Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my speech on Bill C-54 by stating that the Reform Party will support this legislation, although I believe it is only a half measure to resolve this dispute.
My advice when this matter first arose was to take this to a dispute resolution panel under NAFTA and get the Helms-Burton act overturned. Had we moved on this quickly we would be well on our way to settling this dispute once and for all. A dispute settlement mechanism was negotiated in NAFTA. It is in place and we should not be afraid to use it.
It is clear that Helms-Burton is in contravention of the NAFTA agreement with United States. Helms-Burton is also an affront to Canada's right to set its own foreign policy and to continue trading and investing in Cuba. We cannot allow this American act to go unchallenged. Passing Bill C-54 is one more defensive action that we can take, but a much more effective one would have been to take the Helms-Burton bill to a dispute resolution settlement under NAFTA. I repeat that this should be done immediately, not after the American election in November.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs said that under the Helms-Burton bill liabilities continue to accrue. This is a stopgap measure, we support it to that extent, but we believe that it should be settled once and for all.
We must take a firm stand. We cannot allow the United States to push us around as it has on softwood lumber, as it has on wheat. Now it is telling us where to invest and do business. If we keep letting the Americans get away with these bullying tactics we will only encourage them to keep threatening us.
Just two days ago there was another report in the press that the acting American trade representative and the agriculture secretary had issued a joint statement that they were going to use U.S. trade laws to keep our wheat exports from growing. Canada capitulated to the Americans in 1994 and agreed to caps on wheat exports, at 1.5 million tonnes. Things have been quiet this past year because U.S. wheat supplies grew and Canadian prices were no longer competitive. Clearly that action is contrary to the free trade concept that Canada wants to establish throughout the world, a market economy.
We have been one of the forerunners, and rightly so, in negotiating free trade deals and I believe that we have to ensure that countries play by the rules. This year we have a bumper crop and the Americans are afraid that our wheat will once again become attractive. Various American interest groups have seen us buckle time and time again. That is a very bad precedent and encourages only further strong arm tactics. I believe we have to use whatever avenues we can to fight Helms-Burton and other attempts to fetter free trade.
Bill C-54 makes certain amendments to the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act which allow the Canadian government to stymie some of the more aggressive aspects of the Helms-Burton act. They are good as far as they go.
I would like to get into the specifics of the Helms-Burton act and how the proposed amendments to FEMA will help defang that legislation. The Helms-Burton act allows U.S. nationals who have claims on expropriated property in Cuba to sue Canadian companies and people who traffic in that property. Trafficking is defined quite broadly in the act to include things like holding an interest in confiscated property, engaging in commercial activities using confiscated property or participating in profits through another person who is trafficking in that confiscated property.
Under Helms-Burton a U.S. national who has a certified claim to expropriated property can start an action in a U.S. court under title III. U.S. officials have said that almost 6,000 claims of expropriation have been recognized by Washington as being legitimate. Of those, about 800 were above the threshold of $50,000 in commercial value in 1959 when Fidel Castro took power. Many of these are not subject to claims by U.S. nationals any longer.
It is true that President Clinton has waived until January certain provisions allowing suits against foreign firms. We cannot take for granted that he will do so again. The legislation is there and it is there to protect ourselves. Further, we should start an immediate action under NAFTA to resolve this issue once and for all. As we heard earlier liabilities continue to accrue.
Under Helms-Burton, once court proceedings begin and a U.S. court is presented with a certified claim it can award up to three times the damages claimed by the U.S. national. If the Canadian company refuses to pay the damages that are awarded the Helms-Burton act allows the U.S. national to ask Canadian courts to enforce this judgment.
Here is where the amendments to FEMA kick in for the first time. The new and improved FEMA will allow the attorney general to declare such an order cannot be recognized or enforced in Canada. That is a step in the right direction.
If the Canadian company has assets in the United States, Helms-Burton allows the U.S. court to seize and sell those assets and pay the awarded damage to the U.S. national. Here again the strength in FEMA will step in. It will allow the Canadian company to recover in Canadian courts any amounts that have been awarded in the United States.
However, a glitch in all of this is that the U.S. national would have to have assets in Canada to be counter seized. I do not know of many U.S. nationals who can sue under Helms-Burton that would have assets in Canada, certainly not a whole lot. Therefore we are going to be questioning this and making some recommendations in committee on how this may be improved.
Helms-Burton is meant to intimidate foreign individuals and companies from investing in Cuba and carrying on any business activities there. Here again an amendment to FEMA shows the Americans that the Canadians have backbone. We are going to raise these penalties from $10,000 to $1.5 million on Canadian companies that refuse to trade with Cuba for fear of U.S. sanctions.
For instance, if a company was planning a business venture prior to the passage of Helms-Burton but got cold feet later, it could be fined for allowing the American legislation to influence its decision. I have read that the RCMP has conducted about two dozen investigations of complaints that subsidiary companies in Canada were violating earlier provisions of FEMA not to let American head offices influence their trade with Cuba. I understand that there have been no prosecutions to date.
It is easy for a subsidiary to say that it walked away from a sale to Cuba for valid commercial reasons that have nothing to do with Helms-Burton. That is why I believe that making these amendments to FEMA, although good, are only a stop gap measure. We must try to get Helms-Burton overturned.
The aspects of Helms-Burton that Bill C-54 does not address is that provisions for barring entry into the United States of senior officials of selected Canadian companies. Clearly these are in contravention of NAFTA. Article 1603 of the NAFTA trade agreement specifically states that each party shall grant temporary entry to business persons who are otherwise qualified for entry under applicable measures relating to public health and safety and national security. What is happening here is that the senior officials of these Canadian companies would not be in contravention of NAFTA and we should make that case very clearly.
Does the United States have the right in the wake of NAFTA to stop healthy law-abiding Canadian business people from entering that country? I do not think so. Not after we signed NAFTA. It is clear that it does not.