Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-81, an act to implement the Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement.
It was at the Summit of the Americas held in Miami in late 1994 that the decision was made to allow Chile into NAFTA. One year later, following complications in its negotiations with the US, the Chilean government decided to break off talks.
Canada and Chile then looked into the possibility of bilateral negotiations on an interim agreement. This agreement would eventually pave the way for Chile's accession to NAFTA.
Negotiations with a view to such an agreement took place between January and November 1996, and the Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement, signed in December 1996, will take effect June 2, 1997. It is an interim agreement, one purpose of which is to facilitate the accession of Chile to NAFTA, probably around the year 2000.
First of all, I will tell you the Bloc Quebecois is pleased that this agreement has been signed, and it is with an open mind that we prepare to welcome our Chilean friends into the vast North American free trade zone.
The Bloc Quebecois is obviously in favour of the principle of free trade. I would point out that this has been the traditional position of the Quebec government. Furthermore, we were strongly
in support of the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States. Let us remember that this was one of the primary issues in the 1988 federal election campaign in Quebec.
Similarly, we also supported extending the FTA, which later became the NAFTA, as well as the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement.
In reiterating the sovereignists' strong position on free trade, I cannot help thinking about the last election campaign of the Liberal Party, the party forming the government today.
I was listening earlier to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade as he boasted-we have a more colourful expression for it-that they have been in favour of free trade since 1867. I would encourage the parliamentary secretary to take another look at his history books.
At the time, the Liberals were strongly opposed to the free trade treaty with the United States. In the infamous red book, the Liberals promised, on page 24-the parliamentary secretary does not need to take a history course, all he has to do is read the red book-that "a liberal government will renegotiate the Canada-United-States Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA".
It just happens that this is another one of their broken promises. Today, a few years after they came to power, the Liberals seem to have miraculously converted to free trade.
Indeed, once elected, the Liberal Party decided to change its tune and is now finding the Free Trade Agreement quite acceptable. It likes its purpose, content, and wording so much that instead of making changes to it, the current government used it as a model to draft the Canada-Chili Free Trade Agreement, and rightly so.
Of course, since the purpose of the Canada-Chili Free Trade Agreement is ultimately for Chili to join NAFTA, it was appropriate to include dispositions similar in many respects. However, I believe that since it is on a smaller scale, with less of an impact on both partners, it would have been possible to include certain elements, if only to put its feasibility to the test. I refer mainly to parallel agreements.
As was the case with NAFTA, parallel agreements on the environment and labour standards are attached to the Canada-Chili Free Trade Agreement. I believe the government could have taken this opportunity to include environmental and labour standards within the agreement.
The government should have done everything in its power to raise the labour standards and thus increase protection for Chilean workers. I will, once again, quote the red book where the Liberals said: "Future trading arrangements will be shaped not only by economic considerations but also by social concerns".
The Liberal government could have included a clause on respect for human rights and democratic principles. In any case, the government must not forget that, over and above trade and commercial interests, it bears some responsibilities both on the national and the international scene.
On the question of human rights, I want to emphasize that the Bloc Quebecois considers that respect for fundamental rights is a top priority and that such a principle should always be part of any agreement like the Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement.
Trade must go on, free trade must be encouraged, but not at the expense of our responsibilities as individuals and as members of the global community.
The Minister for International Trade feels that the protection of human rights has no place in a free trade agreement, but the free trade agreement between Israel and the European Union contains an interesting clause in this regard.
It says: "The relations between the parties, as well as all the provisions in this agreement, are based on respect for human rights and the democratic principles that underlie their domestic and international policies and constitute an essential part of this agreement".
As I have said repeatedly in this House, respect for human rights will not come about automatically, either in isolation or through trade. I now take this opportunity to applaud the Quebec government for subscribing to an unknown part of NAFTA this week: the North American Agreement on Labour Cooperation.
This agreement will now allow the filing of complaints against businesses in the United States or in Mexico which do not respect certain basic principles relating to their employees' working conditions. Apart from Quebec, Manitoba and Alberta are the only provinces to have signed this agreement.
I will conclude by welcoming a new economic partner of Quebec and Canada. The institutionalization of closer political and economic ties with Chile, through this bilateral agreement, and possibly in the longer term, through its accession to NAFTA, is promising.
For many Quebecers and Canadians, Chile is now associated with democracy, political stability and economic success. What a change for a country that, for a long time, reminded us more of authoritarianism and human rights violations. In less than a decade, Chile has been able to put itself in the forefront of a renewed, resolutely modern and promising continent.