Thanks, Mr. Chair.
On behalf of the 3.2 million members of the Canadian Labour Congress, we thank you for affording us the opportunity to present our views. CLC brings together national and international unions along with provincial and territorial federations of labour and a labour council of 137 district labour councils from across the country. Members work in virtually every sector in the economy, in all occupations, in Canada.
Today we appear here to explain why we believe the proposed free trade agreement between Canada and Peru should be rejected by the committee.
Given the severe economic crisis we face, Canada should move away from a failed neo-liberal model of global economic relations, which brought us the economic crisis in the first place. Free trade investment was supposed to bring us prosperity. Instead, it brought us a crisis.
As we know, the crisis has its roots in inequalities of wealth and income, the deregulation of financial services, and the removal of levers once used by government to support economic growth. Rather, we should embrace the kind of economic partnership that has at its core a commitment to equality, public reinvestment, and economic renewal that is both sustainable and democratic. Together with trade unions across the Americas, we have articulated elements of such an alternative trade and investment agreement in Labour’s Platform for the Americas.
In the wake of the economic crisis, the international trade union movement has made further proposals that would put sustainable economic renewal and decent work at the centre of our recovery efforts. Instead, we see the Canadian government continuing the legacy of failed neo-liberal trade agreements and investment deals.
We share with our brothers and sisters in the Peruvian trade union movement our clear and firm opposition to the Peru free trade proposal. In our joint statement on labour movements, we declare our deep disagreement with this type of treaty, which protects the rights of investors over the human, social, economic, cultural, labour, and democratic rights of its citizens.
The free trade investment agreement between Canada and Peru does not take into account the large asymmetries between our two countries. What would this agreement look like if real development were at the centre of its goals? Where, we must respectfully ask, are the studies showing the positive impact on job creation that the Canada-Peru agreement is supposed to create?
We are also dismayed that the negotiations of the Canada-Peru FTA labour cooperation agreement were concluded in record time, without consultation with workers' organizations or civil society. These agreements were concluded without analysis of the impact of this agreement on employment and human and workers' rights in either country. This model encourages economic, social, and labour policies that result in even more precarious employment.
Experience suggests that labour provisions in the trade deals are unlikely to lead to concrete improvement for workers. Labour rights have never been treated equally with the many rights granted to investors. Labour rights protections remain in a side agreement rather than in the body of the text. There is no provision for real trade sanctions, such as countervailing duties or the end of preferential trade relations.
In conclusion, this agreement is written to protect investors' interests, not workers'. They are not enacted to improve labour standards, and there is little evidence that such an agreement can become a vehicle for the enforcement of labour rights. Why could we not have had an agreement that has as its central goal the creation of decent jobs and sustainable development? Why could we not have an agreement that protects and enforces core labour standards? We will only have a recovery based on job creation and decent work.
The CLC proposes a moratorium on trade deals currently under negotiation. We need studies that will show the likely economic and social impact of this deal on a range of issues. We urge the committee to reject this failed model of economic growth. We ask you not to impose it on Peruvian workers, and we ask you not to impose it on Canadian workers.
Thank you so much.