Mr. Speaker, at risk of repeating what has been said so many times in the House today, New Democrats support trade deals that reduce tariffs and boost exports, but we remain firm that components like investor-state provisions that threaten sovereignty have no place in trade deals.
In our view, the job of government is to pursue better trade, that is, trade that boosts human rights and labour standards, protects the environment, and protects, above all, Canadian jobs. A final trade deal must be based on its net costs and benefits. We have always been clear on this and have opposed trade deals in the past that would have a net negative impact on Canadian jobs and the environment.
To repeat what my colleagues have said, particularly the member for Essex, who has been so strong on this file, trade with Europe is too important to get wrong. The NDP supports deepening our Canada-EU trading relationship to diversify our markets. However, there remain significant concerns and unanswered questions about the proposed CETA deal.
First, changes in CETA will increase drug costs for consumers. Second, there are concerns about local procurement, particularly for local governments. Third, investor-state provisions will have to be removed before this deal is ratified, and fourth, the Liberals have not properly compensated dairy farmers for their loss of market share under CETA.
With respect to the first, increasing drug costs are a significant and known downside of CETA, yet the Liberals have not delivered on their promised compensation to the provinces and territories for the increased cost of prescription drugs to provincial taxpayers and consumers. Changes to intellectual property rights for pharmaceuticals under CETA are expected to increase drug costs by more than $850 million annually.
Quoting Jim Keon, the president of the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association, he said:
A study prepared for the [Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association] by two leading Canadian health economists in early 2011 estimated that, if adopted, the proposals would delay the introduction of new generic medicines in Canada by an average of three and a half years. The cost to pharmaceutical payers of this delay was estimated at $2.8 billion annually, based on generic prices in 2010
The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions has also warned that it could be more difficult to bring down drug prices through a national pharmacare program if CETA comes in.
In opposition, the Liberals demanded that the Conservatives present a study of the financial impact on provinces and territorial governments, both on their health care systems and on prescription drug costs. Now that they are in government, they are telling the provinces that they will cut health care transfers, while pursuing agreements that risk increasing drug costs for the provinces.
According to the Canadian Health Coalition, the delayed arrival of cheaper generics will increase the cost of prescription drugs for Canadians by between $850 million and $2.8 billion a year.
CETA is the first Canadian bilateral free trade agreement since NAFTA that includes a chapter on intellectual property rights. It goes well beyond Canada's existing obligations. The increased patent protections granted to brand name pharmaceuticals were an EU priority, but they are not a Canadian priority. We heard this all the time during the election campaign. When door-knocking in all kinds of neighbourhoods, we heard from Canadians who were splitting their pills, skipping prescriptions, not taking their full prescribed drugs each day, and having to make the terrible choice between buying food and taking the medication their doctor had prescribed. That is a terrible situation, and to think that the current government would risk exacerbating that problem for consumers is unimaginable to me and is certainly not consistent with its campaign promises.
My second area of concern is local procurement. When I was elected to local government, TILMA, the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement, was proposed. It was very controversial in British Columbia.
These days, local governments are encouraged, when they raise taxes on property owners, to then spend those taxes in the local community as much as they can. The local government will contract someone to put up a website, for example, or if it needs catering for a government operation or public function, it might bias that procurement toward local providers and maybe even pay a premium. This has been done more and more. However, the local procurement restrictions increasingly threaten and intimidate local governments from doing those fantastic things that are good for local business and good for the local economy.
We hear that above a certain threshold, minimum local content policies will be outlawed, even for municipal and provincial government procurement. Companies will also have an expanded ability to use temporary foreign workers, without a study of the impact on Canadians.
My third area of concern is the investor-state provisions. These are mechanisms that allow foreign corporations to sue our government if they feel that our regulations have impeded their ability to profit. We know this too well in Canada. Canada is already one of the most sued countries in the world under investor-state dispute mechanisms. Canadian companies have won only three of 39 cases against foreign governments, and our government continues to get new complaints seeking billions of dollars in damages.
One example currently before the courts is Lone Pine Resources, an oil and gas developer that had obtained an exploration permit to look for shale gas under the St. Lawrence River. The Quebec government took the very bold step of revoking the permit in response to constituents' concerns about fracking, but Lone Pine sued the Canadian government, under its U.S. affiliate, under NAFTA chapter 11 and sought $250 million in compensation.
What other province is going to be as brave as the Quebec government and take a stand against something like fracking if there is this kind of chill? This is a real problem. Existing investor-state dispute provisions have also resulted in a regulatory chill where governments have failed to take action in the public interest when they have feared that it may trigger an investor claim.
The Canadian Environmental Law Association said:
[CETA] will significantly impact environmental protection and sustainable development in Canada. In particular, the inclusion of an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, the liberalization of trade in services, and the deregulation of government procurement rules will impact the federal and provincial governments' authority to protect the environment, promote resource conservation, or use green procurement as a means of advancing environmental policies and objectives.
That worries me, every piece of it.
In February 2016, during CETA's legal scrubbing phase, the minister announced changes to the ISDS provisions that are supposed to improve transparency and strengthen measures to combat the conflicts of interest of arbitrators. However, the new court system still allows foreign investors to seek compensation from any level of government for any policy decision they feel would impact their profits.
The Liberals still have not explained how they would ensure that environmental health and safety regulations would be protected from foreign challenges.
Fourth, the Liberals have not properly compensated dairy farmers for loss of market share under CETA. Quoting the Dairy Farmers of Canada:
CETA will result in an expropriation of up to 2% of Canadian milk production; representing 17,700 tonnes of cheese that will no longer be produced in Canada. This is equivalent to the entire yearly production of the province of Nova Scotia, and will cost Canadian dairy farmers up to $116 million a year in perpetual lost revenues.
We cannot afford to be making and processing less of our own food. We cannot afford to be undermining dairy farmers, who are at the foundation of the way our country and our rural economies have grown. We cannot let this go.
The Liberals also have not explained whether and how they will compensate Newfoundland and Labrador for fish processing losses. Again, this is a time we should be adding value to our natural resources, not trading them away.
Given all these concerns and all these unresolved issues, I will quote Maude Barlow, from the Council of Canadians:
Given the process could take another five years in Europe, what's the rush here other than another photo op? There needs to be a fuller public consultation process on CETA, just as the government has done with the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
I will leave, finally, by saying once again that New Democrats want better trade, trade that boosts human rights and labour standards, protects the environment, and protects Canadian jobs. This is not a progressive trade deal until those measures are implemented. If the Liberal government will not stand up for progressive trade deals, New Democrats surely will.
