Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm honoured to make a few comments to this panel on the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement.
I am the son of immigrant homesteaders who came to Alberta before the First World War. They came as children. The events in Ukraine have really occupied a lot of my attention for these years.
I retired after spending most of my working life in investor relations, at both the practical level, working for trade unions, and the academic level. I worked a lot at the international level on projects involving labour law and sustainable development. I am telling you this because I want to focus on the sometimes unpopular topic of labour standards.
Labour provisions in the new free trade agreement must ensure that workers in Ukraine are well protected against some of the negative effects of liberalization that have been taking place since independence, and in particular since its leaders turned its trade policy toward the west.
I'm aware of some of the challenges facing workers in trade unions in Ukraine because I continue to receive accounts about reforms that its government has been pursuing. I'm naturally loathe to criticize a nation and a government that is defending itself against an attack, so much so that for a while I thought I would withdraw my intervention. I am going to proceed on the presumption that Ukraine will survive and that it will emerge as an independent nation. Otherwise, if it does not—God forbid—I guess all would be lost and academic.
First, I would suggest to this panel that you follow up on reports made by Ukrainian trade unionists, their central bodies, Ukrainian NGOs, the International Labour Organization and other international organizations, such as the European Trade Union Confederation, about the way workers in Ukraine are being impacted by changes in labour law, as well as about administrative action—or inaction—on the part of the Government of Ukraine.
George Sandul, a lawyer with the Ukrainian workers' rights NGO, Labour Initiatives, is definitely one who should be consulted. There are others. They will tell you that changes introduced by the Ukrainian government in the last two decades in many cases worked directly against the rights of workers and their trade unions. Chapter 13 in the 2017 agreement has done little to change this.
Many of the negative developments in Ukraine occurred after it joined the WTO in 2008, when it apparently stepped up the liberalization of the economy and proceeded with privatization of state-owned enterprises. Along with this was the growth of the gig economy, in which large companies are apparently taking advantage of tax breaks and a mismatch between the very high skill levels of Ukrainian workers and the low-paying jobs that are offered. This is also a highly vulnerable workforce, because such a large percentage is undeclared or informal and lacking any protection under labour law. A new law that was introduced just before COVID could actually make matters worse, according to my sources.
Canada should not be part of any agreement that contributes to a neo-liberal economic strategy that sacrifices labour standards. I know none of us want that. Trade policy does not just affect the economy; it impacts quality of life. Unfortunately, the Washington consensus is still alive and well. Most policy is still premised on a supposed disconnect between trade and the protection of labour rights.
Second, I suggest that you make it a prime objective of any future labour agreement to strengthen worker rights in Ukraine to levels prescribed by international labour law. This will happen only if strong enforcement procedures are in place. For this, I recommend the labour provisions that were negotiated into the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement that replaced NAFTA in 2020. It was given very high marks by the Canadian Labour Congress for several reasons, but primarily because it was brought into the main body of the text and made the provisions enforceable through a detailed, state-to-state dispute settlement process in chapter 31. It would be a step forward and could be a model.