Thank you for the opportunity to return to continue our discussion. I don't want to abuse the privilege of being able to speak here, so I thought I would just recap the main points of what I said last time and point out where we might benefit from further discussion.
To recap, I discussed some of the concerns that the Canadian Labour Congress has regarding the labour provisions in the Canada-Panama agreement on labour cooperation.
I also discussed the context of labour rights violations in Panama, and this is the context within which we're discussing this labour cooperation agreement.
I discussed the political crisis caused by the government's unilateral changes to labour law in the summer of 2010, and I discussed the problems with the new free trade zone of Barú, which makes collective bargaining discretionary for the first six years of operation. It ensures that certain protections of the labour code will not apply for the first three years of employment and allows employers to dismiss workers legally if sales decrease.
These new provisions for Barú were written after the Canada-Panama labour cooperation agreement was signed and are contrary to the commitments made by the Government of Panama in that document.
Today I will be pleased to return to these issues, in particular to the limitations of the labour cooperation agreement and some of the problems with Panamanian labour law. If you like, I could also touch on the question of the suggested tax information exchange agreement, as well as the problem of Panama's granting asylum to a high-profile Colombian official accused of serious violations of human rights.