Mr. Speaker, it is my duty and my pleasure to speak in opposition to Bill C-57, the bill to enact the World Trade Organization legislation.
There are many reasons we oppose the bill as New Democrats. Before getting into the reasons I want to make a comment or observation. When we have a bill that is supported and put forward by the Liberal government of about 250 pages dealing with an agenda the large multinational corporations want to see completed, that is supported by Bloc members in the House and is supported by the Reform Party, it seems to me Canadians should pay particular attention to the implications of the bill. When a bill is supported by the Liberals, the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party there has to be something peculiar, mysterious, suspicious and probably disadvantageous to Canadians.
I challenge any member in the House to stand to say they have read the bill because I do not think they have. I do not think they understand the implications of the bill. However I have had occasion to read most of it. I have not read it all, but what I have read is unbelievable with respect to what the bill does to Canadian producers, agriculture producers, steel producers, sugar producers and other manufacturers.
The reason I say that is that the bill does not stand up for Canadians. Members of the New Democratic Party, the member for Winnipeg Transcona, the member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake, the member for Mackenzie and others, have stood in the House of Commons to say that they have major concerns about the bill. We have heard the concerns in agriculture. We have heard the concerns about child labour and important social equities with respect to Bill C-57.
When I look at a bill I look at certain criteria the bill has to meet in order for me to support it. It has to be fair. It has to be equitable to those it affects. It has to be responsible. The government has to account for its actions with respect to the bill.
In my observations of the bill I can only conclude that if the legislation does not meet the criteria I have set out as being acceptable to Canadians and to the people of Regina-Lumsden whom I represent, it cannot possibly go forward without comprehensive debate and amendment.
As a result the New Democratic Party put forward amendments in the House to address issues of equity, fairness, responsibility and accountability. They were defeated by the government, by members of the Reform Party and by members of the Bloc Quebecois. This is very disconcerting to the people of Canada as well as to our caucus because we tried to inject some fairness.
I want to make a couple of points with respect to the bill. For example, the WTO is a new constitution for the globalized economy written by and for multinationals, the transnationals of the world. The government has rejected a policy of developing a social clause to the WTO that would ensure multinationals recognize basic labour and environmental standards to prevent the race to the bottom.
Even though the WTO supposedly offers a new rules based trading regime that will bring relief from trade harassment, American behaviour under NAFTA rules and evasive measures put into the American implementing legislation make it very unlikely that the Americans will play by the rules.
In my remarks today I want to focus on the American legislation and how it protects American producers and American businessmen. The Canadian legislation we see before the House today does not protect Canadians in the same way.
The biggest claim of WTO advocates is that it will inaugurate a new era of a rules based trading regime with enforceable rules regarding dumping and subsidies. The only problem is that the biggest single player, the United States, clearly has no intention of obeying the rules. We have already seen how under NAFTA rules the harassment of our trade in lumber and wheat has gone on unabated.
The results of the recent congressional elections do not give Canadians much cause for hope that this behaviour will change. More important, the Americans have written into their implementing legislation a long list of provisions that effectively guarantee that no WTO will ever overturn an American federal or state measure. The Americans have given notice that they will treat WTO rules as they have treated NAFTA rules: to ignore if they go against perceived American interests.
We in the New Democratic Party have proposed amendments that would have written into Canadian law exactly the same protection from WTO rulings the Americans have given to themselves. The government with typical gullibility about American goodwill chose to defeat our amendments. That reminds me: it is the same gullibility of the former Conservative Government of Canada. It bent over backward for the Americans and now we see the Liberals who were supposed to be different are not different. They are the same. They did exactly what the Conservative government did in the last Parliament of Canada. Liberal, Tory, same old story, I presume.
In one sense we can look forward to the American sabotage of the new WTO rules in the way that they have sabotaged the NAFTA dispute settlement mechanism. To get these rules we have sacrificed a tremendous amount of sovereignty over investment policy and social security standards. With a rules based system imposed on American protectionism we can begin to rebuild a new constitution for the global economy that represents the interests of the communities.
I share with members an incident that occurred involving myself and other members of the House of Commons last May. We are a member of the steel caucus. The steel caucus is composed of all parties with steel production in their constituencies. I am proud to say I have IPSCO, the Interprovincial Pipe and Steel Company in my district. It employs about 1,100 people. It is a very conscientious and environmentally sound corporation. It produces a significant amount of steel and pipe for the Canadian and American economies and for economies outside North America.
We visited with American congressmen and senators on the issue of steel production. The reason we were there was that Canadian steel producers had been injured by anti-dumping claims of the American steel industry. We went there to talk to the legislators because they have legislation in effect which ignores NAFTA and which ignores the WTO that we have before the House today to protect their own producers.
If they believe, if it is perceived-it does not have to be proven-to injure their own industry, they can use whatever ability they have under the legislation in effect to deflect or stop trading nations from selling that product in their country.
We have asked as a caucus to have this legislation amended to reflect the concerns of Canadian steel producers, our agricultural producers and others, including sugar, so that we are protected in the event that the WTO is injurious to Canadian producers. The government has defeated that. It ignored our requests and we are very concerned that as are the people in these industries.
The Liberal member for Vancouver Quadra gave a historical perspective as to what he thought Franklin Delano Roosevelt intended in his trade negotiations. I want to throw a quote back to the member for Vancouver Quadra from Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he was president: "The true test of progress in society is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much but whether we provide enough for those who have too little". That is a very important message that was relevant then, relevant now with respect to governments protecting the people in their countries from injurious economic initiatives from other countries regardless of world trade regulations.
They are set up to set some standard and regulations to govern and trade by, to have economic interchange, but in the end the bottom line is that if it is injurious to your country a government is elected by the people for the people to protect the people.
However, if you pass a law that does not provide that protection, you are giving up your obligation and right to govern the people you have been elected to govern. What the heck is going on here? I cannot understand this. I do not think anybody else in the country understands this either.
What we have to do is point out to the Canadian population that Bill C-57 is injurious to the steel producers of Canada. It is injurious to the agricultural producers of Canada. It is injurious to the sugar producers of Canada and that means it must be injurious to much of Canada.
If that is the case, why are they injuring our own people? We have enough competitors out there who are taking advantage of our country and our economy. We do not have to let the walls fall down and let our mechanisms of defence collapse and encourage outside countries to rape and plunder our economy further.
The government is making a serious mistake with respect to passing Bill C-57 unamended. As a matter of fact, we have support from many people. I have a letter here from the sugar refineries. My former deskmate, a Conservative member, the member for Saint John, the former mayor of Saint John, has written to the Minister of Finance, pointing out what impact Bill C-57 will have on the sugar industry.
I can get into that in a few minutes but I want to provide some evidence from the steel producers of Canada. They have made representations to the government, to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade as late as November 16 and they have indicated that Bill C-57 as proposed is going to be injurious to the steel producers of Canada. They document it in numbers.
They say that because of the anti-dumping situations and charges, they have been victims of the American steel industry. It is costing them millions of dollars. They are saying that this type of anti-dumping initiative is injurious to their exporting and steel production.
We are not dumping steel in the United States. We produce steel here and we sell it directly on a contract basis after winning a tender like any other producer would do in North America. Yet they single us out as being unproductive and as being overly competitive because they feel it is hurting their industry.
The facts show and the truth is that is not the case. The steel producers of Canada want the government to make a couple of amendments on the following points. They suggested and we have put forward this proposal in the House that the Special Import Measures Act should be amended and should provide the Canadian international trade tribunal with some authority with respect to injury on the steel exports in Canada.
Unlike the American implementing legislation, Bill C-57 provides no guidelines as to what would be acceptable evidence. Without guidelines it would be very difficult for a Canadian company to know how to demonstrate a foreseen and imminent threat of injury. American companies will have an easier task under the legislation even though the same principle of the WTO is being implemented.
The U.S. implementing legislation also provides that if dumping diminishes in reaction to the filing of a complaint, the ITC may discount evidence after the filing of its assessment of injury. This makes it easier for an injury charge to stick. There is no comparable provision in C-57.
They go on and talk about a number of other issues. Bill C-57 does not say anything about how the threat of injury should be interpreted at the time of review of an anti-dumping action. The American legislation does provide for these things.
I could go on in detail about what the steel producers feel is injurious. The point is that every time they win a contract, export the steel to the States, even though NAFTA is in existence, even though the WTO is preparing to be in existence, the Americans can say because they have lost the contracts in the open tendering process: "We are not going to let them take this contract because we are going to ask them for more information". If they ask for all sorts of information it costs Canadian steel producers literally millions of dollars to gather this information which then makes their original bid more expensive and unprofitable. It also delays and is more or less a discouraging act on the part of the Americans. They have this in the legislation.
If the Americans harass Canadian steel producers they have their law on their side and the Congress to provide them with that lever. Canadians and the Government of Canada are saying: "We are not going to be like the Americans. We do not want to provide protection to Canadians because we will be just like the Americans then".
Some things the Americans do are pretty smart. That is why they are the most successful business people in the world. That is why they have the most successful economy. They always undertake economic initiatives to the benefit of their country.
New Democrats oppose Bill C-57 on the basis that it is injurious to the economy of Canada.