International Trade Committee on April 26th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I call the meeting to order. I first want to explain to the committee that we will be working on clause by clause on Bill C-23, An Act to implement the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Agreement on the Environment between Canada and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Agreement on Labour Cooperation between Canada and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. This is the bill before us that we will be dealing with.

Just prior to that we have one little order of business, which we are now ready to do. Since we have had a change in the vice-chair on the official opposition side, I would ask the clerk to rule over the election of the replacement for the vice-chair.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Paul Cardegna]

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the committee shall have two vice-chairs. One shall be from the official opposition. The other shall be from another opposition party aside from that. I'm now ready to take nominations for the position of vice-chair for the official opposition.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Don Davis I think is the man.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Cannan moves that Mr. Davies be nominated for vice-chair. Are there any other nominations for the position of vice-chair? Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Congratulations, Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, and thanks to my nominator.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

It was my pleasure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

We are here as a very cooperative committee of the House of Commons to humbly serve the electorate, and to do it collectively together in a very cooperative way. With that, let's move on to the clause by clause of the piece of legislation.

The first clause we would like to stand, which is clause 1, and postpone it until the end. We will be moving on to clause 2. This is what I would propose. We have some proposed amendments, but we can go through them very quickly if we can group the ones to which there is no opposition or no amendments. So I will be asking for your approval of clause 2 through clause 6.

Go ahead, Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

In general on the agreement, at least where I'm coming from, I think we're basically supportive of the agreement. But we are concerned about the labour rights and working conditions side. I don't have a problem with any specific clauses, but I do have a very serious concern with the discrepancy between the evidence from the ambassador of Jordan and what some of the representatives from some of the labour groups have said. If we approve this legislation, I'm just wondering how the government is going to profile the issue—I don't know the right word to use here—or put more pressure on the companies so that these kinds of conditions don't continue to take place.

In evidence on March 29, Mr. Kernaghan of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights said, “The workers have no rights whatsoever. It's a real sweatshop. Workers are housed in primitive dormitories. The Chinese workers and Bangladeshi workers have no voice. In the dormitories during wintertime, there is not sufficient heat”. And on and on it goes. That was in the Rich Pine factory. Then, there was other evidence that came forward about rapes and abuses of workers at another plant.

I wonder if the officials or the parliamentary secretary can tell us how, in a high-profile way, those kinds of conditions are going to be either eliminated or reduced. There has to be pressure put on here somewhere. I'm not one who believes that not entering a trade agreement will make things better. I think if you enter a trade agreement and open up that economic relationship you have a better ability to put pressure on a country to improve conditions. But if officials or someone at least could give us an overall sense how this might be addressed, then we'd be more amenable to this legislation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

On that, I'm remiss in not introducing our officials who are here to help us through this piece of legislation. We have Marvin Hildebrand, Pierre Bouchard, as well as Ton Zuijdwijk.

Thank you for being here. The floor is yours if you want to take a stab at an answer to that. If not, we'd ask our parliamentary secretary to respond.

Go ahead.

[Marvin Hildebrand, Director General, Trade Negotiations Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the welcome.

I would respond only by referring to the labour provisions in the FTA, and the labour side agreement in particular, which do introduce a number of checks and balances and obligations on the part of both parties. It would certainly be possible for my colleague from HRSDC to cite or highlight some of those, if that would be helpful. That represents the part of the agreement that's relevant to the question at hand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Does that...?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I have a follow-up question to that, Mr. Chair.

The difficulty is that the U.S., as has been made clear, has had an FTA with Jordan for almost 10 years. They will admit that there have been some improvements made.

One of the concerns I have, and always have had, on many of the trade agreements is that capital, for whatever reason, is protected to the utmost extent possible, but the human beings who are doing the work in any location are not protected to the same extent. So we've had the FTA with the U.S., with U.S. monitoring and so on, but these conditions still exist.

Mr. Chair, I think of all the testimony I've heard in some 17 or 18 years around this place, and I have never heard as striking or as scary a testimony as we heard about the rape and abuse of workers. It just shouldn't be the case. The conditions are not improving fast enough. Is the Government of Canada willing, along with the United States and Jordan, to sit down and say that these conditions have to be addressed, that there have to be better on-site monitors than there are, or whatever?

This is just absolutely unacceptable, and I don't appreciate the fact that the ambassador of Jordan basically said that this wasn't happening. He didn't say everything was perfect, I'll give him that. But this kind of abuse that was named is atrocious. It just shouldn't happen in 2012 anywhere in the world where we have trading relationships.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

You're referencing a piece of testimony that was very dramatic. It was rather specific as well, as I recall.

I have Mr. Shory and Mr. Keddy. I don't know who was first.

Mr. Keddy, go ahead.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome to our witnesses.

Maybe we can move this on a bit more quickly. I don't think, Mr. Easter, any of us took the testimony that we heard here lightly. It was quite damning and shocking testimony. I'm in no way, shape, or form trying to justify that. But I do believe sincerely that rules-based trading leads to a different respect for the law, and with that comes an enhanced appreciation and respect. We have labour side agreements, we have basic human rights in here, including the abolition of child labour. We have an agreement on the environment. I think that entire package leads to a different respect and a different appreciation of the human rights challenges that they're facing.

And we have to look at the nation itself, going from an absolute monarchy, which it still is, to a moderate Arab state in a part of the world that we need to have a presence in.

So no, the situation is not perfect, and I don't think that any of us think it is. But I believe that it's a combination of all the parts that will lead to a greater respect for human rights, a greater respect for labour rights, and a greater respect for the rule of law, quite frankly, and hopefully the beginnings of democratic institutions.

It is a challenge, but it's not as simple as saying yea or nay. We can debate this all day; I think we need to get on to the bill. I don't know if there's anything I can say on behalf of the government that will reassure you. I think we must have some faith in Jordan and the direction that Jordan has been headed in, however slow that is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Just to wrap this up, is there anything further for the department? If not, we'll move on.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I have a question for the legislative clerk or the clerk, Mr. Chair.

I understand that the Senate, when it passes legislation, can send the legislation back with some instructions, right? We can't do that in the House of Commons. We can only say yea or nay on legislation. What I'm asking is whether there is any way under parliamentary procedure that this committee could pass this legislation, but append an instruction to it that we expect Jordan and the companies therein to pull up their socks when it comes to human rights.

Is there any way at the House of Commons level, under parliamentary procedure, that we can lay out such instructions?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I actually just checked with counsel here with regard to that. You're right: we can't attach anything to legislation, as far as a direction is concerned. The Senate can. So perhaps that's something that you can take up with Senate colleagues to address at the appropriate time, if you wish.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two questions for our departmental officials.

Thank you for being with us today.

Clause 4 says:

For greater certainty, nothing in this Act or the Agreement applies to natural surface or ground water in liquid, gaseous or solid state.

I'm wondering if you could give me as succinct as possible an explanation of why that's in the agreement and what the meaning of it is. What is the purpose of that clause?

[Ton Zuijdwijk, General Counsel, Market Access and Trade Remedies Law Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

This is a standard clause that we've had in all of our implementing bills for FTAs ever since NAFTA.

It simply makes it clear that water in its natural state—we're not talking about bottled water—is not a commodity that can be traded or benefit from the provisions in the free trade agreement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Go ahead.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just to follow up, I take it that would make it clear that bulk water is not exportable.

My second question is if you could give us a brief explanation of clause 5, where it says: nothing in this Act, by specific mention or omission, is to be construed to affect in any manner the right of Parliament to enact legislation to implement any provision of the Agreement or a related agreement..

Can you tell me briefly what the purpose of that clause is? I would take that as a given.

[Ton Zuijdwijk]

This bill is not supposed to prevent Parliament from enacting further legislation in the future.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

If that clause were not in the bill, I still would have taken it as a given that you don't need a specific clause in legislation to say that Parliament is not bound by—