—the minister to come.
Again, Mr. Chair, this committee and Canadians deserve clarity on the issue; either the leaked EU document is factually incorrect or it's not. The Minister of International Trade owes it to this committee, and the government owes it to this committee, to declare what is fact and what isn't fact.
As I wind down, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to refer to a speech by the European Commissioner for Trade, in which he described the required process by which the European Parliament is kept fully informed of the progress of trade negotiations as a result of the Treaty of Lisbon.
Mr. Chair, I think this is something we could learn from. These trade changes significantly alter the debate over EU trade policy. No one can now claim that EU trade policy-making is a bureaucrat-to-bureaucrat exercise devoid of scrutiny and passion. The European Parliament brings a broader range of voices and opinions to the debates on trade and ensures that these debates happen with full transparency. It is so different from here, Mr. Chair.
In short, the Lisbon treaty requires that the commission shall keep the Parliament informed of trade negotiations.
Those points that were raised were confirmed by the European Parliament in a resolution of June 8, 2011 on Canada-EU trade relations, a resolution that was sent to the federal government and each of the provinces.
Paragraph 19 of the resolution reads:
...since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the Council has been required to obtain the consent of Parliament for all international trade agreements and both the Council and the Commission have been required to keep Parliament immediately and fully informed at all stages of the procedure; [it] calls on the Council to provide Parliament immediately with all information in the stages of the procedure for which it is responsible, in particular concerning negotiation directives it has adopted and any modifications thereof; [it] calls on the Council and the Commission to keep Parliament involved at all stages of the negotiations and to take Parliament's views fully into account.
The reason I read that, Mr. Chair, is that in Canada we are a democracy too. We're not fully informed. We haven't had the minister here on the CETA agreement for 17 months. It's time we did have him here to answer for whether it's misinformation or a strategic way of trying to get their position forward. I don't know, but we need the minister and his chief negotiator to answer those questions.
As a last point, Mr. Chair, the EU trade commissioner has, in quite a number of speeches now on relations with the U.S., certainly been emphasizing the negotiations with the United States and not mentioning Canada at all. That worries me that we might find ourselves in the same situation as we did with South Korea, that we had in fact been displaced by the United States in our trading relationship there. That would indeed cost the country.
For all of the foregoing, Mr. Chair, it's crucial that we hear from the minister to find out, first, why the negotiations seem to be at a standstill from Canada's point of view and way over the deadline the minister had suggested they would meet; second, determine if the government still believes in and has CETA as a priority; and third, determine what areas, be they supply management, procurement, drug costs or others, that we as a committee need to be addressing.
I've said before this committee a number of times that we're not doing as well in our trade agreements as we had hoped we would—for 10 out of the last 12 months we've had a trade deficit. Two years in a row now there's been a trade deficit in beef.
I very sincerely believe that we as a committee should be looking at these things so that we can help the government, industry, Canadians add value by way of the trade agreements. We can't do it if the committee is not willing to have the minister before us and get his views on the matter. Therefore, I would encourage the government members to support the motion and allow the minister to come before this committee so we can get some up-to-date information and answers.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.