I don't know what polling company you're using, but I know that the two polls I've seen recently, from independent pollsters, are saying that the only party that is opposed to FTAs in Colombia has 5% of the support of the people of Colombia.
I think that's important, because at the end of the day we want to do not only what is good for Canada but something that helps Colombians move forward.
The issue of the independent human rights analysis is an important one. I've read through this, and this is helpful. The Canadian Council for International Co-operation, Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers, the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, are all independent organizations and have provided us with a very thorough assessment of this free trade agreement in terms of the impact on human rights.
So in fact you have helped us fulfill our commitment as a committee to have an independent human rights assessment. And we thank you. That does help inform our thinking on this issue.
The Liberal amendment, which has been read into the record of this committee, and which was agreed to by the Colombian trade minister this week, and read into the record, proposes that we need more than just an impact assessment at the time of the agreement. We need an ongoing mechanism to evaluate the impact of this agreement on human rights.
It calls for the Government of Canada to provide annual reports to the Parliament of Canada on the impact on human rights of the Colombia-Canada FTA in Canada and Colombia. And it also calls for the Colombian government to do the same. So Canadian DFAIT officials and our own people will be writing a report each year on the impact of this agreement on human rights in Colombia.
That report--we've had DFAIT officials appear before the committee, and we asked about this mechanism and how it would work--would be informed by independent human rights organizations, NGOs, civil society representatives, who would feed into that. And Minister Plata also said that the same would be the case in Colombia. We would hear from both.
When this report comes to Parliament every year, this committee and the human rights committee can hear more witnesses, including your organization, on an ongoing basis. I really believe it has the capacity to strengthen governance on human rights on an ongoing basis. And I had a good meeting with Gerry Barr recently, and want to continue that dialogue.
You cited the UN, and some of the reports from the UN commissioner on human rights. The UN commissioner on human rights said that the report demonstrates how the internal armed conflict continues to pose many challenges for the country, including the “complete disregard for international humanitarian laws” by FARC. The commissioner said as well that the situation was “exacerbated by violence against civilians by illegal armed groups” that emerged after the demobilization of paramilitary organizations, links between illegal armed groups and drug trafficking, and the particularly acute impact of the internal armed conflict on indigenous people and Afro-Colombian communities.
Much of the violence in Colombia is a result of this drug war and drug-fuelled civil war. The narco-traffickers and the drug lords don't have labour agreements with the Government of Colombia. The Canadian government has no influence on the activities of these narco-traffickers and these abusers of human rights, these murderers, and these people who drive farmers off their lands so they can produce drugs.
Don't we have an obligation to the people of Colombia to help them by providing them with an opportunity to sell their goods and to enjoy real economic opportunities and not to be forced into this violent drug war?