International Trade Committee on May 26th, 2009

[Mark Rowlinson]

My concerns can be summarized as follows. I think the labour rights should be subjected to the same enforcement mechanism that is given to investor rights. Again, whether that's in a side agreement or not, to some extent, may be beside the point. Clearly, if you have the labour rights provisions in the body of the agreement, as with U.S.-Peru, it follows that you'll likely have the same enforcement mechanism applying to all rights, at least in theory.

My concern is the following. We have this enforcement mechanism that in its broad strokes is similar to the enforcement mechanism that we have had under the labour side agreement to NAFTA. Our empirical experience has clearly been that the enforcement mechanism to labour rights under NAFTA does not work. It's that simple. It doesn't protect workers' rights.

There's no basis to conclude, therefore, in my view, that while there are improvements in these labour rights provisions, and you cited some of them yourself, the fact that it has incorporated what are commonly called ILO core labour standards into the substantive provisions of the agreement is an improvement. However, rights are only as good as what you can enforce. You can have all the terrific statements and all of the substantive rights you want, but if you can't enforce them, they won't actually do much to improve workers' rights.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Cameron, I'll conclude very briefly, being mindful of the clock, but I do want to ask this question.

You made several comments that struck me, where you talked about local and regional governments having little capacity relative to the central government. I had some sense of that when I was there. Although my sense is that it's a developmental thing, my hope is that over time, just like that small community that fought back and won, as it were, against a mining company...I would deem that to be a positive response.

But I have a question for you. You said the record does not support a single hemispheric free trade agreement. I thought we were negotiating a bilateral free trade agreement. So my practical question to you is, could you ever imagine a time when you would see a hemispheric trade agreement not unlike what the EU does with its 29 member countries? Do you have any thought on that yourself?

I'll leave that as my final question.

[Prof. Maxwell A. Cameron]

I think that's actually a great model and one we should look at, because the underlying assumption of the FTA approach has been that we offer access to our markets and to our investment. The countries will line up and try to create the conditions that make them most attractive to our investors. There will be a competition, a competitive liberalization process by which countries attempt to make themselves as attractive as possible to our investors and seek to negotiate agreements with us. That was supposed to result, ultimately, in a free trade agreement of the Americas.

I think the fact that it hasn't happened is a consequence of a couple of things. One element is that the record of market liberalization has not been sufficiently robust. People have not seen the benefits of free trade and market liberalization to the point that they're willing to support these agreements as a way of getting toward a hemispheric agreement.

For example, we're negotiating bilaterally because we can't negotiate with the Andean region, as a region, because the Andean bloc is now divided. You have Chavez, on the one hand, who has pulled out of the Andean Community of Nations; and you have other countries that have different views, between Peru and Ecuador, and so forth. Really, the whole process of integrating the hemisphere around free trade seems to have fizzled, and the most visible evidence of that is that the FTAA itself is dead.

I want to say, very quickly, on the question of democracy, that Peru has made great strides towards democracy. Canada played a big role with our high-level mission and supporting, through the OAS, the transition to democracy in 2000 and 2001. Since that time we've seen a number of elections that have been free and fair, and really, this is to be celebrated and encouraged. I think it's great that the Canadian government wants to promote and assist democracy.

At the electoral level, democracy is pretty robust, although one has to recognize that there are a million people who don't have IDs, so can't vote, and a quarter of a million people don't even have birth certificates. People sometimes have to walk for days to get to polling stations to vote. But I think the real problem is that with that level of social exclusion, with the degree of marginalization in some communities, the electoral mechanisms of democracy are not enough. That's where we're seeing this experimentation with more participatory instruments, and that's where there exists a profound tension between the initiatives for participation, on the one hand, and instruments such as the free trade agreement.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you.

I thought Mr. Cannan might have one brief question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

I'm sorry, we're way over time.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

All right, sir. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you very much to our witnesses. We appreciate your coming. You've done a good job. It has been a good discussion today.

We do have other business, so I'm going to ask you to wrap up. We're going to begin clause-by-clause of the bill, so we'll have some departmental officials come to the table. Thank you again for your participation today.

We'll take a few minutes to change witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you for getting back to the table. We're going to the order of reference here, which is Bill C-24, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Republic of Peru, the Agreement on the Environment between Canada and the Republic of Peru and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Republic of Peru.

To help us through clause-by-clause if there are any further questions on specific details of the bill, we have with us, from the Department of Finance, Carol Nelder-Corvari, who has been with us before, and also Dean Beyea, the senior chief, the international trade policy division. From the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, we again have with us Matthew Kronby and Vernon MacKay.

Thank you again for coming here today.

I'm going to proceed right away with the bill. I think everybody would like to get through this by 11 o'clock. We do have some other business the committee could discuss if we can get this through. I don't think there's anything particularly contentious. We have a couple of amendments that we will deal with in due course.

I'm going to begin now. We'll just skip the short title for the moment and proceed to clause 2 of the bill. If people have the bill in front of them, we'll proceed to clause-by-clause, beginning with clause 2, the interpretation.

(On clause 2--Definitions)

Is there any discussion?

Mr. Julien.

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

I'm not going to speak on that or most of the clauses, Mr. Chair, but for the form normally, I think a quick vote would be warranted.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Okay. Do you mean you want a vote on each clause? All right. That's fine.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

[Inaudible--Editor]...get us through that. Can you just refresh my memory?

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Do you want a voice vote each time, or yeas and nays each time, or just on division?

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

Well, I'll just lay it out on the table, Mr. Chair.

I'm not as concerned with the discussions today as I am about future bills that may be coming before the committee. I'm just ensuring that there is.... I'm certainly not going to speak, except to the amendments. I don't know about my colleagues.

But just for the practice of ensuring that there is a vote on the clause, I think it is something that can be done fairly rapidly. I think that precedent is important for future bills.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you. I think there are other precedents to group clauses together as well.

I think people are pretty familiar with the bill. Is there any particular objection to grouping some of these? If I have the unanimous consent of the committee, I think I would like to proceed that way. Just by way of example, I would suggest that we might do clauses 2 to 7 and ask for approval. Then we'll stop. I think there will be some discussion of clause 8. Then we'll proceed further with clause 9, with the committee's agreement.

Is there any comment? Did you have a comment, Monsieur Cardin?

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Yes. You can assume that I will always dissent. When the time comes to vote on the bill, my vote will be no, obviously, and I will be asking for a recorded vote as well. If you want to proceed with this quickly, I am fine with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Okay. I appreciate that.

I'm going to ask, then, if we will group clauses 2 through 7. Shall clauses 2 through 7 carry?

Mr. Julian.

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

I'd like a vote on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

All right.

(Clauses 2 to 7 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 8--Causes of action under Part 1)

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

We have an amendment to clause 8. I will ask Mr. Julian to move that amendment.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We've heard testimony that there are concerns that come out of this bill. The amendment that the NDP is proposing for clause 8 is very simply to ensure that there is a written process around proceedings that may take place or an override to some of the clauses that are contained within the bill.

It's a fairly minor amendment, but it's one that I think provides for a system of checks and balances given that concerns have been raised around this bill. That, as well as the other amendment the NDP has put forward, is designed to try to improve the bill so that there is a better system of checks and balances and a much clearer paper trail around the bill and the bill's provisions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Mr. Julian has therefore moved that clause 8 be amended by replacing lines 20 and 21 on page 3 with the following:

without the consent in writing of the Attorney General of Canada, including the reasons why consent was given, to enforce or determine any right or

That would fit into the existing clause. Is there any further debate?

Mr. Brison, do you have a comment?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Have the officials given us their view? I'd be interested in the officials' view of what impact this would have on the agreement.

[Matthew Kronby, Director General, Trade Law Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

Sure.

As I understand it, line 20 and 21 are in subclause 8(1). This wouldn't substantively change the agreement. It's not clear what precisely the purpose of the amendment would be, only that it would put an additional obligation on the Attorney General of Canada, if he or she were to consent to the cause of action of the sort described in subclause (1), to explain in writing why he or she was consenting. That's what it would do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Would that not influence the hearing?

[Matthew Kronby]

Do you want to take one question at a time? I'm not sure how you want to do this.