Debates of Nov. 4th, 1999

Privilege

[The Speaker]

Before we proceed to orders of the day, I will now deal with a question of privilege from the hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley that was brought before the House on October 14, 1999, with further interventions on October 21 and 25, 1999. The question of privilege concerned the activities and conduct of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service during the course of a lawsuit against the member.

I thank all members who participated in this debate for their helpful contributions in this matter. In particular, I would like to draw attention to the presentations made by the hon. government House leader, the opposition House leader, the hon. member for Fraser Valley and the hon. member for Kootenay—Columbia. The many thorough submissions have helped the Chair In making this important and far-reaching decision. The Chair is also grateful for the accompanying material submitted by the hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley.

Perhaps it might be useful at this time to acquaint everyone with the events that took place, which led to the raising of this question of privilege. The hon. member benefited from the parliamentary privileges accorded to all members when she put certain questions in the House during question period on alleged spy activities by certain employees of CSIS. Subsequent to this, the hon. member released related material outside the House of Commons that inadvertently contained the actual name of a former employee of CSIS. I am sure all hon. members know that immunity accorded to members in the House does not exist when statements are made outside the House. A civil lawsuit ensued and the case was subsequently settled out of court.

The hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley in her presentation covered a great deal of ground in relation to this matter. For the benefit of the entire House, I would like to quickly outline the grievances brought forth by the hon. member.

First, she indicated that CSIS improperly collected information and then disclosed that information to a third party in clear violation of CSIS policy.

Second, she affirmed that CSIS took an active role in the preparation of a lawsuit against an opposition member of parliament, including having its legal counsel provide the plaintiff and the plaintiff's lawyer with advice.

Third, she contended that CSIS had misused its authority under the guise of the protection of national security and deliberately misled the court to frustrate her attempts to resolve the lawsuit.

The hon. member argued that these actions on the part of CSIS constituted a deliberate effort by CSIS to intimidate her and prevent her from speaking freely in the House of Commons and from performing her role as official opposition critic. She felt that the evidence provided was sufficient to find that there was a prima facie case of contempt of the House against the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Erskine May suggests on page 143 of the 20th edition that:

It would be vain to attempt an enumeration of every act which might be construed into a contempt, the power to punish for contempt being in its nature discretionary...It may be stated generally that any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of such House in the discharge of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such results may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent of the offence.

The hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley stated that she would “provide prima facie evidence to the Chair that demonstrates how the conduct and activities of CSIS regarding this case form what she believes to be a new and disturbing method of intimidation of a member of parliament”.

Consequently what the Chair must decide, on the basis of the facts presented, is whether she has provided the necessary evidence to substantiate a prima facie claim of privilege.

Let me begin by addressing the three points that relate to the actions of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The member stated that the plaintiff was in possession of documents improperly collected and supplied by CSIS. The material included press clippings, press releases, radio transcripts and the like. She also indicated that certain items of this information were not asked for by the plaintiff but rather were given directly without any solicitation by CSIS to the plaintiff. Before addressing the issue of the improper collection of these documents, I must first underline that the material alluded to was in the public domain and readily available to any member or private citizen.

The issue of whether the collection and disclosure of these documents was in contravention of the CSIS Act or internal policies of the agency is not for the Speaker to judge. The member has also stated that CSIS purposely prolonged legal proceedings by providing misinformation in order to prevent the member from having the case heard in court and also deny her the right to raise concerns about the case for three and a half years. Proven or unproven, such misconduct by CSIS is not for the Speaker or the House to decide. It would be a matter for the judicial system to review or for the Security Intelligence Review Committee to investigate.

If the member feels that specific sections of the CSIS Act have been breached by CSIS employees, then these matters can be dealt with through the complaints procedures established by parliament in the Canadian Security Intelligence Act. As I understand it, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, or SIRC, was established in 1984 as an independent body to review the activities of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. SIRC's second role is to investigate complaints from the public about any CSIS action. Any person who has knowledge of inappropriate activities by CSIS can complain to SIRC.

In fact, the Security Intelligence Review Committee has the power to initiate such an investigation without necessarily having received a formal complaint. Given the fact that three of the five members of the committee are former parliamentarians, at the federal and provincial level, I have no doubt that they would take this matter up with special interest.

While the Security Intelligence Review Committee can investigate and report on the appropriateness of activities within and by CSIS, the question of whether such actions constituted an attempt to intimidate a member of this House, and are thus a contempt of the House, fall within the sole authority of the Speaker and are questions that I take very seriously.

It appears that what we have before us are allegations by an hon. member to the effect that her parliamentary privileges have been breached due to deliberate attempts by an outside agency to impede the member from performing her parliamentary duties. Precisely speaking, the hon. member protests that one of her basic privileges, “the freedom of speech”, has been breached by a deliberate effort of intimidation accomplished by CSIS through support to a court action by a plaintiff against the member.

Any attempt to intimidate a member with a view to influencing his or her parliamentary conduct is a breach of privilege. Privilege is a fundamental principle of parliamentary law. In the 22nd edition of May it is stated at page 65:

Parliamentary privilege is the sum of the peculiar rights enjoyed by each House collectively as a constituent part of the High Court of Parliament, and by members of each House individually, without which they could not discharge their functions, and which exceed those possessed by other bodies or individuals.

The position put forward by the hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley is to the effect that CSIS made an effort to intimidate her, thereby limiting her freedom of speech in the House, resulting in the hon. member being unable to perform her role as official opposition critic. This, my colleagues, is a very serious charge.

There can be no question as to the relevance and appropriateness of the principle invoked by the hon. member.

Indeed, as all hon. members know, the privilege of freedom of speech is so fundamental that this House could not discharge its constitutional functions without it. Beauchesne's 6th edition, at page 22, states:

The privilege of freedom of speech is both the least questioned and the most fundamental right of the member of parliament on the floor of the House and in committee.

There are, however, limits to parliamentary privilege. Speaker Lamoureux in his April 29, 1971 ruling indicated that privilege sets hon. members apart from other citizens by giving them rights that the general public does not have. In his ruling he stated:

In my view, parliamentary privilege does not go much beyond the right of free speech in the House of Commons and the right of a member to discharge his or her duties in the House as a member of the House of Commons.

Speaker Jerome, when speaking on the limits of parliamentary privilege in his ruling of February 20, 1975, went in the same direction as Speaker Lamoureux. He added:

The consequences of extending that definition of privilege to innumerable areas outside this chamber into which the work of an MP might carry him or her, and particularly to the great number of grievances he might or she might encounter in the course of that work, would run contrary to the basic concept of privilege.

However, if a member is subjected to threats and intimidation, he or she is clearly hindered in the fulfilment of the parliamentary duties for which he or she was elected. As Joseph Maingot writes, in his book

Parliamentary Privilege in Canada

, on page 235:

[—] not every action by an outside body that may influence the conduct of a member of parliament as such could now be regarded as a breach of privilege, even if it were calculated and intended to bring pressure on the member to take or to refrain from taking a particular course. But any attempt by improper means to influence or obstruct a member in his parliamentary work may constitute contempt. What constitutes an improper means of interfering with members' parliamentary work is always a question depending on the facts of each case. Finally, there must be some connection between the material alleged to contain the interference and the parliamentary proceeding.

The question that must be answered is what constitutes proceedings in parliament. Speaker Fraser, in his ruling of July 18, 1988, defined proceedings of parliament in the following manner:

This phrase has never been exactly and completely defined by statute, by the courts of law, or by the House itself. In its narrow sense the expression is used to denote the formal transaction of business in the House or in committee. Traditionally it covers both the asking of a question and the giving of a written notice of such question, and also includes everything said or done by a Member in the exercise of his or her functions as a Member of the House, either in the House or in any committee of the House in the transaction of parliamentary business.

I may have been somewhat lengthy in my remarks, my colleagues, but I thought that this is matter of such seriousness that it was incumbent upon me to clearly explain what constitutes privilege, contempt and proceedings in parliament. It is my duty to determine whether the actions taken by CSIS can be seen to have had as their purpose to influence or obstruct the hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley in her parliamentary work and within the context of a proceeding in parliament.

Bluntly stated, the question is: Was the support by CSIS of a former employee of CSIS intended to “chill” the hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley from participating in question period, debate in the House or committees of the House? Or, the question can be restated more generally as follows: Did CSIS provide inappropriate support to a former employee of CSIS who was suing the hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley because she is a member of parliament and was a critic of the agency in a parliamentary proceeding? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, then I must rule, in keeping with our practice, that a prima facie case of contempt has occurred.

I have reviewed the hon. member's presentation. I have re-reviewed it and gone through it on at least four occasions—I want to underline that—and found that nothing she said would lead to an affirmative answer to these two questions. I have also carefully assessed the submission by the hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, including all of the complementary material which she made available, and I have not been able to conclude that the actions of CSIS, as reported by the hon. member, constitute a prima facie case of privilege.

The actions by CSIS may indeed have prolonged the civil process, but the hon. member has not provided the Chair with sufficient grounds to warrant further action by the House at this time. Should new facts emerge or if the hon. member returns to the House with other substantive evidence, I would of course listen to her again, because, if proven, her allegation would be very disturbing.

I thank the hon. member for bringing the matter to my attention and all hon. members for their patience while I looked into the details.

Business Of The House

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations among party leaders and House leaders, and I believe you would find unanimous consent and approval for the adoption of the following motion in relation to speaking times today. I move:

That, during today's sitting the member proposing a motion on an allotted day shall not speak for more than twenty minutes, following which a period not exceeding ten minutes shall be made available, if required, to allow members to ask questions and comment briefly on matters relevant to the speech and to allow responses thereto, and immediately thereafter a representative of each of the recognized parties, other than that of the member proposing the motion, may be recognized to speak for not more than ten minutes, following which, in each case, a period not exceeding five minutes shall be made available, if required, to allow members to ask questions and comment briefly on matters relevant to the speech and to allow responses thereto.

[Greg Thompson, Progressive Conservative, Charlotte, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to ask if the time that it took for your ruling could be added to the debate today. In other words, could we extend the time on the debate?

[The Speaker]

There would have to be unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent to present such a request?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Speaker]

Does the hon. parliamentary secretary have permission to put the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker]

Does the House concur in the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

Supply

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, this government has sabotaged Canadian democracy by pursuing a trade policy that gives excessive power to unelected and unaccountable international trade organizations and erodes the ability of Canada's elected representatives to act in the public interest; and

That therefore the government should not negotiate any further liberalization of trade or investment at the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) or the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) without first securing enforceable international rules on core labour standards, environmental protection, cultural diversity, the preservation of public health care and public education and, generally, the right of democratically-elected governments to act for the common good; and

That the government should seek to eliminate the investor- state dispute mechanism in Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which gives foreign corporations the right to sue and intimidate Canadian governments as in the cases involving MMT and bulk water exports, and should refuse to include such a mechanism in any other trade agreement; and further

That the government should take action to remedy its over-zealous and irresponsible pursuit of greater trade liberalisation, which has caused extreme hardship for Canadian farmers, whose domestic support payments have been slashed by 60%, three times what was actually required by Canada's international trading obligations.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate this important NDP opposition day motion. I will be dividing my time with my colleague, the member for Winnipeg—Transcona.

Four weeks from now, in a non-descript meeting room in a downtown hotel in Seattle, a team of Canadian negotiators will sit down around a table to begin the next round of negotiations of the World Trade Organization.

Few Canadians know what is at stake in these negotiations and the Liberal government is not about to tell them. Why? Because what is at stake in Seattle is nothing less than our universal health care system, our public education, the future of our family farms, our cultural sovereignty and the environmental legacy that we leave for our children.

These are the things that make us one of the world's great nations. They shape and define us as Canadians, as a caring and compassionate society, as a vigorous economy and as a place of clean air to breathe and pure water to drink.

Because of the Liberals' failure to act, everything that defines us as Canadians is on the table in Seattle.

If the Liberal government came clean with what is on the table in Seattle, Canadians would be horrified, just as they were a few years ago when they discovered that the Liberal government had spent three years negotiating the MAI behind closed doors.

In that instance ordinary Canadians gathered together. We worked with other democracies and other progressive organizations around the world and we dealt a death blow to the MAI. It just shows how well democracy can work and how well it will work if ordinary citizens see a threat and work together to stop it.

The WTO has been called a new economic constitution for the planet. What it really is is a hostile corporate takeover. It is a takeover of Canada's most important public services and programs by the world's largest corporations. The trade minister actually acknowledged this when he stated that under the WTO regime “the state has surrendered a large part of its jurisdiction to the market and now transnational actors are the ones controlling the key elements”. Canadians do not want this to happen. They will not let this happen.

The WTO represents a takeover by multinationals of the public programs and services so valued by Canadians. It is unacceptable.

A long list of Canada's public policies, laws and programs have already fallen victim to trade disputes. They include programs to support Canadian publishing, standards for toxic fuel additives, and funding for research and development in our high tech sector.

Last week Saskatchewan and Manitoba farmers were here on Parliament Hill asking for help. Instead of desperately needed help they got flim-flam, the now you see it, now you don't magical disappearing statistics.

One of the reasons that farmers need help is the trade negotiations of the 1980s. While Canada sat at the world table working to dissolve subsidies, the United States was busy stepping up its export enhancement program and capturing key chunks of Canada's world market. Meanwhile, the federal Liberal government slashed farmers' domestic support payments by 60%, three times the amount required by our WTO obligations.

This time in the upcoming WTO round, the trade negotiators are taking direct aim at our most valuable national asset, our universal public health system. We know that an ageing population means increasing health care needs. U.S. corporations see a rich market ripe for the taking with the help of the WTO. Canada's health care system and our ability to sustain it have been compromised again and again by corporate interests in our trade negotiations.

With every new trade agreement we have had a new trade bill that gives longer patent protection, for example to multinational drug giants. The result is more profits for pharmaceutical companies and increasing drug costs for Canadians.

What is it that the U.S. health care companies want this time? They want more privatization of our health services, majority foreign ownership of our health care facilities, access to and more competition in our health care market, and the right to bid on all our government contracts including those in health care.

The trade minister says he wants to open up health care services to see whether Canadian providers can export to the world, but the real agenda is to expose Canada's health care to be scavenged for profit by the American health care industry.

The Minister for International Trade says he is prepared to open up our health services to American companies. This will clearly mean the end of our public health system.

Our health care is not the only thing at risk. The WTO also has its eye on our public education system. What could this mean for Canadians?

Foreign for profit educational institutions would be guaranteed the right to operate in Canada. Governments could not require educational institutions to hire locally. The requirements of the education professions and institutions could be subject to WTO review. Any government subsidies, like student loans or grants, would have to be given to both public and private providers. This would mean the beginning of the end of Canada's public education system and we will not permit it to happen.

The stakes in trade negotiations get higher every day. The most recent attack was on Canada's auto pact, the underpinning of thousands of good Canadian jobs and the basis of much of our manufacturing sector for the past 40 years.

Look what has happened to environmental initiatives under the new trading regime. In every single case, the WTO has ruled in favour of corporate interests and against environmental and public health.

Canada's baptism by fire came over MMT, a toxic gasoline additive and a NAFTA chapter 11 challenge by Ethyl Corporation. The government settled out of court, withdrew its legislation and paid $19.6 million in damages to Ethyl Corporation. The big winners were U.S. corporate interests and the losers were Canadians concerned about our environment.

Now because of the government's failure to act, we face a similar risk with Canadian bulk water exports. New Democrats are leading the fight against the export of bulk water. While we managed to persuade the Liberal government to vote for our opposition day motion to legislate a ban on bulk water exports, no such thing has been done to date.

Today my colleagues will speak in more detail about the threats to agriculture, to our health care, our cultural sovereignty, our environmental protection.

Let me make it clear. New Democrats support a rules based global economy. We believe in rules, fair rules, because Canada is a trading nation, but we also believe we must regulate economic activity in the interests of people.

The WTO ties the hands of democratic governments that wish to create legislation good for their citizens, legislation that might impede from time to time the profit making capacity of multinational corporations.

New Democrats do not believe and most Canadians do not believe that we should surrender Canadian sovereignty and the public services and initiatives we care about in order to make the world a barrier free playground for the economically powerful.

Today I want to know, Canadians want to know, where are the Liberals? Why will they not stand up for Canada? Why will they not fight to protect the rights of Canadians against multinational corporations?

I assure everyone that today, in Seattle, and in the coming months whenever and wherever trade negotiations threaten to destroy the very things that define us as Canadians, New Democrats will be there. We will be there fighting to protect the rights and interests of Canadians against the increasing power and the increasingly anti-democratic control of multinational corporations.

[Deepak Obhrai, Reform, Calgary East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the points made by the leader of the New Democratic Party.

She talked about her party being in favour of a rules based system. Then she talked about corporations taking over. Even a rules based system that we are talking about will give Canadian companies the opportunity to expand their businesses which in turn will be beneficial to the workers of the country. Would the hon. member not agree that NAFTA as well as the WTO as of today have been beneficial to the working families of the country?

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right when he indicates that the New Democratic Party very much favours rules based trading. The issue is whether the rules are going to be enforcing the things that matter to us most. That is why, if the member reads the motion we have put forward, we have made it clear that we must secure in those rules enforceable ways to protect core labour standards, to protect our environment, to protect cultural diversity, to preserve public health care and public education and generally the right of democratically elected governments to act for the common good.

Yes, it is important that we have rules which create fairness for Canadian corporations that want to and are able to compete in the international arena. But let us not do it at the expense of workers, at the expense of our environment and at the expense of things that matter most to Canadians.

The member asked whether we think current trade agreements have been good for Canadians. There have been some benefits, but there have been some immense losses, not the least of which is the severe erosion of the income and the quality of life of too many of our Canadian citizens.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to get clarification of one aspect of the hon. member's speech.

The member mentioned MMT. I missed the start and whether or not she mentioned the banning of MMT. There is a common misconception with the public, which has unfortunately been advanced by groups like the Council for Canadians, that MMT was banned by the government. That is not actually the case. By reviewing

Hansard

and the act, the record will show what happened. The government banned the marketing and transportation of MMT. There is a huge difference.

I apologize because I did not hear the member's particular sentence, and I do not know whether she made that error in her speech.

The record will show that at that time the Reform Party warned the government that banning the transportation and marketing of MMT would result in a NAFTA challenge. We urged and begged the government to institute an independent health study of MMT to determine whether it was in fact harmful because all of the Health Canada documentation said that it was not. There was no justification for banning MMT on health grounds. The only way we could see that it could be done would be to have an independent study that could then be used to justify if indeed it was unhealthy.

Could the member confirm that she understands that MMT itself was not banned, but it was its transportation and marketing, and that the government was foolish in not having an independent study to determine its health risks?

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the member is familiar with this case. I think he knows that MMT has been banned in the United States. Considerable evidence has amassed that would indicate it is indeed a severe threat. What we are talking about here is whether Canada is going to be able to protect the health of our own people and make decisions in the interests of our own future in terms of health, environment and all of those things that matter most to Canadians.

The details of the situation he discussed are not nearly as important as the principle of whether Canada is going to have the democratic right and the freedom to protect our own interests and our own rights as we see them as a sovereign nation.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will pick up on certain elements of the motion. Members from the NDP caucus will be rising throughout the day to speak to various aspects of the motion before the House.

I will begin with the first element of the motion. It talks about the government having sabotaged Canadian democracy by pursuing a trade policy that gives excessive power to unelected and unaccountable international trade organizations and erodes the ability of Canada's elected representatives to act in the public interest.

As my leader stated earlier, this is not a radical or debatable observation in many respects. The Minister for International Trade himself has talked about the transfer of power from the state to the market. To the extent that Canada is a democratically elected state, it is clearly a transfer from the democratic realm to the realm of the market, and the market as it is designed, created and regulated by the WTO, an organization which I would submit has very much been designed by and for the multinational corporations.

I would submit to some of my colleagues who are to my left in the House of Commons but on my right ideologically that they too should be more concerned about this than they sometimes are.

I attended a conference about a month ago in Edmonton. It was sponsored by a member from Edmonton and the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough. They talked about the erosion of democracy. They were very concerned about the transfer of power from parliament to the prime minister and from parliament to the courts and from parliament to various other places within Canadian society.

What I said at that conference I will say here again today. People who are concerned about the erosion of democracy and the erosion of the power of parliament should also be concerned about the erosion of the power of parliament by virtue of the transfer of the powers of parliament to the marketplace through these various agreements.

This is a debate that has been going on for some time. I recall making speeches not unlike this one in 1987-88 when we were debating the free trade agreement, then NAFTA, then the institution of the WTO and the MAI. Now we have the new round, the so-called millennium round, at the WTO and the FTAA.

All these things are of a piece with a movement away from what the NDP regards as the proper exercise of democracy. Many of the things which traditionally were the object of political debate and parliamentary decision have been taken out of the hands of parliament and placed in the hands of trade bureaucrats or, for that matter, enshrined as policy in various trade agreements. The former things that we were able to debate and decide and on which governments were able to change their minds as we got new governments or as governments themselves changed their minds, are all things that are no longer possible.

Can we actually make a decision here in parliament about drug patent laws? No, we cannot because that is settled by a trade agreement. Can we make laws about having two price wheat or a two price energy system? No, we cannot because that has been settled by the free trade agreement. Can we have split-run magazines? No, we cannot even debate that anymore because that has been decided by the WTO.

Can we have a national ban on the export of bulk water? It appears that we cannot have that. When the Minister of Foreign Affairs was asked just yesterday whether he was going to bring in such a thing, he clearly did not make that commitment. He said that he would bring in something that would have the effect of protecting Canada's water resources, but he did not say that he would bring in a national ban because the government itself knows that the nature of NAFTA is such that water is not exempt in the way it has claimed it is. We are therefore at risk of not being able to prevent the bulk export of water if that is what we want to do.

It is not a question of whether we should or should not in this case as in so many other cases. It is a question of whether we can or cannot because of these particular agreements.

That is the democratic question. That is why we in the NDP want to put this debate about the WTO and about these trade agreements in the context of the ongoing debate about democracy. One of the elements that is so significant in terms of eroding democracy is the chapter eleven investor state dispute mechanism.

I want to spend what little time I have left on that particular mechanism. Here we see an ability on the part of foreign corporations, not domestic corporations or Canadian corporations that have to live within the law and whose only recourse is through the domestic courts, but foreign corporations, thanks to the chapter eleven mechanism, to have a mechanism at their disposal to harass and to intimidate the Canadian government in a way that would never have been conceivable in an earlier time. It was not even an element of the free trade agreement. It only came in with NAFTA.

We have seen the harassment and intimidation of the government with respect to the issue of MMT, which my leader talked about. We see it now with respect to the whole question of water and the action brought against the Canadian government by Sun Belt as a result of its inability to create a situation in which it can export bulk water from Canada.

Why would any government tolerate a mechanism that would give foreign corporations this kind of ability? All of this is being done, as so much of what has been proposed in the MAI and now is being proposed at the WTO, in the name of creating new opportunities for Canadian companies and Canadian investors abroad.

The member of the Reform Party talked about Canadian companies. I do not take it as a given that whatever is good for any particular Canadian company is good for Canada. I do not subscribe to that old American notion that what is good for GM is good for America or that what is good for any particular Canadian company is good for Canada. What a lot of these companies want is to do business abroad, and there is nothing intrinsically evil about that.

The point is that they should not be asking Canadians to give up their way of life, to give up the way we have organized our life together over the years, in order to create opportunities for them to make money abroad.

What is being asked here is for Canadians to give up the kind of regulations that we have had over the years for foreign investment so that our Canadian investors can invest in other countries without similar kinds of regulation. I do not think that is right. I do not think that we should be asked to give up our ability to regulate foreign investment. We see it coming in this next round.

We will see it in the areas my leader has mentioned in terms of health care and education, because there are Canadian companies that want to market health care expertise abroad. I am not against that, but I am against it if it means that in order for that to be possible we have to dismantle our public health care system, our medicare, and create opportunities for American or other foreign multinational health care corporations to be able to penetrate our public health care system and create more privatization and contracting out and eventually so erode the public dimension of our health care system that we end up with an Americanized or commercial health care system.

That is the agenda. Anybody who does not want to admit that is not levelling with the Canadian people. That is where I hold the Liberal government responsible. It is not willing to admit that this is the agenda of certain people with the WTO. It is not willing to admit that it is not willing to stand up to that agenda. We do not hear it. Perhaps we will hear it later and that would be good news, but I am not holding my breath that the parliamentary secretary will get up in his place and say that the Canadian government is seeking a full, absolute and categorical carve out of public health care and education in this next round. That is not what the government has been saying. It has not been saying that it is opposed to putting services on the table.

This is just one little aspect of what we are concerned about. We are concerned about many other things, such as the fact that in agreement after agreement after agreement it is investors' rights which are protected. It is investors' rights which are in force. Investors, investors, investors. What about workers? What about the environment? What about democracy? What about all the other things that matter to people? Well, that can wait.

We can have lofty statements by the minister about how he would like to humanize globalization. He is going to humanize globalization over the next 50 years, but when it comes to investors they can have their rights this year. For us, that is a perverse moral hierarchy where the powerful get even more rights and the powerless get to wait and we are against it.

I would therefore like to move, seconded by the hon. member for Yukon, that the motion be amended by inserting the word “immediate” between the words “take” and “action”.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona has put the chair in a difficult position. He is the seconder of the main motion and he has moved an amendment to that motion. I do not believe it is proper for him to do that. Accordingly, I am afraid I cannot take the amendment as proposed by the hon. member at this time.

[Bob Speller, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his comments, and particularly his leader earlier who finally made it clear to us that the New Democratic Party was in fact in favour of a rules based system.

As I remember, after our consultations across Canada and the minority report that his party put into the report, it seemed to us that the New Democratic Party was not in favour of us at all being in Seattle. It is good to hear today that the New Democratic Party is supporting the fact that we will be in Seattle standing up for Canadians.

The hon. member's motion mentions some of the hardships Canadian farmers are experiencing, particularly farmers in western Canada. I remember going through the his party's policy during the last election and reading that it would have forced $17 billion in new spending upon Canadians if it had been elected. However, out of $17 billion in new spending only $11 million would have gone to Canadian farmers.

Can the member explain why his party's policy during the last election was to give so little to Canadian farmers and today it puts forward this motion stating its concerns for Canadians in the agricultural industry?

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct the false impression the member is trying to create on two fronts, the first one being on Seattle.

I do not think the member read very clearly the minority reports. They are not all that long, perhaps two or three pages, but perhaps they tax the mental abilities of the parliamentary secretary. In the report, we said very clearly that we are in favour of a global rules based trading regime but we are not in favour of the current model. We are not in favour of the current assumptions and presuppositions that attend those negotiations.

I made it very clear in the House yesterday that we are not in favour of a round of talks which includes investment or services. We think these should be taken off the table altogether. Things like agriculture are already on the table and therefore there is work to be done in that area. However, we are not in favour of adding new sectors to the domain of the WTO. We are very clear about that. If that means not being at Seattle, then so be it.

The government could go to Seattle. It is not a question of geographic location. It is not a question of whether there are Canadian government bodies in Seattle. It is a question of what the government is doing there. It could go there and say very clearly that it does not want a new round of talks on investment or on services or any round of talks on investment and services. If it was doing that we would say “go to Seattle”. However, that is not what it is doing. What it is going to do when it gets there is something that we find quite unacceptable.

I have heard this misrepresentation before, and I am not sure if it comes from deliberation or from ignorance, but there are many aspects of the NDP agricultural policy which if implemented would not have left Canadian farmers in the situation they are in now, particularly going back to the elimination of the Crow rate, the Crow benefit, the western grain transportation subsidy and many other supports that the Liberals have taken away from Canadian farmers over the objections of the NDP.

The member gets up and pulls some obscure fact, if indeed it is a fact or not just something that is being fed by the spin doctors on his own party side, and claims that this undermines our position, a position being taken right now in the context of new developments. No one could have predicted exactly what would happen in 1999 with respect to commodity prices, drought in some parts of Saskatchewan, floods in some parts of Manitoba and various other things that have happened.

As far as I am concerned, this is just a cheap shot and not the sort of thing one should spend any more time on.

[Bob Speller, Liberal, Haldimand—Norfolk—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with the language which the hon. member used, I must have hit a chord with my comment.

The hon. member is quite aware that the Government of Canada, prior to taking a position on Seattle in the next round of the WTO, held wide consultations across the country. The hon. member, who was on the foreign affairs and international trade committee, knows that it was not the opinion of anyone else on that committee that we should not be at the WTO.

In fact all the other parties seemed to be quite happy that the report of the standing committee reflected very clearly what we were hearing from witnesses from coast to coast to coast. The witnesses felt it was important for a country the size of Canada that has so much at stake.

Forty-two per cent of our GDP depends on international trade. A country our size compared to the economic size of the United States, the European Union or Japan needs a rules based system under which to work. If we had to go against these countries on a one to one basis, most times we would lose out.

It is in our interests to belong to an organization of over some 132 countries where we are able to draw on the support of other countries. It is not this big giant economy of the Americans trying to beat up on Canada or other smaller countries; it is a group of countries that get together. That is why it is important to be in Seattle.

I would assume the hon. member knows, although we would not know it from his remarks, that Canada takes very seriously some of the concerns not only in agriculture, but concerns that were expressed by Canadians particularly with regard to transparency. The fact is that there has been concern out there across the country, and indeed in other countries, that the WTO is closed up and what it does always happens behind closed doors.

This has been the position of the Government of Canada. It was made very forcefully by the present Minister for International Trade, the previous minister, and in fact the Prime Minister, in talking at the free trade area of the Americas. It was said very clearly that it is in Canada's interests to make sure that international agreements, not only at the WTO but other agreements that we may sign, are open and transparent and that Canadians see what these organizations are doing. It makes sure that the hon. member's party and those other groups which seem to want to tell the whole world how bad international trade is for Canada do not have that opportunity.

Canada has nothing to hide. That is why we felt it was important to go across the country to hear from Canadians what they felt about trade. I think the hon. member would agree that most of the parties in the House, except the New Democratic Party, felt that that report reflected the views of Canadians.

For at least 50 years, one of the most important roles on the world stage for Canada in the trade area has been to make sure that we have these sorts of agreements. Our overall objective is to improve the quality of life of Canadians. It is not, as the hon. member claims, to make sure that the corporate giants have more access to some of the economies around the world and to make sure that the corporate giants in other countries can come into Canada and rape this country of our economic development. That is not the case. I do not think that any government in this country, quite seriously, would do that.

Our goal is to make sure that we have enforceable rules, that the rules are enforced and that those within Canadian society who have an interest in all of the jobs that are created through international trade get an opportunity to express their views.

I talk about jobs and international trade. Listening to the hon. member's comments and the comments of the New Democratic Party, we would not know that international trade and investment create jobs in Canada. We just have to look at the 1.7 million jobs that have been created in Canada since 1993. We just have to look at the dramatic increase in Canada's exports to see a relationship between investing and exports and the creation of Canadian jobs.

Major consultations were made prior to responding. The hon. member knows that we will be responding in the House and it will be sent to committee on November 16 to put forward our position on Seattle.

As the hon. member said, there is concern for these international agreements as precipitated by similar comments of his party and his leader. There will be some 750 groups in Seattle. The hon. member said he would be there. We want to make sure that members of the opposition are also there in order to see how these organizations work. We want to make sure that they see firsthand that Canada is not only standing up for Canadian farmers, workers and industry, but it is also making sure that the whole world engages in what is called civil society. Civil society is the groups of Canadians and all of society who are interested in these sorts of issues and international trade.

On the area of health and social services, the New Democratic Party says that all of a sudden we are going to lose our health care, or that we are going to lose our water. It throws out these wild ideas that somehow the Government of Canada is not interested in the health care of Canadians or in preserving our national health care system. How ludicrous. What government would not be interested?

We have the best health care system in the world. For that party to suggest that the Government of Canada is willing to throw it away and to give it away is utter nonsense. Certainly a member who has been in the House as long as the hon. member has been should know that. We are committed to preserving our right to regulate in the area of health care and social services. There is no question about that.

The hon. member also talked about labour and said that labour or Canadian jobs were going to be impacted by this decision and that we do not represent the interests of labour in these negotiations. The hon. member knows that the International Labour Organization looks at these issues. Canada is very active in this organization and in promoting labour rights and promoting some of the concerns people have about other countries not keeping up to the same standards as we do in Canada.

Canada is also encouraging and facilitating the development of voluntary labour codes by businesses in Canada and around the world. We feel that Canada should be proud of some of the labour rules that we have made. We want to export those around the world. We want to make sure that other countries keep up to the same standards as we do. In the area of labour, Canada is second to none in promoting it.

The hon. member also talked about culture. I want to assure the hon. member and all Canadians that we will build support in the preparatory process for the WTO for language in the declaration that would recognize the importance of promoting cultural diversity. The hon. member should know that we have the support of Quebec and all of the other provinces in this. We find this to be very important. It is important for Canadians. It is who we are.

Our area of the world is beside a large neighbour, the United States of America. It is certainly within our interests and it is something that has been promoted not only by the Minister of Canadian Heritage, but also by the Prime Minister who in the speech yesterday on the free trade area of the Americas, pointed out the importance of Canadian culture and of Canadians sustaining that culture and some of the risks in doing that.

We have gone further. We have gone to other countries. We have gone to countries in Europe and a lot of smaller countries to bring together people who believe in the same cultural ideas that we do. We have received an awful lot support. It will be high on our agenda when we go to Seattle.

I want to conclude by saying to all Canadians that this is an ongoing process. We will continue to consult with Canadians and the provinces to make sure that their views are represented not only in Seattle, but in the negotiations that will go on in two, three or four years. It is in our interests to make sure that these negotiations are wrapped up in four years. It is certainly in Canada's interests to make sure that all Canadians have a say within this system.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to thank the hon. member for the way in which he mesmerized his colleagues on this occasion.

He mentioned the ILO and he talked about the ILO promoting. That is the problem. It promotes, it does not enforce. We are talking about the discrepancy between a world in which only investors' rights are enforced and everybody else's rights are promoted. There is exhortation, there is promotion, there is encouragement, but there is no enforcement.

He kept assuring us that no government would ever do the kinds of things we are accusing the government of doing. Canadians have been assured before. Canadians were assured by the Conservatives about all kinds of things about the FTA. Those very people were assured themselves. There is no credibility left here.

Why should we believe the hon. member when we have such a history of governments lying to people about the effect of these agreements? Why does he believe now the things that he did not believe before?

We are the only party that opposes these agreements and we are proud of it. We think this is a paradigm for trading that is going to prove disastrous for the Canadian people and for that matter, the world.

[Bob Speller, Liberal, Haldimand—Norfolk—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is right when he says that Canada does put a priority on international labour. The hon. member is right when he says that. In fact, he should know that the Government of Canada is—

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Would the member stop misrepresenting what I was saying. I never said that.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona has a point of order. Perhaps we have heard it. Perhaps the hon. parliamentary secretary will want to reply.

[Bob Speller, Liberal, Haldimand—Norfolk—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should know, if he has been following these issues, that it is in the interests of all Canadians to make sure that international labour rules are followed. It is in the interests of all Canadians to make sure there is more co-operation between the World Trade Organization and the ILO. That is something the Government of Canada has been promoting very strongly.

In fact, the Government of Canada at the ILO has also been making sure, particularly in issues such as child labour, that there are international rules, that there are ways in which we can prevent that sort of action from happening.