International Trade Committee on April 30th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

In relation to what you're saying, Mr. Barr, I should perhaps speak for myself, but I think all of us on the committee are working to get ourselves up to speed on the history of Colombia. I don't think anyone thinks it's a perfect situation down there, or is under the delusion that the situation is perfect.

In relation to what Mr. Cannan was saying, what we do see is a situation that's improving. Your comment is that it's really not improving. I notice that in your opening statement you mentioned the paramilitary groups, the Government of Colombia, the systemic corruption, but you did not mention FARC. You did not mention the terrorist organizations that are also in the country. I would assume that was an oversight and you did intend to mention them.

So we have all this combination of difficulties down there. My question to you is, what happens if we do nothing?

[Gerry Barr]

If the question is what happens if we don't have a trade agreement—

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

No, no, if we do nothing, if we just leave it.

[Gerry Barr]

Let me deal with it in parts.

In terms of what happens if we don't have a trade agreement, we can look at what's there now. There are trade and investment arrangements. Canadian business has interests in Colombia. Canadian mining has very significant interests in Colombia. Presumably that will go on.

So it's not a question of either having a trade deal or no commercial ties and trade arrangements with Colombia. Plainly those are capable of standing on their own two feet without the extra incentive of a trade agreement.

You mentioned FARC. Please treat them as included in all of the grievous challenges I've just described. The problem with the political discourse in Colombia is that there are citizens trying to carve out a middle way, a path of moderation and democracy, and space for participation. They're getting it from both ends, and it's not a pretty picture.

I think Mr. Neve has very ably described how that looks in practice. There is no--no--real signal that this is on its way to substantive change. You can take some paramilitaries out of the game, but the system in which they are organized remains fully intact. That is the challenge here. There is no signal whatever that the system has been taken apart.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Keddy and Mr. Barr.

Mr. Julian.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

We had pretty compelling testimony two weeks ago from DFAIT. They described how the enforcement of human rights would take place, that essentially there would be ministerial consultations, a dispute settlement panel and essentially money would be deposited in a solidarity fund. Embassy magazine, which has taken a position against the Canada-Colombia deal, said, “But the contradictions are too much, and the idea of a dollar amount being awarded for each extrajudicial killing, as if murder can be bought, is horrific.” I'm wondering if you share that analysis that the idea of a dollar amount for killings, money deposited in a solidarity fund, is horrific.

I have three other quick questions. I believe union membership has collapsed in Colombia. I sense that would be as a result of the human rights violations. Could you comment on that? Are you aware of any cases where President Uribe has denounced individuals or organizations and subsequently death threats were issued or physical violence occurred? Are you aware of how many paramilitary organizations have been reconstituted. You mentioned, Mr. Barr, that they're out of the game in some cases and then they appear to be back. If you could comment on those....

[Alex Neve]

Let me take them in the order you outlined them.

The notion that we would set up a solidarity fund, or whatever it be called, to be there to remedy abuses after they've happened, to provide some sort of redress to victims after their rights have been violated, is simply not the approach. Surely we want an approach that is going to prevent and avoid human rights violations from happening in the first place, not to mitigate them in some way after the fact.

We come back to that central recommendation about the absolutely vital need for a strong, independent human rights impact assessment to be done. How it's even possible to set up the solidarity fund--to address what?--without having carried out the human rights impact assessment that really clearly identifies what the potential consequences and impact of this agreement for human rights are seems wrong-headed in itself. So it again comes back to the importance of that happening.

The issue of paramilitary reconstitution--recycling, as it's often called--is a very real concern in Colombia. It's true that significant numbers, through various processes of paramilitary, have supposedly been demobilized. It's now very well documented by sources like the Organization of American States, which has a mission on the ground monitoring the demobilization process, that there's a whole recycling process happening whereby new paramilitary groups, some of whom are the ones I referred to in some of those case examples--the death threats, etc.--are coming from those groups. There's a recycling happening. Get out of one group, be demobilized, and then these other groups are forming. Because of the deep impunity that continues to be so entrenched in Colombia, it's no surprise that people make those choices to reassemble into illegal groups that commit grave human rights abuses, because there haven't been consequences in the past.

With respect to concerns about activists, labour union activists, human rights defenders, and others who have received death threats and, worse, have been attacked and killed after, in some way individually or as a group, or even just as a broad sector, being criticized or denounced by not just President Uribe but other senior members of the government, absolutely, that's a very clear pattern. At my fingertips I don't have the precise....

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

Could you provide them to us?

[Alex Neve]

Easily. There are numerous cases, including very recent cases of that being so. One of our key recommendations to the Colombian government--and this goes back years--is the absolutely vital importance that the government stop deriding the work of human rights defenders, who are so vital to moving forward a meaningful human rights agenda in Colombia, but constantly have their work derided in these ways that accuses them of being supporters or even direct members of guerrilla groups simply because they're speaking out about social justice issues. That has then traditionally been taken as an implicit signal to paramilitary groups that those individuals should be treated as valid targets.

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

And union membership?

[Gauri Sreenivasan]

Thank you for those questions.

The onslaught against the trade union movement in Colombia has resulted in a serious decline, not only in the numbers of unionized workers in Colombia but also in the number of certified unions. According to the Canadian Labour Congress, who I think will appear before you in the first week of May, the number of workers covered by collective agreements in Colombia is now the lowest in the Americas; this from a heyday. So there has been a systematic destructuring of the basis for union members in Colombia.

I have just another quick comment about your characterization of the side agreement for labour and how we agree that there would be a kind of repugnant outcome in which actually the Colombian government would move money from one pocket to the other as it took account of the number of trade unionists that were killed. I think it actually speaks to a larger question, which is the weakness of the approach itself. This approach says that in a situation where the human rights crisis against workers is so high, you could have a paragraph, you could have a side deal that could work out a way to address it. The essential problem of the attacks on trade unionists and the impunity for those attacks is one of political will in the Colombian state. And you can't create will in the Colombian state to address workers' rights through a side agreement that Canada would organize, no matter how well the paragraph is crafted.

In the end, what are they left with? Well, perhaps you could pay yourself. I mean, I think it reflects a kind of weakness, that in a situation of crisis that great, the notion of working out some text to address it is itself a non-starter.

Lastly, on the concern the committee has about how to assess the reality on the ground, we're hearing different messages. We've tried to make this case before, but just to perhaps retable the notion, it may be useful for committee members, as they travel, to seek the possibility of getting out of Bogotá in order to access the groups, beyond immediate access from the capital--those that have a lot of information on the different spin. A lot of the violence, a lot of the kind of alternative reality of Colombia, is outside the capital. So if there's any way the committee is able to access groups and marginalized communities outside of Bogotá, I think it would go a long way to helping you triangulate the information you're getting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Well done.

Thanks, Mr. Julian.

Thank you again to our witnesses today. It was good timing, and we appreciate your being here.

We're out of time.

This is not for the witnesses, but I need to tell the members that we'll have our briefing kits for Colombia next week, on Wednesday, and the final program. Also, for your personal itineraries, if you travel from your constituencies to Bogotá, the tickets have to be issued on Monday. So we're going to try to get you, maybe by the time you get back to your office—

[A voice]

They're already there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

They are? Okay.

If you have any questions about your personal itinerary, please have them returned by Friday if you need any changes at all, because we have to issue the tickets.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Get your immunizations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

There you go.

Thank you again.

The meeting is adjourned.