International Trade Committee on May 8th, 2007

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

I must apologize that I wasn't here when these amendments were put forward. I must state that I have a great deal of difficulty with the whole motion.

On the amendments, let's deal with the one in the second paragraph, “and to our best knowledge, water is not excluded”. We know for a fact that is not correct. If this committee were to accept this, it demeans the whole committee. We know for a fact it's well documented in many places that water is completely excluded, bulk water is excluded from NAFTA.

For this committee to even entertain an amendment that says “to our best knowledge” brings into question the credibility of this committee, not to mention the credibility of the researchers who didn't give us the right advice. If we accepted this, we'd need to bring them in too. It's irresponsible. It demeans the committee to suggest that we haven't done our homework.

We can cite all of the places. For example, let's talk about the statement made in 1993 by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States:

The governments of Canada, the United States and Mexico, in order to correct false interpretations, have agreed to state the following jointly and publicly as Parties to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): The NAFTA creates no rights to the natural water resources of any Party to the Agreement.

It creates no rights. I don't know how you can get any clearer than that.

Unless water, in any form, has entered into commerce and become a good or product, it is not covered by the provisions of any trade agreement including the NAFTA.

I can go on and read the rest of it. It's plain, it's simple, and it states that.

I'll let some of my colleagues talk about some of the other amendments, but the first amendment is the first one that should very simply be excluded. It's not the motion itself. It's the amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Menzies.

Of course I will make it perfectly clear that our committee researcher certainly had nothing to do with writing up this motion or the amendments to the motion, so I will clarify that.

Mr. Julian on a point of order.

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

Mr. Cardin also raised a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Julian, do you have a point of order or not?

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

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

My amendments are printed in bold typeface in the French version. Some amendments are missing from the English version. Consequently, the two versions do not match.

Unfortunately, we will have to rely on the French version because it was moved by the Bloc Quebecois and it contains the amendments I made to the original version. The amendment that Mr. Menzies is talking about did not come from me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Julian, what particular words are you referring to?

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

My amendments are printed in bold typeface in the French version.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

The clerk has indicated that the words in the English version “and to our best knowledge” should in fact not be in there. They were actually suggested by someone else and they weren't part of the amendment you proposed, Mr. Julian. So we will strike that out and the rest is in order.

Mr. Cardin.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Chairman, this was the important point that I wanted to raise regarding the so-called amendment to the English version.

Coming back to what Mr. Menzies said, I remember that at a previous meeting, some Conservative members of the committee stated that there was no imminent problem with water within the NAFTA framework. Of course, I did a bit of research and I read some texts similar to those put forward by Mr. Menzies. Now we are finding out that the gates are wide opened. If we are not careful about bulk exports of water, we're going to come up against some serious problems. Therefore, we should be clear about this.

As the saying goes, there's no harm in being overly cautious. If Mr. Menzies is convinced that water will never be an issue for NAFTA, let's make sure that it is clearly stated.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Merci, Monsieur Cardin.

I have on the list Mr. Cannan, Mr. Lemieux, and Mr. Allison.

Go ahead, Mr. Cannan.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To be brief, I echo my colleague's comments about the 1993 statement. It's clear that water is not included in NAFTA. You're saying it's not excluded, but do we have to list everything in the whole world that's not excluded? That's why we have an agreement, to include the items that are included in the agreement, and that's what frames the agreement. Otherwise, if you list everything that's not excluded, it would go on ad infinitum. You can't make it any clearer that water is not included in NAFTA. The witnesses last week reaffirmed that. We have the statement from 1993 that was reinforced by the highest members of the governments of the three countries.

I don't support the amendment.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Cannan.

Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

The point I'd like to make is that I think we should be cautious and clear, but we have to maintain our credibility. We've had witnesses come in front of us to give lengthy dissertations and answer a lot of questions, but the essence of a lot of the argument is speculative. It's not concrete. It's worries. It's concerns. It's fears. It's things that may have been heard or may not have been heard, but they're not very concrete.

This is a classic example, I think, where someone has a fear of having perhaps heard of a meeting where something might have been discussed. Maybe they give it in a bit more detail than that, but not much more detail than that. And we've only had one or two or maybe three witnesses pertaining to this. It's all very indirect and it's all rather benign, actually.

As the parliamentary secretary pointed out, I think the credibility of our committee is at stake here. What we're doing is chasing phantoms. We're going to focus this committee and all of its resources on a phantom, something that's not concrete, something that only a few witnesses have mentioned. And it will damage our credibility, because people will say, “Well, what are you doing as the committee? Why are you chasing that when in fact you have more important work to be doing--for example, studying the machinery of government?” That's very concrete.

We can put in place specific recommendations and we can basically improve the way in which our government pursues trade policies, the way it targets particular countries, and the way it works with industry instead of chasing these phantoms.

Once we start chasing this phantom of water being included under NAFTA, when it's not included under NAFTA, what are we going to be chasing next? We could have other witnesses who come in and put up other smokescreens, and then we'll have other motions that come forward and we'll be running in circles.

We have an agenda in front of us. We've been accommodating on this agenda of the security and prosperity partnership. We've televised them, we've gone with extra sessions, and we've called in extra witnesses. And now we're going tangential; we're moving into the obscure here.

It's a concern of mine, because as MPs we need to have credibility. Our committee needs to pursue work that is important to the government, that's important to Canada, and this is simply wandering off into I don't know where. So that's the point I'd like to bring up.

In fact I've called on our Liberal colleagues to realize this. I don't know why there is such support from our Liberal colleagues for a motion such as this. And I don't say that in a partisan way; I say that because I really don't understand it. I would actually look at my Liberal colleagues and say, “Don't you agree with what I'm putting forward here, that we're going to be heading off on the path?”

I don't know why they're not staking out their ground more, Mr. Chair.

We saw that before with the witnesses on the SPP as well, where Mr. Julian had.... How many witnesses did you want to call forward? It was a lot of witnesses, and the Liberals were just basically abrogating their ability to call witnesses to another party.

So I would look at my Liberal colleagues and say, “Have a look at this and think back to the witnesses who appeared before us and what it was they said.” What you will realize is that it's speculation, at best. Basically this committee is going to be pulled off track, off rail, chasing speculation.

It's a concern of mine. I think it's a concern of my colleagues. I hope it's a concern of my Liberal colleagues as well.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Lemieux.

Mr. Allison.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

I need some clarification on this motion. I know we've just struck something. I'm not sure if we're talking about amendments right now, if we're talking just about the amendments. I am not sure what amendments we're talking about regarding the original motion. I'd like some clarification here as to what we're discussing and then voting on one particular amendment at this point in time. Where exactly are we?

I do have some additional comments, but I would like some clarification before I move forward with my comments. I do have this amendment before us, but now I've just struck part of it, and I'm really not too sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Yes, Mr. Allison, I will clarify that.

The amendments are bolded, Mr. Allison. As well, we have taken out “and to our best knowledge” from the bolded section in the English version because the clerk has indicated that it really never should have been there. It never came from Mr. Julian. So it would be as bolded, but with “and to our best knowledge” taken out. That is what we're debating.

And we are--

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Julian, I hear you, but I'm going to finish my comments first.

What we are doing is discussing all of the amendments, as bolded.

Mr. Julian, you had a point of order?

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

Yes, Mr. Chair.

The first paragraph, which is bolded, which says “water is not excluded,” is not an amendment that I offered. That was my point. So we would take out “to our best knowledge”, and “water is not excluded” would be part of the original motion.

That is why it's important for members of the Conservative Party to follow the French text, because that's where the amendments are accurately brought in, in bold.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I hear your comments, Mr. Julian, but the clerk has indicated that in fact “water is not excluded” is as it is in the French version.

I'll just discuss with the clerk here for a minute.

Mr. Julian, I think I understand what you're saying. The clerk has indicated that in fact “water is not excluded” was in the original motion. So it is not part of the amendment; it's part of the original motion.

The clerk has indicated that is in fact the case, so thank you for that clarification.

Now, Mr. Allison, please continue.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

So we're not dealing with the amendments. We're dealing with the whole new amendment—

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We're dealing with the amendments.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

—just the way it reads right now, minus what we just struck down.

I just want to add a couple of comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

We are dealing with the amendments now, Mr. Allison, for clarity—just the amendments.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Once again, I want to reiterate what my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, had to say. This is a committee in which we may disagree from time to time on what we are doing and what we move forward on, in terms of thought process, but I think factually—I'll say it once again—the credibility of this committee is at stake should we factually misrepresent something back to the House.

This does not make any sense to me at all. I know Mr. Menzies has talked about the statement made in 1993. We've had witnesses come before our committee who have worked on NAFTA and have said that bulk exports do not have anything to do with this agreement. So we are going to look very unprofessional to bring forward this motion that is factually incorrect in terms of dealing with bulk water.

I will remind my Liberal friends. I have quotes here from Chrétien in the House of Commons, not one of my fans by any stretch of the imagination. I'm going to quote him, because I need to remind my Liberal friends where they stood on this issue before we started with this committee.

It says here that he “told the Commons yesterday that water is exempt from the North American Free Trade Agreement”. His foreign affairs minister, John Manley, who I probably like a little bit better than Chrétien, “also assured MPs there's no change in government policy”. “Water should not be treated as a matter of trade.” “The position of the government of Canada is to oppose the bulk removal of water from any of our drainage systems...”.

So once again, this is a position the Liberals have clearly taken. I'll go back to what Mr. Lemieux said. I don't understand why these guys are now all of a sudden the arm of the NDP and they talk about a motion that's going to make this whole committee look like a joke.