Madam Speaker, it is with a great deal of pleasure that I rise to address this question on behalf of the Minister for International Trade.
The question of the Helms-Burton legislation has been before Parliament and indeed before the court of world opinion for the last number of months. It is clearly the position of the Canadian government, supported by the European Union, the Mexican government and a number of international forums that this is an extraterritorial application of U.S. law, that it is inappropriate and a fundamental breach of international conventions and international law.
The member raised some very interesting points and the government would agree with the points she has raised. Number one is that it is up to an individual state whether it expropriates or nationalizes property. Indeed in the past and in the present day even in Canada we have cases where the Canadian government or the provinces or their creatures, the municipalities, can expropriate under the Expropriation Act.
What is at issue here is not whether expropriation is legal and should be undertaken, it is whether proper compensation has been done.
The issues the hon. member raised are correct. The United States government has followed a 30 year path of isolation with Cuba. That simply has not worked. We have gone a different path.
In 1980 the Canadian government settled on behalf of Canadians any outstanding issues of compensation for expropriation. Most countries have done that. The U.S. has simply refused to do it.
At the end of the day, it introduced legislation which is in and of itself a violation of international law. I would agree with the hon. member opposite and would say to her that the actions that the Canadian government has taken are to protect the interests of Canadian companies which find themselves challenged or potentially threatened by this extraterritorial application of U.S. law.