Thank you very much.
Thank you for inviting me to be here on behalf of the Canadian Labour Congress. We represent 3.3 million members across Canada. We bring together Canada's national and international unions, along with provincial and territorial federations of labour, and 130 district labour councils whose members work in virtually all sectors of the Canadian economy, in all occupations, and in all parts of Canada.
As I always do, I have to say up front that the labour movement is keenly aware that trade is and always has been an important feature of the Canadian economy. Our jobs depend on trade. We understand that all governments will have an interest in fostering open trade.
We feel that the distributional impacts of trade and investment agreements have long been ignored. We're told, “Trade deals will have winners and losers, but don't worry; we'll compensate the losers.”
In my opinion, the failure to compensate those who have been negatively impacted by trade shocks has led to growing inequality, especially between regions, and a nationalist sentiment among those people who have been poorly affected. This has happened in many developed nations. It's not unique to Canada. In fact, Canada has been somewhat protected because of our strong social safety net.
More than 20 years after signing the North American trade agreement, the ways in which it has failed working Canadians are very clear. Canadians were told it would create good jobs, shared prosperity, and a better future for working people. Instead, it has undermined secure well-paid employment, and it has devastated manufacturing and processing industries and the communities that depend on them.
While there has been increased trade and economic growth, the benefit has gone to large corporations and investors, leaving workers behind. NAFTA doesn't just govern trade but empowers foreign investors to sue Canadian governments, threatening public services and limiting the ability of governments to regulate in the public interest. This so-called free trade agreement has not fostered fair or balanced trade, in our opinion, and one of the reasons for that is that trade agreements have left a gap. The governance gap in national legislation has become inadequate.
The lack of transparency and asymmetrical relationships in global supply chains, combined with a competition among low-income nations for foreign investment in jobs, actually undercuts the ability of free trade to be fair.
For example, only 1% of Mexican workers belong to a democratic union. Most workers in Mexico are covered by so-called protection contracts, which are agreements between the company and a company-approved union. Workers don't even have the right to see the collective agreement. If they try to vote out that union and vote in another union, at best they're ignored, and at worst their lives are in danger.
The solution to this, we feel, is to have a parallel approach and, along with trade agreements, focus on strengthening ILO conventions. Canada has just announced that we're going to ratify the core convention 98, which is the right to organize and bargain collectively. Neither Mexico nor the United States has ratified this agreement.
We've also pushed the Canadian government to ratify governance convention 81, which is the labour inspection convention. Neither Canada, the United States, nor Mexico has ratified it. This convention would help to ensure that the labour standards that we've agreed to in the core conventions have labour inspectors who can enforce and make sure that workers in all countries have access to their rights under those core conventions.
We would also encourage the government to look at due diligence for Canadian companies and funding agencies similar to legislation that was recently passed in France, to look at a framework for transnational bargaining to allow unions to represent workers in multiple countries, and to work within the ILO and OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises. We also encourage the government to work to strengthen Canada's national contact points.
We're glad to hear that the Canadian government has stated publicly that it's willing to walk away from a deal that's not in Canada's best interest. We think it's time to take a new approach to trade that puts the interests of working people and the environment first.