Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me today to debate this issue on the MAI. I chaired the subcommittee on international trade and trade disputes. We had the opportunity to study the MAI for three months before Christmas.
At that time the hon. member was a member of that committee. He knows we heard from some 50 witnesses in the month of November including the chief negotiator, the Minister for International Trade and a number of significantly large Canadian groups which represented concerns on this issue. We brought forward a report on the MAI which is available to all Canadians if they order it from Public Works and Government Services Canada.
Also, this report is on the Internet. It is at www.parl.gc.ca. Also the Department of Foreign Affairs has a site specific to this, www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca. There is all kinds of information on the Internet from all over the world on this issue.
I challenge the opposition parties to show any government involved in these negotiations which has been more open on this issue. We had witnesses before the committee who stated that this is one of the most open negotiations in the history of these government led trade negotiations.
I want to take a few minutes to talk about the recommendations in our report. I feel they reflect what Canadians were telling us across Canada. I agree with the hon. members who say that there is a great deal of misinformation or disagreement as to what is in the report.
I also question the hon. member especially on what he said in terms of negotiation and information being given to the provinces and the territories. There were plenty of meetings throughout the history of these negotiations with the provinces to let them know. Representatives of British Columbia appeared before the committee. The representative who was not a politician agreed that they had been informed by the government.
As the parliamentary secretary said, there were some 30 meetings with the provinces over the years, but there were also meetings with private organizations and non-government organizations such as the Alliance of Manufacturers and Exporters Canada, auto parts manufacturers, auto industry associations, book and periodical councils, the Canadian Auto Workers, Canadian book publishers, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Canadian Environmental Law Association and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. There were numerous meetings with representatives of these groups as well as correspondence. The list goes on. Clearly there has been a lot of effort made by the government to inform Canadians.
I want to take a few minutes to speak about the recommendations of the subcommittee, as they reflect what Canadians from across the country who appeared before the subcommittee wanted us to tell the government.
Our first recommendation called on the government to continue participating in the MAI negotiations but only if the final text fully protects Canadian culture, the environment, labour standards, health, education and social services, both at the federal and subnational levels; in other words, federally, provincially and municipally.
That is a very important point. There is confusion in terms of what role each level of government can play in this issue. The federal government has spent a lot of time with the provinces in bringing light to this issue.
Our second recommendation was outlined by the previous speaker. It recommends that the government continue and increase its efforts to inform Canadians. That was agreed to by all members. It was felt that the government should be informing the public. I know the government has reacted. Since the subcommittee reported the minister has spoken publicly on the issue. It is incumbent on all members to do that as well. They have received information packages from the government which they should include in their householders to let Canadians know what the issues are.
The third recommendation is to fully involve the provinces. I have already spoken about that.
With respect to the fourth recommendation, it is felt that the government should consider undertaking a full impact study to let Canadians know the impacts this will have on certain sectors of our economy. It is not practical early on in the negotiations to do this because we do not really know what will be in the final text. These issues will be negotiated, but we do not know what will be the final conclusions.
The subcommittee indicated that it wanted to look at this issue again to ensure that Canadians continue to be informed. It is important that the government let Canadians know and it is in the process of doing that with respect to the full impacts the agreement will have on certain sectors.
The fifth recommendation was that for future negotiations there should be an open and transparent process and public consultations and disclosure as much as is practical under the circumstances. I do not think hon. members expect that negotiations such as this can take place with a million groups looking over the shoulders of the negotiators. Frankly, that is not practical. However, what is practical is as these negotiations continue governments can give updates to certain sectors of the economy. They can have meetings, such as those which took place under the WTO when we had farm groups coming in to talk about agriculture. They were actually there in Geneva at the time with the government.
Governments can do these things. I know that governments have asked certain international groups to the OECD, have met with them and have brought them up to date on these issues.
The sixth recommendation was that the definition of investment in the MAI should be clarified and should reflect the approach taken in the NAFTA.
The seventh recommendation was, in the interests of certainty, that governments and investors under the MAI ensure that it reflects which international agreement takes precedence in terms of the rules. As we know, there is the WTO, there is the NAFTA and now there is the MAI. We wanted to make sure Canadians knew before they invested which international agreement took precedence.
Number eight was that we wanted the government to use this agreement to subsequently pursue an investment accord worldwide. We feel it is important for Canadian corporations. I know the opposition likes to talk about these as big international corporations but over the past number of years the smaller corporations have been engaging in the majority of world investment. Canadian small and medium size enterprises are presently the major worldwide investors.
We are not talking about big monoliths. We are talking about small businesses throughout Canada. They need certainty in some of the smaller countries that are not in the OECD to ensure their investments are safe. That investment helps with trade and it helps Canadian businesses get in there.