about embark on the free trade agreement between Canada and Jordan. This is Bill C-23. It has cleared the House and we'll be seized with this, as we move, until we complete it as a committee.

Just before we get into that, though, there are a couple of little things.

First of all, at our last meeting we talked about a reception with the business delegation from India. That will take place. This is good news: it will not be paid for by the committee. There will be a reception on the evening of Wednesday the 14th after votes, at six o'clock at the convention centre. There will be notification going out for all the committee members to meet the delegation there. That will work out very well.

The other thing is that we need to pass a budget for this Bill C-23 piece of legislation we're embarking on. So I'd entertain a motion very quickly to clear that out of the way.

Mr. Holder moves it.

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

Look at that. Who says committees don't get along?

We have with us today, from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Marvin Hildebrand, director general, trade negotiation bureau.

I believe, Mr. Hildebrand, you are going to be presenting. You may want to introduce the people you have with you from the department. We are excited about this piece of legislation, and in the previous government it got to third reading. This time our goal is to get it much further than that, and into implementation. With that, the floor is yours. You may proceed.

The House resumed from March 1 consideration of the motion that Bill C-23, 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, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

Canada-Jordan Economic Growth and Prosperity Act

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if the member listened carefully to my speech, that is exactly what I said. The Conservatives’ approach consists of signing nothing but bilateral trade agreements. So the Doha round and all the multilateral agreements under way at the WTO have been put on ice.

I have had the opportunity to visit Geneva myself on several occasions. I am the critic for a number of other subjects, but I was and am the Bloc Québécois critic for agriculture and agri-food. In that case, it was crucial for us to support multilateral agreements. It is to the benefit of the developing countries and to everyone’s benefit, except that is not this government’s approach.

That said, this government regularly presents us with bilateral free trade agreements. We have to look at them in light of what is presented to us, what they mean, both for our economy in Quebec and for the Canadian economy, and also for the countries signing this type of free trade agreement.

If I am told that we are going to sign a free trade agreement with a country like Colombia, but Colombia is going to ratify international agreements about environmental rights, workers’ rights and trade union rights and is going to make sure that children are not going out to work, then plainly that is a positive thing, and for Colombia as well. However, that is unfortunately not the case.

So yes, we support multilateral agreements, but that does not mean that we have to oppose all bilateral agreements. Some are good, both for Quebec and for Canada, and for the country the agreements are being signed with. The agreement we are talking about now, with Bill C-23, falls into that category.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when things heat up, I am always happy to step in. I intend to calm the waters. I am not saying that my speech will be boring; I am sure it will not be. As the hon. member for Bourassa knows very well, and as he has just said, we in the Bloc Québécois always have interesting things to say, particularly when it comes to free trade agreements.

It is my pleasure to rise on this issue, particularly because with all the time allocation motions the Conservative government has imposed on us recently—and I certainly do not want to put ideas in their heads for the bills that are currently before the House—our turn does not come quickly or often.

So I am going to take full advantage of it to talk about the Conservative government’s free trade policy since it came to power and more specifically about Bill C-23, the free trade agreement between Canada and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. I had the opportunity to address this issue several times in previous Parliaments. The Bloc Québécois supports the principle of the bill. Canada has already signed a free trade agreement with Israel. We are familiar with the unique sensitivity of that region and the conflicts that go on there. The message to be sent would be positive, in fact: it would be about signing a free trade agreement with a country like Jordan.

Obviously, if you look at things through Quebec’s eyes, you can understand the reason why we support this bill. Obviously, we will always weigh all the factors to determine whether this free trade agreement is good or bad for the Quebec economy. We are not opposed to all free trade agreements, nor are we in favour of all such agreements. Obviously, the pros and cons have to be weighed in relation to the Quebec economy.

In the case of Jordan, we are not going to argue that this is going to be an extremely fruitful free trade agreement, but it may be worthwhile, particularly for the agricultural sector. There is not a lot of water in Jordan; not a lot of crops are grown or livestock raised. So this is a door that may be worthwhile for the agricultural sector. I will offer some statistics in a moment about our trade with that country. They will prove that it is not enormous at the moment, but every door that is opened in this respect may be worthwhile.

Lumber might also be a worthwhile avenue for Quebec; certainly pulp and paper would be. This affects me specifically, as does agriculture, because companies like Cascades and Domtar are well established in my riding. These are possibilities for the pulp and paper industry, the Quebec industry that already exports the most to Jordan, in fact.

I have statistics dating from 2008. I have not found any that are more recent. At that time, trade between Canada and Jordan totalled $92 million, which is a long way from the numbers we are currently hearing in relation to the free trade agreement being negotiated with the European Union. Of that $92 million, $35 million came from Quebec and $25 million came from the pulp and paper industry. So that is why I was saying that this avenue was worth exploring. In fact, Quebec is the Canadian province that has the most trade with Jordan: 45% of current trade originates in Quebec. As I said, Canadian exports total $92 million, and that will undoubtedly improve somewhat, thanks to this free trade agreement. So we can conclude that it will also improve for Quebec.

Reports suggest that Jordan is currently in the process of modernizing its government and economy. It is a country where education is very important. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, promoting trade with this country could send a clear message of support to other Middle Eastern countries in this regard. As I was also saying, Canada has already signed a free trade agreement with Jordan's neighbour, Israel. By signing this agreement with Jordan, Canada would demonstrate a degree of balance in our interests in that part of the world, given the strained political relationship between Israel and the rest of the Middle East, including Jordan.

What currently concerns us about the Conservative's approach to these free trade agreements is that they have chosen to sign bilateral agreements. Everything we are hearing right now about the development of international trade involves opportunities for bilateral free trade agreements. They recently signed such agreements with Colombia and Panama. They are holding discussions with the European Union, which is not, of course, one country.

The Conservatives have basically abandoned the Doha round. All multilateral agreements have been put on hold and other free trade agreements are being discussed, including a very significant one with China.

This is obviously a problem for us because this approach is much less effective than a multilateral approach for the development of fairer trade that respects the interests of all nations. For example, in the Doha round, developing countries placed considerable hope on a multilateral agreement. However, the richest countries in the world are not listening at all and are not interested in changing things, which means that multilateral free trade agreements are constantly being blocked. Canada is clearly not helping this cause.

We want to see a change in trade priorities. Canada should now shift its focus from trade liberalization to creating a more level playing field. The Bloc Québécois believes that our trade policy must focus on fair globalization, not just on the pursuit of profit at the expense of people and the environment. We want the new free trade agreements to include enforceable provisions that require respect for minimum standards related to human rights, labour laws and respect for the environment.

Some will say that such is not the case with all bilateral free trade agreements. Of course, we had evidence of that this week when we again discussed the free trade agreement between Canada and Panama. Panama is a tax haven. How can we accept, in 2012, that a country like Canada would enter into a free trade agreement with a country where it is still possible for banks and big companies to take advantage of tax havens? Moreover, in Canada, there is still nothing in place to prevent such practices. There are some provisions, but they contain loopholes that make such practices still possible. What message are we sending to big companies, banks and not exactly right-thinking people—not right-wingers—who see that Canada has decided to enter into a free trade agreement with Panama? The message is obviously to step right up: the door is open and tax havens are ready for business.

We cannot agree to this kind of free trade agreement. Another quite recent free trade agreement was the one with Columbia, a country where human rights are violated, journalists are murdered or imprisoned, and unions are completely banned.

I cannot understand why free trade agreements are still being entered into with these nations in the belief that the situation in these countries is going to improve, perhaps magically, as a result of signing a trade agreement. Rather, we are sending the opposite message: that it is not a problem; that in these countries abuses of power are okay; that the people in these countries can be treated in ways we would not do here, in our country, to our people. These countries are given the impression that our concerns are not serious because we will trade with them regardless, and everything will be fine and dandy. That approach is not at all credible. That is why multilateral agreements fundamentally improve the situation.

In their current form, side agreements that deal with minimal labour and environmental protection standards lack a binding mechanism that would make them truly effective. That is what we want to see in future free trade agreements.

In order to be credible on this issue, there must be swift compliance with the major conventions of the International Labour Organization against discrimination, forced labour, which still exists in countries with which we trade, child labour, which unfortunately still exist today, and also conventions regarding the rights of union associations and free negotiation.

That being the case, all the free trade agreements need to be reviewed to ensure that we are dealing with countries that are, at the very least, on the right track, countries that are prepared to make the changes needed to be able to trade. I have always thought that, before approving a free trade agreement like the one we are planning to sign with China, we should put our cards on the table and be satisfied that such countries will comply with our minimum standards, that there are no children working and no union leaders in prison, and that sound environmental practices are being followed.

I am not sure that in the early stages of discussions with China we will succeed in having that country adopt basic environmental standards. Take agriculture, for example. When products are imported from China, we do not know how they were grown, or what water and pesticides have been used. Even today, products enter Canada even though in some instances their quality is clearly dubious. There have been scandals. There was the scandal in China over melamine in milk. There were scandals over toys in which the concentration of lead was much too high. It is therefore important to ensure that changes have been made before any bilateral agreements are signed with countries like China.

For some years now, Jordan has been demonstrating that it can conduct trade operations in a manner that Quebec finds acceptable. Jordan can be trusted and trade relations with that country would be beneficial to both parties. The figures I gave just now make it clear that these free trade agreements are not on the same scale as the one that is currently being negotiated with the European Union.

There is another way the government negotiates free trade agreements that is open to serious criticism. For the free trade agreement with the European Union, the issue of supply management was left on the table for the first time. Historically, all governments and parties have always excluded supply management for our farmers—poultry, milk and egg producers, an approach that has been very beneficial for both producers and consumers. We have always excluded supply management so that countries could not interfere with our tariffs and try to sell more products to us. Unfortunately, with the European Union, we left the supply management system on the table. This is extremely worrisome, even though the Conservatives are telling us not to worry about it, and that they will comply with the motion I moved and sponsored in 2005 to tie the hands of Canadian negotiators with respect to international supply management.

The fact remains that there is no transparency in the discussions between the European Union and Canada, nor in any free trade agreement. The time has come for Parliament to do what other countries do, so that the details of these agreements can be discussed while negotiations are underway, in order to remain informed about the substance of the discussions and be able to comment on the nuts and bolts of free trade agreements.

As for Canada and the European Union, we have no idea whether there have been discussions on supply management. We can sometimes learn things from leaks—for example that the French would like to send us more cheese. If the French sent us more cheese, Quebec, which is a major producer of cheese, might suffer the consequences. It is essential to remain extremely cautious.

I have been speaking about agriculture, but the same arguments hold for Quebec culture. It is important to pay careful attention with this kind of free trade agreement. Although transparency is the norm today, it is unfortunately not the case with the Conservative government.

The bilateral agreement approach is not the right one. When we are presented with bills like the one we are discussing today, Bill C-23 between Canada and Jordan, they have to be treated on a case-by-case basis. This particular bill needs to be examined in light of what is stated in the free trade agreement. Frankly, it is impossible to say that it is not a good agreement. We will therefore agree to vote in favour of it.

A small word of warning about water exports. I spoke about them in one of my speeches during the previous Parliament. I know that in the bill to implement the agreement between Canada and Jordan the issue of water, whether in liquid or gaseous form, is excluded, but this is not explicit in the free trade agreement itself.

Perhaps the negotiators could take note of this information; it could also be discussed in committee. Just now, I was speaking about the possibilities of agricultural trade. One of the reasons Jordan does not grow many crops is that it does not have a lot of water. It would be highly undesirable, for any current or future agreements, if we were to begin to think we could use water—particularly water from Quebec, which is very well endowed in this respect—to encourage other countries to import a lot of water. Our view is that trade in water should be completely excluded. Hence it would perhaps be a good idea not only to specify this prohibition in the implementing legislation, but to do the same in the agreement itself.

In spite of everything, it is possible to have productive dealings with Jordan for all those reasons. As I was saying earlier, in that part of the world, it is important as a symbol to show that we are open to trade not only with Israel, but also with other countries such as Jordan. It is a good example to hold up. Because we know that, at the moment, the Conservative government tends to have blinkers on and to take the side of one country only—not to mention any names, but it is Israel. This message that we are sending seems to me to be much more a message of openness, and the result will be that everyone will benefit.

In terms of future agreements, we must also make sure that we do not negotiate free trade agreements blindly, with no regard for human, environmental and labour rights. If we do, we will end up with free trade agreements like the one with Colombia. I can hardly wait to see if there will be any improvements because of that free trade agreement. I am sure there will not be, because we are sending the opposite message.

We are telling them to carry on, that there will be no problem, that they are going to make money and do business without anyone even rapping them on the knuckles or warning them that there will be no trade until they have improved their situation. That is a bad example. There are good examples, such as when it is possible to trade with countries that have good intentions, though they may not necessarily be at the level of Canada or Quebec. In that context, Jordan is a really interesting case.

From Quebec's point of view, looked at through our eyes, we do not have the luxury of saying no to all attempts at free trade, given all the small and medium-size businesses we have everywhere. I call on all Quebec members to bring themselves to accept that we can negotiate free trade agreements with certain countries. This is one of them. Panama is not a good example, and neither is Colombia. But in this case, given the figures, while there is not necessarily any money to be made, there is an interesting opportunity certainly for agriculture and forestry, both of which need opportunities badly, and why not also for pulp and paper, as I mentioned.

Perhaps I am being a little self-serving in this because, in my constituency, it will be very attractive for companies like Cascades and Domtar. We also have Kruger in the area. The opening of these opportunities is the reason that the Bloc Québécois has decided to support the principle of this bill.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Madam Speaker, the new Bill C-23 on free trade between Jordan and Canada gives us an opportunity to consider the nature of such an agreement. A free trade agreement means opening doors. Canada is opening its door to Jordan, and Jordan is opening its door to Canada. But what is going to come in? That is a fundamental question. Our cultures are different in terms of human rights, labour law and environmental law. Is it possible to harmonize these two countries? Well, that is the entire question, and the entire problem.

We hope that this agreement will bring progress to Jordan in terms of human rights, environmental law and economic law, but that is not a foregone conclusion. At first blush, the problems are significant. When it comes to labour law, in some areas Jordan looks more like the Middle Ages than like a modern country.

Our steelworker colleagues have told us that on one visit they observed abuses in relation to migrant workers, there being many of them in the textile industry and in home support work. First, those workers very often have their passports taken away from them when they enter the country. They are required to work at a hellish pace, more than 90 hours a week. Very often, their wages are not paid or it is difficult for them to get their pay. When it comes to housing and nutrition, the least that can be said is that they are deficient. They live in cramped, dirty apartments or dormitories. Their food is nothing special; it is low in both calories and vitamins.

Working conditions like this are unacceptable, particularly when we will be competing with that country economically. Our entrepreneurs, who pay wages and make sure that our country’s social and humanitarian laws are obeyed with respect to all workers in Canada, will be facing competitors who have no such concerns and spend as little as possible on their workforce. This agreement, which might well be copied in numerous Middle Eastern countries, must not send our entrepreneurs into bankruptcy and Canadians into unemployment. This is a fairly basic question for the political representatives of the Canadian people. We want a trade agreement that benefits both countries and that is not going to lead to a reduction in Canadians’ economic and social rights.

That is not the only problem, although we have seen some encouraging initiatives. Jordan has taken some important steps. To begin with, there was a reform of the labour laws, which recognize the right to organize, the right to unionize, the right to speak and the right to negotiate collective agreements. These are important steps that must be considered. Jordan has also banned human trafficking. This is an important step in a country where recruiting people from Sri Lanka, the Philippines and India to work in Jordan was a flourishing industry. These foreigners were recruited and, once in Jordan, not paid. Jordan now wants to put an end to this practice.

Jordan has also criminalized forced labour in its labour code. Forgive me for saying this, but it is some ways an acknowledgment of the existence of slavery. Forced labour includes compelling someone to work for an unreasonable number of hours. Jordan criminalized this practice in its criminal code. It is prohibited. In 2011, Jordan harmonized its relations with the International Labour Office and the International Labour Organization. These are very important steps and that is why we are not opposed to this agreement, however we do want to review it.

These are positive steps. If Jordan has taken a step towards integration with the global marketplace then, for goodness sake, why not? This is very encouraging. Seeing Jordan pass laws, however, is one thing, but making sure they are enforced is quite another. This is important and must be verified. We recommend, therefore, that this bill proceed to second reading, where it can be more closely considered, and where we can determine whether the promises made have been kept. This is to be expected.

We will keep a very open mind as we consider this bill in committee. We will review what Jordan has done. Having said that, we will be exceedingly inquisitive and prudent, and we will not take any statements as gospel truth. We will make sure that there has been progress, that these laws have brought about true change, and that domestic workers are no longer slaves, let alone sex slaves, as is sometimes the case. We will demand to see the change.

There is also the matter of the environment. Before the Conservative government came into power, Canada was truly determined to combat pollution and provide a safe environment for Canadians and workers. The guarantee was made that the workplace was not deadly. It was guaranteed that any environmental emissions would not be dangerous in both the short and long-term, for Canadians now and in the future. These are basic things. There are no illegal dumping grounds in Canada; there is no chemical soup in our waters. We will not tolerate having our environment sullied and our access to clean water jeopardized. All that seems quite basic and yet, when it comes to clean water, there are some shortcomings, particularly on first nations reserves. It is quite disturbing for a country like Canada, but it would appear that we have the willingness to change. I shall take that into account and hope that things do indeed change.

What is the situation in Jordan? The rules in this regard are not clear. It is simply indicated that neither of the two countries has the right to suppress the basic environmental rules. But does Jordan already comply with the basic minimum rules? Can Jordan be compared in this regard to Canada? All the indications are that it cannot. That means this constitutes an invitation to all the polluting industries of Canada to relocate to Jordan, where they will not have to make expensive investments to conform to Canadian standards, and where they will not have to pay the workforce as well as they do in Canada. This is an important question.

In certain countries, people have said that asbestos was safe if worked properly under acceptable health conditions. It seems that this is the case in Canada. However, we know that in countries to which we export asbestos, this is absolutely not the case. This question is relevant and deserves to be verified. We do not want to encourage a country to become a dump for the whole world because it has an agreement with Canada. That would be neither acceptable nor tolerable. Our public image all across Canada depends on this, as do our ethical standards as a community. Do we want to develop an economic and political culture in which profit prevails over respect?

In short, we shall certainly not sign a blank cheque. There are more problems in the area of economic rights. Expropriation is prohibited. Do we have the right not to be expropriated when we invest in a country? I am sorry, but no. To promote the economic rights of its citizens, a country may legitimately consider it necessary to expropriate a private enterprise, even if that enterprise is a foreign company from a country with which a free trade agreement is in place. An expropriation can be carried out for medical, economic development, educational or a multitude of other reasons within the context of a democratic government.

Expropriation does not mean theft. It is simply the forced purchase of a company which is regarded as essential to the country. This is a country’s sovereign economic right. It appears however that there is an intention to place a limit on this agreement. That limit is likely to affect Jordan more than Canada, for there are a great many Canadian multinational mining and manufacturing companies. There are few Jordanian companies liable to invest in Canada in key sectors of our economy. If that should happen, however, I do not see why Canada should require a barrier of this nature. Yes, a sovereign country, any sovereign country, has the right to protect the economic rights of its citizens by effecting an expropriation. Hydro-Québec was born of an expropriation; so was Ontario Hydro. Petro-Canada was established through expropriations. We are not complaining about this.

There is also the issue of repatriating profits, which can be a bone of contention. Repatriating profits, if they are excessive, could put a country in a difficult situation, leading to a deficit on balance of payments and a lack of investment. In Canada, we are currently experiencing what is known as Dutch disease. Our dollar is going up because of massive natural resource exports, especially in the energy sector. At the same time, we are experiencing a major deficit on our balance of payments. That is what is known as Dutch disease. And it comes on top of a loss of our industry.

A sovereign country can choose to tackle this problem by restricting the repatriation of profits through legislation that requires the profits to be partially or fully reinvested. It is not illegal for a country to want to make sure that its economic partner guarantees a financial return. A sovereign country does not need to limit its powers in a free trade agreement. The free trade agreement has to bring wealth to both countries. In the present situation, that does not seem to be the case. We are eroding the powers of a state in favour of private enterprise and capital. We are forgetting that we were elected by our constituents to defend them, not to sell or give up on their rights. We will have to think carefully before we pass this type of legislation.

We keep seeing the same types of problems. We negotiate agreements with small countries without asking any questions about the very nature of the rights in place in those countries. Panama is the perfect example. Some say that it is a problem because it is a tax haven. No, Panama is not a tax haven, it is a tax dump. Every drug trafficker goes through Panama. That is no recommendation. Will we be able to guarantee that there will be an end to those practices? No, and that is a problem. Now we have exactly the same type of problem. We are not saying no to what is unacceptable. We know about it and we put up with it.

In what has been proposed, the agreement is lacking when it comes to corrective measures. In an agreement between two countries, it is important to document what might cause problems and the action we will take to resolve those problems. There are major shortcomings in that respect as well, and we would like to put an end to them. In discussions in committee, we would like to hear opinions and proposals so that we can amend an agreement that is questionable at the moment. That does not mean that we are dismissing any possibility of an agreement with the Middle East, far from it. We appreciate it when a country agrees to negotiate agreements with us that may be highly profitable, that may lead to an increase in imports and exports and, especially, that may help a country improve its legislation.

It seems that Jordan would really like to become a country that is not at the low end when it comes to human rights, that is not a dumping ground for corporate polluters. It does not want to be a country where domestic work is almost associated with prostitution. We realize this. We are quite pleased to see the direction being taken by the Jordanian people and government. If it is true, this direction deserves to be encouraged. If this is the case, we will negotiate as equals with a country that has given us satisfactory guarantees with respect to basic human rights.

We will need to consider plenty of other factors, in addition to economic, labour and environmental rights, including religious rights and issues relating to family and matrimonial law. How are we going to align these agreements? All of that will be an essential part of the committee's discussions.

It is because of this very possibility of discussing these factors that we are going to support this bill on the trade agreement between Canada and Jordan at second reading.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will pick up where I left off a few weeks ago. I talked about the value of signing bilateral free trade agreements with countries around the world. That consideration is all the more relevant when we have very limited trade relations with the country in question, as is the case with Jordan.

On Monday, in my speech on the free trade agreement with Panama bill, I pointed out that trade between Panama and Canada represented an insignificant fraction of Canada's total trade with the rest of the world. We have to ask ourselves whether associating ourselves with Panama is worth risking Canada's international reputation. We could ask ourselves the same question about Jordan.

I should mention that, in 2009, total trade between Jordan and Canada amounted to barely $86 million. As with Panama, trade between Jordan and Canada is growing quickly without a free trade agreement in place.

I would like to go back to the first part of the speech I made about Jordan. We have examples of high-achieving countries around the world. I spoke about China and Brazil. They are increasing their international trade enormously without signing free trade agreements. However, these countries are very active through other means. They are using much more powerful and much more worthwhile means to increase their foreign trade and support their economy.

It is very important to take that into consideration. Because the way I see it, signing free trade agreements in such a disorganized way, without reviewing them beforehand, without determining whether or not they are small in scope, raises many more religious issues or, at the very least, the question of a basic belief that is not supported by fact—let us think of progress that we could measure and that would enable us to provide benefits to all Canadians.

This is a governmental approach that I find very worrisome. We can even wonder about the possible interpretation: as I said on Monday, is the government not sort of running away to avoid facing growing domestic problems?

I am the critic for small business and tourism. I can see that, currently in the Canadian economy, we are having problems supporting start-up companies. Entrepreneurship is seriously lacking, and the government is not taking care of that. But what the government is doing is overloading officials assigned to reviewing and implementing free trade agreements by increasing the number of superficial, artificial agreements that do not meet the needs of Canadians as a whole, for peanuts, for insignificant things that will, however, have a significant impact.

I would like to point out to the House that, if Bill C-23 is approved, Canada—without any guarantee and without having properly reviewed what is involved—will end up with ties to a country that may still have serious problems with regard to labour law.

Previously, when the NDP had serious concerns about this, it had learned and understood that there were outrageous cases of exploitation of foreign workers. A concrete example would be what is happening in the textile mills in Jordan. People were working in atrocious conditions, were living in totally inhumane conditions and were practically treated like slaves.

Jordan wanted to achieve some progress in that regard. But is it enough so that Canada can associate with Jordan without causing serious harm to Canada's reputation, since it has such a strong influence on the international scene? That is the situation Canada is in. That is why the NDP does not necessarily oppose at all costs entering into a free trade agreement with Jordan or any other country in the world. However, the NDP insists that we must have sufficient guarantees before we will support it.

As a member of the Standing Committee on International Trade—which is often dysfunctional and is too easily denied the basic tools needed to assess the work of officials and the minister in question, as well as free trade agreements under negotiation or already concluded—I am quite concerned.

The fact that the NDP agrees that this bill should be sent to committee for examination is in no way a blank cheque. This does not mean we fully support the bill as it currently stands. We still have questions and concerns. This does nothing to put an end to the attitude shown by this government, which is simply using one distraction after another to try to hide all the deficiencies in its management, not to mention all the scandals that keep emerging.

I have the honour of being part of a very young caucus; many NDP members are in their twenties. This agreement commits Canada for a long time, indeed, for a very long time. A parallel can be drawn here. A free trade agreement is almost like a marriage contract between two people. That is why we must examine it very carefully, in order to weigh the pros and cons and to know what we are committing to.

Unfortunately, sometimes in matters of the heart, a union between two people is entered into lightly and too quickly, which can be disastrous. The Government of Canada has adopted a rushed and reckless approach. I would encourage all hon. members of this House and all the members of the committee to participate in an open, clear and transparent review.

If the government wants the unanimous support of this House for this bill, then it should involve all the parties concerned, which it is not doing. At least, it has not so far. For the six years the Conservative Party has formed the government, it has shut everyone else out. It makes me wonder what that means for the interests of our country and for our future. It is not a healthy approach.

That is why the NDP is showing openness so that the government can share with us, in good faith, the information it has and show us clearly, through cold hard facts, the value of this future free trade agreement.

I am going to keep an open mind even though I have been rather disappointed by the government's attitude in the past. We will, however, give a quick account of the problems with the existing agreement that the government is trying to push through the House.

We are willing to work with the government provided that it is willing to consider the problems with the current agreement. When the agreement was concluded and the NDP was able to speak to this matter during the previous Parliament, the NDP pointed out that a number of credible, independent international agencies had warned us about the general abuses endured by workers in Jordan, especially foreign workers.

Unfortunately, in some of the textile plants, there are cases of slavery. There have been some credible reports on that. Canada cannot condone this. When it comes to international agreements, our country is completely against such practices.

To sign this agreement without having a guarantee from the Jordanian government that it is addressing the problem, actively working on it and fighting the abuse of foreign workers would be an outright betrayal of our international commitments. I am sorry, but I am not prepared to put our excellent reputation on the line for the paltry amount of $85 million worth of trade in 2009.

This free trade agreement also refers to the protection of investments. Although we have not been negotiating a long time in the case of the European free trade agreement, I have worked on it a fair bit. I have said it before and I will say it again: provisions that protect investors who do business in Canada are an aberration. It makes no sense because the rule of law prevails in Canada. We have all the legal mechanisms and legal protections necessary to guarantee investors that they will be treated with respect and that their rights will not be violated. What effect can the government give to a provision to protect Jordanians, or even Europeans, who invest in Canada? Is Canada a banana republic? The government will have to account to the committee on that. The government will have to explain what this means and why it is going down that road.

The lessons of NAFTA have shown that the NDP was quite right to be cautious and to ask for guarantees. We will do so with this free trade agreement and with others.

The House resumed from December 14, 2012, consideration of the motion that Bill C-23, 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, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps I did not hear it right. I thought this was a question about the House agenda. In any event, I will answer a couple of the questions.

First, with regard to the management of the House business, I will renew once again my invitation to the NDP to give us the number of speakers and the length of time they wish to speak on any of the bills before this House. They have yet to ever provide me an answer on that. I have asked in the past here and elsewhere and I will continue to ask.

I appreciate that the Liberal Party has been somewhat forthcoming in that regard. If we see the same from the NDP, we will be able to actually come to co-operative arrangements. However, barring that, it is clear that the NDP agenda is simply to run up the score and compel the government to utilize the resources available in the Standing Orders in order to ensure that we actually do come to decisions and take votes in this House.

Today we will continue with the opposition day. Tomorrow we will be having a debate to take note of the Standing Orders before, as I understand, the Procedure and House Affairs Committee takes on a more extensive and detailed study of proposed changes to the Standing Orders. Following the constituency week we will begin on Monday, February 27, with debate on Bill C-7, Senate Reform Act.

On Monday afternoon, we will continue debate on Bill C-24, the Canada-Panama economic growth and prosperity act. Tuesday, February 28, will be the fourth allotted day, which I understand is to go to the Liberal Party.

On Wednesday, we will continue debate on the Canada-Panama Free Trade Act. On Thursday morning, we will continue debate on Bill C-23, the Canada-Jordan Free Trade Act.

On Thursday afternoon, we will begin debate on Bill C-28, the financial literacy leader act.

As the House can see, this will be a jobs and growth week. Jobs and growth remain our government's top priorities.

As we have seen with the North American Free Trade Agreement, free trade creates jobs and economic growth for Canadian families and businesses, and this is true of the two free trade bills that we have before the House. Like the Canada-Jordan free trade act, which, I would point out, in the previous Parliament went to committee after only a few hours of debate, we would hope that we could get the same agreement from the other parties to do so here. I invite them to do that.

I can also say, from my own personal experience, that the Canada-Panama free trade agreement has been around for a long time. I recall two and a half years ago being in Panama with the Prime Minister as negotiations concluded on this agreement. I remember, as Minister of International Trade, introducing in the House on September 23, 2010, for the first time, the bill to implement the free trade agreement. It is about time that it passes into law to benefit Canadians, exporters and workers.

Bill C-28 would create the position of financial literacy leader to help promote financial literacy among Canadians. This is something for which I think all parties have expressed support. I am sure we should be able to come to an agreement on how to proceed. I proposed a motion to the House that laid out a reasonable work plan for Bill C-28 but, sadly, that motion was not supported. I encourage the opposition House leader to get together with us again to try to work on a reasonable work plan.

I do look forward to seeing some progress as we continue the hard-working, orderly and productive session of Parliament we are in. Rather than trying to run up the score and compel time allocation to be used, I would encourage the official opposition House leader to work with all parties in this place to make progress on the bills before us.

On that note and in the spirit of co-operation and working with my colleagues across the way, I have one further addition regarding tomorrow's debate. I thank my colleagues for this suggestion, which I believe, Mr. Speaker, you will find unanimous consent for. I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, the motion “That this House take note of the Standing Orders and procedure of the House and its Committees”, standing on the Order Paper, be amended by adding the following:

“; that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs be instructed to study the Standing Orders and procedures of the House and its Committees, including the proceedings on the debate pursuant to Standing Order 51; and that the Committee report its findings to the House no later than May 18, 2012”; and

that the motion, as amended, shall not be subject to any further amendment; and when debate has concluded, or at the expiry of time provided for Government Orders on the day designated for the debate, as the case may be, the motion, as amended, shall be deemed adopted.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to give my last Thursday statement of 2011. The fall has been a productive, hard-working and orderly session. It has been capped by results that we have seen in the House during delivering results month since we returned from the Remembrance Day constituency week.

Of particular note, this fall the House passed Bill C-13, the keeping Canada's economy and jobs growing act; Bill C-20, the fair representation act; Bill C-18, the marketing freedom for grain farmers act; and Bill C-10, the safe streets and communities act.

Other things were also accomplished, from the appointment of two officers of Parliament to the passing at second reading of Bill C-26, the Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act. I would like to thank the opposition parties who made these accomplishments possible. Nevertheless, the House has a lot of work to do when it returns in 2012.

The things I am looking forward to in 2012 include, after 48 speeches so far, returning to Bill C-19, the ending the long-gun registry act; after 75 speeches so far, continuing debate on second reading of Bill C-11, the copyright modernization act; after 73 speeches so far, continuing debating the opposition motion to block Bill C-4, the preventing human smugglers from abusing Canada's immigration system act from proceeding to committee; and, after 47 speeches so far, continuing debate on second reading of Bill C-7, the Senate reform act.

This winter, the government's priority will continue to be economic growth and job creation. We will thus continue to move forward with our economic agenda by debating legislative measures such as Bill C-23 on the implementation of a Canada-Jordan free trade agreement; Bill C-24 on the implementation of a Canada-Panama free trade agreement; Bill C-25, which is designed to give Canadians another way to plan for retirement through pooled registered pension plans; and Bill C-28 on the appointment of a financial literacy leader.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to the 2012 budget, the next phase of Canada's economic recovery, from the Minister of Finance, and I am looking forward to what I am sure it will deliver for the Canadian economy. This will be the cornerstone of the upcoming session.

With respect to the precise business of the House for the week of January 30, 2012, I will advise my counterparts in the usual fashion in advance of the House returning.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, please let me wish you, my fellow house leaders, all hon. members and our table officers and support staff a very merry Christmas.

In particular, I want to thank the pages, many of whom, as we know, spent their first significant amount of time away from home with us this fall. I wish them a pleasant time back home with family over Christmas. Perhaps we have provided some good stories for them to tell around the dinner table.

Merry Christmas, happy new year and all the best for the break. Here is to a productive, orderly and hard-working 2012.

Merry Christmas and happy new year. May the members of the House rest up in preparation for the hard work to come in a productive and orderly 2012.

Canada-Jordan Economic Growth and Prosperity Act

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-23. I have noted many times that the government loves to put names to acts that make them sound like they are other than they really are. The government calls this one, in the short title, the “Canada-Jordan economic growth and prosperity act”. I really think it should have a different name, more appropriate to what this agreement really is. I would call it the “trade agreement with the world's 90th place economy”. It is really not huge in terms of the prosperity that it is going to create. It is the world's 90th place economy, so let us put this particular bill in the perspective that it ought to be put in.

When this agreement was originally announced in June 2009, the Arab spring had yet to occur. The instability that has overtaken the region in the past year has been nothing short of transformative. In this climate, the FTA with Jordan is about to unfold. We are supportive of the bill in principle, as we have been of previous trade agreements. However, there are serious areas of concern. My colleague from the NDP mentioned some of those. I would agree with some of them.

These areas of concern should be carefully considered during examination of the legislation before the international trade committee. Among the areas of concern are child labour matters, which have been previously mentioned, and other labour issues. These would best be resolved through an open and transparent agreement. There are side agreements on labour and the environment, but they are really not that enforceable; they are really more of a desire. I do think we have to find ways of enforcing labour and environmental agreements.

Before looking at the agreement and the situation in Jordan, there are some general points that the House must consider with respect to trade generally and the government's actions. The government's mismanagement of Canada's trading relations around the world has resulted in trade deficits for the first time in over 30 years. Under this government's watch, we have seen a merchandise trade deficit for the first time in 30 years.

If we were to listen to the propaganda machine of the government, which is so far from reality, it claims to have negotiated nine trade agreements. The minister flits and flies all around the world talking trade. Yet while he is talking trade around the world he is ignoring the trading relationship with countries where we already have strongly established trading arrangements. We are falling back in those particular areas.

There is no question that Canada is a trade-dependent nation. Eighty per cent of Canada's economy depends on access to foreign markets for Canadian exports. The Liberal Party supports the principle of free trade. We support initiatives that improve market access for Canadian businesses. We want to hear from stakeholders and carefully examine this agreement to ensure it is indeed in Canada's best interest.

Free trade with Jordan will help encourage economic stability in that region. I would go further. If the side agreements on labour and the environment can be engineered properly and some teeth put in them, free trade can even help improve social, labour, economic and working conditions within Jordan.

Pursuing new trade agreements is worthy of support. However, as I said a moment ago, we have to put these agreements in context. While the Conservatives have proclaimed the promotion of trade, it has been under their watch that the mismanagement of the file, in terms of trading relationships, has resulted in trade deficits for the first time in 30 years.

With respect to the United States, we have seen the government “surprised” by increased United States' protectionist actions, and I will list but three.

First, the government was surprised by the initial buy American provisions in the 2008 United States stimulus package, even though for months President Obama projected that he would be looking at strong buy American policies. However, the government was surprised. It was caught not watching the store.

Second, the minister was surprised in the fall of 2011 when buy American provisions returned in the Obama administration's recent job plan efforts. Again, the government was caught short and not watching the store.

Third, the minister was surprised by the announcement of the United States Federal Maritime Commission, at the instigation of U.S. senators, of an investigation into U.S.-bound container traffic being diverted to Canadian ports and whether to impose fees or tariffs as a result of that diverted trade.

Perhaps I should mention one more because this affects Canadians who are travelling by air and sea to the United States, and that is the $5.40 entry fee. In the agreement the United States negotiated, I believe with Columbia, we lost our exception. Again, the Canadian government was caught surprised and disappointed.

My point is this. Not only do we have to look at new trade agreements around the world, which is important, but our biggest market is the United States. However, the United States continues, at every turn, to catch the government by surprise and disappointment. As a result, we see an erosion of our most important economic trading relationship. The importance of that relationship exceeds $1.4 billion of trade on a daily basis.

In terms of the merchandise export rate, in 2010 Canada exported $339.4 billion internationally. However, the vast majority of that trade is with but 10 countries. In descending order, they are: the United States, 74.9% of merchandise exports; the United Kingdom, 4.1%; China 3.3%; with Japan, Mexico, Germany, Korea, Netherlands and Brazil following that. We can see that it is a long way from first place to second place, with the first place trade being with the United States.

According to the International Trade Department, we are currently conducting 75% of our merchandise trade with the United States. According to its documents, by 2040, we will still be conducting 75% of our merchandise trade with the United States.

Let me be clear. While there are all these trade negotiations being talked about, and the minister is going here and there, the Conservatives are not watching the store in terms of our trading relationship with the United States. In fact, as I said the other day, on the areas of conflict with the United States, they give up certain things and get nothing in return. The Canadian Wheat Board is a prime example. It was challenged 14 times by the Americans. They could never win as a violation of a trading agreement, but the Conservatives have given it away and gets absolutely nothing in return.

On the perimeter security deal, what are we getting in return for that? Likely nothing, but we do not really know because the Conservative government, which claims to be transparent, keeps everything secret.

Canada is a trade dependent nation. We do depend on access markets for Canadian imports. However, with respect to Jordan, there are a number of issues that must be kept at the forefront, as with any trade agreement discussion and implementation.

The Export Development Corporation, in its recent export forecast overview, indicated that while the fallout from the Arab Spring had caused political uncertainty in the region, Jordan had managed, to be fair to it, to, “sap opposition movements of their momentum through modest political reform programs and spending promises”.

However, recent indications are that the uncertainty within Jordan had been slowly increasing. A recent The New York Times article referenced the issue of stability within the wider Middle East and the concern with respect to investment pointing out that:

If Middle Eastern governments want to attract foreign investors during the current period of change and uncertainty, then Arab countries need to lead the way by demonstrating faith in the long-term promise of the region’s markets...

The International Monetary Fund has indicated that the situation throughout the Middle East is one of economic certainty. It states:

For many countries in the Middle East and North Africa, 2011 has not been an easy year. The region is witnessing unparalleled uncertainty and economic pressures from both domestic and external sources, which have triggered a marked downturn in economic activity. While the economies of the oil-exporting countries have seen a mild pickup in growth in 2011, oil importers are experiencing a dramatic slowdown.

The IMF report of November 22 went on to state that in countries such as Jordan, high commodity prices were pushing up import bills and “uncertainty has also constrained access to international capital markets and direct investment have fallen off”.

A recent article in the New York Review, entitled “Jordan Starts to Shake”, raises some serious questions with respect to the Jordanian situation. The country is mired in recession and recently King Abdullah has increased the numerous state subsidies by $1 billion. More than 21,000 security positions have been created. The birth rate has been exceeding the ability of the country to create necessary jobs and unemployment exceeds 13%. There are some major concerns within the country.

Canadian merchandise exports to Jordan totalled $66 million in 2010, up from the $30.8 million in 2003. Top Canadian exports to Jordan in 2010 included: paper paperboard, mainly newsprint; vehicles; wood products; pulse crops, mainly lentils and chickpeas; and machinery and electrical and electronic equipment.

Canadian merchandise imports from Jordan totalled $19.9 million in 2010, up from the $5.7 million in 2003. Therefore, it is clear that the trading relationship is increasing and improving.

Top imports from Jordan in 2010 include both knit and woven apparel, inorganic chemicals, precious stones and metals, namely jewellery, vegetables and pharmaceutical products.

Two-way trade between Jordan and the United States in 2009 exceeded $1.77 billion. However, on that point, there is trade with the United States and Jordan and there is now trade between Canada and Jordan. This trade agreement should open up some opportunities.

Again, I want to come back to the government's failure in this area.

One of our most important pork markets is South Korea. The United States has negotiated a trade agreement with South Korea in which tariffs will come down. As tariffs come down, that $1 billion pork and beef market of Canadian producers into South Korea will decrease. We will be non-competitive because the Americans will displace us in that marketplace. The Government of Canada is asleep at the switch in terms of the trade agreement with South Korea.

We had started negotiations. I have to question whether the Minister of International Trade is getting slapped around a little by the Minister of Finance, who seems to be worried about the auto industry in his own backyard. Has he all the power in the cabinet? Could the government not negotiate an agreement like the United States has, which protects its auto industry and allows its pork industry to expand in South Korea as well?

I make that point because the government is talking about all the benefits of this 90th world economy and is ignoring the market we already have in South Korea for pork. The Conservatives are not negotiating or they are just not getting anything done in that area, That is what concerns me.

While I agree with the principle of negotiating with Jordan, we cannot continue to ignore those established markets that we have. Even on the CIDA agreement, where other members of the trade committee and myself spent part of last week in Brussels and in France. That too is an important market, but even if we get in that market in pork and beef, it will not make up for the loss of those pork exports to South Korea, which we are clearly losing on a daily basis because the Americans have negotiated an agreement and the Conservative government seems to be asleep at the switch.

Tariff elimination is important. There would be the elimination of all Jordanian non-agriculture tariffs, which currently average 11%. These include tariffs of 10% to 30% on many non-agriculture products of Canadian export interests, including industrial and electrical machinery, auto parts, construction equipment and forest products, such as wood building materials and paper.

There would be the elimination of the vast majority of Jordan's agricultural tariffs including: key Canadian export interests such as pulse crops; frozen french fries, which is important in my area because we make the best there is; and various prepared foods and animal feeds, which currently face high tariffs as much as 30%.

The vast majority of current Canadian exports to Jordan will benefit from immediate duty-free access to the Jordanian market upon implementation of this FTA. On implementation, Canada will also immediately eliminate all non-agricultural tariffs and imports originating in Jordan, as well as most agriculture tariffs.

As in all of its past FTAs, Canada has excluded over-quota supply managed dairy, poultry and egg products from any tariff reductions, and that is a good thing.

Ratifying this trade agreement appears to have little economic risk for Canadian industry. However, we should keep in mind that Canada's largest import from Jordan is apparel. While it seems, from what we hear and what we have questioned, the Canadian Apparel Federation does not seem to be concerned about this FTA, I think the points made by the NDP critic earlier have a lot of merit. Our apparel industry cannot compete with low-paid labour working as many as 16 hours a day under atrocious conditions. That situation must stop.

We agree with the side agreements on labour co-operation and environment. They are important. We cannot expect our businesses in Canada to be under a high cost labour regime with good safety standards, which is important and we support, to be under tougher environmental regulations, greater costs for industry as a result of meeting those environmental regulations and businesses in Jordan not facing the same situation. In terms of this agreement, we have to find a way to try to strengthen those side agreements.

The bottom line is that, yes, we support this bill going to committee. We believe it needs to be discussed, we need to have witnesses in and we need to strengthen it where possible.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on Bill C-23. I will get to this particular trade bill, but I want to address a couple of comments that have come out in recent discussions.

The member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour was referenced with respect to his comments relating to buy America. As vice-chair of the Canada-U.S. Parliamentary Association, I have been to Washington many times and have met with many different congressional and state representatives, as well as senate representatives, heads of committees and so forth relating to buy America and Canada's position. Many of them have argued that Canada should have had a reciprocity clause with respect to buy America by having our own buy Canada act as part of a defence that would have negotiated the removal of buy America because we have now seen it grow even further. What the government does not understand is that there is buy America and buy American. There are two acts that actually have protectionism in them.

Most recently we have seen it happen again where, despite the minister going down to Washington, we actually have more problems because we will see more legislation. There is another piece of legislation that has been tabled in the House that actually calls for the buy America act to be involved in the transportation sector, which it was not before. Therefore, there are more barriers coming up and they come with a series of issues.

Cross border trade was noted as well and the prosperity deal that was signed last week by the Prime Minister and President Obama. What is interesting about that deal is that it concentrates mostly on petroleum and pushing our oil in Washington, and not looking after our manufacturing sector and other trade. Our trade and manufacturing jobs have gone down to the lowest level since we have been actually taking those numbers and making them public in the 1970s. We have the lowest amount of manufacturing jobs left. That is because the government has been obsessed with oil versus that other value-added trade.

What happened today is very important with respect to the announcement last week. We learned that the Minister of Transport failed to move on legislation to protect a new border crossing in my riding at Windsor-Detroit where 40% of our trade goes to the United States every single day. It goes along a two-mile corridor. We are trying to build a brand new border crossing, a new public bridge. It has been blocked along the way by a private American citizen who has literally bought up the Michigan legislature. He has spent over $1 million in donations and has blocked the actual construction of that bridge.

Therefore, when we are talking about trade with Jordan or with the United States, it is important to note who our number one customer is, that being the United States. The way that we have been signing deals and arrangements has actually been lowering us. We have put ourselves in a trade deficit. That is the reality. New Democrats are interested in trade. We are interested also in making sure it will be done in a fair and balanced way. There is nothing wrong with that.

There is no way a Canadian can compete here, which is what we are asking for, with sweatshops in Jordan, some of which are Canadian companies. I will give a specific example later on. These sweatshops take offshore labour, often from Sri Lanka and other developing countries, 75% of them women, house them and put them in deplorable conditions to produce clothing.

How is the textile industry in Montreal able to compete with that? Will we accept that? Should we as citizens accept to wear cheaper garments produced by people who have been put into abusive situations and who are being taken advantage of? That is well-documented.

It was interesting to hear the criticisms about us saying that the labour movement is in favour of this now and that we are offside. The United Steelworkers originally supported the 2000 agreement between the United States and Jordan with respect to a trade deal. It is one of the situations I will be looking at with respect to amendments to get that undone. The United Steelworkers went on a fact-finding mission to see what happened because it had labour and environmental agreements and a whole series of things that were included but were voluntary. It found very little change. There was very little substance to the differences it was experiencing in the past because there was no enforcement.

This week we saw how our environmental enforcements are often not working within our own country. Therefore, we can just imagine what the rights of people in a kingdom like Jordan, which is not a democracy, can subject them to.

There is a responsibility and, generally, an interest for us to find some common ground and move some of those serious issues to closure. Surely we do not want the abuse and mistreatment of women fleeing Sri Lanka to increase because Canada has signed a free trade deal with Jordan. I would hope that is not the case. We want some measures in this agreement to make sure we can eliminate those issues. Perhaps there is an opportunity.

Side issues to bilateral trade, such the environment and labour, are often very much weakened because there is no regulatory enforcement, but we can build that into the legislation, and New Democrats will be looking for that. It is a carrot and stick approach. There is an offer to Jordan to improve trade and improve access to markets, theirs and ours, but at the same time we will be seeking improved humane labour standards, improvements we all think we can agree on.

Would anybody want to diminish those things? That question has to be asked. If we were to fuel further problems, would that be something we would support and be proud of as a country? We see that we have turned a blind eye to this in many respects when we look at what has happened across the world more recently with Libya and other states. We often turn a blind eye to some of these things for corporate interests. At a certain point we need to talk about global trade and all that kind of stuff, where there is no room for rights, the environment or other things; however, we need those things to be in place to improve our lifestyles and improve our planet. There has to be some balance.

Jordan may not be able to reach our standards right away. As consumers, we will demand that manufactured goods meet certain standards. When we buy a sweatshirt, a product with a zipper, or clothing, we want those products to meet certain standards, but at the same time we allow people to work for 14 hours a day, not have time off and be housed in warehouses and unclean areas. We have to address this issue. If that is the difference in getting a sweater or sweatshirt a couple of dollars cheaper, it is wrong.

We have a moral responsibility to address this issue while we can. If we take the blind eye approach, we are actually victimizing them, because we are aware of the standards we have in Canada. We do not allow child labour in Canada, so we should not be ignoring those issues with Jordan and other states.

There are issues because of a side agreement, but the conclusion in the environmental assessment that was done under the Canada-Jordan Free Trade Agreement was this:

Even if dramatic increases in bilateral trade flows occurred as a result of the implementation of the Canada-Jordan FTA, the economic effects of this Agreement would be modest relative to Canada's overall economic activity given the relatively low levels of bilateral trade and the size of the Jordanian economy. As a consequence, related environmental impacts in Canada are not expected to be significant. Moreover, environmental impacts, if any, will be addressed and managed by the existing environmental management programs in sectors that stand to gain in the FTA such as forestry and agriculture.

What is going to happen is that there will be no new regulatory oversight or repercussions related to this deal. It is interesting because the Conservatives talk about these issues in these trade agreements as if they are going to expand increasing markets, but their own research is telling them it is going to be relatively modest. What makes it really ironic and rich is that although the Windsor-Detroit corridor has 40% of our daily trade, $1 billion, flowing through the border, we still have a problem with securing a new site; meanwhile, the government is talking about putting this deal as a priority. It has tabled legislation for Jordan, but when the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities was advised by his own department to table legislation to protect our number one trading partner and border crossing in Canada, he did not do it. The government's policies in this last session of Parliament have been to drive Canada down and apart, not build it up.

The government was advised specifically to take action because we are at high risk when it comes to the Windsor-Detroit crossing, since 40% of the trade crosses there, private American citizens own the bridge, and it is 80 years of age. Our manufacturing value-added system is at risk. We have watched a watershed of jobs leave from Ontario, Quebec and other places, including jobs in manufacturing across the country, and what has the government been focusing on? Panama and Jordan.

That is what the government has tabled as legislation. Our number one trading partner, our number issue, is the United States. The Prime Minister goes to the United States, signs a border agreement and talks about infrastructure. Meanwhile in Michigan, the new border crossing is languishing because the government has not passed a law. The government's own minister was advised in his briefing book to actually act on the Windsor-Detroit crossing to stop lawsuits and prevent it from being blocked. He never did it.

Instead we have this bill, and we have issues with it. It is important to note that when we have these issues, there has to be proper follow-up. We will see if that is going to happen.

I will give a good example. In 2011 Jordan signed the international convention on domestic work. It provides for some protection for workers on the international level. Jordan signed that agreement and adopted it, but has yet to ratify it. Even when Jordan has been out there in the world trying to promote improvements and saying to the world that it is going to do some things, it has yet to ratify that agreement.

How long does that take in the Jordanian system? It probably does not take long. It is a kingdom. The legislative process will not take years. That is one of the things we should be demanding. We should be asking when it will be ratified, when it will be implemented, how things are to be measured, and how Jordan will ensure that workers are going to be protected.

I want to talk a little about those workers and those conditions, because Canada is connected there. I am talking about Nygard, Dillard's, JCPenney, and Walmart, which are linked to human trafficking, abuse and the Jordanian sweatshops.

It is really important to note the United Steelworkers looked at a number of specific plants in different areas. They sent a fact-finding mission over there. What they found is that there are 1,200 foreign guest workers trapped in the IBG factory, and nothing helped when they actually signed the U.S.—Jordanian agreement.

They went back and found that they still had problems. The east factory has about 600 workers: 300 from Sri Lanka, 200 from Bangladesh, and 100 from India. That is an example from one of the factories. I have pictures here. It looks like a warehouse. It looks more like a place for agriculture warehousing or something like that.

An estimated 75% of the guest workers are women between the ages of 18 and 30. It is a young workforce, predominantly women, in conditions that are absolutely abysmal.

Why do we not take this opportunity to say to Jordan, “Fine, we are open to trading and improvement, but we do not want those goods and services provided through abusive behaviours. We do not want them. In fact, if you do not fix some of the stuff you are doing now, then we are not going to move forward on this agreement”.

Alternatively, we could set benchmarks with enforcement tools or ways to peel back parts of the agreement if Jordan does not meet those benchmarks, unless the objective is to turn a blind eye and allow foreign workers to be abused so that we can get cheaper clothing.

We might as well just say that if that is the way it is going to be. If we are going to ignore the photos, ignore the visitations, ignore the pleas from the workers who have actually smuggled out a number of different tags, some from Canadian companies, at their risk, and ignore their cries for help, then we might as well just say that is what we are going to do.

These side agreements on labour and side agreements on environment are not enforceable, although there are some lofty words in some of these agreements.

With regard to the issues on labour, I will provide a good example. The real problem is that they have the words in there, but there is no final accountability. The side agreement is a good example. Under “corporate social responsibility”, it says:

Recognizing the substantial benefits brought by international trade and investment, the Parties shall encourage voluntary best practices of corporate social responsibility by enterprises within their territories or jurisdictions, to strengthen coherence between economic and environmental objectives.

It is so vague it does not matter, and there is no enforcement. It is not worth the paper it is printed on. It does not help the worker from Sri Lanka who is killed in one of the sweatshops. They have pictures here. It does not help the workers who are abused on a regular basis.

It is interesting, too, because when they go to Jordan, there is a process. They are processed. This is the sad and scary thing about this situation. There is a process taking place with the full consent of the Jordanian officials.

Do members know what happens? Guest workers are trafficked into Jordan, stripped of their passports and held in slave labour conditions. Workers' passports are confiscated. Their routine is 16-hour shifts, seven days a week. They work in the factory 111 hours a week. They are cheated out of half their legal wages. Workers are slapped and threatened with deportation. There are reports of sexual harassment and abuse. If, for whatever reason, a worker misses a shift, that worker is docked two days' pay and punished. They live under miserable, primitive dorm conditions lacking heat, with only sporadic access to water and infested with bedbugs. In fact, one was actually brought back to the University of Ohio to confirm that the bedbugs were actually feasting and gorging on those people in that environment. The due diligence has been done to investigate the conditions in Jordan.

Here is a routine shift they work: 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., they work two hours; 9.a.m. to 9:15 a.m., they have a 15-minute tea break; 9:15 a.m. to 1 p.m., they work for three and three-quarter hours; 1 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., they have a half-hour lunch break; 1:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., they work for six and a half hours; 8 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., they have a half-hour supper break; 8:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., they work for two and a half hours. They have 16-hour days.

We need to address these issues if we are saying to Jordan that we want it to be our partner. If we are extending our hand, it is our responsibility to say something about these issues. It is our responsibility to ensure that bilateral trade is fair. Do we want these conditions to get worse for them, or do we want them to get better? Do we want them to stay the same?

I would argue it is economically impossible for us to compete in this way anyway, because it is not fair if they are using slave labour. All those who invest in the textile industry in North American, particularly in Canada, are going to get the short end of the stick no matter what. It does not matter how much they invest or how much they train their workers. It does not matter how much they have given back to the community. It does not matter what they have done over a number of decades: they cannot compete with those standards. They cannot compete with people basically used as slaves.

What does it say to those people who are actually investing in Canada--people who actually believe in proper work hours for their staff, believe in contributing back to the community and value the people who are employed by them? We are insulting them by doing that.

We are not doing anything to be proud of as a country if we are saying those things are all acceptable so that we can get a cheap sweater or lower-cost merchandise or fill the shelves at Walmart with cheap clothes. These are the things we have to look at.

To conclude, I want to say that we are interested in trying to make this bill work, but it has to be done with responsibility. Turning a blind eye is not the ethical or right thing to do.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise in the House today to begin debate on Bill C-23, the Canada-Jordan free trade agreement. Our government is committed to securing and deepening access to traditional markets, like the United States, and broadening and expanding access to more markets, like Jordan.

Trade accounts for over 60% of our annual GDP and, with one in five Canadian jobs generated by trade, it is a matter of fundamental importance to the financial security of hard-working Canadians and their families.

Our focused pursuit of new free trade agreements helps to demonstrate our government's commitment to helping Canadian workers and businesses compete in markets abroad, as well as our commitment to creating more jobs and economic growth for Canadian workers.

We continue to see fierce competition in the global marketplace, with emerging economies and global players continuing to climb the value chain and establishing themselves in a wide range of sectors.

This government will do everything it can to ensure that Canadian workers and Canadian businesses have the tools and opportunities to build the links needed to succeed in today's global economy. Our government is committed to bringing continued economic prosperity to Canadians by pursuing bilateral and regional free trade relationships. Negotiating and implementing trade agreements with our international partners will also help to level the playing field for our companies in an increasingly complex and competitive environment.

Pursuing free trade agreements sends a clear signal that protectionism is not the right way to achieve increased global stability and prosperity. In these challenging times, deeper trade ties are the best way to create jobs and economic growth. Our government will get that done. That is why we have an ambitious, job creating, pro-trade plan. The Canada-Jordan economic growth and prosperity act is a key part of this plan.

The Canada-Jordan free trade agreement also demonstrates Canada's support for an Arab state that, like Canada, supports peace and security in the Middle East.

We will recall that in 2007, the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister joined His Majesty King Abdullah II in a commitment to take our commercial relationship to the next level. The Canada-Jordan free trade agreement, along with related agreements on labour co-operation and the environment, signed in 2009, are a direct result of this commitment.

Canada's economy is export driven. Canadian families understand that trade is a kitchen table issue that provides jobs and helps put food on the table. We know it is in our best economic interest to seek out new opportunities for our producers, workers and exporters in as many foreign markets as possible.

Moreover, negotiating free trade agreements allows for Canadian firms to specialize and increase their comparative advantage in the global marketplace. By improving access to foreign markets for Canadian workers and businesses, this government is keeping its commitment to support economic growth and create new jobs for Canadian workers.

In a number of countries, Canadian firms are at a competitive disadvantage because their foreign competitors have preferential market access under some form of a free trade agreement. The Canada-Jordan free trade agreement addresses this serious issue by leveling the playing field with key competitors who are already benefiting from free trade agreements with Jordan, namely competition from the United States and the European Union.

Through the Canada-Jordan economic growth and prosperity act, our government is ensuring that Canadian workers and firms are on equal footing to compete with firms from across the world in the Jordanian market. Opening doors to trade and investment is the right approach for creating opportunities for Canadian workers and businesses in global markets.

The Canada-Jordan free trade agreement would create new export opportunities and strengthen bilateral ties between our two countries.

The free trade agreement with Jordan would benefit both Canadians and Jordanians by giving Canadian and Jordanian exporters unprecedented access to our respective markets and eliminating tariffs on a number of key products. World leading Canadian sectors, like forestry, manufacturing and agriculture and agri-food would benefit.

Over the years, Canada and Jordan have built a strong, mutually beneficial relationship. This free trade agreement continues to build on that important start. It is a relationship grounded in common aspirations, like peace, stability and prosperity for our citizens. This new free trade agreement would help to move these aspirations forward.

Despite the recent economic downturn experienced by the global economy, our bilateral trade with Jordan increased to $85.9 million in 2010 from $82.5 million in 2009, indicating that the longer-term trend of our trade relationship is one of growth.

For example, Canada's 2010 merchandise exports to Jordan of $66 million were more than double the $31 million total in 2003. This free trade agreement would provide the opportunity to further enhance this trend of upward growth.

Jordan's current average applied tariff is 11%, with peaks of up to 30% applied on some Canadian exports of interest. In fact, 67% of Jordan's tariff lines, covering over 99% of Canadian exports, will be eliminated when the agreement is first implemented. This is a huge step forward in the growing economic partnership between Canada and Jordan and will help to ensure that Canadian firms remain competitive globally. Jordan's remaining tariff reductions will then take place over three or five years.

Let me give a better idea of the specific sectors that will benefit if the Canada-Jordan economic growth and prosperity act is quickly moved through the House.

Top exports in 2010 included paper and paperboard, vegetables, wood, vehicles and machinery. In 2010 Canada imported some $20 million in goods from Jordan, including both knit and woven apparel, inorganic chemicals, precious stones, mainly jewellery, and vegetables, cucumbers.

Our trade relationship has clearly been growing, despite Jordan's most favoured nation applied average tariff of 11% and peaks of up to 30% on many key Canadian exports.

The Canada-Jordan free trade agreement aims to remedy this situation and promote continued prosperity for Canadian workers, producers and exporters. Once this agreement is brought into force, Canada will immediately benefit from duty-free access for over 99% of current Canadian exports by value.

What does this new agreement mean for individual exporters? Permit me to run through some specific examples, starting with the agricultural sector. Canadian exporters of pulses, lentils, chickpeas, beans and peas will benefit from the immediate elimination of Jordan's tariffs of 5% to 10% on these products. Of Canada's $7 million of vegetable exports to Jordan in 2010, the majority were lentils and chickpeas, which currently face a 5% tariff, and peas that are subject to a 10% tariff, both of which go to duty-free access immediately upon implementation of the agreement.

In 2010 exports of frozen potato products to Jordan totalled some $88,000. These exporters will benefit from the immediate elimination of a 20% Jordanian tariff and place them on a level playing field with competitors in the U.S. and the E.U., which currently benefit from duty-free access to the Jordanian market.

Canadian beef exporters will benefit from the immediate elimination of Jordanian tariffs, which range from 5% to 23% on all beef products, including fresh chilled frozen and preserved meat and offal and processed products such as sausages and jerky.

Jordan lifted its restrictions on Canadian beef products in February 2009, which will allow this sector to benefit from these lower tariffs.

Animal feed will also benefit from the elimination of Jordanian tariffs of up to 23% and some of these are currently subject to an additional 10% tariff that will be eliminated immediately upon implementation of the free trade agreement.

The Canada-Jordan free trade agreement is certainly more than just agricultural products. The elimination of Jordanian tariffs, ranging from 15% to 30% on certain wood products, could benefit Canadian exporters of doors, frames, joinery, shakes and shingles and other building materials.

Canadian exporters of paper goods, such as toilet paper, paper towels, facial tissues, envelopes, stationery, wrapping paper, boxes and corrugated cardboard, will benefit from the elimination of Jordanian tariffs ranging from 10% to 30%.

With $9.7 million in exports in 2010, mainly light passenger vehicles, Jordan is a growing market for Canadian auto and auto parts exports. The elimination of Jordan's tariffs ranging from 10% to 30% will help Canadian exporters to further expand into this market.

Canada exports a variety of mechanical and electrical machinery to Jordan, $9.2 million in 2010, including heavy construction and mining equipment, communications equipment, filtration or purification devices, pumps, machinery and components. The elimination of Jordanian tariffs, ranging from 10% to 30% on a variety of current and potential Canadian machinery exports, will certainly help our machinery manufacturing sector.

Canada's exports of pharmaceuticals to Jordan totalled just shy of a million dollars in 2010, of which 80% were subject to a 5% Jordanian tariff. That will be eliminated upon implementation of this free trade agreement.

Although Jordan is currently a small market for Canadian fish and seafood exports, the elimination of Jordan's 10% to 30% tariffs on fish and seafood could help Canadian exporters expand their presence in the Jordanian market.

I have to admit that I have covered a lot of numbers, but numbers matter to Canadian workers, producers and exporters. In an increasingly competitive world, lower tariff numbers can make the difference for exporters who are considering whether to expand or enter into a new market.

This growing trade relationship is just one of many reasons why our government continues to work with Canadian businesses to ensure closer commercial ties to the Jordanian marketplace. Our government's work to support Canadian firms doing business in Jordan has been recognized by the business community in Canada and has been met with support from a wide range of businesses, including the Forest Products Association of Canada, the Grain Growers of Canada, the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, as well as the Canada-Arab Business Council, all of which appeared before the Standing Committee on International Trade.

Members will remember that our free trade agreement was just one of the agreements we signed with Jordan in 2009. We also signed a bilateral job-creating foreign investment protection and promotion agreement, which came into force on December 14, 2009. This job-creating investment agreement establishes clear rules for investment between our two countries.

Canadian investors are particularly excited about opportunities in Jordan's resource, extraction, nuclear energy, telecommunications, transportation, manufacturing and infrastructure sectors and this job-creating investment agreement provides Canadian and Jordanian investors with the predictability and certainty they need when investing in one another's markets.

I am sure members will agree that this free trade agreement and the 2009 job-creating foreign investment protection and promotion agreement with Jordan are no doubt complementary.

We are living in very challenging economic times and the economy remains our government's number one priority. In order to ensure that our economy continues to grow and continues to be competitive in the global marketplace, trade barriers must be broken down all across the world, through new free trade agreements.

Protectionism is never the answer. Our government believes that Canada's ability to continue to recover from the global economic downturn depends, in large part, on the global trade and investment partnerships that we pursue. That is why we are moving so ambitiously on free trade negotiations with our global partners.

Since 2006, Canada has concluded new free trade agreements with nine countries, most recently, an agreement with Honduras that was announced August 12. Canada is also in discussions with many more countries, including the European Union and India, two of the largest, most promising markets in the world.

This government is dedicated to ensuring that the Canadian economy remains strong through pursuing trade relationships that work for Canadians. This ambitious pro-trade plan is important for Canada.

Passing the Canada-Jordan economic growth and prosperity act will allow for the quick implementation of the free trade agreement with Jordan in order to help Canadian workers and Canadian businesses compete.

Earlier this week, the Canada–Panama economic growth and prosperity act was debated. Unfortunately, the NDP opposed the Canada-Panama economic growth and prosperity act. This should not come as a surprise, as its record is very clear. The NDP has opposed all trade agreements.

Unlike the NDP, our Conservative government is focused on broadening and deepening our trading relationship, as it protects and creates jobs and economic growth for Canadian workers and their families.

I reach out to the NDP and the Liberal Party. We need their support to pass these free trade agreements in the House. They are important for the Canadian economy. They are especially important in these trying economic times. Unfortunately, every time we reach out, we hear the same things in return. The NDP continues to represent some very narrow special interest groups. It continues with its job-killing, anti-trade agenda. It continually invents any reason at all not to support free trade agreements. On Monday, at the end of the day, the NDP said that, once again, it would oppose this agreement.

While we are focused on protecting and growing Canada's economy through our job-creating, pro-trade plan, we continually have to deal with opposition parties that obstruct this. That is the last thing we need. I would urge all my colleagues in the House of Commons to give support for a quick passage of this bill so the international trade committee can begin its work.

We have seen a very clear position come down on the side of the NDP. I do not expect that to be the position of the Liberal Party, the third party in the House. We would hope we do get its support on this bill.

However, let me assure Canadian workers and their families that our Conservative government will be strongly supporting the Canada–Jordan economic growth and prosperity act to ensure we continue to create jobs and economic growth. It is now time to move ahead with the legislation.

Our government and our party will send a clear message to Canadians that continued prosperity for Canadian workers and Canadian businesses is a priority, not just for the Conservative Party but for the House of Commons. The best way to do that is through ensuring a speedy passage of Bill C-23, Canada–Jordan economic growth and prosperity act.

This is important legislation. It was before the House in the last Parliament and it is before the House again. I urge my colleagues to send this to committee as quickly as possible and then send it back to the House post-haste.

[Bal Gosal, Conservative, Bramalea—Gore—Malton, ON]

moved that Bill C-23, 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, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on International Trade.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, one of the most important things we are looking forward to in the next week or so is the passage of the major priority pieces of legislation we have been advancing this fall, for which we have been seeking to set timetables to ensure they could pass to be in effect for next year. They are our budget implementation act to ensure that important tax measures are in place like a tax credit for job creation and accelerated capital cost allowance to create jobs; our bill to ensure fair representation, to have that in place in time for the redistribution that is going to unfold next year; and in addition to that another bill which again is a time priority, the crime bill, and I do not think we are going to be able to make that objective.

However, we are looking to get those in place and, having done that, we look forward to, in the next 10 days or so, the very first of those bills we have been working on all fall to actually becoming law. That will be a very exciting time for us when we finally achieve Royal Assent, having spent that time.

I should advise members that next week will be free trade and jobs week. We will begin Monday morning with second reading of Bill C-24, the Canada–Panama free trade act. This free trade agreement was signed on May 14, 2010. It is now time for Parliament to put it into effect, so that Canadians can benefit from the jobs and economic growth it will deliver.

It being free trade and jobs week, we will begin second reading debate on Wednesday of another bill to implement a job-creating free trade agreement. In this case, we will discuss Bill C-23, the Canada-Jordan Free Trade Act, which will implement Canada's first free trade agreement with an Arab country.

This will be the last week before the House adjourns for the holidays. And it is with the Christmas spirit in mind that we hope to have the co-operation of all members in making great progress on a number of important bills with a focus on job creation and economic growth.

On Monday, if we are able to pass Bill C-24, the Canada–Panama free trade bill, we would call Bill C-11, the copyright modernization act. Bill C-11 is another bill that would lead to more jobs in Canada, and our world-leading digital and cultural sectors. Earlier this week, the Liberal motion to block further debate on this important bill was defeated in this House. That means we can get back to second reading debate and I would hope that after being debated for over one sitting week, the opposition will finally allow this bill to get to committee.

If we continue to make the progress I am hoping for, we will then call Bill C-14, the Improving Trade Within Canada Act, for further second reading debate. This is a fairly straightforward bill that will benefit the economy by implementing amendments to the Agreement on Internal Trade agreed by the provinces. I expect all parties will allow it to move swiftly to committee.

In addition to passing these job creating bills, on Monday, ideally, we would then call C-26, the citizen's arrest and self-defence act for further debate.

For the balance of free trade and jobs week, we will continue to debate any of those bills which have not yet been referred to committee. We would also look to begin second reading debate on Bill C-28, the financial literacy leader act. This bill will create a new position in the government dedicated to encouraging financial literacy for Canadians.

As for the balance of this week, which is democratic reform week, Bill C-20, the fair representation act, will be debated tomorrow at report stage, further to the motion adopted yesterday. Third reading in the House on this bill will be Tuesday. This will be followed by a vote Tuesday night, a vote that will give all members in this place an opportunity to vote on the important democratic principle of representation by population.

Canada--Jordan Economic Growth and Prosperity Act

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-23, 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.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)