Mr. Speaker, there are certain pieces of legislation that one would prefer not to be putting forward and this bill falls into that category. However, Canada has been compelled to strengthen the provisions of the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act because of the actions taken by the United States in passing the Helms-Burton law.
No one is looking for confrontation, no one wants to take the risk of aggravating the dispute.
But certain fundamental principles must be respected. The freedom to maintain our own foreign policy and trading relationships is one of them, as my colleague the Minister of Foreign Affairs has so correctly pointed out. Canadians have the right to expect that their government will act to respond to threats to our sovereignty and this government is fully prepared to accept that responsibility.
Helms-Burton is wrong on many levels. I will deal with a few of these today. At the most fundamental level it is objectionable because it attempts to enforce uniformity of approach and to deny the freedom to other nations to make up their own minds and implement their own policies. It says: "Our foreign policy must be your foreign policy; our trade relations, your trade relations; our friends, your friends; our foes, your foes; and if you do not agree, our laws become your laws" .That is wrong.
Many years ago President Kennedy said of the relationship between our two countries: "The geography has made us neighbours, the history has made us friends". That is true. We welcome that relationship. We welcome that friendship. History has indeed made us friends, but it has not made us the 51st state. We are not subject to American laws and we are not obligated to follow their rules. Our foreign policy and our trade policy are made in Ottawa, not in Washington. That is something this nation has always declared and is something this government will always defend.
Both Canada and the United States are trading nations, not only with each other but with the world. The Americans have always played a key role in promoting and supporting freer trade around the world. That commitment stretches as far back as President Woodrow Wilson and was reaffirmed as recently as 1994 by President Clinton at the Summit of the Americas in Miami. There, led by the host the United States, we launched the free trade agreement of the Americas which seeks to build bridges to the newly emerging economies of Central and South America and the Caribbean.
Americans know that trade is bringing the world together as never before. With the free exchange of goods and investment comes a greater openness to new ideas and new approaches. Again and again history has shown us that closer trade links lead to closer relations between nations. So freer trade and a clear system of rules to enforce it are important objectives and ones that this government is fully in support of. However, recently we have seen disturbing indications that the American commitment to freer trade may be flagging. First there was the isolationist rhetoric which reverberated throughout the American presidential primaries and now there is Helms-Burton.
Those of us who are committed to tearing down barriers and opening up opportunities cannot be selective in our approach. We cannot defend this principle and then defy it in practice. As the leader of the movement to freer trade, the United States cannot say: "The world should follow this path except when we tell them not to". It cannot oppose a system that it says is closed and anachronistic by passing laws which imitate that system. It cannot oppose isolationism by isolating selective adversaries.
Canada and the United States no doubt share a common objective in Cuba and that is in democracy, economic reform and respect for human rights. The difference is in the best way to achieve the result. The Americans believe in isolating Cuba; we prefer to engage Cuba. History will have to judge which approach is better. I would only note that the American policy has been in place now for
30 years. Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush have all come and gone but Fidel Castro remains in power.
Why this particular approach to Cuba? The United States has profound differences with China and some other countries as well, but that does not stop them from doing billions of dollars worth of trade with China. No one would suggest that because the United States carries on trade with China they disapprove any less of certain Chinese policies. So why this double standard with respect to Cuba? The confusion does not end there.
On June 21 the state department's co-ordinator for Cuban affairs said that Helms-Burton is designed to discourage foreign investment in Cuba. That is what he said. It was a candid, straightforward statement of fact. Yet just last month the president's special envoy to Cuba told an Ottawa press conference that the United States was in no way telling Canadians to stop their trade or investment with Cuba. There was no gun to our head. Rather, he went on to say that Canadians should invest in a strategic way that would help to advance democracy in Cuba.
It would seem that trade and investment with Cuba are okay as long as they meet U.S. approval. This is what happens when policy is made on the run in response to election year pressures. It is no way to conduct sound long term policy. It is a throwback to the old days when governments believed that trade should be controlled according to circumstances and not according to agreed upon rules. It is a look back, not a step forward.
There is another aspect of this legislation which is troubling in that it affects both friend and foe alike. Helms-Burton has taken a U.S.-Cuba problem and made it a much broader international trade and investment issue. Two sections of the act are particularly offensive. Title III allows U.S. citizens with claims on expropriated property in Cuba to sue foreign nationals, such as Canadians, in the United States courts. If the company has no assets in the United States that it can seize upon, an American could try to come to the Canadian judicial system and ask the courts to enforce the ruling and seize assets here. Two months ago President Clinton suspended this right to sue for six months. He can change his mind though at any time. As long as Helms-Burton is on the books, the threat of lawsuits exist.
Title IV of the act allows the U.S. government to deny entry to executives of companies which the U.S. state department deems to be trafficking in property subject to a U.S. claim. This ban extends also to the families, the children of these executives.
The special envoy said that there was no gun to our head. However, it seems to me that there are two guns: one is title III and the other is title IV. Both are fully loaded but one of them, title III, has the safety catch on until it is decided by the Government of the United States to release it.
Helms-Burton is also regressive in other ways. At a time when our hemisphere is coming together as never before, Helms-Burton seeks not to integrate but to isolate. With initiatives such as the Miami summit and the free trade area of the Americas, we have the chance to tie the disparate elements of this hemisphere into a new relationship, one built on openness and the free exchange of ideas, individuals and products. Helms-Burton runs counter to this impulse and would erect barriers, not bridges, create resentments, not relationships and introduce tensions, not trusts.
Finally, Helms-Burton is unacceptable because it flouts long established international legal practices for settling disputes between nations regarding claims by foreign investors who have had their property expropriated. These established practices have served the world well in the past. By choosing to ignore them now, Helms-Burton sets a dangerous precedent.
If the U.S. behaves in this way today, what is to stop other countries from adopting similar measures tomorrow? If such an international free for all ensues, we will undo much of what has already been achieved in bringing trade under international rules.
For all of these reasons, Canada has objected to Helms-Burton. We have raised this matter to the highest levels of the American administration. I have met with my Mexican and American counterparts for consultations under chapter 20 of NAFTA.
Canada has also raised this matter with other trading partners both within the World Trade Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In fact in the current negotiations going on at the OECD on the multilateral agreement on investment, we are seeking protection against just this type of measure. We are certainly not going to be letting up on our efforts there.
Led by Canada's opposition to Helms-Burton, both the European Union and Mexico are drafting legislation which is similar to these FEMA amendments. Other nations are considering doing the same.
Nor is the criticism and concern just coming from outside the United States. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. National Association of Manufacturers have urged the President not to implement title III of Helms-Burton. The United States, they said, benefits as much as anyone-which is true-from strong, stable and reliable rules regarding trade. In other words, even the business associations which represent many of the companies that might be able to sue under title III are opposed to its applications. They know the dangers. They know what is at stake.
All of this pressure both from within the United States and abroad helps, but there is still more we can do on our own which is to make the changes that are necessary to the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act.
We believe the amendments before this House are an appropriate response.
The amendments that we are proposing will strengthen FEMA in two ways. It will permit the attorney general to block any attempt by a foreign claimant to enforce a judgment under a law such as Helms-Burton, and it will give Canadians recourse to Canadian courts if awards are made against them in American courts. In other words, Canadians can apply in our courts to recover or claw back from the American claimant an amount equivalent to that awarded against them by the American court.
Let us take the example of a U.S. national that wins a suit under Helms-Burton against a Canadian in an American court. The Canadian has no assets in the United States. The U.S. national would have to ask a Canadian court to enforce the judgment. The Attorney General of Canada would now be able to issue an order blocking this process under the amendments we propose. If the American court ordered the Canadian to pay damages, he or she could sue the American in the Canadian courts to recoup the full amount of the award. This amount plus costs in both countries would be applied against the American assets in Canada.
One of the problems we have encountered in the past is the refusal by Canadian companies to comply with FEMA because the penalties from the foreign country are higher than those extracted by our own law. In order to increase the chances of compliance we are increasing financial penalties under the act from a maximum of $10,000 to $1.5 million.
The amendments would also allow the attorney general to place foreign laws that he considers objectionable on the list under FEMA. This listing would give the government greater flexibility and would provide for a quicker response time in defending Canadian interests.
All of the amendments we are proposing are moderate and defensive in nature. It is our hope that they will never need to be employed. They are a reactive antidote if we need them, but it is vital that they be available to Canadian companies in order to do the best we can to help them protect themselves should this ever be required.
I call again upon the United States to remember the principles for which they have fought and through which such progress has
been achieved. I ask them to remember the benefits that freer trade has brought them and others in the past, and the still greater promise of freer trade in future.
We have come too far and made too much progress to stop now.
We have broken down too many barriers to begin constructing new ones. We must not sacrifice those principles to expedience. Let us work together to expand the circle of opportunity by expanding the benefits of freer trade. Let us work together to engage, not isolate, Cuba and all the other Cubas around the globe so that the freedoms, the hopes and the opportunities of freer trade will be brought to all people in all parts of the world.