Bill C-30 (Historical)

Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation Act

An Act to implement the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union and its Member States and to provide for certain other measures

This enactment implements the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union and its Member States, done at Brussels on October 30, 2016.
The general provisions of the enactment set out rules of interpretation and specify that no recourse may be taken on the basis of sections 9 to 14 or any order made under those sections, or on the basis of the provisions of the Agreement, without the consent of the Attorney General of Canada.
Part 1 approves the Agreement and provides for the payment by Canada of its share of the expenses associated with the operation of the institutional and administrative aspects of the Agreement and for the power of the Governor in Council to make orders in accordance with the Agreement.
Part 2 amends certain Acts to bring them into conformity with Canada’s obligations under the Agreement and to make other modifications. In addition to making the customary amendments that are made to certain Acts when implementing such agreements, Part 2 amends
(a) the Export and Import Permits Act to, among other things,
(i) authorize the Minister designated for the purposes of that Act to issue export permits for goods added to the Export Control List and subject to origin quotas in a country or territory to which the Agreement applies,
(ii) authorize that Minister, with respect to goods subject to origin quotas in another country that are added to the Export Control List for certain purposes, to determine the quantities of goods subject to such quotas and to issue export allocations for such goods, and
(iii) require that Minister to issue an export permit to any person who has been issued such an export allocation;
(b) the Patent Act to, among other things,
(i) create a framework for the issuance and administration of certificates of supplementary protection, for which patentees with patents relating to pharmaceutical products will be eligible, and
(ii) provide further regulation-making authority in subsection 55.‍2(4) to permit the replacement of the current summary proceedings in patent litigation arising under regulations made under that subsection with full actions that will result in final determinations of patent infringement and validity;
(c) the Trade-marks Act to, among other things,
(i) protect EU geographical indications found in Annex 20-A of the Agreement,
(ii) provide a mechanism to protect other geographical indications with respect to agricultural products and foods,
(iii) provide for new grounds of opposition, a process for cancellation, exceptions for prior use for certain indications, for acquired rights and for certain terms considered to be generic, and
(iv) transfer the protection of the Korean geographical indications listed in the Canada–Korea Economic Growth and Prosperity Act into the Trade-marks Act;
(d) the Investment Canada Act to raise, for investors that are non-state-owned enterprises from countries that are parties to the Agreement or to other trade agreements, the threshold as of which investments are reviewable under Part IV of the Act; and
(e) the Coasting Trade Act to
(i) provide that the requirement in that Act to obtain a licence is not applicable for certain activities carried out by certain non-duty paid or foreign ships that are owned by a Canadian entity, EU entity or third party entity under Canadian or European control, and
(ii) provide, with respect to certain applications for a licence for dredging made on behalf of certain of those ships, for exemptions from requirements that are applicable to the issuance of a licence.
Part 3 contains consequential amendments and Part 4 contains coordinating amendments and the coming-into-force provision.

International Trade

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

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-30, an act to implement the comprehensive economic and trade agreement between Canada and the European Union and its member states and to provide for certain other measures. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

The proposal in paragraph (a) of the amendment would result in a lack of consistency between the text of CETA, the text of the joint interpretive instrument, and the text of Bill C-30.

With regard to paragraph (b) of the amendment, it is inaccurate to state that “additional protection” was an objective of the intellectual property provisions in CETA. While CETA provides for supplementary protection for certain patent-protected pharmaceutical products, this is only a very narrow subset of intellectual property provisions in CETA.

As to the amendment under paragraph (c), it is unjustified and inaccurate to suggest that CETA provides Canada, the European Union, and all its member states with the discretion to voluntarily enforce basic worker rights.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our trade committee.

As everybody knows, we're dealing with Bill C-30 in clause-by-clause study today. Fortunately, it got through the House and everybody got to speak to it.

I welcome the officials.

It's good to see you and your team, Mr. Verheul. This is your baby, for a lot of you guys, and you did a lot of work.

Before I get started, Mr. Hoback, I'd like to pass on from the committee best wishes to your colleague Mr. Fast. I've heard that he has some health issues. Mr. Fast did a lot of work on this file in the many trips he made to Europe. Our thoughts are with him. If you could pass that on, I'd appreciate it.

Are there any questions from the committee before we get rolling here? Hopefully, we'll have a very productive next couple of hours, and then everybody can enjoy their evening Christmas party.

Without further ado, we're going to start this off. We have our trusted clerk with us—

Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-30.

The question is on the motion that the question be now put.

The House resumed from December 12 consideration of the motion that Bill C-30, An Act to implement the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union and its Member States and to provide for certain other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, I know the member opposite has been in this House for quite some time past my own time here, but I would encourage him to be respectful of other members of the House, and I would appreciate that respect, please, as a member.

I would like to speak about the fact that New Democrats have supported two of the three pieces of trade legislation going through this House. As a matter of fact, I followed the procession for royal assent last night on Bill C-13. I was pleased to do so.

At the trade committee level, we have been working incredibly hard and asking difficult questions, questions the government, on the other side of this House, seems unwilling to address.

When we talk about CETA, the government will not speak about the impact on the cost of prescription drugs for Canadians. It simply will not answer. The minister herself visited the trade committee and refused to answer our questions.

Yesterday New Democrats stood proudly in this House debating a very important piece of legislation, Bill C-30, on CETA, the largest trade agreement we have entered since NAFTA. It is not just me who thinks that. The minister herself stated that in the previous Parliament.

New Democrats will always look at every aspect of a trade agreement. As for the TPP, I encourage the member opposite to read the 6,000 pages, because I can assure him, I have done so. I have done my due diligence as a parliamentarian. I have travelled with the trade committee to every province in this country and seen more than 400 people. I have held seven town halls on TPP. I promise the member that I am doing my due diligence as a parliamentarian on all trade agreements.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-30, An Act to implement the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union and its Member States and to provide for certain other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity this afternoon to speak to this important subject, Bill C-30, regarding the comprehensive economic and trade agreement between Canada and the European Union.

Canada is a trading nation. As we have heard so many times in this debate, we need good trade agreements, and we need to diversify our trading markets. Trade is too important to get these agreements wrong, especially with such an important partner as the European Union. We have to take the time to get it right. However, the Liberal government seems to be in a real rush to get this treaty ratified. The government signed CETA on October 30. The government has a set policy for the tabling of treaties in Parliament. That policy states that the treaties must be tabled with explanatory notes 21 days before the enabling legislation is presented. What happened with CETA? Bill C-30, the enabling legislation, was put on the Order Paper two days before the agreement was even signed, and it was tabled in Parliament on October 31, the day after the signing. What is the hurry? The European Union nations will be taking their time to make sure that this deal is good for them. Why are we giving them that advantage when we should be taking our time to make sure we get it right as well?

There are obviously good things about freer trade with Europe. We are happy to see the reduction or elimination of tariffs on Canadian industries, particularly those in the agricultural sector, such as beef, pork and canola. We like free trade when it is fair trade.

There is a forest products mill in my riding called Greenwood Forest Products, which creates laminated pine shelving and furniture parts. It sells its own products across western North America, but to serve eastern Canada and the eastern United States, it imports finished products from Romania. It is cheaper to do that than to ship products across Canada. That is another story. Therefore, it depends on trade with the European Union to survive. It does not pay any tariffs on products coming from the EU now, so CETA will not directly benefit it, but it does appreciate any strengthening of trade ties between Canada and Europe. It may likely have to do more business in Europe in the near future because it is deeply concerned about the direction that the softwood lumber agreement is taking with the United States. Its products have never been hit by countervail duties or tariffs in the past with the U.S. However, the recent moves in the United States between the U.S. lumber industry and the U.S. Department of Commerce have apparently expanded the number and types of products covered under the industry complaints to include a wide variety of value-added products, instead of being restricted to the dimension lumber, as it has been in the past. Therefore, it is very disappointed with the Liberal government's inaction on the softwood lumber front.

That is a good example of why we need to diversify our trading relationships. We need good trade deals with other nations and other regions. However, we do not want bad deals that will result in decreased market share for Canadian companies, unfair competition, reduced sovereignty, and significant job losses.

We are particularly worried about the investor-state dispute provisions brought in by this agreement. Under similar trade agreements, Canada has become one of the most sued countries in the world, winning only three of 39 cases against foreign interests, as we try to maintain our sovereignty in legislating protections for the environment, health, and other social interests.

I would like to quote something from the Canadian Environmental Law Association about this. It states:

[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.

Yes, there are carve-outs for some of these categories, but that will not stop corporations from initiating litigation, forcing us to prove that we are protected, and putting a regulatory chill on governments across this country, stopping them from enacting progressive legislation as they fear possible litigation. Since some European regions are clear that they want this provision removed, why does Canada feel compelled to insist on this part of the agreement when it is clearly not in our national interest?

I am also concerned about what CETA would do for drug costs in Canada. Changes to intellectual property rules for pharmaceuticals under CETA would be expected to increase drug costs by more than $850 million annually. This would not only be harmful to individual Canadians and their families who are struggling to get by but would make it increasingly difficult to bring in a national pharmacare program in Canada, something this country desperately needs.

We in the NDP are also concerned about compensation for sectors that would be negatively impacted by CETA. The dairy industry was promised compensation by the previous Conservative government, but the current Liberal government is now offering dairy farmers less than 10% of the amount previously on the table. There are other sectors that would be directly or indirectly affected by this agreement.

As many members know, my riding of South Okanagan—West Kootenay produces the finest wines in Canada. I will admit that good wines are produced across the country, from Vancouver Island to Nova Scotia. I have sampled a nice wine produced from grapes grown by the President of the Treasury Board, and I hear that the member for Brome—Missisquoi makes a great late-harvest Vidal.

The Canadian wine industry is a very important sector in the Canadian economy, contributing $8 billion to the national bottom line. It almost died after the free trade agreement with the U.S. in 1988, but through hard work on the part of a few small wineries, a long-term vision, and attention to high-quality products, the industry survived to live another day and now produces some of the best wines in the world.

In 2004, Canada signed a wine and spirits agreement with the European Union. Since that time, imports from the European Union to Canada have increased by 40 million litres to 180 million litres a year, valued at $1.16 billion. This compares to Canadian exports to the EU of only 123,000 litres, valued at $2.7 million. It is a significant imbalance.

Canada has one of the fastest-growing wine markets in the world. More and more Canadians are drinking wine, but three-quarters of that growth has gone to imported wines. The Canadian wine industry is not asking for protection or tariffs under CETA. Members of the industry are in favour of continued free trade in wine with Europe, but they are asking for help from the federal government to build the domestic industry to a level at which they can fairly compete with Europe and other wine regions of the world. The Canadian wine industry, through the Canadian Vintners Association, is asking the federal government to implement a 10-year wine industry innovation program to support the growth of this industry and to create jobs across Canada.

We need to be supporting Canadian industries at this time so they are not unduly harmed by these trade agreements but can truly take advantage of them.

To conclude, the NDP is very much in favour of trade. We are very much in favour of good trade agreements. We simply want to ensure that these agreements are in the best interests of Canada, that they help grow local industries, and that they support job creation across the country.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, trade between Canada and Europe is already free. There are very few tariffs between Canada and the members of the European Union, which raises the question of why we need a comprehensive economic and trade agreement. However, if we are to evaluate this agreement as a trade deal, a logical starting point is to examine the current pattern of trade between Canada and the European Union.

In 2015, Canada exported $38 billion of merchandise to the European Union and imported $61 billion of merchandise from the EU. This imbalance meant a trade deficit of $23 billion.

An implication of this is that if CETA functioned as advertised and boosted bilateral trade flows, it would increase our trade deficit with the European Union. For example, a 10% increase in bilateral trade would boost exports by $4 billion and imports by $6 billion. That would raise our trade deficit with the EU by $2 billion, which is a subtraction from Canadian output and employment.

The economic models that were used to argue for CETA simply assumed balanced trade and full employment, but of course we know those assumptions are not realistic in the real world. Furthermore, these models take no account of Brexit. The United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union, which is of course very consequential for CETA. The United Kingdom is the only major European economy with whom Canada is running a trade surplus.

In 2015, Canada exported $16 billion of merchandise to Britain and imported $9 billion. If we looked at the remaining European Union countries, Canada exported only $22 billion of merchandise and imported $52 billion. In other words, Canada imported more than twice as much as we exported to the European Union, excluding the United Kingdom, and that means a trade deficit of $30 billion with what remains of the EU.

In that scenario, a 10% increase in bilateral trade would boost our exports by just $2 billion and would increase our imports by $5 billion. That would raise Canada's trade deficit with what remains of the European Union by $3 billion, an even larger subtraction from Canadian output and employment.

When we look at the actual trade flows between Canada and the EU, particularly the EU excluding the United Kingdom, there is very little reason to believe that CETA could increase Canadian output and employment; but even if it did, CETA also makes it easier for European companies to bring in temporary foreign workers. Even if there were some increase in employment in Canada, there is absolutely no guarantee that it would go to Canadian workers.

Beyond trade, I think it is important to recognize that CETA has many other provisions that have nothing to do with free trade. As other New Democrats have mentioned in this debate, CETA would increase the duration of pharmaceutical patents. That is the opposite of trade liberalization. It is a restriction that would make it harder for generic drug manufacturers and harder to have competition in pharmaceuticals and it would boost the price of those medications for consumers.

Another aspect of CETA that is very controversial and has very little to do with trade is the investor-state dispute provisions. These provisions have been watered down somewhat to try to make CETA more palatable to Wallonia and other areas of Europe that were concerned, but nevertheless there still are investor-state provisions, and CETA for the first time extends these to the municipal level of government.

The question I would ask is, why do we need these provisions at all in CETA? The origin of investor-state provisions was in NAFTA where Canadian and American investors may have had doubts about the Mexican judicial system. However, clearly Canada has a well-functioning court system. Clearly, Europe has a trustworthy judicial system. Why is it even necessary to set up a special tribunal process that is only accessible to foreign investors? Why can Canadians not use the European court system, and why can European investors not use the Canadian court system? We really have not heard an answer to this question from the government side.

It is worth reviewing some of the outrageous cases that have been brought against Canada under the investor-state provisions of NAFTA. If we go back to the 1990s, there was the Ethyl case, in which Canada tried to ban a gasoline additive, MMT, that was already banned in the United States. However, the American producer of it sued Canada under NAFTA, and the Canadian government not only lifted the ban, but also paid $13 million U.S. in compensation.

More recently, we had the AbitibiBowater case, where AbitibiBowater, a Canadian pulp and paper company, shut down its last remaining mill in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The provincial government reclaimed water rights that it had given to AbitibiBowater to operate those mills. The company, which had registered itself in the United States, was able to present itself as an American investor and sued Canada under NAFTA for the loss of these water rights that it was no longer even using. What happened? The Canadian government paid AbitibiBowater $130 million in compensation.

To talk about an even more recent case, Lone Pine Resources is an Alberta-based oil and gas company that registered itself in Delaware and then used NAFTA to sue Canada because of Quebec's ban on fracking. Lone Pine Resources is claiming $250 million in compensation.

What we see in all of these cases is that companies are abusing the investor-state provisions of NAFTA to directly challenge democratic laws, regulations, and public policies that arguably interfere with their potential future profits. Given the bad experience we have had with the investor-state provisions of NAFTA, it is totally unclear why Canada is pushing to include these provisions in CETA. Again, it is not just a matter of re-including in CETA what is already in NAFTA. CETA actually goes farther, in the sense that it imposes this regime on municipalities, something that NAFTA and previous trade deals did not do. There is a real objection to the investor-state provisions in CETA, notwithstanding the government's efforts to water them down somewhat.

In conclusion, there is no case for CETA as a trade deal, if we look at the actual trade flows between Canada and what is left of the European Union after Brexit. Furthermore, there are many negative non-trade aspects of CETA, such as more temporary foreign workers, longer pharmaceutical patents, and more of these outrageous investor-state disputes. For all of these reasons, the NDP is opposing Bill C-30.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-30, the Canada-European Union comprehensive economic and trade agreement implementation act.

This is not the first international agreement that we have considered. In the past, we examined NAFTA, an agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. One part of NAFTA still sticks in our memories today, years later, and that is the infamous chapter 11, which allows companies to sue a government.

Governments that want to legislate on environmental, health, and worker safety issues can be taken to court by companies that are unhappy with these laws, even though every government has the responsibility of protecting its citizens.

When NAFTA was signed, I was still a university student, and I clearly remember talk of the free trade area of the Americas, or FTAA, which resulted in many protests. I remember that, at that time, there was a protest in Montreal. People there even tore down fences because they were so opposed to an even broader free trade agreement that did not respect the right of governments to legislate.

What is happening with the Canada-European union comprehensive economic and trade agreement is unbelievable. This should be an easy deal to reach since Canada and Europe are so similar. It should not be so hard to reach a deal. We should not be having so many problems.

However, once again, this deal is being negotiated behind closed doors with very little public consultation. Once again, there are also many flawed provisions, including those that will allow companies to sue governments that are seeking to protect the environment, health, and worker safety.

If we tried to explain this to people who are unfamiliar with these types of provisions, they would not believe us, and yet it is true. As a result, as I was saying, it is unbelievable because Canada and Europe should be able to easily reach agreements. We should be able to reach a deal without too much difficulty, and yet we are being faced with these types of problems.

Another problem is the fact that Canada has what is called the supply management system. It is extremely important for producers in my region and other areas of Quebec and Canada, particularly dairy, cheese, poultry, and egg producers. These sectors have a supply management system that does not rely on government subsidies.

People sometimes say that supply management is expensive. That is absolutely not the case, because it does not cost people a cent. The government does not subsidize either producers or processors. The supply managements system ensures a balance. Unfortunately, this agreement opens up the market to cheese. Basically, 17,000 more tonnes of cheese will come into the country, and that will have a direct impact on citizens as well as dairy and cheese producers. I will say more about this shortly.

I would also like to talk about the notorious investor-state provision that makes it possible for an investor to take legal action against a state. I can already picture how surprised people will be about that; I can hear them tell me that there is no way and it is just not possible. It is, though. In recent years, there have been 39 cases, and Canada came out on top in just three of them. In the rest of the cases, Canada had to pay billions in damages and interest to foreign investors. Why? Because we, as a government, decided to protect health and the environment and ensure better working conditions.

We should be proud of that, but instead we are taken to court. It costs us billions of dollars that we can no longer invest in the shift towards green energy or give to our dairy and cheese producers who are going to suffer during this transition. Indeed, some 17,000 tonnes of cheese is going to enter Canadian markets.

Let me give a concrete example. The people of Drummond know very well what I am talking about. I want to talk about shale gas. I have been working very hard on the shale gas file for many years now. Something terrible happened. An American company, Lone Pine Resources, sued the Government of Canada. That company wants to do hydraulic fracking. Without going into too much detail, I can say that that practice is extremely polluting, dangerous, worrisome, and unsafe, and the science has not yet shown that Canada can afford it.

There is a moratorium on the practice in Quebec, specifically for the St. Lawrence Valley. In the Drummond region, we are very happy about that moratorium, since permits had been granted for fracking in my region, Drummond. Tens of thousands of citizens spoke out to prevent it from happening.

Under NAFTA's famous chapter 11, this company sued the Government of Canada for $250 million. Unfortunately, if we look at how other suits against the Government of Canada played out, we are going to lose this one too. That is money that could have been invested in health, in protecting the environment, or in supporting our dairy farmers and cheese makers, for example, during a transition period like the one we are about to enter into.

One of the reasons I am extremely upset is that the negotiations have resulted in this kind of thing, which we see in so many international agreements. It is embarrassing and shameful that governments can be sued for wanting to protect their citizens.

The other problem affects our dairy farmers and cheese makers. For a little over a year now, I have been touring the dairy farms back home in Drummond. In fact, I had the opportunity to see my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, who came to meet our dairy farmers and cheese makers. They told her that they are quite concerned about the agreement between Canada and Europe. They were concerned even before the arrival of the Liberal government, when the Conservatives were in power.

At least the Conservative government promised $4.3 billion in compensation. Right now, all the Liberals are promising is $350 million. This is just another embarrassing moment for the Liberals on top of the diafiltered milk issue. It is shameful because they could have resolved that problem in no time at all.

It is really quite simple. It is a matter of applying the same definition at the border and the processing facilities. What is considered milk at the border should be considered milk at the processing plant. What is not considered milk at the border, the issue we are currently dealing with, should not be considered milk at the processing plant either. This issue could have been resolved during the government's first 100 days in office. Dairy producers in the greater Drummond area and across Quebec and Canada are suffering as a result of this situation. It is extremely serious because they are losing millions of dollars a year. A dairy producer in Drummond can lose between $10,000 and $15,000 a year because this situation has not been resolved, even though it would have been a relatively easy fix.

I began visiting the cheese factories in my riding: Fromagerie St-Guillaume, Fromagerie Lemaire, and Agropur's Fromagerie de Notre-Dame-du-Bon-Conseil. They are saying that, right now, the government is not doing enough to compensate dairy and cheese producers. They are extremely concerned. They want something to be done to improve the situation. That is why we cannot give the government carte blanche on this agreement. We want an agreement with Europe, but we want a good agreement.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am disturbed that the Liberals are ready to shut down debate on CETA. No Liberals are even speaking today to Bill C-30 in this House. It is incredibly important that Canadians hear that their concerns are being listened to, and the New Democrats are proud to be doing that today along with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. I appreciate her words today as well.

This agreement is far too important to get wrong, and it is far too important for parliamentarians to simply rubber-stamp before we fully consider the range of implications that it would have for Canadians. I have participated in the second reading debate on Bill C-30, and what I saw was that the few Liberal and Conservative MPs who rose to debate this legislation completely ignored the very real concerns around this agreement. It is easy to look at one side of an agreement and only speak about the positive. What takes courage and dedication to the people we represent is to stand and also address the negative aspects.

This deal is far from perfect and it is far from done. In Europe, each of the 28 EU member states, as well as Belgium's regions, must approve the parts of CETA that fall under their regional competencies. If any of these states or regions refuse to ratify, the deal falls apart. I also hope that my colleagues are aware that in the Netherlands right now activists are collecting petitions of signatures to trigger a referendum on CETA. There is still a lot of opposition to this agreement. Just last week, the European Union's employment and social affairs committee voted 27 to 24 for a motion saying that the EU parliament should refuse to approve CETA because it would lead to the loss of some 200,000 EU jobs.

The reality that my colleagues do not want to face is that these kinds of massive, so-called trade agreements actually lead to job losses and greater inequality. Deals like the TPP and CETA are not traditional trade agreements. They go so much further than just reducing tariffs. They set new rules of commerce that benefit the largest multinationals. People push back against these agreements not because they are afraid of trade, but because they know these agreements would continue shrinking the middle class; eliminating good-paying manufacturing jobs and jobs in seafaring; and trading away the public interest in favour of corporate interests.

Canadians support trade. It is vital to our economy and supports jobs in every single region of our great country. New Democrats support deepening trade with Europe and expanding those opportunities for Canadian exports. We also take very seriously our duty to evaluate trade deals on the balance of what they offer to Canadians, and we want the government to do the hard work to fix the remaining problems with this deal.

As I have said before, trade with Europe is too important to get wrong. Yet my colleagues in the Liberal and Conservative parties seem to have their blinders on. They are so ideologically supportive of any and all trade and investment agreements that they refuse to properly study these massive trade deals before passing them into law. Canadians deserve better.

There are still so many unanswered questions and unaddressed concerns, including the following:

Why does this bill include investor-state provisions, when EU member states have said they will not ratify the agreement if these provisions are not removed?

If Bill C-30 goes through, how will the minister appoint judges to the investor court? These judges have enormous powers. Will the minister have all the power to select them, unilaterally and with no oversight or consultation?

What would be the implications of changes to the Patent Act on prescription drug costs in Canada? How much more would Canadians be paying? How would the provinces and territories be compensated?

If Bill C-30 is meant to be implementing legislation only, why are there clauses that go above and beyond what is in the actual CETA?

Why will the government not provide clarity to Canada's maritime sector about which cabotage routes would be open to Europeans? How many jobs would these new rules cost us? Why are these provisions not reciprocated by the EU? Why are we opening up cabotage for the first time in Canadian history when we know how many well-paid Canadian maritime jobs are on the line? Why do we not insist that foreign-flag vessels employ Canadian and not foreign crews?

The list just goes on and on.

Just last week we heard from the Canadian Vintners Association. They support the removal of tariffs but are concerned that CETA will deepen the already large trade imbalance on wine between Canada and the EU. In fact, they estimate the EU exports to Canada 180 million litres valued at $1.16 billion, compared to Canadian exports to the EU of 123,000 litres valued at $2.77 million. They state that they support CETA, but that, “Ratification must include federal support to help the Canadian wine sector adjust and take advantage of, and prepare for the implementation of major trade deals, such as CETA.”

We have a thriving wine industry in my riding of Essex, and we all want it to continue to grow. I ask my Liberal colleagues if they have considered this important industry and what kinds of support should be offered to them to ensure they can remain competitive should CETA come to pass.

All of these concerns that I have mentioned have not been given the proper attention in this place or at the international trade committee. We have only held a handful of meetings on CETA, giving it just a fraction of the time and attention that we devoted to studying the trans-Pacific partnership. We have barely made time to hear from witnesses on CETA's intellectual property provisions and changes to the Patent Act. We still have not heard from the maritime industry, which will be significantly impacted by CETA.

Even the beef industry, which supports this agreement, has several recommendations and outstanding concerns that they would like to see addressed before CETA is implemented.

I feel compelled to ask my colleagues in this place to consider the many outstanding concerns with CETA and to push for those changes that this agreement needs.

We should remove the ISTS rules that give foreign companies special rights and privileges that our own domestic companies do not enjoy. If they want to attack our rules and regulations, they should be obligated to go through our domestic courts first.

We should study how much CETA will increase prescription drug costs in Canada. Canadians already pay some of the highest cost drugs among the OECD countries, second only to the United States.

I frequently hear in this place that Parliament should not worry about studying CETA because we have known about the deal for a long time. It is true that negotiations started many years ago, and that the trade committee studied CETA in 2012 and 2014. I have read these reports, but I wonder if any of my Liberal colleagues have done the same because when I read their dissenting reports from 2012 and 2014, I was left with the impression that they felt more consultation, study, and analysis was needed before CETA was ever finalized.

In 2012, the Liberals recommended the report be titled as an interim report, and that further hearings be held, given that the committee's meetings were “deficient” and that CETA would have a greater impact on Canada than NAFTA. They recommended that the government share with the committee an analysis that clearly indicates both the benefits and costs of the agreement identified by the sector.

The Liberals talked about the impact of CETA on prescription drug costs. They said. “it was of concern that the federal government has provided no third party analysis with respect to the entire issue.”

Where is this concern today? When I raise the issue with the minister, she accuses me of fearmongering and says that there will not be any impact for eight years, so it is no big deal. The hypocrisy is truly astounding.

I also read the Liberals dissenting report from 2014, and I have to say that they restated their support for the 2012 recommendations and made even more. The Liberals, in 2014, said, “it is hard for Canadians to give outright support to an agreement when they haven't yet seen the text but only the technical summary.” So much seems to be speculative. All that witnesses are able to do is speculate about the possible gains, losses, and/or other impacts of CETA.

Here we are, in the next Parliament, and we have done very minimal consultation. We have heard from witnesses at the trade committee in a very few meetings. There are many other people who want to appear before the trade committee on CETA and are not able to do so. They are not even able to provide a written report to the committee.

I would be happy to share with my Liberal colleagues copies of their own party's reports so that they, too, can get a sense of the work remaining to be done on this agreement. I simply cannot understand how they can now turn around and pretend to have no concerns with CETA.

I appeal to my colleagues from all parties on both sides of the House to vote against the motion to shut down debate. At the beginning of my speech, I outlined some of the many issues and concerns that we, as parliamentarians, should consider before rushing through an agreement of this size and scope. There is no reason we cannot do our job as MPs and take our time with this NAFTA-like agreement.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have this opportunity to rise today to share my thoughts on Bill C-30, an act to implement the comprehensive economic and trade agreement between Canada and the European Union and its member states. This bill includes all necessary legal changes to implement the free trade accord with Europe, commonly known as CETA.

Today, I wish to raise four major concerns. The concerns are very important to the people I represent in North Island—Powell River. They want to hear more about prescription drug costs and what it will mean to them in their everyday lives. They want to make sure that we are not participating in investor-state provisions. They want to know that Canada has the ability and the right to protect itself. They are also concerned about the compensation for dairy farmers, the loss of market for the people in Comox with dairy farms, as well as, very importantly, maritime jobs.

The four motives in this bill will negatively impact my riding of North Island—Powell River, and because of this, I cannot in good conscience support it. Might I also add how sad it is for me to stand in the House today and realize we are not having a rigorous debate on these very important issues that will have long-term impacts. It is very simple for the government to point out that it feels the NDP is not interested in supporting trade agreements, but that is false. New Democrats are asking for these serious concerns to be addressed in a meaningful way. We absolutely have the time to do this work, and it is imperative for government to work with us to make sure that work is done.

Simply put, trade with Europe is too important to get wrong. The NDP supports deepening the Canada-EU trade relationship in order to diversify our markets, but there remains significant concerns and unanswered questions about this proposed deal. The government should work to fix the problems with the current deal rather than settle for a flawed agreement.

In my riding, there is a major concern about prescription drug costs. I have had the chance to meet with some of the most wonderful people over the last year who live across my vast riding, including many seniors. In the first year of my first mandate, getting to know people and understanding their needs was not only essential but paramount. I conducted a series of town halls focused on the demands of seniors in the riding, and I am proud to be continuing this series in the new year.

Unfortunately, the reality for many seniors is that they cannot afford their medications. I have heard on many occasions that Canada badly needs a strategy in place to meet the needs of seniors, and they want to know why it does not exist. One of the many challenges they face is the increasing cost of drugs. I am under the impression that legislators in the House have an abstract understanding of our social safety net, but the reality is that seniors are often vulnerable, on fixed incomes, and have to choose whether they purchase medications, food, or heat. This is a reality, and these decisions are happening daily across Canada.

Let me be very clear: this does not fit my vision of a prosperous Canada. We know that drug costs in Canada are already too high. According to the most recent data available from the Canadian Institutes for Health Information, Canadians pay the second most per person for drugs in all of the OECD countries, second only to the United States, and our costs are significantly higher than the average.

We know that that there needs to be a coordinated effort to contain these costs. What do we do to ensure that seniors can afford the necessary prescription drugs at a reasonable cost? Respectfully, one of the issues now is the reality we are facing with CETA, which would change intellectual property rules for pharmaceuticals. Under this agreement, consumers, including seniors on fixed incomes, can expect their drug costs to increase by more than $850 million annually.

The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions has also warned that it would make it more difficult to bring down prices through a national pharmacare program. While in opposition, the Liberals demanded that the Conservatives present a study of the financial impacts on provincial and territorial systems around these issues, but now they are cutting this and not listening to these important voices that need to be heard.

The second flaw in this piece of legislation is the investor-state provisions, which allow corporations to sue governments over regulations they claim negatively impact their businesses. The Liberals are asking parliamentarians to sign off on CETA, despite the fact that European states have made it clear that investor-state provisions will have to be removed before they ratify it. I do not understand why Canada will not say this as well.

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 conflicts of interest of arbitrators. However, the new investor-court system allows foreign investors to seek compensation from any level of government over policy decisions that they feel impact their profits. Foreign companies would have access to a special court system to challenge Canadian laws, without going though domestic courts.

Canada is already one of the most sued countries in the world under ISDS. Canadian companies have won only three of 39 cases against foreign governments, and the Canadian government has lost many NAFTA cases, while continuing to be subject to ongoing complaints seeking billions of dollars in damages. Existing ISDS measures have also contributed to the regulatory chill, where governments fail to take actions in the public interest for fear they may trigger an investor claim.

Another concern of the investor-state provisions brings us back to my first point on pharmacare. According to Natalie Mehra, from the Ontario Health Coalition, the ability for investors to sue the government puts much more significant risk on the federal government. It would limit our ability to create a national pharmacare program, which would be the single biggest step we could take to containing drug costs, improving safety, and improving access all at once. The Liberals have not explained how they would ensure environmental and health and safety regulations would be protected, and how they would be protected from foreign challenges.

I am proud to represent the Comox Valley. Farming, agriculture, has been a mainstay for a long time and remains incredibly vibrant. It is one of the few locations in Canada that has tracked a surge of agri-investment activities. This has helped culinary tourism in our area. For example, we have great artisan yogourt and award-winning cheese makers.

Many small and medium-size cheese makers across Canada want to continue to grow the market for high-quality Canadian dairy products. Under CETA, European dairies would receive tariff-free access for an additional 17,700 tonnes of cheese, representing 2% of the Canadian milk production. According to the Dairy Farmers of Canada, this will cost them $160 million a year in perpetual lost revenue.

The previous Conservative government recognized that CETA would lead to significant losses to Canadian dairy farmers, offering $4.3 billion in compensation. Instead of honouring this commitment, the Liberals have offered an investment package worth $250 million over five years. This falls short of the losses that dairy farmers would incur.

CETA would, for the first time, legally allow foreign-owned vessels and foreign crews to transport goods between Canadian ports, and will open up domestic dredging contracts to foreign suppliers. CETA will lead to the immediate loss of approximately 3,000 Canadian seafarers' jobs. These are high-quality, well-paying jobs. The industry as a whole supports 250,000 direct and indirect jobs. Foreign boats will bring in foreign workers with no requirement for a labour market impact assessment. These workers could be paid as low as $2 an hour and suffer from low safety standards and poor working conditions. This is not the Canada that I want to see. By permitting more foreign-flagged vessels, CETA would encourage tax avoidance, since foreign ships registered in flag-of-convenience countries take advantage of tax havens and the cheapest available labour.

Trade with Europe is too important to get wrong. It is important that we have a vigorous debate about these issues. I do not understand why the government is not standing up for Canadians, standing up for the jobs and the realities we face. I know in my riding of North Island—Powell River, we hold sacred our commitment to keeping Canadian jobs local. We are a small riding that has faced many challenges, and we keep rising again and again. We do not need to have the government not negotiate in a positive way so we can see the results that we so desperately need.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this may well be my last speech before the House adjourns for the holidays, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish my constituents a very happy holiday and to thank my team members: Francine, Sébastien, Nesrine, and Catherine. They have been very patient with me during the especially long five weeks of House sittings coming to a close this week. While some might say, “Finally”, those of us on this side of the aisle have just begun. We would like to wish everyone a very happy holiday.

I am pleased to rise today. I like saying that I am pleased to rise, and people seem to say that all the time. Still, I am not exactly ecstatic here because there are lot of problems with this Canada-European Union free trade agreement. When we oppose Bill C-30 and the agreement as written, it is very important to emphasize that we did the same during the previous Parliament. What really bothers me is having to make the same arguments that we used with the Conservatives in debates on international trade issues. Our stance on free trade keeps coming up. We are in favour of free trade, but it has to be fair and not at just any cost.

Unfortunately, that is what is missing from the approaches taken by successive Liberal and Conservative governments. It is clearly missing from this agreement, as well as other agreements, such as the trans-Pacific partnership, which is also before the House, in a way, considering the conversations that have taken place with various civil society groups.

There are several aspects that are of concern, and I would like to begin with the most troubling one, the one that has been raised most often in this debate, namely the investor-state provisions. This is fundamental. If you were to go door to door, something every MP has done, and you asked everyone if it seems appropriate that a private company could sue its government for making a decision after it was elected, and the government has to defend itself, or even compensate the company using taxpayers' money, I think virtually everyone would unanimously agree, and no one in Quebec or Canada would think that was acceptable. However, that is exactly what this agreement allows.

The problem with those provisions is that they undermine two pillars that the NDP sees as the most important pillars of free trade and free trade agreements, namely regulations on environmental protection and the protection of workers.

These investor-state clauses would allow a company to sue the Government of Canada if the federal government or a provincial government introduced regulations or legislation that the company felt hurt its bottom line and its ability to make money. This is completely unacceptable. A perfect example of this problem is the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Mexico. Quebec passed laws to ban fracking in certain areas of the St. Lawrence River. In 2011, if I am not mistaken, a company took the federal government to court because Quebec passed environmental legislation. This completely compromised environmental protection and violated one of the pillars that the New Democrats consider essential in order to support a free trade agreement, which is to be able to trade with a partner with environmental legislation similar to ours.

I am choosing my words carefully because the answer we will probably hear from the other side of the House is that this is what makes the European Union an ideal trading partner. Certainly, we share values with the European Union as a political unit, but the problem arises when a private sector company can begin pitting its interests against regulations made by elected governments here in Canada. There we have a serious problem.

The same applies to worker protection. Even the most responsible of companies require a certain degree of government oversight with legislation to ensure some minimum protections for workers.

That is the purpose of the Canada Labour Code and the Quebec Labour Code. They ensure that workers have a minimum of rights. In a society such as ours it would be unacceptable for a company to take legal action against the government on the basis that such rights are detrimental to its business.

The government has told us not to worry because these provisions will not affect workers' rights, environmental protection, or any other area. However, as the member from Outrement so clearly pointed out earlier today, there will be two sides to the debate. The investors will take legal action against the state, who will argue about the importance of environmental protection. The company will only have to justify its position by saying that it does not harm the environment and that they can proceed. That is the problem.

As the member for Outremont said so well, to date, Canada has done nothing to demonstrate that it can win in these circumstances, in these secret tribunals, and protect the people we are here to protect and that this agreement does not protect.

The other problematic aspect is that the government has not come up with a concrete solution for Brexit. The majority of our EU trade is with the United Kingdom, which is now preparing to leave the European Union. The government does not seem to have taken this fact into account. When, unlike the past few days, government members decided to participate in the debate, they were asked that question, but their answer was not convincing.

There is also the issue of higher prescription drug costs, which will affect the daily lives of Canadians. The members opposite are good talkers, but they still do not have a plan to reduce drug costs like the one the NDP proposed during the last election campaign. The government should acknowledge this problem.

In the 2012 dissenting report of the Standing Committee on International Trade, the Liberals specifically requested a sectoral study to explain the costs associated with the free trade agreement between Canada and the European Union, and especially its impact on the cost of prescription drugs.

I do not understand why the Liberals were calling for such a study when they were in the opposition, and today everyone acts as if it never existed. I will not even speak of the debate on health transfers, where the same reduced transfers proposed by the Conservative government have been maintained.

Since time is passing, I will close by addressing the final point, which is the most important one for the people in my riding. I am of course referring to the way that the dairy producers have been swindled. Despite the real change promised in the last election campaign for Quebec’s dairy producers and craft cheese makers, the Liberal government is doing worse than the Conservative government that preceded it.

In the last Parliament, a motion by my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé was passed unanimously. Every party in the House, including the Liberal Party, voted in favour of this motion, which called for the producers to be compensated. That is the least that can be done after putting supply management on the table, something Stephen Harper’s Conservative government had promised not to do.

The Conservatives had promised to compensate producers in the amount of $4.3 billion. That was a very fine commitment on their part. Today, however, the Liberals have dropped that to a mere $300 million. That is staggering. It is a betrayal of dairy producers, one of the many betrayals they have suffered at the government’s hands.

Take for example the diafiltered milk issue, which is still not resolved. This is the sort of issue that demonstrates that the Liberals are acting just as the Conservatives did, if not worse.

It is for these reasons that we are opposed to Bill C-30 and that we are demanding that the government reflect upon and renegotiate these important matters. It is not too late to make these fundamental changes which will allow us to exercise our duties as parliamentarians, that is, to protect the citizens we are representing here, the citizens whom this sort of agreement will not be protecting, the citizens it will be betraying.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House at the point of calling the question on Bill C-30, the bill that would bring in the comprehensive economic trade agreement between the European Union and Canada.

I have the honour to represent the only party in this place that has voted against all investor-state agreements. Although mostly the NDP members vote against them, they do not always. I would urge them to reconsider and ensure, for the future, that all investor-state agreements be rejected. They really have nothing to do with trade at all. I want to dive into that aspect of the investor-state agreement and touch briefly on the other aspects Canadians should be concerned about.

First, as many members in this place have already raised, it will increase the cost of pharmaceutical drugs. It is very clear that this will happen. Numerous independent studies have looked at the implications of the so-called CETA on drug prices for Canadians.

Second, it is also clear, and it has been raised by a number of groups, that the language the European Union wants in the text on the question of municipal powers for procurement will also be negatively affected by CETA, including access to procurement for municipalities, academic institutions, school boards, and hospitals. If they should decide that they want to make sure they are buying locally, they could be offending the provisions of CETA.

The third part is the most controversial. It is certainly the most controversial in Europe. It is why Canadian parliamentarians are being sold a bill of goods when we are told that there is any urgency here. I am really surprised that the Liberal government chose not to have significant review and consultation nationally. We had that on the trans Pacific partnership agreement but not on the comprehensive economic trade agreement with the European Union. This is surprising, given that there can be no need for urgency in Canada to ratify when there are 28 countries, and an additional 10 subnational groups throughout the European Union, that have yet to ratify, and given that there is still a pending decision from the European Court of Justice as to whether the comprehensive economic trade agreement is compatible with European law.

The controversy within Europe is overwhelmingly about the one piece of this agreement that I think could be very conveniently and easily removed without affecting the trade aspects at all. This takes some underscoring. What kind of trade agreement has an entire section that has nothing to do with trade? The answer, these days, is almost all of them. We are being sold, hook, line, and sinker, the notion that a trade agreement must include something called investor-state dispute resolution systems, or FIPAs, foreign investment protection agreements.

The first of these anywhere in the world was chapter 11 of NAFTA, and we have a lot of experience with it. I do not believe that even the negotiators of NAFTA believed that they were introducing anything novel when they negotiated chapter 11. As much as Canada had a national debate on NAFTA, chapter 11 never came up, because it was a sleeper provision. It might have stayed asleep, actually, if it had not been for the ingenuity of a Toronto lawyer, Barry Appleton, who decided that chapter 11 of NAFTA could be interpreted in a completely novel way.

The essence of the legitimate protection of investor interests in other countries is that we do not want a government coming along and nationalizing the assets, saying, “You have built a lovely refinery here. We are now going to say it belongs to the government of 'fill in the blank', and you, as an investor, are not going to get your money back on that.”

That is what people thought chapter 11 was initially, because it talked about protection from expropriation, but chapter 11 used some novel language. It talked about governmental measures that were tantamount to expropriation. Here is where the clever lawyering came in.

The first chapter 11 came to us when this Parliament banned the trade and use of a toxic gasoline additive, a manganese-based gasoline additive, that had a human health threat component. It also gummed up the diagnostics of the on-board catalytic converters for automobiles, so car manufacturers were worried that it would void their warranties. Environment Canada was worried that it would cause more air pollution. Neurotoxicologists, like Donna Mergler, at the University of Quebec in Montreal, was worried about it causing an increase in a disease that looks a lot like Parkinson's, but it is manganism.

Well, Parliament banned it, but because of a chapter 11 NAFTA challenge from a private corporation in Richmond, Virginia, Ethyl Corporation, Canada found itself in an arbitration case. This was just the first of many, and we keep losing them, or we keep having them settled out of court, although we cannot call these places courts, unless we use the word “kangaroo” first. These are arbitrations in hotel rooms with private arbitrators. They make money being arbitrators. They are expert lawyers. We can find Canadian lawyers who claim to be environmental lawyers suddenly selling out to be expert lawyers for U.S. corporations at these secret hearings.

The secret hearing process under NAFTA in chapter 11 is egregious. Just as egregious is the Canada-China investment treaty. I would have to say that it is more egregious, because every investor from the People's Republic of China is going to be a state-owned enterprise for the People's Republic China. Therefore, their ability to sue us is virtually unlimited. Of course, the Canada-China investment treaty never had even as much debate as we are getting on CETA. It never went through Parliament at all, because previous Prime Minister Harper approved it in cabinet, confidentially. The treaty binds the Canadian government until the year 2045 to the People's Republic of China, and its state-owned enterprises have more right to challenge decisions made in Canada than any Canadian corporation does.

CETA falls somewhere in between. CETA is being sold to us by many as the gold standard. It was the head of trade negotiations for the European Commission, Cecilia Malmström, who came up with the idea that since this investor-state provision in CETA is so controversial and is attracting so much protest from within the European Union, maybe we can make it look more like a real court and end the fact that it is so clearly profit driven.

Can members imagine arbitrators who are one day working in their big downtown law firms and the next day are essentially judges determining whether the decisions passed through parliaments around the world are going to hold up to their private scrutiny? There is no appeal, no oversight, and no room for intervenors to make the case as to why it was appropriate to ban a gasoline additive or to stop the export of PCB-contaminated waste or to not put a toxic waste disposal facility next to a town's freshwater supply. These are all real-life examples under chapter 11 where the polluters have won and the citizens have lost, and it happens over and over again.

CETA proposes some improvement, no question. It is much better than chapter 11 of NAFTA and better than the Canada-China investment treaty, which we seem to have forgotten ever even happened in this place. When I hear Conservative members getting up and asking whether the new administration under the Liberals is moving too close to China, I kind of want to run over, shake them, and ask if they do not remember that they passed, in secret, or their cabinet did, the Canada-China investment treaty, which is the worst of all of these.

Professor Gus Van Harten, of Osgoode Hall Law School, literally wrote the book on the bad investment deal with China. The book is called Sold Down the Yangtze, if members want to pick it up to find out how our sovereignty was sold out by the Harper administration.

Gus Van Harten has done a careful study of what is being offered in this so-called gold standard, and there definitely are flaws.

The arbitrators will have a more permanent roster. Can members imagine if our judicial system picked judges at random from the private sector, and they did better on cases where the rich guys won? Can members imagine how fair our judiciary would be seen to be? Well, CETA makes an improvement on that. There will be a permanent roster of such judges. They will still be drawn from private-sector work, and although they will be prohibited under the CETA terms from acting as advocates and lawyers before a CETA investment court, they will not be barred from operating as advocates and lawyers under other dispute resolutions, such as chapter 11 of NAFTA.

There is still this culture of an elite group of corporate lawyers who are literally global ambulance chasers. They find companies and tell them that they can sue a government if they want to.

The sad part, as well, is that, for a moment, Cecilia Malmström's proposal called for allowing civil society to come forward as intervenors. That part of her proposed gold standard was dropped.

My plea to the current government, and my plea to all parliamentarians, is to dig in our heels on this. I commend the NDP caucus for digging in its heels on this. We should dig in our heels and say that these are anti-democratic by definition.

There is no chance in the world that a company that emanates from the European Union is going to expropriate Canadian property in Europe, contravening all the laws and international common law practice. We are in a safe zone here, developed country to developed country. Let us get rid of the unfair investor-state provisions and fix CETA so that it is about fair trade.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak alongside our leader and my colleagues in opposition to Bill C-30. I would also like to thank my colleague, the member of Parliament for Essex, and our entire team for pushing the debate forward.

On something as important as the trade agreement with the European Union, it deserves proper debate in the House of Commons. Truly, it is only the NDP that is pushing for that debate, pushing to ensure the government is being held to account on a proposed trade deal that we find extremely problematic for Canadians.

I also rise in the House today not just as the member of Parliament for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski but also as the jobs critic for the NDP. Earlier today, we presented our federal call to action entitled “The Precarious Generation: A Call to Action”. It was based on our months long national tour, a series of national consultations in nine provinces and one territory. We heard from young people, millennials, their parents, their friends, and people from our communities across the country. They all came to share their stories, their lived experiences with respect to what was an emerging crisis in Canada, which is the rise of precarious work.

Today I was honoured to put forward the kinds of recommendations that millennials across our country shared with us, recommendations that are bold, that are hopeful, that are visionary. Those recommendations come from a place of great challenge and increasing difficulty. Millennials are facing the prospect of being less well off than their parents generation in a very real way. That is a phenomenon we have not seen in recent times in our country.

The numbers talk for themselves. The rate of youth unemployment is twice the national average. Thirty-nine per cent of workers under the age of 30 are precariously employed. Most are working in temporary and contract work, despite the fact they are currently looking for, and certainly would much rather have, full-time employment. In provinces like Ontario, 300,000 young people are working unpaid internships and, in many case, those unpaid internships do not lead to paid work.

We heard heart-wrenching stories across the country. I remember hearing from a young worker in P.E.I. who talked about the fact that he had just graduated with a Bachelor of Science in biology, and he could never imagine having a job in his field on the island. Every morning he woke up at 4 a.m. and went to work in a fish plant. Every night he worked at Best Buy.

In Newfoundland, young people talked about the fact that their provincial government had just brought in an austerity budget. They knew they came from a province where people usually had to leave to find work. Despite the fact that they thought times were getting better, once again their generation would have to leave to find work somewhere else.

In Halifax, a young woman came forward. She told us that where she came from the most secure form of employment for young men was to join the military, a real precarious kind of work.

In Winnipeg, we heard about work, particularly in the public domain. Jobs like garbage pickup, which had been done for a very long time by younger, indigenous men, had been outsourced and devolved. These men were able to support their families with the income they made, but now they were unable to make that kind of living. As a brother told us at that meeting, they were treated as disposable as the garbage they pick up.

In Regina, we met a young woman who broke down in the meeting. She talked about how she could not afford her tuition. She could not bear to think what she would do to come out of the burden of student debt that she faced. She knew she had to find work that had pharmacare benefits to ensure she had the medication she needed.

In Calgary, we had a NDP cabinet minister tell us that for many years Calgary had been the promise land for young people from across the country. Today, even if individuals are from Alberta and are young, they can barely make it there.

In Vancouver, a young woman talked about the fact that because she was in a cycle of precarious work and because housing prices were so out of reach, she, like many young people, found it heartbreaking to know she would never be able to afford a home in the community she came from, and “heartbreaking” is the word that she used.

One of the last meetings in our 14 stops was held in Windsor, Ontario. When we talked about precarious work across Ontario and across the country, people told us to go to a place called Windsor. Windsor tells a story of how our generation has been sold out. Year after year, we have seen the impact of trade agreements that certainly have not had our best interests in mind. We have seen governments that have not had our best interests in mind and we have seen where that has gotten us. An older activist talked to us about the way in which manufacturing had been dealt a blow there for quite some time. Jobs that young people would normally do and certainly hope to raise a family with that do not exist the same way they used to. At the end of that meeting, we heard from a young woman who was finishing her law degree, her third degree. She is from Windsor. She moved back home and into her parents' basement. At the end of that meeting, she said that she did not know why anyone in the room was surprised that people of her generation could not imagine owning a home, having kids, and raising a family as that was just how it is now.

Those stories inform me and the work we do in the House, as we stand to oppose CETA, yet another trade agreement set to sell us out. It is clear from the messages we heard that both our generation and people who care for the millennial generation will not tolerate further actions from federal governments that do not have the interests of young people, and all people, in mind going forward.

In recent decades, and certainly since the start of the neoliberal era, we have seen a great many good jobs leave our country. We have witnessed the erosion of our social safety net to the benefit of corporations, millionaires and billionaires.

Today, and I have witnessed this throughout recent months as I was crisscrossing the country to take stock of the working conditions of our generation, it is clear that good jobs are becoming increasingly scarce, and that the millennial generation is living in uncertainty, with no benefits and no job security. How can we have come to this point, when we were promised an unprecedented level of prosperity if we opened our borders and liberalized trade all over the world? Well, it is because, from the start, liberalization was designed for the corporations and the billionaires, not for the middle class and the working class. We opened our borders not for human beings but for money, and massive amounts of it left. The tax havens are overflowing with profits made on the backs of workers here and elsewhere. We have allowed the rich to break our social contract, and to pay for our social services we are turning ever more to wage-earners who are paying today so that their employers can be subsidized to the tune of billions of dollars. We were promised that free trade would create jobs, but where are they? I would like someone to show me the jobs that have since been created, because after 10 months of consultations, no one seems to have found them.

We in the NDP have always been skeptical of these free-trade agreements unilaterally designed for the richest people, and time has obviously proven us right. Employment today is part-time and rarely unionized, and does not allow one to support a family or future projects. That is the sad state of our society.

Is it possible to conclude agreements that promote trade and serve the interests of Canadian workers? Of course it is, and that is why we are fighting today against Bill C-30 and the free-trade project with the European Union.

Finally, I am proud to stand up with my colleagues in the New Democratic party and thousands of Canadians all over this land who are opposed to this government’s measures.

I am proud to stand with my colleagues in the NDP and in solidarity with tens of thousands of Canadians, many of them young, who call on the government to work with us in providing a better future.

Bill C-30 and the proposal before us is not in that vein. We will continue to oppose it.