International Trade Committee on Nov. 27th, 2007

[Brian Pallister, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I'd like to propose an amendment that we delete the first bullet. Then I'd like to speak to that amendment, if I could.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Mr. Pallister has moved that the motion be amended by deleting the first point or bullet, “that current Canada-Colombia bilateral trade negotiations and eventual ratification be halted in light of the ongoing abuse of human rights by Colombia's government”.

That's the amendment he proposed.

Mr. Pallister.

[Brian Pallister, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I just have a couple of points on this amendment.

First of all, it's dangerous in a couple of ways. The first one is the assertion, in the motion, of human rights abuses by the Colombia's government specifically.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Excuse me, Chair, but is he speaking to the amendment or the motion?

[Brian Pallister, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I'm speaking to my amendment.

Mr. Julian, in his comments in respect of this motion, didn't offer proof. He offered quotes from Amnesty International and other very reputable organizations—I don't dispute that—but he made allegations and he didn't offer proof.

I'm not sure it's the role of this committee to reach the conclusion in a motion that there are ongoing—the word “ongoing” is in this motion—abuses of human rights by Colombia's government. I think that's a dangerous assumption to make in the preamble to a motion or as part of a motion.

Secondly, there's the assertion in this motion and again in the preamble by Mr. Julian assuming, as he did at the other meeting, that these negotiations are going to be resolved tomorrow or this week—as he did also with another debate on another motion, which was about Korea—which is not the case, but nonetheless does speak to a sense of urgency about the importance of addressing human rights, and for that I applaud him. However, to suggest that one should, on the assumption of ongoing abuses of human rights by a government, halt negotiations.... I guess those two things make sense together, but they make little sense in the context of what Mr. Julian has offered us as evidence.

Thirdly, they work on a presupposition, which is this: they work on the assumption that we can advance the cause of human rights in Colombia by withdrawing from negotiations with the Government of Colombia. They work on a false assumption that negotiating a trade agreement is not an opportunity for us to advance the cause of human rights, when in fact it is.

In the context of the discussions we are having as a country with Colombia right now, I'm told the negotiations are very much dealing with considerations of human rights; that the negotiations are in fact dealing also, as Mr. Cardin alluded to, with environmental impacts. The negotiators are pushing very hard for the proposed agreement to include provisions specifically on labour rights, on assuring commitments to democracy and human rights as outlined in the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights .

Should you support this motion, you are supporting the withdrawal of the very effort that I believe we need to advance. You are presupposing that negotiators should walk away from a table where they are doing their best on behalf on our country to advance human rights. You are suggesting they should pull away from that effort while we debate this here and debate it in the House of Commons.

Again Mr. Julian includes, of course—as he's owned up to this time—that the committee should report to the House these recommendations, and so on. We debated the other day as well whether it was wise or necessary for us to report to the House our intentions for the work of this committee in advance of doing it.

I believe we have an opportunity here to advance the cause of human rights, but not if we halt negotiations, because the negotiations themselves present us with that very opportunity. They present us with the opportunity to push for human rights. That is what our negotiators are doing. It is in consideration of this that I'm proposing the amendment. I believe that these two things are not mutually exclusive.

I'm not even getting into the economic aspects of this, because we are focusing, as this motion tries to, on the human rights side. But to walk away from a negotiation on the basis of allegations of wrongdoing by a government is on those two counts and on many others wrong. So I would urge support for this amendment.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Chair, could you read that one more time? Is it a deletion?

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

The motion would read: “That the committee report to the House recommending to the Government of Canada that Canada develop a framework for a human rights impact assessment”, etc.

Would that be the motion? Yes? All right.

Have you concluded your remarks? Okay.

Mr. Julian.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to compliment Mr. Pallister for his generally well-balanced remarks, although I can't agree with him on them.

I would like to respond to the issue around Canada-Korea, because we had that discussion last Thursday. It was clear from the very beginning that we'd recommended reporting to the House. It was very clear in the motion for folks who follow House procedure. It was, I think, evident to all members of the committee. What we found out after we discussed the motion was that all of the folks from DFAIT who could have come before this committee today to testify on Canada-Korea were in Korea, so that proves the point that I'm making about Canada-Colombia. Given that news reports have indicated that this may well be the final round this week, it is quite likely that we will be seeing this week some sort of agreement on Friday afternoon, I would suppose, that would come out, and as a result of that, as a committee, we need to be equipped to make an opinion on it.

I do want to quote in addition to the many reports. I could spend hours referring to committee members all of the human rights reports that have come out on Colombia, but in every case I'm citing other individuals who know the Colombian situation much better than I do. I don't presume to know what's going on in Colombia. I do presume to know that if folks who are reputable, experienced, and understand human rights issues are raising concerns about this agreement, those are opinions that we, as a committee, need to take into consideration.

I will cite another of those noted individuals: Hollman Morris, who is a contributor to the BBC, host of a national current affairs program. He was named human rights defender of the year by Human Rights Watch International for his work on exposing abuses in the Colombian conflict. He is quoted as follows:

“I don't think they told (Prime Minister Stephen Harper) that more trade unionists are killed in Colombia than in any other country in the world”, said Morris, who was to meet with officials at the Foreign Affairs Department later Friday.

This is a news item from November 10.

“What this shows is a blind support. ... I'm not sure whether the Canadian public would accept this from Prime Minister Harper, or whether the Parliament would accept his memory loss.” Morris' visit comes just as Canada enters a fourth—and possibly last—round of negotiations with Colombia and Peru on a free-trade agreement, with the firm backing of Harper.

The article from the Canadian Press also notes that the U.S. Congress has shelved a similar deal. There is no doubt. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and members of the Colombian clergy who were in Ottawa last week have all expressed the same concerns. The concerns that have been raised about this deal are widespread. So for us, as members of the committee, to take a step back to simply pretend there isn't a problem, when out in civil society, out in cities across this country, there is real concern about this agreement, with dozens of civil society organizations having expressed support for this particular motion, I think would be blind.

This committee has a responsibility. We know of the concerns that have been raised, and I believe the amendment should be defeated and we should be bringing this motion to the House, where it properly belongs, to inform other members of the House that we have some real concerns, that we share the concerns that have been expressed by so many of the human rights activists around this issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

Mr. Dhaliwal.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm really confused now. I'm a new member on this committee. On one side we have Mr. Julian talking about all these human rights situations. A human rights situation to me is very important, whether it's on Canadian land or whether it is across this universe. On the other hand, Mr. Pallister made a good call there that the committee that's negotiating on behalf of Canadians is taking care of those human rights situations.

The person who can answer this question is the minister responsible for international trade, and what I would suggest is when it comes to an amendment or even the motion, we should bring the minister here first so that we can hear what he is doing to take care of the human rights situation in Colombia before we can make any motion. I would like to hear from him.

The thing is that it's one person's word against the other. It is the minister who will have the lead input into the situation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you.

Mr. Miller.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There may or may not be human rights abuses in Colombia. Over time there probably has been abuse, but I think it's pointed out in this motion that they're committed by the government, and that is the part I strongly disagree with. I think we know of the human rights abuses that we hear have happened through the drug trade, that kind of thing. To say it's the actual government, I think we need a bit more on that than what we've heard at this point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Okay.

Mr. Cannan.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I've heard the speakers, and I appreciate Mr. Dhaliwal's point as well.

I support the amendment, but further on it talks about Canada developing a framework for a human rights impact assessment—HRIA is the acronym. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Chair, but in my research, and I've been doing some reading on this, it is my understanding that if it's brought into a bilateral trade negotiation it would actually be the bureaucrats who would decide on the subjectivity of human rights, rather than parliamentarians. I think we're abrogating a responsibility. Maybe that could be clarified.

I think we're all concerned about human rights and making sure there's free and fair trade. We want to make sure everybody is treated with the dignity and respect they deserve, both as an employer and as an employee. But I believe that we should take the onus, as elected officials, rather than delegate the subjectivity of human rights to the bureaucrats. Developing this framework would create a lot of restriction; it would be very stringent as far as the terms of addressing specific countries' circumstances.

I would like to make a subamendment that the second bullet be removed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Okay. For clarity, you really can't make a subamendment of that nature to this amendment, because if you drop the second paragraph, there are no paragraphs, so there is no motion.

You would have to amend the previous motion, which would be another amendment to the motion, as opposed to a subamendment to the amendment, if you follow what I'm saying.

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

So if I could ask the clerk then to read the amendment that's being proposed right now, I'll make—

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Well, the amendment that is being proposed right now would leave Mr. Julian's motion to read: “That the committee report to the House recommending to the Government of Canada that Canada develop a framework for human rights...”.

That would be Mr. Pallister's amendment, simply to drop the first bullet. If you were to drop the second bullet, there would be no bullets.

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

I'll leave it for later and we'll deal with the amendment right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

We'll have to deal with it subsequent to dealing with this amendment.

Thank you.

We have Monsieur Cardin on Mr. Pallister's amendment.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Strike point one of the motion and keep the second part. If we claim to be concerned and to want to know about the situation and how human rights and the environment are affected, exactly what objective are we pursuing? Negotiations are currently under way and I cannot see ourselves making a monumental error by doing business with a country where serious human rights abuses are occurring.

If we strike point one, it would mean that while the committee conducts an impact study to uncover the truth—the second component—the government can continue to negotiate and move toward ratification. If we want to have time to do an impact study and shed light on the actual situation, and then decide, in view of our findings, to go ahead with this, there needs to be a break of sorts. I can understand that the first part of the motion recommending an end to the trade negotiations—a reference that Mr. Pallister wants to delete—provides an out of sorts. It is not calling for an end to the negotiations per se, but to a suspension of the talks to prevent things from moving ahead to quickly and from going wrong before an impact study is done. I do not see the point of striking this critical part of the motion which, to all intents and purposes, authorizes us to go forward with the second part of the motion.

There is no way that I can support Mr. Pallister's amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Mr. Julian.

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

Mr. Chair, just briefly, I want to respond to Mr. Pallister's comment about human rights potentially being on the agenda.

The Latin America News Digest reported this week that during the fourth round to take place in Lima, Colombia, Peru, and Canada will discuss issues such as origin rules, telecommunications, environmental cooperation, and public purchases. There's no reference, Mr. Chair, whatsoever to human rights, human rights being discussed, human rights being on the table—nothing at all, Mr. Chair. So I think it's important to put that one to bed. It's not on the agenda, certainly from what's been reported pubicly, and I think we can surmise from that that it's not part of the negotiations that are frantically taking place this week.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Mr. Pallister.

[Brian Pallister, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Is it my turn, Mr. Chair? I don't want to cut anybody off.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

I wouldn't let you.