Merci beaucoup, monsieur le président.
Thank you very much for being here today. We appreciate your coming forward for this testimony. I visited Panama with the trade committee a few years ago. It's a stunningly beautiful country. I was particularly impressed with the labour activists there. They understand that the way to bring balance to economic development is through having a proper balance between business and labour, and that's the first question I would like to ask you as follow-up. We had what has been described as a very mean-spirited reform brought forward by the government in the spring. I think it was a mistake. It certainly left a black eye for Panama and the world to see.
Fortunately, the government has moved back from that, but we had testimony from the Canadian Labour Congress last week at this committee about the labour component of the agreement, though they haven't yet come for questions. They gave testimony that indicated the Canada-Panama agreement doesn't include specific protection for the right to organize and the right to strike. They also raised concerns around the free trade zones, the fact that the free trade zones are essentially exempt from national labour laws and exempt from international labour provisions. Finally, they raised concerns about Panama offering political asylum to the former head of the secret service in Colombia, Maria del Pilar Hurtado. As you know, she has been accused of a number of things, including handing over lists of trade union activists in Colombia to the paramilitary, and we certainly know about the absence of trade union rights in Colombia.
So those concerns have been raised by the labour movement, and I'd like you to respond to each of those points, if you may.
Then my second set of questions deals with the issue that was raised by Mr. Laforest, the whole question of fiscal status in Panama. Canada has asked for a tax information exchange agreement. One was signed with the Obama administration. I'm just going to quote what Global Trade Watch says in response to the signing of that agreement:
The tax information exchange agreement (TIEA) that the Obama administration signed with Panama today does not require Panama to automatically exchange information with U.S. authorities about tax dodgers, money launderers and drug traffickers.Therefore, Panama is giving itself until the end of 2011 to make a series of domestic legal changes to facilitate the non-automatic information sharing envisioned by the new TIEA - which will be made only in response to specific, case-by-case requests after U.S. authorities have already obtained and provided to Panama a great deal of information about potential wrongdoers.
In short, they're criticizing the structure of the agreement because they're saying it's not an automatic information exchange. We've also raised concerns about Canada not having a robust tax information exchange agreement with Panama.
Why the delay on this, and why not have automatic information sharing? That is really the concern people have about tax shelters in Panama and the links to organized crime.